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Jewish World Review July 13, 2010 / 2 Menachem-Av, 5770 Isn't is fascinating how self-styled ‘progressives’ so often look backward? By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The transformative event in modern American politics was the Great Depression. It made the Democratic party the majority party, and changed its nature.
In 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover was elected in a landslide, with 58.2 percent of the popular vote, and 444 electoral votes to 87 for Al Smith. Democratic victories were confined to six states in the heart of Dixie, and Massachussetts.
Republicans gained 7 seats in the Senate that year, to take control of that body, 56-42. Republicans gained 32 seats in the House to control there, 270-164. Such Democrats as there were in the House were mainly southern conservatives.
By 1936, the political world had been turned upside down. Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected with 60.8 percent of the vote. He carried every state but Vermont and Maine. Democrats controlled the Senate, 76-17, and the House, 334-88.
Though he'd sought the presidency on a platform to the right of the GOP, FDR swiftly moved left once he'd won the office. That proved politically popular, even though many economists think his policies prolonged the Depression (which didn't end until mobilization for WWII).
The philosophy of "tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect" (as expressed by Roosevelt adviser Harry Hopkins to columnist Arthur Krock) has proven durable. Despite setbacks in 1946 and 1980, the Democratic majority endures. Ronald Reagan slowed the growth of the welfare state. But not even he tried to dismantle it.
Since it has brought them more than 70 years of political success, Democrats are understandably nostalgic for the Hopkins' approach, which was epitomized by President Barack Obama's failed $862 billion "stimulus" bill.
Here is how Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa, described the Democrats' approach to dealing with the recession triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis:
"All we are doing is going into the basket and saying, 'Damn, what did they do in '32, what did they do in '34, and what did they do in '36, and we're pulling them out, dusting them off, giving them a paint job, and we're using them…" Mr. Kanjorski said at a conference in May, 2008.
Isn't is fascinating how self-styled "progressives" so often look backward?
But economic conditions now are different from what they were in the 1930s. Deficit spending didn't end -- and did little to ease -- the Great Depression. But deficit spending wasn't obviously insane then, because the federal government had little debt. With a national debt of more than $13 trillion, and federal budget deficits projected to reach 62 percent of GDP by year's end (and 80 percent by 2035), it's obviously insane now.
"I don't know that (economist John Maynard) Keynes was ever right that government spending could jolt an economy out of a liquidity trap," wrote Megan McArdle, economics editor for the Atlantic. "But even if he was, that doesn't mean he'd still be right -- the political economy might have changed too much for his prescriptions to work."
The states where Democrats have most assiduously followed the Hopkins' formula -- California, Illinois, Michigan, New York -- are bankrupt, or nearly so. A lot of people are now thinking the once unthinkable thought of a federal default. We're fast approaching -- if we haven't arrived already -- at the end of the economic viability of the welfare state.
We can't continue on the path we're on, so we'll either descend into socialism or fascism, or restore the constitutional government the Founding Fathers intended. Another transformative event is at hand.
Since we turned to big government for answers during the Great Depression, Democrats are betting we'll turn to government to get us out of the Great Recession.
So far, it's a bet Democrats are losing. Polls indicate Americans, by substantial pluralities, want lower taxes, less regulation, and smaller government.
Democrats seemed genuinely surprised that their "historic" takeover of health care is unpopular. But they're catching on. That's why they're planning to postpone action on a VAT tax, cap and trade, and card check until a lame duck session after the election.
But if Democrats attempt to impose such unpopular measures after suffering massive defeats in the midterms, they could spend as much time in the political wilderness as Republicans did after the stock market crash of 1929.
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JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.
© 2009, Jack Kelly |
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