-
Tea Party, Glenn Beck Wrong on Woodrow Wilson's Progressivism
Tweet Share on Facebook May 6, 2010 Comment (22)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Which American president said the following: “If America is not to have free enterprise, then she can have no freedom of any sort whatever”? The same one who said this: “Any man who can survive by his brains, any man who can put the others out of business by making the thing cheaper to the consumer at the same time that he is increasing its intrinsic value and quality, I take off my hat to, and I say: ‘You are the man who can build up the United States, and I wish there were more of you.’”
And this: “I know, and every man in his heart knows, that the only way to enrich America is to make it possible for any man who has the brains to get into the game ... Are you not eager for the time when the genius and initiative of all the people shall be called into the service of business?”And the same one of whom Herbert Hoover said this, referring to the regulation of food sales during World War I: “He yielded with great reluctance to the partial and temporary abandonment of our principles of life during the war, because of the multitude of tasks with which the citizen or the states could not cope. But he often expressed to me the hope that our methods of doing so were such that they could be quickly reversed and free enterprise restored.”
That last no doubt gives away the answer—Woodrow Wilson. Surprise. -
GOP Contradicts Itself on Economic Policy
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2010 Comment (6)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Have Democrats effectively become the old Eastern Establishment?
The Weekly Standard’s Christopher Caldwell seems to think so. In a portrait of “Wall Street Democrats,” Caldwell writes that conservative Republicans have been snookered by “a class that despises them.” And he flags contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics to demonstrate the financial sector's fealty to Democrats.
The salience of anti-bailout populism and libertarian purism among Republicans right now may be circumstantial, and thus temporary. When the economy recovers more broadly, perhaps antipathy toward Wall Street will recede. But maybe it signals a more permanent shift—or the emergence of what Jon Chait calls “Naderite conservatives.”
Myself, I’m not too thrilled by the prospect. -
Why Illegal Immigration Should Worry Democrats
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2010 Comment (28)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One of the things that continually puzzles me about the immigration debate—not just in Arizona, but generally—is how the left almost exclusively frames it in terms of economic opportunity and civil liberties.
And yet the cost of undocumented immigrants has an appreciable impact on just about every policy arena that liberals care most about--whether it’s rising healthcare costs, schools that are long on pupils and short on funding, the environmental degradation and aesthetic blight of exurban sprawl, pressure on low-income wage-earners, or widening inequality.
Illegal immigration is not the lone culprit of any of these problems, but, at the very least, it exacerbates them.
Maybe it’s the perception of conservative racism or xenophobia; maybe it’s the potential bonanza of future Democratic votes. Whatever the case, liberals are oddly tone-deaf to the challenges of importing so much poverty.
If I’m wrong about this—if I simply haven’t read widely enough—I’ll happily stand corrected. -
Mark Levin Wrong About the Marketplace of Ideas
Tweet Share on Facebook April 26, 2010 Comment (2)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I have no dog in the fight between Mark Levin and Jim Manzi—which, for the uninitiated, began when Manzi, a conservative policy wonk, accused radio talk show host Levin of propagandizing to the echo chamber of global warming deniers. But I will note, as a sidebar, that Levin has a tendency to resort to Howard Stern-style chest-thumping about his popularity. He does here, in this Facebook retort at David Frum, and I noticed it as well in Levin’s infamous radio showdown with Frum.
“No one is buying it—or his books,” he writes of Frum. You might call this the argument from vulgarity, to employ one of the literal senses of the word. What’s the deal?
Lots of people bought Al Franken’s books. Lots of people have seen Michael Moore’s documentaries. Does this validate them in any meaningful way? Does the fact that the major journals of political opinion, conservative and liberal alike, have tiny paying readerships mean they’re not influential? Of course not.
Memo to Levin: The “marketplace of ideas” is more than, well, the marketplace. -
New Jersey Education Fight Shows Union Pettiness
Tweet Share on Facebook April 22, 2010 Comment (4)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Back in my days as a staffer involved in selling the No Child Left Behind bill to a skeptical Republican caucus, we had to penetrate brick walls of boilerplate—especially the idea that education is the exclusive province of states and local districts.
This is descriptively true. Most education spending is sub-federal, and it will likely remain that way for good. But as an ideal, it shouldn’t be the end of the story. Other nonpartisan ideals—sunlight, empiricism, accountability—are just as important.
