At times I 'm just so disgusted with the conservative holier than thou tea party politics in this country that I sometimes wonder if any of them care about anything other than money. Than something comes along that snaps me back from the edge and makes me realize that it's not them all, it's just that far right lunatic fringe that somehow has come to dominate politics in this country, that applauds executions, and cheers allowing a cancer patient to die because he doesn't have health insurance. They don't all want to do away with Social Security and cut first responder funding to pay for hurricane relief.
While I probably don't believe some of what I just wrote it was good to think it for a moment and it is nice to see that some of the right do have a mind of their own and didn't drink the tea. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is far from my favorite politician but it was nice to see him decide not run for the GOP nomination for President not because he thinks it isn't his time, it probably is, but because he doesn't want to drink the tea. Even he is too moderate for the current version of the Republican Party.
Than there is this which prompted this post. David Frum is a former economic speechwriter for George W. Bush and in his column for the National Post yesterday he wrote that the Republican Party is seriously flawed in its plans for recovering from our current mess.
"It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.
It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.
It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”
It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.
It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.
It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.
It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.
It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.
It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.
It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.
It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.
It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.
It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment."
That about covers it.
