So, you want an unprincipled party? Welcome to the New Majority!

Some days it's almost impossible to respond to the political mish-mash in the news and in the blogosphere. All the politically clever moves, the brilliant spins, the simple evasions, the smears, the specious justifications and rationalizations, it all gets to be a bit much, and for anyone who has a hunger for straightforward analysis which addresses the underlying structure of the ideas floated around, or the overarcing principles involved in political disagreements, well, they will starve in this current environment.

 

Today, David Frum finds clarity in these ideas:

What is clear to me is this:

* The world financial system nearly collapsed in September-October. It had to be saved. TARP was messy, TARP rescued a lot of people who didn’t deserve rescuing, but TARP was indispensable. We’ve lived through a 1929-31 type experience, but without TARP we might have rediscovered the horrible difference between a 1929-31 style severe recession, and a 1932-33 style economic collapse.

* Monetary policy had done all it could do for the US economy by January 2009. Fiscal stimulus was needed. I’d have preferred a payroll tax holiday to the spending measures put in place by the Obama administration, but I prefer those spending measures to doing nothing. Those spending measures, including cash for clunkers, cushioned the fall of the US economy in the second quarter of 2009, and they reduced the rate of decline to almost zero in the third quarter. They offered real (if expensive and inefficient) help when help was needed.

* The indications are that employment recovery will be slow and painful. (See the ominous words of San Francisco Federal Reserve board president Janet Yellen here: “The strength and durability of the expansion is in question. … The danger is that demand may grow at too anemic a pace to support vigorous expansion.” Republicans must – MUST – offer answers to this predicament, and our usual inventory of policies will not suffice. A capital gains tax cut will do little at a time when almost all investors are looking at huge accumulated capital losses.

* The Obama administration’s most serious economic policy failure has been its inability to devise a policy to remove the bad debts from the books of financial institutions and get them lending again. Let’s criticize them for that! But our criticism will only have bite if we have an alternative remedy to offer. How can we do that if any attempt to address the problem elicits only angry cries of “No bail outs!”

* There’s a big difference between addressing a systemic financial crisis and rescuing individual non-financial companies struggling with chronic economic failure of their own making. Condemnation of the GM and Chrysler bailout is a valid and useful bright line to separate Republicans from Democrats.

* No responsible governor could have refused the federal money on offer in 2009. States must balance their budgets. In the span of 12 months, tax revenues collapsed for most states: by 11.5% for example in Florida. What was Gov. Crist supposed to do about that? Chop state spending by 11.5% on six weeks’ notice? And what effect would it have on the nation’s economy if big states were laying off teachers, halting all road maintenance, and closing hospitals? If we make refusal of stimulus funds a litmus test of political acceptability, no sitting governor who cared about his or her job would be eligible for a Republican nomination for anything. We’d be left only with the governors who had physically or mentally checked out of their jobs: the Sarah Palins and the Mark Sanfords

 Sorry, but I don't find clarity in TARP -- the money wasn't used as it was proposed to be used, and if the big banks had failed, other lending institutions would have taken up the slack. You either believe in the free market or you don't -- you don't get to pick and choose. It's obvious that TARP was corporate welfare doled out to government cronies in the financial industry.

I don't find clarity in the idea that the stimulus was good in any way you can look it. Only someone who doesn't support capitalism, but does support pragmatic statism, can see any necessity in the stimulus. The stimulus is misdirected money which will not help the economy -- it will only delay recovery and reward Democratic special interests.

 I don't find clarity in minimizing the benefit of lowering capital gains taxes, especially when the administration and congress is proposing a 69% increase in capital gains taxes. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy -- TARP, the stimulus and high capital gains taxes, all hurt small businesses, yet Frum cannot acknowledge this.

 I don't find clarity in the idea that Republicans should come up with more clever, statist, financial gimmicks than the Democrats in order to be viable. Frum has no center. Moderates like Frum simply want to out-statism the Democrats while posturing as free market proponents, which brings us to principles. Frum, to be sure, would say that principles don't win elections -- principles don't get legislation passed -- principles don't build a political majority -- principles don't bring home the bacon to states.

 If Mr. Frum and the other moderates are saying -- "Join the Republican Party -- we can be even more unprincipled than the Democrats!" -- then I say -- "To hell with both parties." 

 

http://www.frumforum.com/can-conservatives-govern