Conservatives Were Lucky

A few months ago on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," regular guest Jon Meacham, a respected author and editor, commented that "conservatives have won the argument" about cutting the budget, but while I have tremendous respect for Meacham, I must disagree, or at least "clarify," on his point, although it "appears" (or "appeared" at the time he made the statement) that conservatives have (had) won that argument. First, the conservatives, or more specifically the Republicans, were politically lucky that the economy took the dive it did in the waning months of the Bush administration. The worst political case for the Republicans was for them to win the 2008 election, especially with John McCain, a man many conservative true believers have detested for years, and still do. With polls still showing a majority of Americans, including about half of Republicans, hold George W. Bush responsible for the severe economic downturn, if Republicans had held the presidency and the Senate, I can't imagine it would have meant anything but a virtual obliteration of the Republican Party.* The policy of just letting things collapse until they could collapse no further would have been a recipe for their own destruction, if they dared to continue such policies. And some of the true believers would undoubtedly have continued to push such policies. Remember during the Gulf oil spill as the coast, the tourist industry and the seafood industry were devastated and disrupted, one Republican congressman publicly apologized to BP! Don't think the true believers ever "get it," they don't.

Huge deficits run during Bush's terms were forgotten by the conservatives, and even the nearly one and a half TRILLION dollar deficit inherited by Obama from Bush was then used AGAINST Obama.** As the economy began to right, the deficits also began to decline, although slowly. When deficit reduction was discussed, Republicans refused to consider any tax hikes to help lower the deficit. With responsible economists across the political spectrum saying that there needed to be some mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes, Republicans sat on their hands, refusing to raise taxes on the so called "job creators;" that is, the ultra rich, none of whom (see Word History, below) would have noticed the extra tax money missing from their monthly statements.***

When Obama defeated McCain, I have to believe some conservatives heaved a sigh of relief, as they then did not have to face the brunt of the economic plunge, nor its aftereffects. Instead they worked up a message that never mentioned any conservative involvement in the unfolding disaster. They quickly pivoted to place blame for the situation on the new President and Democrats. Although that message has not been totally successful, it did shore up the Republican/conservative base. When a couple of Republicans strayed from the ranch, they were lambasted for not standing firm with other Republicans.**** In the early going, the President correctly reached out to Republicans, even adding tax cuts to the actual stimulus plan to garner GOP votes, but it was virtually for naught, as Republicans, once so in favor of tax cuts, declared the cuts were not enough, and that they did not favor spending money directly to thwart the downward slide. Then a few months later, rightly or wrongly, President Obama gave the Republicans and conservatives a shot in the arm they could never have administered to themselves, health care. For about a year a titanic struggle played out day after day in front of an often disconnected American public, who thought the President had come to office to fix the economy. Some Republicans who had previously favored an "insurance mandate," quickly changed positions once Obama embraced their own basic plan. ***** Eventually the President won, but the cost was high, and his popularity has never totally recovered. Gleeful Republicans, then having been allowed to get back up off the floor, mounted an all out attack in the midterm elections, maiming Democrats across the country, and taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

So my point is, did conservatives win the argument? I say we don't really know, because they didn't have to face the music of the worst part of the economic downturn, and the economy still hasn't healed from the devastating blows it took. In other countries where cut backs have been put in place, economic growth has been slowing, and in fact this slowing could have a serious impact on our own economy. Some conservative governments in these countries have either been voted out (France), or have taken major hits in recent elections (Germany). To me, the verdict is still out, although most Democrats and most progressives agree that the deficit must be brought down, albeit gradually, something many have been saying independently from Republican demands of more immediate reductions.******

* Don't cheer too loudly Democrats. Some other party would have replaced it, or it would have survived on life-support, as there is always a counterbalance that eventually comes into play. And that is not a bad thing, although I can hear the names I'm being called for writing that.

** To be fair, the initial inherited deficit was increased slightly by certain stimulus spending, added after Obama took office, but the main deficit had been passed to him by the previous administration. The stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed by the President had spending spread over a couple of years, not concentrated in one year. Further, with the economy in headlong retreat, shrinking revenues only made things worse. I told you conservatives were lucky not to have won the 2008 election.

*** The "Bush tax cuts," as they have come to be called, cut taxes substantially on incomes in the top 2 to 2.5 %. The "bottom" of that bracket involves incomes of about $250,000 per year. While most of us would love to earn that much, that amount in itself doesn't necessarily make one wealthy. Myself, I did NOT support raising taxes on this income group. A debate raged at the time within Democratic circles over the income level higher taxes should start. Some suggested $500,000, others suggested one million dollars, something I DID support and still do! While much fuss was made by both sides, the taxes on upper incomes would have only increased about 3 1/2%, although you'd have thought from Republican rhetoric that Democrats were out to confiscate upwards of 100% from millionaires and billionaires.

**** Beleaguered and battered Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector even switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.

***** The basic idea was that if everyone, or virtually everyone, was going to be covered by a national plan, then everyone would have to purchase insurance. Insurance is based upon a "pool" of insured; that is, paying customers. In spite of the largely successful Republican rhetoric about "a government take over of health care," Obama supported free market insurance companies to insure Americans. Yes, the government would require people with preexisting conditions be covered, but it would also require that people buy insurance (or have company offered insurance), with extensive subsidies provided to lower and middle income people to help with the purchase of such insurance. The conservative policy group, the Heritage Foundation, was one of those conservative groups IN FAVOR of such a basic plan just a few years ago; in fact, I believe they PROPOSED IT. Other supporters of this approach were none other than Mitt Romney when he helped get statewide insurance when he was Governor of Massachusetts, and Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House. The idea is, if everyone is insured, including people with preexisting conditions, the "pool" has to be large enough to cover those people. This is just for example, but let's say you work for a company with 100 employees and you have hornswoggle of the big toe. Don't ask me what that is, I may tell you. The insurance company may not want to cover you, as you are higher risk, or let's say they agree to cover you for like $20,000 a year (ah, like I said, they don't want to cover you). If they can get the other 99 employees (let's say they are basically healthy) to buy insurance, they can lower the cost to you and the others to something much more reasonable, as the risk has been spread out.

****** Generally polls have shown deficit reduction much further down the agenda of most Americans. That doesn't make it right or wrong, but it does not support the notion that conservatives have won the deficit argument.

WORD HISTORY:
Who/Whom-This common pronoun goes back to Indo European "qwos/qwes," with several related meanings, but basically "who." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "(k)hwas/(k)waz," again with several related meanings, one of which was "who." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "hwa," which later became modern English "who," and the "wh" was pronounced, but has obviously since been lost, but that's the reason for the modern spelling. "Whom" is the dative form of "who;" that is, for the object of a sentence or phrase, but its usage has slowly been in decline, as to many English speaking people, perhaps more so Americans, using "whom" seems a bit "high-style," or awkward; so we tend to say, "Who did I gave the book to?" Not the technically correct "To whom did I give the book?" Anyway, "whom" in Old English was "hwam." Various forms are common in the other Germanic languages, but as I noted in the Old Germanic (and Indo European) word, the basic word had several meanings (like "how" and "that" and others) which have come down to modern times in various forms in the Germanic languages. Standard German has three forms, not counting the genitive (possessive) form (I've mentioned before that German retains much of the complex Germanic grammar of old that was gradually simplified by its cousin, English): "wer," "wen" (accusative form), "wem" (dative form); Low German also has "wer" and "wem," and some dialects have "wäm" for "whom;" West Frisian has "wa;" Dutch has "wie;" Norwegian has "hvem;" Icelandic has "hver;" Danish has "hvo" and "hvem,"and Swedish has "vem."