It's no secret that President Obama is running against the record of George Bush, as much or more than he is running against the current field of candidates slogging through the GOP primary race. Whether an excuse for the moribund performance of the U.S. economy since his election ("digging out of the hole Bush put us in") or talking about his future plans in a second term ("not repeating the Bush policy errors so we can turn the country around"), there is no mistaking the rhetoric emanating like a drumbeat from the formative stages of the Obama machine's billion dollar re-election campaign: Our current problems are a result of the policies of George W. Bush and the Republicans, and only (another) Keynesian injection of record deficit spending is going to right the ship. And the upshot? He's absolutely right on his diagnosis, although frightfully wrong on the remedy.
The advanced study of economics, like the advanced study of almost anything, relies on the over-complication of what is usually something that is relatively simple. Obfuscation is the key tool of the academic elite, and the dismal science is no exception. From Keynesians to Hayekians, there are more theories and formulas and economic tools to dress up the one thing that (many? some?) of us know: You need to have enough money to pay your bills. Inputs must equal outputs over time, or the system, whether it's a farm or a company or the biggest economy in the world can't last. I am not saying that all debt is bad; in fact, it's perfectly fine if used effectively and judiciously in the private markets. However, there was a time, dear reader, when a conservative leader understood this and acted accordingly. Alas, our conservative movement is now led by professional politicians, which I fear will lead the United States to its demise. And I have told that little story, to tell this little story.
If we've reached the state in our nation, where a man of Barack Obama's political and economic persuasions is right about anything on a macro economic level, we are indeed in dire straights. And he is right about that one thing: The professional politicians from the GOP have participated in the orgy of spending this country has embarked on since the Hoover administration. They are right there in putting the United States in the mess we're in today. It's a slippery slope greased even more lubriciously in the '60s with the lard of LBJ's guns and butter Great Society. Nixon took us off the gold standard (wow, we can print money to pay for our goodies!! Oops, inflation!), Carter didn't really do anything outside of nothing except to presidentially define our general malaise, which takes us to the patron saint of those in the GOP today who would distance themselves from the Republican ring leaders of the "aughts": Ronald Reagan. Reagan did some things correctly on a macro economic level; however, he ran up a ton of debt, which is to say that he made our current problem worse in the long run. Clinton triangulated his way to some sane reforms of entitlement spending, keeping a lid on the money hole, and he was the dumb-luck beneficiary of the IT investments that occurred in the '80s that paid off in enormous productivity gains of the '90s, which led to the only real way out of the hole: economic growth.
Which of course brings us to our current sad state of affairs. A man or woman who is concerned with the future his children will have has a choice of the lesser of two evils. We can pick the calamitous policies of our professional politicians in the GOP, knowing not much will change over the long run, or pick the certainly catastrophic policies of the food stamp president, Obama. We garnish our choices with some side issues that really don't make a hill of beans in the long run (immigration reform, abortion, etc.) and hope for the best. Perhaps some of our electorate knows this down deep and explains the dismay held for politicians in this country across the board.
My father taught me to never criticize unless I could offer a solution. Eight hundred words in a column won't allow me to do that in detail here, but I can offer something to think about: We must slay the leviathan. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is all our government was intended to provide, and it has all spun horribly out of control. The Tenth Amendment (states' rights) holds the fire and ammunition to accomplish this. The United States government will consume us as a nation, and our only hope is to forge our destiny along the lines of individual free choice to live as we see fit and to prosper as we deserve, as our forefathers did. Individualism, and all that goes with it, must replace the collective and all that it has wrought. Of course, the government and the politicians won't want to allow us to pursue this (it's against their self-interest). Perhaps we will have to take it.
• • •
Phil Sayles lives in Newburyport.
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