One need only look at the New Jersey Education Association’s furious opposition to Gov. Chris Christie’s pay-freeze proposal to see that fears of “nationalization” miss the point when it comes to education. State and local bureaucracies are every bit as entrenched and self-serving locally as they are in Washington. And as George Will wrote in 1991: “[L]ocalism makes less and less sense in a nation of increasing mobility among regions, a nation flunking—as a nation—the international test of competitiveness.”
-
Are Tea Party Activists Just Republican Party Dupes?
Tweet Share on Facebook April 21, 2010 Comment (17)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I like Jonah Goldberg. His wildly successful book Liberal Fascism exposed a raw nerve in liberal academia: When they weren’t ridiculing it, they were conceding that he had a point. But I fear he, and the increasingly overexposed Glenn Reynolds, have become far too enamored of the Tea Party movement.
Today, for instance, Jonah tries to explain away the selective timing of the Partiers’ deficit hawkishness, calling such suspicions “lazy sophistry”:No doubt partisanship plays a role. But partisanship only explains so much given that the tea partiers are clearly sincere about limited government and often quite fond of Republican-bashing. So here’s an alternative explanation: Conservatives don’t want to be fooled again.
Fair enough. I happen to think criticism of Bush’s record on deficits is as oversimplified as that of Obama’s today. Very few conservatives—Tea Partiers especially—are willing to concede that the 2001 tax cuts are a major driver of our current fiscal mess. Conversely, the prescription drug benefit isn’t necessarily the disaster it’s made out to be. As Tyler Cowen has written, there’s reason to believe that the Medicare Part D program might yield substantial savings down the line.
-
Obama's Supposed Hatred of America
Tweet Share on Facebook April 14, 2010 Comment (14)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Wow. David P. Goldman, the artist formerly known as “Spengler,” just defended his theory about the roots of President Obama’s supposed hatred of America (he’s “the loyal son of a left-wing anthropologist mother who sought to expiate her white guilt by going to bed with Muslim Third World men”)--which John Podhoretz quite reasonably denounced here--by saying his characterization has earned wide if not universal acceptance among conservatives.
The approving conservatives he cites as proof? Sean Hannity and Michael Ledeen. Sure—and Charles Manson was an otherwise normal dude who dug the Beatles.
Sorry, Oswald. You’ll need to try harder than that. And kudos to Podhoretz for the intellectual hygienic effort.
-
Newt Gingrich: Republicans Won 1995 Government Shutdown
Tweet Share on Facebook April 13, 2010 Comment (16)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Argh! What’s that awful sound I’m hearing? So familiar, so grating, so egomaniacal, so ... Newt.
According to Dave Weigel’s fine new blog at the Washington Post, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich bridled at the suggestion that the 1995 budget showdown between the congressional Republican majorities and President Clinton redounded in the favor the Democratic party.
-
Conservatives' Rhetoric on Economy Could Haunt GOP in 2012
Tweet Share on Facebook April 13, 2010 Comment (6)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The deficit picture might be improving. And, according to Larry Kudlow, a full-fledged economic recovery is in the offing:
The current reality is that a strong rebound in corporate profits (the greatest and truest stimulus of all), ultra-easy money from the Fed, and some small stimuli from government spending are working to generate a stronger-than-expected recovery in a basically free-market economy that is a lot more resilient than capitalist critics think.
By all means, salt the latter news with a reminder that its source is Mr. “Goldilocks Economy” himself. And, to be fair, later in the column, Kudlow makes the requisite noise about how Obamanomics threatens the prospect of growth in the out years.
-
Taxes, Spending, and Washington’s Bipartisan Conspiracy of Cowardice
Tweet Share on Facebook April 9, 2010 Comment (9)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In the short term, news of Rep. Bart Stupak's retirement is going to inspire chatter of a "breakdown of civility," increasing polarization, a lack of any significant bipartisan cooperation on major issues—all the stuff that's purportedly making Washington, D.C., a lousy place to work. But here's why I'd want to retire if I were in Congress: the specter of facing an electorate that is utterly unprepared to deal with the country's fiscal problems.
As Stan Collender writes, in response to a recent Economist/YouGov poll:
"almost two-thirds—62 percent—of those responding said that they wanted to cut spending to reduce the budget deficit rather than raise taxes. But just three questions later, the only are of federal spending that a majority—71 percent—was willing to cut was foreign aid."
Which, as we dreaded Beltway insiders know, constitutes less than one percent of federal spending, and a large portion of which goes to Israel.
Scott Galupo
Scott Galupo is a Washington-based freelance writer. He formerly worked for House Republican Leader John Boehner, and was a staff writer for The Washington Times.
advertisement
Cartoons
advertisement
