P J O'Rourke has written possibly the best analysis of the Republican defeat for the Weekly Standard. His message is: the Right had its chance, and it blew it. Conservatism defeated itself. I can see his point. In some ways the same thing happened here in the 1990s.
Conservatives should never say to voters, "We can lower your taxes." Conservatives should say to voters, "You can raise spending. You, the electorate, can, if you choose, have an infinite number of elaborate and expensive government programs. But we, the government, will have to pay for those programs. We have three ways to pay.
"We can inflate the currency, destroying your ability to plan for the future, wrecking the nation's culture of thrift and common sense, and giving free rein to scallywags to borrow money for worthless scams and pay it back 10 cents on the dollar.
"We can raise taxes. If the taxes are levied across the board, money will be taken from everyone's pocket, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and least advantaged will be harmed the most. If the taxes are levied only on the wealthy, money will be taken from wealthy people's pockets, hampering their capacity to make loans and investments, the economy will stagnate, and the poorest and the least advantaged will be harmed the most.
"And we can borrow, building up a massive national debt. This will cause all of the above things to happen plus it will fund Red Chinese nuclear submarines that will be popping up in San Francisco Bay to get some decent Szechwan take-out."
Yes, this would make for longer and less pithy stump speeches. But we'd be showing ourselves to be men and women of principle. It might cost us, short-term. We might get knocked down for not whoring after bioenergy votes in the Iowa caucuses. But at least we wouldn't land on our scruples. And we could get up again with dignity intact, dust ourselves off, and take another punch at the liberal bully-boys who want to snatch the citizenry's freedom and tuck that freedom, like a trophy feather, into the hatbands of their greasy political bowlers.
I think he has really hit on something here and it was exactly the sort of thing I was talking to a couple of Conservative MPs about last night. Conservatives have got to revert to preaching the values of sound money. It is ludicrous for the Prime Minister to go on a borrowing and spending binge while at the same time exhorting the rest of the country to budget carefully. Those who spend in haste leave the rest of us to repent at leisure - and we're at leisure because the economy has gone down the pan and we don't have a job. People know that government borrowing, debt and spending is out of control, and they know that all three of these phenomena have contributed to our current economic crisis. They also know that the Prime Minister is being mendacious when he says our debt is low by international standards. It is not as virtually all economic commentators have pointed out.
Read the whole P J O'Rourke article HERE.
10 comments:
Shame Cameron and Osborne haven't got a clue. They're just interested in short term political posturing; hence the 'tax breaks' announced this morning.
A leadership truely commited to tax cuts would have kept his powder dry.
I'm amazed that the IMF's judgement on our economy has had so little coverage. How is it possible for Gordon Brown to keep repeating what can only be his delusion that we are in good shape economically?There are so many clips of him and Yvette Cooper etc spinning this particular tripe that any competent journalist could show how deluded or indeeed 'mendacious' they are.
That's all very well Iain, but where'd that leave the Brand?
Scary Biscuits said...
"Shame Cameron and Osborne haven't got a clue."
I'm not so sure they haven't. George Osborne was very good on the lunchtime Ch4 News and much of what he was saying knitted well with what O'Rourke wrote.
Cameron too, seems to be answering the calls made over the past week or two for some kind of action. In reality though, its obvious Cameron cannot do anything except watch and wait. His announcement this morning is merely a pointer, a hint of the direction he might (and of course the Government should) take us.
O'Rourke is right though. The time is right to brush off the traditional conservative brand. In these troubled times and faced with a Government that has clearly gone quite insane, even Thatcherism has a reassuring feel these days. We should tap into that; remind people about the commonsence principles of running the country like most of us are forced to do with our hard pressed household budgets.
As for what Brown said today? I simply didn't listen to him. Birdseye produce a much less expensive Waffle.
Down to a six point lead in the latest poll! When Gordo calls the election it will be even closer.
What a bunch of incompetants. Couldn't hit a cats arse with a banjo.
Exactly. Principles are what is needed. The basic principles of Conservative fiscla discipline. keep spelling it out as simply as PJO does and it will work. The Voter is more than ready for it.
Brown's claims that "the UK is well placed to weather the storm" and boasts of "our success in getting borrowing down" are not the usual favourable interpretions or evasive generalisations, they are clear statements and the exact opposite of the truth.
Yet I have never heard a broadcaster use the 'L' word to describe him. Why is this liar being allowed get away with telling lies? He's just just completely taking the mickey out of us. Even 'mendacious' lets him off with a Latin equivalent of an everday word, buried in the middle of a paragraph.
I'd love to see an interview where he was given an opportunity to retract these claims, then if he doesn't (fat chance) the reply is "You are lying Mr Brown" right to his face.
Go on Iain, run a headline describing him for what he is. It might cause a stir. Do you think he'd sue for libel, with attendant publicity and the IMF data to back you up? (Mind you, this is easy for me to write! Quick thought: it would be amusingly unkind to run the headline "Brown is a liar, writes Dave H. The opinions expressed in that remark are not necessarily those of the Blog Author". A plague upon your house Sir! And it wouldn't let you off anyway.)
I have read a few posts like this. The fact is that this is no time for fiscal discipline. Consumer spending has collapsed and that will mean serious economic troubles for the nation's companies this year and next. As economic conditions worsen, people will be in fear of losing their jobs and consumer spendinging will fall further -- a "paradox of thrift" cycle. Government deficits will have to rise around the world to prevent a serious global recession -- and even then, we are on course for a pretty nasty one. The main problem with team Cameron's performance in the economic crisis is that they don't appear to have understood what is going on, and how dangerous the situation is. Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke do seem to understand, and so, though I hate to say it, does Gordon Brown.
"... Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke do seem to understand, and so, though I hate to say it, does Gordon Brown."
The problem is; they're all proposing standard Economics 101 fixes for avoiding a standard recession. And thus far they haven't worked nor are they likely to.
The USA have slashed interest rates and last April handed a big fat cheque to all taxpayers (better than what we're likely to get) and the result?
Gordon Brown nationalised Northern Rock with the promise it would stabalise the banking system and the result?
Many could argue that each time the Government have involved themselves the situation has gotten worse.
At the end of the day, we have far too much debt. The banks, the Government and ourselves need to return to affordable living... until we do (and believe me it will be painful) we're never going to get out of this mess. Brown's attempted engineering of another debt fuelled boost to the economy is only limited by its stupidity and the impossibility of it actually happening this time around. Its just a pity that nothing (or no one) is going to prevent him blowing a few hundred billions on giving it a go.
I thought that what john pickworth wrote was very perspicative, but here is something no politician has been brave enough to say yet - time.
It will take time for the people with cash to emerge and start buying. Governments rewriting the laws (or adopting those of Mugabe with his printing presses) will keep us underground and scared.
The question is - how long? No-one has the guts to say that it will be two/three/four years of hard graft to get through. Every tomorrow will be a sunny day, and all of us know that's untrue.
When one has a parliamentary pension, of course, this will not apply.
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