Less than a month ago, Larry Kudlow, who’s back at Fox Business after using his Bizarro World powers to push for even more wealth inequality in our country, said new British Prime Minister Liz Truss was on the right track, and predicted the liberal business punditry would soon be weeping and gnashing their teeth. Of course, this came before Truss was forced to resign on Thursday in the wake of, as NBC News put it, “a disastrous and rapidly reversed economic plan that sent the pound plunging and her government into chaos.”
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From Fox Business, Sept. 23:
Transcript!
LARRY KUDLOW: “The U.S. midterm elections cavalry arrived early in London. What do I mean by that? Well, the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss has laid out a terrific supply-side economic growth plan, which looks a lot like the basic thrust of [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy’s Commitment to America plan. Let’s start with Truss. She is slashing tax rates and deregulating energy. I just love it. That’s the liberal business media, this is wonderful, the liberal business media—you know who I’m talking about—is now trashing her plan.
“That tells me Truss has it exactly right.”
Oh, and then there’s this little chaser:
Transcript!
KUDLOW: ”By the way, Liz Truss is basically operating a Reagan-Thatcher-Trump economic policy.”
One day Larry Kudlow will die, and science will study his brain to determine how he could be so profoundly wrong so effing often and still have so little shame about it. And if science is doing its job, it will map his brain, create a precise AI simulation, and plug it into the old Ask Jeeves algorithm to give people the perfect reverse guidance for any situation.
“Larry Kudlow, should I eat this mayonnaise-heavy egg salad that’s been sitting in my car trunk for the past two days?”
“Larry Kudlow, I’m thinking of buying a Melania Trump NFT. Is it a good investment?”
“Larry Kudlow, he wants me to spank his bare bottom with a Forbes, but I think a Highlights for Children would be far more appropriate. Please advise.”
It would be a great step forward for humanity, because they (or, rather, I) don’t call him The Always Wrong Larry Kudlow for nothing.
Of course, as Kudlow himself noted, Truss’ disastrous (and since-reversed) economic plan is exactly the ipecac American conservatives want to spoon-feed our economy in order to alleviate our own slice of the global pandemic hangover. It should be a warning to voters, because it’s the same sorry song that Republicans have been crooning for decades, and it’s increasingly out of tune.
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, a conservative never-Trumper, noted the absurdity of reupping supply-side economic solutions that have never worked before and failed to even get off the tarmac in the U.K. over the past month.
She did so on Tuesday—just before Truss’ once-promising political career finally popped its clogs.
“Britain’s brand new finance minister scrapped the remaining elements of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s signature taxation policy on Monday, a move that seemed to successfully reassure markets but left many wondering who is now in charge of the government,” The Post reported Monday.
At a time of raging inflation, Truss’s plan of massive tax cuts (mostly for the rich) plus energy subsidies sent the British pound into a tailspin. She was forced to swap out her initial chancellor of the exchequer for a replacement, who then nixed most of the plan. Interestingly, at the time she introduced her plan, some American conservatives cheered the supply-side attempt to juice the economy. Truss’s belly flop does not seem to have dissuaded Republicans from pushing tax cuts for the rich.
Let’s repeat that last part, for the folks in the back:
”Truss’s belly flop does not seem to have dissuaded Republicans from pushing tax cuts for the rich.”
Truss’ abject failure hasn’t dissuaded Republicans from pushing tax cuts for the rich? Who could have ever guessed? That’s all they ever push, unless you want to count shoving Grandma over the cliff in her wheelchair. Because the GOP wants to fuck with Social Security and Medicare, too! After all, someone has to take a haircut so Charles Koch can keep feeding ungodly sums to his well-placed political minions. And it’s not going to be him or any of his billionaire brethren.
Just check out this short roundup of Fox News reactions to Truss’ disastrous downfall, courtesy of Media Matters for America:
On the eve of and following Truss’ resignation, these and other Fox Business personalities stuck by the disgraced Conservative prime minister and her failed policies:
- Fox News contributor and Brexit Party co-founder Nigel Farage repeatedly called the reversal of Truss’ disastrous tax cuts a “coup,” saying: “We have just been through the nearest thing to a political coup my country has ever seen.” He also said: “It literally is a coup,” and, “This is a globalist coup that has happened in the United Kingdom.”
- Teasing later coverage of Truss’ resignation, [Stuart] Varney lamented that her “growth strategy for the British economy” had been “shot down,” and stated: “This is going to be a disappointment for American conservatives who liked her Thatcherite opinions.”
- On Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, [Stephen] Moore argued that Truss’ resignation is a “tragic consequence” of inflation and “out-of-control government spending,” and anchor Maria Bartiromo questioned why she was “so criticized for her economic plan.”
- Moore later attacked the British Conservative Party for not supporting Truss, adding that he was worried its leadership would now “move to a kind of what we would call a RINO Republican.”
- Fox Business guest Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) expressed support for Truss’ failed “pro-growth” economic policies after her resignation.
Of course, no mention of Kudlow and his mystical myopia would be complete without citing a few fun examples of his uncanny and constant wrongheadedness.
For instance, in December 2007, just before George W. Bush was fixing to Make Recessions Great Again, Kudlow wrote:
“There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen. At a bare minimum, we are looking at Goldilocks 2.0. (And that’s a minimum). Goldilocks is alive and well. The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth consecutive year with more to come. Yes, it’s still the greatest story never told.”
Fun fact: The Great Recession officially began in—erm, oh, here it is—December 2007.
Then there were Kudlow’s thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic and its potential impact on the economy. This one, from late February 2020, is particularly telling, since he was the National Economic Council director at the time:
“We have contained this. I won’t say [it’s] airtight, but it’s pretty close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on “The Exchange.” He added that, while the outbreak is a “human tragedy,” it will likely not be an “economic tragedy.”
“There will be some stumbles. We’re looking at numbers; it’s a little iffy,” Kudlow said. “But at the moment ... there’s no supply disruptions out there yet.”
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There are plenty more examples, but these provide a good sense of where his head is.
When it comes to the economy, conservative true believers like Kudlow have exactly one policy prescription: afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. They want to slash regulations that protect consumers and the overall health of the economy, while funneling as much of the nation’s wealth as possible toward the already obscenely wealthy. Sprinkle a heavy dose of racism over their shit casserole, and working-class white people will scarf it down like it’s ambrosia.
Republicans know this, and so you see the same zombie nonsense rearing its head over and over and over again.
But we can end this cycle. Let’s do everything we can to GOTV before November’s all-important midterm elections, and feel free to cough up a ha’penny or three if you can to these worthy campaigns, vetted and endorsed by Daily Kos. (Maybe more, if you’re a wealthy-ish person not named Koch.)
Because in the end, Larry Kudlow may always be wrong, but that doesn’t mean he’s always unconvincing. It’s time to mute these fools and build an economy that truly works for everyone.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.