Be Educated

Bruce Bartlett is a respected conservative economist, and one of the originators of supply-side economics, which was the economic hallmark of the Reagan administration. When it comes to recognizing conservative economic policies, this guy knows his shit.

His piece today at The Daily Beast is a must-read for anyone who actually uses his brain (as opposed to those who simply react and/or parrot what they hear on Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly or Hannity). Here is a choice tidbit:

In January, the Congressional Budget Office projected a deficit this year of $1.2 trillion before Obama took office, with no estimate for actions he might take. To a large extent, the CBO’s estimate simply represented the $482 billion deficit projected by the Bush administration in last summer’s budget review, plus the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, which George W. Bush rammed through Congress in September over strenuous conservative objections. Thus the vast bulk of this year’s currently estimated $1.8 trillion deficit was determined by Bush’s policies, not Obama’s.

But there's a lot more. Here's something comparing Bush to Clinton:

During the Bush years, conservative economists often dismissed the dismal performance of the economy by pointing to a rising stock market. But the stock market was lackluster during the Bush years, especially compared to the previous eight. Between December 1992 and December 2000, the S&P 500 Index more than doubled. Between December 2000 and December 2008, it fell 34 percent. People would have been better off putting all their investments into cash under a mattress the day Bush took office.

My emphasis. Now read what he writes about Reagan:

Conservatives delude themselves that the Bush tax cuts worked and that the best medicine for America’s economic woes is more tax cuts; at a minimum, any tax increase would be economic poison. They forget that Ronald Reagan worked hard to pass one of the largest tax increases in American history in September 1982, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, even though the nation was still in a recession that didn’t end until November of that year. Indeed, one could easily argue that the enactment of that legislation was a critical prerequisite to recovery because it led to a decline in interest rates. The same could be said of Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, which many conservatives predicted would cause a recession but led to one of the biggest economic booms in history.

Read that last sentence again. Clinton's tax increase led to one of the biggest economic booms in history. This was not because of what Reagan and Bush 41 did to cut taxes. Both Reagan and Bush 41 raised taxes (remember "Read my lips"?).

Underneath what Bush 43 did to wreck the economy was what he didn't do. When he reformed Medicare by adding the prescription drug benefit (the gargantuan cost for which he lied about repeatedly and which was a form of welfare that undid the fantastic job Clinton did to abolish welfare) he had the chance to reform health care but didn't. He and his advisers -- and every thinking consumer in America -- knew that the current system was unsustainable and needed an overhaul. But instead of proposing workable solutions, Republicans today propose absolutely nothing other than holding to the status quo. Is this a viable economic solution? Of course not. It is a ploy to delay, obfuscate, and undermine the process of political and economic reform, to the point where American voters will blame President Obama for our economic woes and vote Republican in 2010 and 2012. It is an election scam, nothing more. And the thousands of voters currently doing their best to drown out reasonable debate are, once again, proving how ignorant and oblivious they are to their own economic interests. A perfect example was the protester at a recent town hall meeting who shouted, "Get your government hands off my Medicare!"

In much the same way that Obama's victory was assured on the day McCain selected the farcical Palin as his running mate (and perhaps before), reform of the healthcare insurance industry and of the healthcare delivery system is inevitable. The American Medical Association has already put its stamp of approval on the Obama plan. The lobbies for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are doing their best to emasculate the plan. And conservative media outlets are organizing pitchfork-and-torch mobs to scare every Democratic politician in America that their futures are at stake. Guns have been spotted outside town hall meetings. Swastikas have been associated with the president (a more absurd comparison I have not yet seen). Prominent right wing nutjobs, such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, have repeated the term "Death Panels" in an effort to engender fear and panic to drum up more Republican voters. Again, when there's no workable solution offered, it's an obvious election ploy, nothing more.

And it better not work, America. Not if you care about your country.