Economic Stimulus Plan v. Conservative Ideology

February 1st, 2009

Don’t you just love it. The same people who had no problem with doling out hundreds of billions of dollars to the Lords of Wall Street with no strings attached have an issue with providing help to beekeepers. I guess those guys don’t read National Geographic. Without bees we won’t have crops to harvest, and a mysterious disease has been killing the bees. But I suppose it resonates nicely in a sound bite to call this small bit of assistance in the Economic Stimulus Plan pork.

Conservative ideology is sounding mighty mean-spirited these days. The Economic Stimulus Plan is not perfect, but it’s a far sight better than anything the Bush administration and Henry Paulson came up with. The Conservative message of cut, cut, cut has the feel of Marie Antoinette picking our pockets as she admonishes us to quit whining.

I just heard Mitch McConnell on CNN complain about spending $600 million for government-owned cars and say that’s not appropriate for this bill. What? That’s roughly 30,000 cars that would have to be built by someone. Sounds like job stimulus to me. And since the government doesn’t build cars, it sounds to me like that money will be going to big business. I really don’t understand their problem with it.

Conservatives consistently argue against bigger government. That’s their code for taking our taxpayer dollars and parcelling it out to their pals in the private sector to provide the services that government otherwise would. Which is fine, to a point. Some services are not suited to lumbering bureaucracies. But paying excessive sums to politically connected companies with little or no oversight is not. Halliburton’s Iraq contracts come to mind.

The Conservative argument isn’t about spending money; it’s about whose fingers it sticks to on the way past. For the last eight years there was a huge transfer of wealth to the richest Americans via tax cuts and decreased regulation. That was just peachy with Conservatives. But the Economic Stimulus Plan with its extending benefits to unemployed Americans who buy the goods that generate the profits for big business, not so much.

I don’t understand the logic, and if there isn’t any logic, it might mean it’s just plain old greed. Maybe those Barons of the Conservative movement and our Lords of Wall Street consider us peasants.

Not so long ago in England, a gentleman was someone who owned property. They were the gentry. Today very few of us actually ownproperty. It’s mortgaged, and that’s the biggest reason for our peasanthood. The way to free ourselves from this predicament is to get ourselves out of debt.

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Categories: Commentary, Economy, Government, Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments