Uh-Oh...Sarah Palin Just Found Her Message
"If the government owns 60% of GM and is borrowing money like crazy from China...who really owns GM?"
It's a very good question. She and the GOP have figured out the open door to walk through. Attack government borrowing and point out that it comes at the cost of giving increasing policy control to foreign power. FDR's stimulus in the Great Depression was not funded by foreign powers, a point the Chinese Finance Minister echoed when he said today that US Treasury bonds should be issued in yuan, not in dollars.
Palin's interview with WWF character Sean Hannity will be aired tonight, and the message will probably be co-opted by the fractured GOP and gain wider traction. It hits the fear buttons, and it's true. Early transcript of her interview here.
2 comments:
We'll see if they can get away from the culture war BS that most people are fed up with. Apparently, Ms. Palin can't, as she demonstrates by attacking David Letterman.
Marc, I agree with you to a point. I completely agree that this will be a ditto-head talking point repeated a million times on cable news.
But the Democrats have a great response, that also has the advantage of being true. We also need to stay on message. That message is that the current economic problems are the natural result of 30 years of Voodoo Economics, and Democrats are cleaning up the mess that the Republicans have created.
Point 1: Remember "Reaganomics," a/k/a "Voodoo Economics," in George H.W. Bush's words? The Federal Government reduced it's income (taxes on the rich) at the same time it massively increased spending (star wars fantasy weapons, invasions of countries that didn't have weapons of mass destruction). The Republicans said this would lead to a balanced budget; anyone seen a Laffer Curve lately? Many of us doubted it would work, and 30 years of history has shown is was dead wrong. But it created huge deficits and destroyed the economy.
Point 2: Republicans are profligate spenders of the taxpayers money, but they target the spending to their base of the richest 5% of the population, not the rest of us in the 95% percentile. Exhibit A: Medicare part D, which extended pharmaceutical coverage to the elderly, but included provisions that actually PREVENT the Federal Government from negotiating with Pharmaceutical companies on pricing. They actually require wasteful spending.
In summary, huge budget deficits when the economy is good, and calls for Federal spending cuts when there's a recession is Voodoo Economics (or Hoovernomics, or Reaganomics). Balancing budgets when the economy is good (like Clinton) and running deficits to prime the economic pump during a recession is classic Keynsian economics.
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