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Government the solution? What’d Reagan say?
January 27th, 2009, 12:43 pm · 6 Comments · posted by Mark Landsbaum
As the nation turns a weary eye to Washington, folks should be wary. Will billions, even trillions, of dollars in government spending on bailouts, subsidies and loans pull us out of recession? We found the all-too-obvious answer to this question at Heritage.org:
“If government spending solved recessions, we would never have recessions”
Yet they try. After all, it’s not their money. But wait, you say, won’t the government create scads of “green jobs” to stimulate the economy? Again, Heritage.org observes the obvious:
“The myth of green jobs merely means replacing one job lost, with a new job that fits the left’s agenda. It is a zero sum game.”
So, with government’s benevolence and wisdom, we are about to embark on a plan of salvation that will scrap jobs in industries that actually create things people want and are willing to pay for, and instead create jobs for green stuff. Did it occur to anyone that if people wanted lots of green stuff they’d already be making, selling and buying it?
The government’s solution is to force the manufacture of more of what people aren’t buying. And that comes at the cost of eliminating jobs that produces something they want to buy. Brilliant, no?
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Oh, lordy. Every time the GOP whiners start moaning about the good old Reagan days, I just want to laugh. Ronnie the Robot was one of the most embarassing presidents ever. Between the number of staff indicted, to the fifty years back he took women’s issues and the rights of minorities, he was horrible. In fact, many of the dramas we are facing now are a direct result of his failed economic policies coming home to roost.
This is why the GOP is growing more and more laughable. Come on guys, stop living in the past, and start thinking about the future. I held my nose and voted for Obama, because you guys can’t seem to come up with anyone worth believing in. Get it together, GOP! I want to believe in you again!
You write: “The government’s solution is to force the manufacture of more of what people aren’t buying. And that comes at the cost of eliminating jobs that produces something they want to buy.”
I wish that I understood better what’s really happening? How is an economy controlled by the Government ever going to satisfy the wants and desires of so many consumers. It seems inconceivable that the our Government is going to be able to direct an economy that both creates meaningful jobs and at the same produces products that people want, if there is no demand or input from the consumer.
Sometimes, I think economic freedom might be more important than political freedom. I am not sure, but what if competition and economic freedom existed under a dictatorship, where the consumer is able to make choices about the products they want and the job that they would like to be employed at.? A dictatorship who controlled the politics of the country, but kept their hands free of the market place and the production of goods.. Would this be any less free than a Democracy where the Government controls the production of goods and the choices that a consumer could make for something that they might want? I am not advocating this thought but, it seems likely that a great majority of people over a long time period would prefer economic freedom over political freedom.
Mark, you guys had Pickens come in there. Is there a benefit to using wind to create electricity and use the natural gas that is currently used for electricity as a transporation fuel? Now, I would never advocate wind for some global warming scam. However, if we could keep US dollars domestically rather than going to Venezuela, the KSA, etc., would there be a benefit at a time when capital spending is frozen?
Oh, one more point. Could we eliminate our military presence in the middle east if we would reduce the need for oil for our transportation needs? It seems like our military being in the middle east is a huge subsitdy to business as usual.
You know conservatives have lost the argument when they resurrect the ghost of St. Ronald Reagan.
They conveniently leave out the expansion of government or the fact that he raised taxes four times during his administration.
The Heritage Foundation is a joke.
Nothing to see here people, move along.
In service for the people…
OC Dem
Just a quick follow-up.
After the infamous quote by Reagan about government being the problem he went on to say;
“Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work.” Government, he said, “must provide opportunity.”
He was not rejecting government, he was calling — as Barack Obama did Tuesday — for better management of government, for wiser decisions.
Of course the intellectually dishonest conservatives (such as Mark) like to forget about the second part.