Up with Chris Hayes 8/19/2012 -- Paul Ryan the Hypocrite

Although Chris Hayes could go back and find quotes from Barack Obama or Joe Biden or a great number of Democrats which contradict their current positions, Hayes chooses only to reveal Republican hypocrisy, especially Paul Ryan's hypocrisy on Keynesianism. It's a confused argument that goes something like this -- Ryan is really a believer in Keynesian principles, but if he and Romney get elected they will destroy Keynesian stimulus policies, thus hurt the most vulnerable in society who are now hurting severely under the policies of Barack Obama. Hayes had the author of the New New Deal on, Michael Grunwald, to make the claim that Obama has talked like a moderate but has achieved like a Super Progressive.

All of this is confusing. Grunwald claims that Obama's actions/solutions are basically long term, although the stimulus stopped the loss of 800,000 jobs a month. This claim is popular on the left, even though it's economically ignorant. During a recession companies shed workers at basically the same time, then the job losses level off. Grunwald expects us to believe that without the stimulus 800,000 jobs would have been lost until.... what? -- until there were no more jobs? Grunwald claims that Obama has succeeded in transforming America, especially the beginning transformation from oil and coal to renewable energy sources. Solyndra, Grunwald says, is only a small example of the failure of government subsidies regarding green energy, although Solyndra is not the only failure. I've said all along that Obama has built a regulatory structure that bureacrats are filling in constantly, but I was told by Leftists that Obama has not created a lot of regulations, that Obama is basically a moderate. Grunwald states otherwise, and Hayes used this to make his case for Keynesian stimulus.

It's difficult to unravel the tangled web of logic woven by Hayes and his guests. Hayes had on his show the obligatory "example" of a real live person who lost her job, along with her husband, in this recession. Both the woman and her husband receive government benefits like food stamps, plus they receive money from government to pay for their schooling which will give them new skills to get good jobs in a changing economy. The real life woman said that Obama has helped her family, although I'm not sure what Obama did specifically to help them, since the safety net benefits were there before Obama. The real life unemployed woman said that Ryan will destroy the dependency that enables her family to get by, but that her and her husband have paid into the system when they made $100,000 a year, so they are just getting back what they've put in. It's true that people like the real life woman pay into the system, and it's reasonable to expect help when it's finally needed. Ryan wouldn't disagree with this, but Hayes dishonestly gave the impression that Ryan considers the real life unemployed woman a moocher.

Ryan has criticized the welfare system in America because for a certain part of society it becomes an option to working a steady job. The Left says Ryan and other critics are talking about people of color as the group who use welfare as an option to avoid work, but that's not the case with most critics -- it's not the case with Ryan. Ryan is not a racist, but the Left loves to imply racism when welfare is criticized. It is the Left that automatically brings up of people of color when the subject of welfare is discussed.

Hayes's point in his show this morning is that Ryan supported Keynesian policies in 2002, Grunwald has proved that Obama's Keynesian actions prevented total unemployment, real life people use the safety net and make reasonable plans to adjust in a recession so that long term they can succeed, and all this justifies the welfare state, so we should spend more money on a greater stimulus and a greater, more comprehensive safety net, so there.

I don't know the context of the excerpt Hayes found from a Ryan speech in 2002, but I have no doubt that 10 years ago Ryan supported some government effort to help put people to work in a down economy. Statism has been present on the Right and Left, and Ryan is no exception. It's the American people who will have to hold politicians' feet to the fire in order to stop the interventions. The interventions created by bipartisan support in 2002 led to a greater bubble effect than the dotcom bubble they were trying to fix. It's all the government "fixes" which have led to this crippled economy. Hayes only looks at what government should do to help those hurt by the recession -- he doesn't acknowledge that government created the deep recession through previous interventions.

We are creating a fatal Catch 22 -- the adjustment needed in a recession to remove unproductive activity so that productive acitivity can tak its place is becoming a greater, more painful adjustment because government has pushed the adjustment down the road and created bubbles in lieu of adjustment. The Fed has kept interest rates low and has kept the economy afloat through money creation, but the fundamentals don't support the economy. Government interference is preventing recovery, yet progressives like Hayes and his guests are clamoring for more interventions.

So, what should be done? What about the people harmed by government interventions which cause recessions and have now caused a Great and Deep Recession? Total readjustment to a free market is the solution. This real life unemployed woman could have had a private insurance/retirement plan that was purchased by her parents for her when she was born, and that policy would be much more generous that government welfare when a safety net is needed -- the policy could have been designed. The woman on Hayes' show said she is a planner -- well, she could have planned real solutions in a free market sans government intervention which make such plans impossible. In an economy in which people such as the real life unemployed woman works and is able to keep most of what she makes, people such as her would surely give to charity to help those who are unfortunate and can't help themselves. Surely this is a better solution than the government mess we currently suffer under.