Saturday, December 11, 2010

Ideology Loses

Charles Krauthammer - Swindle of the year

Good Krauthammer, worth the short read. My view of the basics of what is happening here:

1. The left doesn't REALLY see tax cuts as "stimulus" -- they only see federally controlled SPENDING as "stimulus", it is essentially a code word for paying off their cronies. Any effect on the economy of what they have called stimulus is just a side effect -- their disdain over tax cuts pretty much proves it.

2. The left has lost their way so badly that they ACTUALLY believe that Tax Cuts = Spending. At one time I think they realized it was just a stupid marketing ploy to make tax cuts sound less desirable, but now they have fallen in to believe their own lies and can't tell the difference.

3. At the end of the day, the ONLY thing Democrats care about is increased federal power and "punishment of their enemies" -- which they see as "Rich people that refuse to vote Democrat" in particular, and Republicans and "the dummy electorate" in general. Their hatred is consuming, because as Charles points out, even when their leader has obtained something that is politically (to help them in 2012) and economically (in their world view) wonderful beyond their wildest dreams, they just can't go for it because it doesn't attack the rich, and they see it as a "deal with their sworn enemy -- which ought to pretty much give the lie to what Democrats ACTUALLY think of "bi-partisanship".

Most of politics is simple theater, but has the left now gone so far that even their minions in the media can't understand what BO is doing?

Hence that news-conference attack on what the administration calls the "professional left" for its combination of sanctimony and myopia. It was Obama's Sister Souljah moment. It had a prickly, irritated sincerity - their ideological stupidity and inability to see the "long game" really do get under Obama's skin - but a decidedly calculated quality, too. Where, after all, does the left go? Stay home on Election Day 2012? Vote Republican?
Unless one is blind with rage against people that make over $250K, it is hard to imagine how BO's deal wasn't a huge victory politically and economically for Democrats, BUT, they don't see it. From a Republican view, the issue really is HOW different is avoiding a tax increase during a recession from government deficit spending? My view is VERY different, but the biggest problem is the "two years" -- that is added uncertainty, which is exactly the same problem as increasing troops in Afghanistan and then promising to pull them out in "two years" (now this coming summer). Humans react BOTH to what is and what will be -- in fact, "future sense" is a gigantic part of what makes us human.

What we need to do is to FIX SPENDING -- keeping a couple of bottles of revenue booze away from the Federal spendaholic is better in my mind than letting him get them, so he develops a thirst for even more, but "the deal" did absolutely nothing to deal with what we need to deal with ... SPENDING!!!


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