Republicans are talking as though the federal government is not in debt, employment is high and they won the last election. I understand why they want to talk this way. Nobody likes to admit they lost and nobody likes to admit, like newly discredited Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, that their economic theories don’t work! But, just for the record, let’s rehearse these failures lest yet another myth about these times be encouraged.
First, every dollar of debt is a monument to a failure to tax. That’s how we all get in debt. We spend more than we take in. Governments are no different than individuals, yet, I have never heard anyone suggest that, to reduce their debt, individuals need to work less! To cut taxes, as a way to fiscal solvency, is to want what never was and never will be! And, by the way, blaming others for spending too much is just a semantic game since you cannot spend too much if you are taxing enough...my wife cannot spend too much unless I make too little. These are two sides of the same coin!
Secondly, cutting taxes does not create jobs. If that were not true, every man, woman and child above the age of eight years of age would be employed by now! It is a totally bogus idea that businessmen awaken each morning with an overwhelming desire to hire someone if they just had a few extra bucks in their pocket. That is not true about you and me and is certainly not true of any businessman. Hiring is the last thing businesses do because the payroll is the most costly part of their operation. Ever noticed what they do when the economy goes sour...how they shed employees? That why! And if revenues are going south, reducing taxes on unearned earnings doesn’t help! Tax cuts are the economic equivalent of providing Tums to a starving man.
And finally, they lost. Obama and more Democrats - not McCain and more Republicans - won this last election. The American people voted for a President who does not believe in laissez faire economics and it’s not like he never told the electorate this. Obama has been straight with the voters from day one: the old economic ways do not work and so, if elected, he would chart a new course. On the basis of that, we elected him with an unquestioned majority. And, in America, we have winner-take-all elections. Because Republicans won 47% of the votes does not mean that they get a 47% voice in setting policies. Whatever bipartisan means, it does not mean that!
So, what do I have to say to these Republicans? Suck it up and take it like a man. It is your time to be, as the Brits say, "her Majesty’s loyal opposition." You played your best hand and the Democrats won! It is your time in second chair. Console yourself that the music would be pretty thin if only the first chairs played, but remember that, when you were in first chair, you dished up a steady diet of crow to Democrats beginning in 1993 and thereafter and now it is your time to munch on that feathery cuisine.