What Can I Say

Economics is a science and politics is an art, and when you put the two together you wind up with a politico-economic interpretation of history.

The Republican Party, the same political party that held the White House the last eight years and control of Congress up until 2006, now that they are out of the White House and no longer have control of the Congress, now suddenly have the economic solutions to all of our economic problems. This is possible, but not likely.

The banter about pork in the Stimulus Bill is just so much nonsense. It is because of policies going back a generation or more, that the money spent by Americans, leaves the country all too soon and does not continue to circulate within our domestic economy. The $700 billion dollars that we send overseas each year to pay for our oil is a nice chunk of change, that, if kept within the United States, would continue to circulate in our domestic economy, and be a source of capital for savings, investment, jobs and further consumption. Unfortunately, this path is short circuited by the fact that we do not have a comprehensive energy policy and thus, we are exporting our capital in exchange for oil. Where have the Republicans been since 1981?

The Republican Party must come up with something as they are the loyal opposition, but unfortunately, even the brighter conservative economists know that the Stimulus Bill needs to be bigger, more spending not less. To argue that a few million dollars here or there is pork is nuts when we are talking about spending nearly one trillion dollars.

If anything speaks to the sorry state of the Republican Party, that at one time had some very smart people, is the fact that the radio guy, Rich Limbaugh, is now the philosophical head of the Republican Party. If ever there was an argument for the dumbing down of America, recent events make this only too clear. I can not believe that a guy, whose followers call themselves “ditto heads” got into my blog about economics.

I need to take a step back and think for a while about this. In the mean time, the Stimulus Bill will pass. I only hope that the Obama administration will address the issue of the rating agencies in the near term.

Stay tuned.