Burning Down the House

Listening to the Republican leadership on how to fix the economy is like listening to the arsonist on how to put out the fire.

Somehow the debate on the stimulus package has shifted to the Republicans and their criticisms.  Legitimate analyses are always welcome, of course, and when grown-ups want to help make a bill better, it’s a wonderful thing.  But we don’t have grown-ups running the Republican party any more.  These guys have had nearly fourteen years to try their one-size-fits-all “solution” — tax cuts and deregulation — and their experiment has landed us on the precipice of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression (and we’re not done yet).

The economy is in free-fall and the President is trying to buy us a parachute, but these yahoos can only scream “If we just flap our arms harder, everything will be OK” while nitpicking the brand of rope the President chose for the shroud strands.  In some sense, you can see why:  For most of them, they have their own golden parachutes that will ensure that, when we hit rock bottom, they aren’t mangled like the rest of us.  And since their descent is safe, why help out anyone else?

We are teeteering on the edge of a deflationary spiral, the single most destructive circumstance known to economics.  We’re already mired deep in a liquidity trap.  Our infrastructure is aging and inadequate, and our competitiors are breathing down our necks.

The next time someone tells you that “government spending doesn’t create a single job or grow the economy”, ask them if they’ll email that you … over the Internet, funded and nurtured by the federal government long before anyone figured out how to make money off of it.  Ask them if they’ll ship it to you, via a truck running over the same Interstate that likely makes their comfy surburban lifestyle available.  Maybe they’ll type it up using the energy that comes from governmental hydro projects.

Anyone spending money creates jobs.  Under many circumstances, the market is clearly superior.  Under some others, government is.  And under most, it’s still an open question.

Could we please stop listening to the arsonists?