Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

[This is an elaboration of a comment I made to David Sirota’s article of 10/24…]

Politicians and political activists of all stripes have a tendency toward a particular error: Believing that their side winning an election means the voters have given them a mandate and have made clear that they support all the ideas espoused by the winning candidates.

My view is that more often than not, these people learn the wrong lesson, and that the results of elections are as often votes against candidates or parties that the voters are sick of but not necessarily demonstrations of enthusiasm for the winners.

The GOP learned the wrong lesson in 2002 and 2004, with the GOP picking up 8 seats in the House and 2 seats in the Senate in 2002, and 3 seats in the House and 4 in the Senate in 2004.

In my view, those elections represented primarily two things: Not wanting to “change horses midstream” during a time of war (especially the 2002 election) and good and improving economic conditions in 2004.

The elections did NOT represent public acceptance of the profligate spending of the GOP with President Bush refusing to rein them in, nor did they represent public acceptance of the social agenda of the GOP which had spent far too much time on the issue of gay marriage in 2004.

But the Republicans learned the wrong lesson: They learned (erroneously) that the public supported everything they’d been doing and saying rather than that the public supported a small fraction of those things but was generally happy with the economic situation despite, not because of, actions taken by government. (The only thing the government had done right, economically speaking, for four years was the Bush tax cuts.)

I am convinced that the next two or four years will bring the same errors on the part of Democrats, with them believing that an Obama win and strong gains in Congress will show public demand for “spreading the wealth around”, unilaterally renegotiating free trade agreements, and believing that the world’s dictators are just one meeting away from seeing it our way.

David Sirota’s article is a perfect example of self-deception and the same naïve hope shown by those Republicans who hoped for a “permanent majority” just a few years ago.

First, Sirota claims that recent years have creating “regressive redistribution” despite the unchallenged fact that the income tax system is the most “progressive” it has ever been, with the highest percentage of Americans in modern history paying zero income tax.

He follows that with the remarkable statement that “Barack Obama is a lot of things, but he’s hardly a socialist.” Wrong. Obama’s own words show him to embrace the key aspects of socialism. From his endorsement by the socialist New Party in Chicago to this interview from 2001 that’s making the rounds now, right up to his “Joe the Plumber” moment, Obama has been remarkably consistent: He believes in massive income redistribution. That is the essence of socialism.

Democratic politicians and activists like Sirota will believe that the election means voters support Obama, Barney Frank, and Harry Reid’s fundamentally anti-American economic views. They will work to enact legislation that would make the socialist governments of 1970’s Europe proud, and they will get that legislation passed because of their large majorities in Congress.

The American people will be reminded, as they apparently must be each generation, that socialism doesn’t work. Liberals will believe they’re punishing the rich, but at the end of the day, short of outright confiscation of existing assets, the rich will still be rich. It is the poor who will get destroyed. When the unemployment rate spiked in 1975, 1982-83, and (to a lesser degree) in 1992, do you really think it was rich people who got hurt?

There is a lot of academic discussion about whether raising taxes has an effect on employment. The data in America appears to show a short-term increase in unemployment from higher taxes, though it also appears that other factors can overwhelm that and cause stable unemployment as the market “gets used to” higher tax rates. However, this exhaustive study of the OECD published in 2002 shows that not only do higher tax rates cause unemployment, but it can work the other way as well with higher unemployment causing higher tax rates. Beyond that, I believe it stands to reason for all except blinded “progressives” that punishing economic success must lead to fewer employment opportunities as entrepreneurs become less likely to take the risks involved in starting businesses.

Sirota says that voters will be voting against “deregulatory, free-market fundamentalism of business tax cuts, corporate welfare and everyone-for-themselves health care policies” that Republicans ostensibly support. People are being told that what’s happening around them is happening in a free and deregulated market whereas the housing crisis in particular was anything but free and deregulated. The part of the market that has been basically free and deregulated has help up relatively well, such as with the credit default swaps for Lehman being settled out in an orderly manner, despite it being over $400 billion in total settlements.

And the Republicans are not smart enough to tell people that they’re being lied to about free markets, choosing instead as John McCain and Sarah Palin have done to pander about “greed and corruption on Wall Street” which was one of the least important parts of the current crisis, with the possible exception of the behavior of the credit ratings agencies…which is not what McCain and Palin are talking about.

Sirota believes that a big win for Obama following McCain’s “demonizing of socialism” will mean that the American people support Obama’s socialism. Again, it won’t mean that. It will mean that people are angry with the current situation and blaming it on Republicans, partly for good reasons and partly because Americans don’t understand economics and the liberal media has no interest in helping them understand. He believes that the election will mean a “crystal clear rejection of Reaganism”, which is also wrong except to the extent that the public believes that the last 8 years have had anything to do with “Reaganism”. (Hint: They haven’t.)

David Sirota is the perfect example of learning the wrong lesson, as he shows in his closing sentence: “it is intellectually dishonest to argue that a national Democratic victory would be anything other than a wholesale rejection of conservative economic doctrine and an embrace of an aggressively progressive economic agenda.”

One example of Sirota's error is a question in a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll from last week in which respondents were asked whether cutting taxes or increasing government spending is more likely to help get the country out of recession. 59% said cut taxes and only 20% said increase spending. Even among Democrats, cut taxes beat increase spending by 45% to 30%. The next two years will prove this question accurate as increased government spending will be implemented at great peril to our economy and our nation's finances.

Sirota's thinking is exactly why I believe 2010 and 2012 could bring very large Republican victories in elections around the country, but only if the GOP gets back to standing up for conservative economic principles rather than acting just like Democrats while calling themselves “compassionate conservatives” or other such junk. They must be proud of standing up for lower taxes, lower government spending, and liberty as an end in itself. And if they’re not, then they’re useless anyway…nobody should support a political party as if it’s “our team” rather than a group of power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats who want to take our money to support their goals and their own quests for even more power.

Fundamental "Reaganesque" principles are ingrained in the American spirit, not because Reagan created them but because he reflected the truly American views of our founders. These views are just not among people like Sirota, Obama, Frank, Pelosi, etc. The “progressives” (i.e. socialists) will be taught a severe lesson, but not before the American working class is taught a truly brutal lesson about the danger of believing in the progressive free lunch.