There They Go Again
Submitted by Robert Borosage on November 29, 2007 - 12:32pm.
The Republican CNN/YouTube debate lasted over two hours Wednesday night. But once more, we learned nothing about what the candidates would do about the economic straits we are in.
Not a word about the housing crisis—the rising tide of foreclosures, plummeting housing prices and sales—and the credit crunch that now roils banks across the globe.
Not a word about the recession that Wall Street is now betting on.
Not a word about the stagnant wages and rising costs of food and gas and college that had two-thirds of Americans thinking we were in a recession or near it when the Bush economy was at its best.
We learned nothing about what Republican candidates would do about our broken health care system. Nothing about what they’d do about gas prices, energy dependence, global warming or trade deficits that have made our economy dependent on the kindness of strangers—primarily Chinese and Japanese central bankers and Arab princes.
We learned only that these candidates can repeat the conservative gospel. All (except Duncan Hunter in an “emergency”) vow not to raise any single tax while in office, not even the shameless tax break that has billionaire private equity barracudas taxed at half the rate of their secretaries.
With the economy slowing, all would slash domestic spending. Mitt Romney calls for capping and cutting by 1 percent a year, and promises to “go at something like our entitlements.” Fred Thompson mumbles about his plan to “save Social Security,” which does so by slashing benefits nearly in half over 60 years. Rudy Giuliani calls for “5 to 10 percent” across-the-board cuts, and cutting the federal workforce—already near record lows—by 25 percent through retirements. If the one guy named Bob who is tasked with testing toys for the Consumer Product Safety Commission retires, Giuliani will just leave it up to the Chinese to keep the lead out. John McCain fulminates about vetoing any pork-barrel spending, a Titan boasting of squashing a gnat. Ron Paul at least knows where the money is, pledging to bring the boys home and save billions out of the military budget.
No one—not one—gave any indication that cutting spending—and jobs—as the economy slows might not be such a good idea. These guys have been in campaign bubbles for so long they don’t have a clue about what is happening around them.
Asked about our collapsing infrastructure and the investments needed to make us competitive—or simply to keep bridges and roads from collapsing beneath us—Giuliani argues sensibly for an investment account that would allow for greater spending on real investments. He doesn’t bother to say how this would survive his across-the-board domestic spending cuts. Paul sensibly suggests new priorities once more, using the money we spend to blow up bridges in Iraq to build them here. McCain repairs once more to his veto pen, which might fund a bridge or two.
Only Romney offered the inklings of an economic strategy—and that, not surprisingly, was a full pander, more of the same. He pledges to “follow the pathway that Ronald Reagan blazed,” asking voters to elect “somebody who understands how jobs come and go,” etc. etc. But the Reagan model—top-end tax cuts, massive increases in military spending, corporate-oriented trade policies, cutbacks on entitlements, assault on workers—was Bush’s guide, also. In both administrations, that “pathway” racked up massive debt; squandered billions in military folly; hemorrhaged manufacturing jobs while running up record trade deficits; contributed to rising inequality and stagnant wages, and starved investments vital to our future. We’ve pretty much played out that hand, Mitt. Continuing to dig the hole we are in is not likely to get us out of it.
CNN got its headlines in the faux fight over who is tougher on immigration but gave voters no sense of what these guys would do about the straits we are in. We know that they are for “securing the border,” for outlawing abortion, for reading the Bible, for protecting guns, for cutting taxes on the wealthy and spending more on the military. We got that.
Now, could the talking heads focus on what we haven’t heard? Little things, like what they’d do about the housing crash, or the coming recession, or the broken health care system, or stagnant wages, or soaring gas prices and accelerating global warming? There might be a couple of voters interested in such things.
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I guess all the Democrat plants decided to ask questions on other topics. Hard to have a recession when the GDP is on track for an annual 5% increase.
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