GIN AND TACOS

In a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll, 47% of respondents said that the Republicans are more to blame for the current economic mess. That makes sense, leaving us to wonder only about the logic of the remaining 53%.

Discounting the 8% who claimed that neither party is more responsible, we are left with a combined 44% of Americans who believe that the Democrats are more to blame (24%) or the parties share equal responsibility (20%). This might be the best evidence yet for one of Thomas Frank's favorite points (in both What's the Matter with Kansas? and The Wrecking Crew) – that the right has commandeered the language of victimhood, powerlessness, and anti-governmentism to the extent that these people do not even realize how long they have been in complete control of Washington. Somehow, no matter how many presidents they elect or how many decade-long Congressional majorities they have, the minority Democrats (whom the governing GOP treat worse than personae non grata) are somehow to blame.

Granted, 24% blaming the Democrats is unsurprising – this is the same 24% that voted for Alan Keyes in 2004. It is the same 24% level below which President Bush's approval rating will not fall. It is the 24% who would blame the Democrats if George Bush decided to invade Belgium tomorrow. These people, as Bill O'Reilly would say, are ideological zombies. Their opinions on politics are roughly as objective and valuable as Bill Swerski's opinions about Da Bears.

Since 1980, this country has lurched as far to the right on economic issues as any democratic nation has since the Industrial Revolution.
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Regulation and government have successfully been rebranded as the antichrist, the public has been conditioned to receive (so long as they maintain a steady flow of bitching) a new tax cut every five fucking minutes, and spending under "small government" conservatives has exploded to levels previously unimaginable – but that's probably all on "welfare" for the lazy colored folk, right?

This 44% will insist, even as things continue to get worse over the next 36 to 48 months, that the Democrats and nonspecific "liberals" are somehow to blame. Stuck in the 70s and unable to apply critical thinking skills to the arguments crammed down their throats by talk radio, they will blame this all on the big spending ways of left-wing Washington. Twelve years of a GOP Congress which reduced Clinton's role to a rubber stamp for milquetoasty "centrist" "new Democrat" free-market wanking and then did everything George W.

Bush asked be damned. Eight years of Reagan and twelve of the Bushes be damned as well. The Democrats have been in control of the House (and at Lieberman's mercy in the one-seat majority Senate) for eighteen months! Doesn't that make them equally responsible?

I am seriously considering devoting a portion of my time to writing a handbook for liberal and progressive Americans entitled Stop Being Such a Goddamn Pussy. As we continue our march toward complete economic meltdown (The Dollar: Spend It, Or Burn It As Solid Fuel!^tm) it is essential that this baseless, ridiculous argument that right-wing economic theory is somehow not responsible for our predicament be prevented from taking root. If you hear somebody make that claim, get about 18 inches from his face and tell him that he is brimming with shit. I, for one, have no intention of allowing anyone within my earshot of entertaining this delusion.

I hate to say "We told you so", but…wait, no I don't. In fact I will get significant pleasure out of rubbing the right's nose in a simple set of facts: you did this. Your ideas. Your greed. Your leaders. Your ideology. Your childish insistence on believing what feels true rather than what can be supported by facts. Your insistence that the economic turmoil caused by repeated tax cuts during periods of runaway spending can be cured by more tax cuts.

This isn't a "difference of opinion" – it's the difference between correct and incorrect interpretations of basic facts.

And if you wonder why I'm so aggressive about it, it's because I and everyone else who understands how full of shit these people are have to suffer the consequences of the toxic mess that three decades of supply-side leg-humping have created.

One of the great truisms in life (and a staple component of my oldest stand-up routine) is that anyone compelled to introduce a statement with "Now, I'm not a racist, but…" is about to say something really, really racist. Things that are not racist do not need "I'm not a racist" as a qualifier. In practice, of course, this is usually an intro to a statement along the lines of "…but I really think we need to start killing more Mexicans."

Similarly, I am entirely convinced that Our Leader's half-assed scheme is in fact a bailout simply by virture of the number of times we are being told it is not a bailout. A genuine Not Bailout would not have to be preceded consistently with "This is not a bailout." Were it not, it would not look and behave like one.
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Instead we have something that looks, feels, and acts like a bailout enveloped in reassurances that it isn't.

Here is how I interpret the proposal: the Treasury Department would be given authorization to spend nearly a trillion dollars buying worthless mortgages "at market value" without even a hint – literally, not one word – of new regulations to create the charade of trying to prevent this from recurring. This is right-wing economics in a nutshell – government regulation is the antichrist, but its handouts are demanded. The benevolent, Divinely Inspired hand of the market cannot accept government meddling and rules, but it sure as hell can accept government cash. Check that. It's actually your cash. This sort of thing happens around the world with some regularity (see Sweden's banks) but the response is usually for the government to take over the institutions and run them responsibly before ponying up to pay down the bad debt. This is just taking money out of your pocket, handing it to some jackasses who gave a crackhead a 0,000 mortgage, and telling them to go on their merry way.
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"Racketeering" might be a better term.

The problems here are so transparent that the bailout seems like some kind of joke.
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First, the entire problem is that people are refusing to accept "market value" (i.e., half of whatever over-inflated price they paid) for their homes.
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We have too many $500,000 mortgages on homes suddenly worth $225,000. Offering $225,000 isn't going to solve anything. What this will amount to is either very few mortgages being bought (unlikely) or the government bidding against itself until it pays far, far over "market value" for this worthless crap (very likely). Second, we don't have $700 billion. That's larger than the annual budget of the Pentagon. It's larger than the cost of the entire Iraq War. It's almost 20% of the entire Federal budget. The only way to create $700 billion out of thin air will involve A) selling more Treasury paper to China, as if they'd buy it, and/or B) whipping out the printing press and printing more money. Third, seriously? No new regulations? No promise to maybe consider looking into thinking about enforcing the ones already on the books? Just a hearty chuckle, telling the financial industry "You sure fucked that one up!" as we hand them a check for three-quarters of a trillion dollars?

What no one seems to understand (and what the GOP is in full crisis mode to delay until after November) is that these institutions need to be allowed to fail. The consequences will be dire, but the consequences of these idiotic schemes to keep the patient alive on the heart-lung machine for a few more weeks at a time will be far worse. The patient is going to die anyway, and this Mugabe-style "Debt? Just print more money!" plan is going to make things even harder on those stuck footing the bill when the inevitable happens. And when it does, whether it's 1929 all over again or something milder, of course we will see Mrs. Republican, Mr. Free Market Worshiper, Mr. More Tax Cuts, Mrs. Supply Side Economics, and Mr. Get Big Government Out of Our Lives front and center, hands outstretched, awaiting the handouts that inevitably follow the disasters that their policies cause.