(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
Jacob Weisberg, at Slate, on “Republicans vs. Economics“:
… There is no question that the current Republican position is eccentric as a matter of economics. Pick up any standard economics textbook, and it will explain how governments respond to cyclical downturns with temporary deficit spending. In Keynesian terms, boosting aggregate demand increases GDP growth and reduces unemployment. Conversely, cutting government spending during a slowdown tends to make matters worse. There may be circumstances in which temporary spending isn’t possible, or where cutting government spending does not have the typical contractionary effect. But a thorough IMF study conducted last year concluded that “fiscal consolidation” does tend to have the predictable impact: shrinking GDP and raising unemployment…
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You can group the conservatives who reject the economic consensus into three rough categories: fundamentalists, cynics, and sheep. The fundamentalists are ideological and come in several varieties. The more primitive prefer Hoover to Keynes, or in some cases God to Hoover. Rick Perry, the Texas governor and presidential candidate, believes that the purpose of the economic crisis is to bring us back to “Biblical principles.” Asked on the campaign trail how he would create jobs if he were in office, Perry responded: “You won’t have stimulus programs under a Perry presidency. You won’t spend all the money.” This is a pretty good summation of the Tea Party’s know-nothing view that all government spending makes all things worse, always.
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That’s not to say that everyone who rejects Obama’s stimulus spending is a default-welcoming ignoramus. Libertarians or libertarian-leaners don’t necessarily think stimulus won’t grow the economy; they just worry that it will grow the government at the same time and that it won’t ever shrink back. But they don’t mind stimulus tax cuts, which reduce the resources available to government. Rep. Paul Ryan, for instance, the government-slashing chairman of the House budget committee, has argued that stimulus spending is an evanescent sugar high that produces no lasting economic benefit.
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The cynics, by contrast, don’t offer any economic analysis at all. They simply reject whatever President Obama proposes. In the now immortal words of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” McConnell, like Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, happily voted for the stimulus bill George W. Bush proposed in 2008, which cost $152 billion. Back then, they felt some responsibility for the economy. Now it’s Obama’s problem. Mitt Romney knows enough about finance to understand that shrinking spending would raise unemployment. But he also knows that running against Obama with a 9 percent unemployment rate is a better bet than running against Obama with an 8 percent unemployment rate.
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In reality, the economic views of most Republicans are not driven purely by ideology or politics, but by the herd imperative—to stay in line and obey their leaders. Of those who were in Congress in 2008, 85 percent voted in favor of the Bush stimulus bill, which was smaller but no different in principle. To assume that these people have a view about whether Obama’s jobs plan would work gives them far too much credit. The only jobs they think about are their own.
Brian
“[T]ax cuts, … reduce the resources available to government.”
At the Federal level, this just isn’t true . At the state and local level, yes, this is a valid observation.
Alex S.
I’d argue that the higher echelons of power within the GOP don’t reject economics, they just don’t follow them because they don’t want the economy to grow. They want a bigger slice of the cake, not a bigger cake.
soonergrunt
@Alex S.: This goes hand in hand with the fact that a bedrock of conservative belief is that all transactions, and especially economic ones are a zero sum game. If somebody’s doing better than last year, somebody else MUST be doing worse than last year.
arguingwithsignposts
I may be developing an immunity. All I heard during the GOP debate tonight was “blah, blah, blah, … profit!”
Alex S.
@soonergrunt:
Very good point.
MariedeGournay
@soonergrunt: Yeah sort of like the old line about Puritans that they’re afraid someone somewhere is having a good time.
Comrade Kevin
The title of this post reminded me of an old Mojo Nixon song for some reason: “UFO’s, Big Rigs, and BBQ”
Linda Featheringill
I think you have some very radical revolutionaries here on the right who are quite willing to destroy the whole country in order to start over and build it again, presumably to build it better. They seem to think they could accomplish this without suffering themselves. Ship of fools.
Chris
“Herd imperative” is the guiding light of the GOP, as you’d expect from a party entirely built out of identity politics.
patrick II
The cynics should include a group who’s goal isn’t to beat Obama, but to be rich themselves even though they know the country will not do as well. I believe their are very rich people who just aren’t rich enough and want to own everything. If others have to undergo hardship for them to meet their goals, that is ok. They see the government as a competitor for power and will do everything to weaken it.
Robert Waldmann
Weisberg wrote a generally good article, but he made one gross blatant error, obviously when he tried to argue that not all powerful Republicans are know nothings, cynics or both.
His standard was support for tax cuts as stimulus. His example was Paul Ryan. He argued that Ryan called “stimulus spending” sugar high economics. He should have checked. In fact, Ryan called using tax cuts as stimulus sugar high economics
From The Hill
“I’m not a Keynesian, so I don’t think sugar-high economics works,” the Wisconsin Republicans said at a policy discussion hosted by The Hill and sponsored by No American Debt, an advocacy group. “We’ve sort of proven this already, a number of times. Temporary tax rebates don’t work to create economic growth …”
By Weisberg’s chosen standard, the Congressional Republican who he claims is neither a cynic nor a know-nothing is one or the other (or both).
When will reporters learn that they sometimes have to choose between admitting that both sides don’t have a point and making fools of themselves ?
The Other Chuck
Of course austerity causes higher unemployment. This is by design. The permanent underclass isn’t big enough to support the level of infighting they need to assert continued control. Sometimes they get all uppity about wars and such and throw their betters out using that pesky democracy. That sort of thing has to stop.
Bill Murray
@Comrade Kevin: or Sonny and Cher Gypsies Tramps and Thieves. I realize Mojo is much better than Cher, but also less well-known