Oh, how I wish this were the knockout blow. Sorry, it’s not. Nothing will ever get through the thick skulls of the ideologues.
How many times must I tell you? Ideologies are oversimplifications by the intellectually constipated that appeal to the intellectually lazy and are usually wrong? Harsh? Hardly. Regrettably, my vocabulary is inadequate to do that subject justice.
Most people are merely victims. The powers that be control the media, the curriculum, the government. Sadly, any alternatives are available almost exclusively from questioning the almost universally accepted. It’s no surprise that everyone accepts such tripe as engraved on stone tablets.
I saw a report today. It stated that states making drastic budget cuts were experiencing worse unemployment and economic results than states that increased spending to deal with our financial crisis.
Wisconsin’s Governor, Scott Walker made himself the poster child for laying the blame on state employees while giving tax breaks to business. However, he wasn’t the only practitioner of this ideological absurdity.
From the report there were 24 states that took similarly drastic steps. Twenty-five didn’t. Yes, I know there are 50 states. Perhaps the statistics from that last one were not available in a timely manner. Or, it may have neither increased nor decreased spending.
Those numbers are sufficiently comprehensive for averages to account for any outliers due to a unique circumstance in this state or that. I am aware that imposing budget butchery on a state is not the only possible variable. But those variables are often found to go hand in hand with the mindset that is willing to apply such cuts.
Let’s take a look at the numbers first. Then we can analyse them.
My first thought was, of course. You cut that many state employees; the unemployment rate rises. The unemployed tend to spend less and the state cuts other spending. That means less money flowing through their economy, so it declines. Simple.
Then I looked at the numbers. The states that increased spending saw decreases in unemployment of .2%. The cost-cutting states? Increases of 1%. Was that solely due to state employees? No. Private sector employment went up 1.4% in the 25, while employment dove 2.1% for the budget cutters.
The difference in economic growth was also dramatic. There was a .5% rate of growth versus a contraction of the economy of 2.9%.
We were assured that those budget cuts would juice up the economy. They would mean that the private sector would create so many jobs we would be begging for college-educated immigrants. So? Were are the clowns jobs? We know where the clowns are. They were elected.
These little goofs probably believed what they were saying. They have never been accused of being geniuses. After all, they were just parroting the lines provided by the Koch brothers and friends. They remind me of Joe Theismann’s famous quote. “Nobody in football (substitute politics) should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
So why didn’t it work out as promised? There are many reasons; none of which fit in their bumper sticker ideology. One factor that is essentially a mandatory partner to such heavy-handed budget cutting is fear. The businessmen, some of the very ones ordering those cuts, saw such drastic action as portending the worsening of the economy. Ironic, is’t it? They helped create a self-fulfilling prediction.
It’s called leadership, even if is incompetent leadership. Those evincing some faith in an improvement, by investing even just a little in the economy, led the business community in the direction of hope, and engendered enough confidence to instigate growth.
The same ideology, the same people that urged the drastic cuts are the very ideas and people that created the global economic meltdown that is approaching 4 years of age, with no end in sight. Why do we listen to these people? We should be able to forget about them until their parole hearings come due.
It really is simple. The problem with the economy is too little money flowing through it. The answer is not to further reduce the flow. The consumer will hold on to what little they have until they feel the economy is improving.
The banks are making record profits without investing and with no risk. Their arms can be twisted to encourage them to invest in America and its people. The ideologues will scream that it is anti-capitalist. Good. Because that is just where the answer is hiding. Laissez faire capitalism is the problem not the answer.
Corporations have been and are being led by trepidatious leadership that inspires neither hope nor expectation of growth. The leadership on The Hill and in the Oval Office needs put the county above the Beltway games. They need to face the facts and convince business and consumers that we all need to sacrifice and invest in our futures, while kicking Wall Street out of their offices and back to Lower Manhattan.
While we seem to be lacking the intelligence to escape the clutches of ideologies, we must have leadership. None of the candidates for president nor any of the officers of Congress have ever shown any. A soft voice is acceptable . . . if it is accompanied by a big stick, and a willingness to wield it. Where is Teddy Roosevelt when you need him? Obama thinks he can handle it by being a teddy bear. It’s not quite the same.
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