Saying It So Doesn’t Make it So

Republicans seem to have selective memory, only remember certain economic facts when Democrats have the power to legislate and totally forgetting those same economic facts when Republicans sit in the Oval Office and control Congress.

For example:

• The risks of doing too little outweigh any risk of overheating the economy. In fact, any plan not big enough to raise some concerns about overheating is too small.

• Democrats have finally stopped believing in the debt boogeyman and the confidence fairy, which will make everything better if you slash spending.

• Public debt was a huge problem only when Democrats are in power.  Republicans like former Representative Paul Ryan claim debt is an “existential threat” only if a Democrat is President. Every Republican predictions of imminent fiscal catastrophe has been proved wrong. Today, most mainstream economists are much more relaxed about debt.

• It is pointless to worry that big spending programs would hurt the economy by undermining business and investor confidence, or that caution is rewarded with higher private investment. Nothing in past experience has proven this thinking to be true; austerity doesn’t instill confidence, it just imposes pain.

• Republicans could help Biden deal with the economic crisis but are too stupid to do so. The reality of scorched-earth opposition has yet to sink in to the Republican thinking. 

• Even though Democrats have learned a lot about economic reality since 2009, it is questionable if they’ve learned more about political reality.  Unity, Republican style, will not solved today’s problems. 

• A “grand bargain” on debt means Republicans win and the American people who badly need government help will lose.

• Believing he rise of the Tea Party  was a “fever” that would break in his second term was Obama’s biggest political SNAF, in short, he was deeply naïve. Let’s hope Biden has learned from this experience.

• Biden’s Covid-19 relief plan commands overwhelming public approval — far higher than approval for Obama’s 2009 stimulus. If, as seems likely, not a single Republican in Congress votes for the plan, that’s evidence of G.O.P. extremism, and political ignorance and not failure on Biden’s part to reach out.

• If we learned anything from the recent elections it is that voters aren’t interested in process. Very few Americans know that the Trump tax cut was rammed through on a party-line vote using reconciliation, the same maneuver Democrats are now pursuing, and almost nobody cares.

• Beyond that, Biden and company appear to have learned that caution coming out of the gate doesn’t store up political capital to do more things later. Instead, an administration that fails to deliver tangible benefits to voters in its first few months has squandered its advantage and won’t get a do-over. Going big on Covid relief now offers the best hope of taking on infrastructure, climate change and more later.

• The recent elections should have taught us getting policy right is even more important in 2021 than ever before...and not just because of the economics. When Republicans fail to acknowledge election results, condones insurrection and welcome consgpiracy theorists into its ranks, the very last thing Democrats in power should do is pursue policies that might fall short and thereby empower Republicans in the years ahead.

• Debt isn’t and never was an existential threat to our nation’s future. The real existential threat is an illiberal G.O.P. that looks more like Europe’s far-right extremists than a normal political party.

• So hopefully Democrats are ready to seize the day and tell Republicans to fuck off.