Many of us wonder why the progressives and the socialists (are they the same?) cannot seem to understand that basic economic practices govern how a nation survives or fails to survive.
Progressives seem to believe if their heart is in the right place and if they really want to help the downtrodden, the money part will take care of itself. Witness the recent legislation on health care. The passage of this bill resulted in Nancy Pelosi dancing like a ten year old and giggling with joy. Meanwhile the congressional budget office and other experts now warn the cost of this flawed legislation will now cost upward of 2 trillion dollars.
According to a recent analysis in the Economist magazine the overwhelming majority of Americans say they prefer the free enterprise system to any collectivist alternative. This free enterprise system is based upon sound economic principles and a full 70 percent of Americans favor such policies. As Mr. Sherrill, chairman of
Tenneco, Inc. asks, “Then why is it that the 30 percent who favor a socialistic type of government are in charge of the other 70 percent?”
The answer is multifaceted but one prominent reason is that during the last election too many Americans believed the well worn argument that if we just let the government take over, we can all walk in Candyland for the rest of our lives. Remember the supporters of Obama in the political rallies in 2008? They were so excited because now they wouldn’t have to pay their mortgage, gas for their cars would be provided and money worries would be no more. And besides we can all be so proud of ourselves because we joined the emotional crowd to vote for the first black president.
All this euphoria lasted about two months and then the reality of economics set in. For decades now congress has been criticized (both Democrats and Republicans) for playing the pork barrel game to its fullest. Yet this administration, without acknowledging basic economic principles, has enacted the biggest pork barrel fiasco of all time and called it stimulus.
If moving government money around from some people (the taxpayers) to other people is such a smashing success why do we quit at 800 billion here and 600 billion there? Let’s really show economic leadership and provide all needy citizens and out of work Americans with 3, 5 or 9 trillion of government funds?
Bradley Gitz of the Arkansas Dem-Gaz recently penned a column titled, “Liberals Don’t Do Econ”. After citing studies that show many liberals ignore basic economic principles, he asks this question, “Do people become liberals because they are economically ignorant or does the adoption of liberalism thereafter require a contempt for economic realities that might not be compatible with liberal pieties?”
Citing example after example on this theory of the liberals blatant denial of economics, he refers to a survey which asked eight questions that could have been taken from any economics 101 class.
One of the questions asks – Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable, true or false? 17 percent of conservatives got the question wrong while a whopping 67 percent who were progressive/liberal gave the dumb answer.
One of my favorite examples of economics trumping liberal philosophies is what is happening with Wal-Mart and the city of Chicago.
In July of this year the Chicago City Council gave its unanimous blessing to only the second Wal-Mart in the city. This breakthrough probably paves the way for 24 more such stores and as many as 10,000 new jobs.
For decades the liberal belief that Wal-Mart does not appropriately “share” their wealth and does not generally unionize their operations kept the giant retailer at bay in Chicago. With people clamoring for more jobs and an opportunity to purchase quality goods at reasonable prices, the petty union crowd was overwhelmed by basic economics. People with limited funds and without cars won’t have to walk 19 blocks for a gallon of milk or fresh fruit.
There is considerable evidence that economics is beginning to overwhelm the tired and dangerous policies of feel good liberalism.
Our president appointed a commission to figure out the problem of deficit spending and our enormous 14 trillion of national debt. The Democrat co-chairman of this commission, Erskine Bowles, said on July 12th, “This country is headed for a disaster if we don’t get government spending under control.”
He explains that this is a fiscal cancer that will destroy this country from within.
My bet is that Obama will ignore this dire warning from reasonable leaders of both parties and instead of heeding the recommendations on government spending will concentrate on the other side of the equation and insist upon raising taxes. Long forgotten is the Obama pledge repeated numerous times that only the rich will pay higher taxes. This would be the super-sized example of ignoring economics and placing this country into a desert of high taxes and failed economic policy.
(Jerry Jackson of Heber Springs writes his “conservative viewpoint” column each Wednesday)
