Killing the Stimulus Plan Key to GOP Rebound

Deregulation Caused The Problem!

I vehemently disagree with Pethokoukis' STUPID assertions that deregulation and lower taxes will save us. Deregulation and regulators deliberately told to look the other way - that's what caused the problems we had. What kind of banking system allows banks to go down in reserve requirements and do stupid loans?

Luckily we see examples like in India and China, where reserve requirements were RAISED and bad loans were severely discouraged and penalized and banks had to do more oversight and people had to put down a significant amounts of their own money for a down payment. These regulated banks turned out to have NO financial crisis, as opposed to ur deregulated banks now getting billions in bailouts. How do you explain THAT, Mr. Pet-the-Kooky?

I agree that bail-outs will not work - too specialized, too unaccountable, and too much of a rescue of the very banks and auto companies that deserve to fail for the stupid moves they made. And they will only come asking for more money like they've been doing all along (AIG is on its 3rd or 4th bail-out, the Big 3 will definitely ask for more).

Banks that didn't need money are getting bail-outs, the FDIC's pool of money for deposit insurance is almost wiped out, and the government's stepping in for Fannie and Freddie puts us all on the line and the Fed's printing of trillions more in money and buying of rotten mortgage-backed assets will all cause problems for taxpayers.

We are seeing the worst of privatized gains, socialized losses - all because our corporations and lobbyists and magnates have Congress and the White House in their pockets.

Paul of CA @ Dec 25, 2008 17:58:52 PM

Pathetic

You have a degree in Russian politics and American history. How about getting a degree in business so you don't look like such a stooge when you write drivel like this?

John Anderson of MI @ Dec 25, 2008 12:22:00 PM

Conservatives are idiots

This article is proof.

The idea the Republicans can save themselves by damning the United States to another Great Depression is truly good thinking. And the point about taking Joe the Plumber's advice is classic. He is nothing more than an uneducated and ignorant nobody, whose claim to fame is that he does not pay his taxes.

In short, what I am saying is that James Pethokoukis should go back to church, drum up hatred for minorities, and whatever else Republicans do and leave journalism and governing to the intelligent people.

Michael of New Hampshire of NH @ Dec 25, 2008 10:10:12 AM

The "Laugher" Curve

I love it. It aptly descrbes Republican economic policy since the Reagan years. Before than, they use to complain about the Democrat's deficit spending in times of economic hardship. The problem was, the Democrats were successful politically, at least in the Congress, even after Lyndon Johnson's ERA turned the Southern political landscape against them, and the Vietnam War wrecked havoc on them.

Then the "laugher" (excuse my sarcasm)curve came along. Yeah, fiscal (tax and spend) and monetary policy have a lot to do with what the economy is doing. (Don't believe it, when the pundits say the executive branch cannot affect what goes on in the economy. That is a politician's way of trying to escape blame for bad economic consequences.)

The "laugher" curve theory is that cutting taxes and government regulation and spending, would generate increased economic activity and enough tax revenue to eliminate budget deficits. Sounds plusible. It borrows from the Democrat's deficit spending when the economy needs a boost and Kennedy's tax cut policies. There are flaws in it, like cutting spending, while you cut taxes is one form of playing both ends against the middle (You're both putting and taking money out of the economy), and as the current crisis demonstrates, without regulation, the system (human nature) will run amok. My own thought is the supply-siders have benefitted and seemingly the economy, because the Republicans have been pumping money into the economy through their tax policy and they have not held true to reducing government spending. As a result they have been juicing up the economy for years--the "bubble" economy so to speak. (It was a great ride up, for the well off.) Warnings that this was going to come back and bite us have been constant, but we just went merrily along. Now its come home to roost, and the Republicans are saying that we need to do more of the same to solve the problem their policies created. (Yes, during the Clinton years, we had the stock market bubble, and they were into deregulation. But they were on a track to eliminate the budget deficit, money that would be very useful right now, and unlike under Reagan and Bush, their economic policies increased the economic welbeing of all Americans--including real wages for wage earners. These have fallen under Bush.)

Geez! Too bad the "laugh" is on the Amercan people. But these guys don't see wage earners as "hard" working Americans. Just ask David Brookes of the New York Times. In his writing, he has asserted that those smart money managers are the true hard workers in America.

Go on. Stick it to the UAW auto workers. That will fix everything. Ha! Ha! America, if you believe that.

Joseph Costa of MD @ Dec 25, 2008 08:15:03 AM

james you are either evil or stupid as a dingbat

so which party do you belong to?

are you under the payroll of bush and company or those hicks out there in the boonies trying to catch grasshoppers?

wht a waste of time reading your worthless drivel.

sensible behind a computer of CO @ Dec 21, 2008 21:55:37 PM

Moeerator please delete my first and third posts as well as this one.

Sergio Valdez of @ Dec 12, 2008 09:48:55 AM

You display a staggering level of ignorance.

You devote one line of your retarded diatribe to address the cause of our current recession and soon to be depression simply by saying that whatever people might think caused it, it wasn't caused by free markets and deregulation. But the truth is that you don't have any clue what is the cause of the country's current economic crisis because you are too blind to figure it out. If you want to make the argument that deregulation did not cause our economic collapse, you at least have to come up with an alternative explanation. Because here's something you might not know about common sense: when you see one significant event preceed another significant event, (significant means important) the conclusion that either the first caused the second or that something else caused both is usually true. And if it didn't, there's a good explanation for it. So what's your explanation for how the greatest set of tax cuts and deregulations in America's history preceeded the 2nd greatest economic collapse in history (with the potential to be first) without causing it? You want a real strategy for rehabilitating the GOP? The first step is for you supply-siders to admit that it is you who have the burden of proof now.

Sergio Valdez of CA @ Dec 12, 2008 09:45:46 AM