Iraq Around The Clock: What About Jobs?
By Mike Hersh, Oct 8, 2002
Last night Bush said he wouldn't risk a single American life by trusting Saddam Hussein. We don't have to. We have Saddam under our thumb now, and need not fear him unless we behave stupidly.
Saddam did not use his worst weapons during the Gulf War, because he was not endangered. Bush's rash, reckless policies will threaten Saddam with utter destruction, undermine deterrence, and encourage him to do his worst. Bush's policy as stated is madness. It makes sense only as a distraction to make us vote our fears rather than our hopes.
Even Bush understands Iraq is no threat. Otherwise why would he spend day after day raising money for Republicans and attacking Democrats' patriotism? Bush desperately talks about attacking Iraq to keep us from talking about other things. Such as:
Bush's corporate scandals with Enron and Harken.
Dick Cheney's double dealing with Enron when he should have been leading the anti-terror task force which never met even once.
Dick Cheney's double dealing with his former corporation Halliburton which helped rebuild the Iraqi war machine.
Bush administration intelligence failures which left us open to attack on 9/11.
The double dip W. Bush recession.
All this "Iraq Around the Clock" is double talk and misdirection, deception and misinformation. All we need to know is Karl Rove wrote up a blueprint months ago to trick the American people into voting for Republicans. Bush is following this blueprint at potential cost of 10,000s of American lives and $billions of tax dollars. Just so Republicans can win elections!
We do not have to invade Iraq to protect America. We can't afford such an extreme action. Not morally in terms of lost innocent American and Iraqi life. Not geopolitically as it will open a Pandora's Box of aggression and chaos. As Secretaries of State and National Security Advisors from the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II administrations warn, invading Iraq will not improve our national security.
We cannot even afford this Bush vendetta economically. Bush's economic advisors estimate it will cost up to $200 billion to invade Iraq, and that's not even counting the costs of continued occupation. How long will we have to stay there? It's hard to know for sure, but we sent our forces into Korea during the 1950s. We still have troops stationed there.
Invading Iraq will not make us any safer. It will cost us $billions per week we don't have. So why all the talk of war? Because Karl Rove knows if Americans vote based on the economy, Republicans will lose massively at the polls next month. This because Bush's economic policies have already failed miserably. This because Republican economic policies never work.
Republican economic policy fails
The cold, hard numbers prove it. As Wall Street reporter Carol Vinzant wrote in Slate.com, "Democratic presidents have produced a 12.3 percent annual total return on the S&P 500, but Republicans only an 8 percent return." The Stock Trader’s Almanac confirmed these facts, finding the Dow surged 13.4 percent annually under Democrats, but limped along at 8.1 percent with Republicans at the helm.
Republicans presided over eight of the nine recessions during the past fifty years. As Vinzant explains, "Most of the 20th century's bear markets, incidentally, have been Republican bear markets: the Crash of '29, the early '70s oil shock, the '87 correction, and the current stall occurred under GOP presidents." You can add the S&L Crisis and other examples of poor Republican domestic and foreign policy which caused or exacerbated hard times.
Vinzant allows, "There may be all sorts of explanations for the bias of the economy and the markets toward Democrats." She notes, "Democrats had some awfully good streaks of peace and prosperity in the '30s, late '40s, and '90s. These could be chance, or it could be that Democrats more tightly regulate the markets, which gives investors confidence. Democrats are more likely to spread the wealth around through public spending on education or transportation, which may stimulate the economy more broadly."
There is no question that these Democratic policies promoted peace and prosperity. No one is that lucky! But good Democratic leadership is only half the story. Bad Republican policies add to the disparity according to Vinzant: "The foundation of recent GOP economic policy -- tax cuts -- may offer narrower benefits than Republicans claim. High defense spending, another GOP hallmark, may only boost one sector while hurting the whole economy in the form of bigger federal deficits and higher interest rates." This has been true of Republican "misleadership" for more than 100 years!
Vinzant crunched the numbers and reports, "Democrats, it turns out, are much better for the stock market than Republicans [and] real GDP growth follows the same pattern. Since 1930 (the first year decent data is available), GDP growth was 5.4 percent for Democratic presidents and 1.6 percent for Republicans."
Vinzant calculates what she calls a "Democratic dividend" for the economy and the stock market. She's found proof for the Democrats' theme song since the days of FDR, "Happy Days Are Here Again." As the numbers prove: Democrats run the economy. Republicans ruin the economy. See: Carol Vinzant Political Dividends October 7, 2002, Slate.com.
Republicans hope that you will believe them and not your own eyes when they claim their economic policies are working. "Trust us, we're experts." They don't have much hope of that. So they have another plan. They hope you will let them blame someone else even if you lose your job because of their failed policies. They don't have much hope of that either.
That leaves the only plan they think can really work: war. They think we will pay more attention to Iraq and still vote for them even as the economy falls back into recession.
"Bush's Brain" AKA Karl Rove has a secret plan to win the November elections for the Republicans. It's called war. OK -- the plan isn't so secret, but war and talk of war is crowding out important issues like national security and economic policy. It shouldn't.
You do not have to worry about Saddam Hussein. It's under control. We will take him out if we have to, and if Bush has his way maybe even if we don't have to. I am telling you to let the most powerful military in the history of the world handle this for us. It's a done deal.
Whether or not we end up invading Iraq you will still have bills to pay. You will still need a raise. You will still need a job. Nothing Republicans say or do should take your mind off this one fact: Republican policies will hurt your stock portfolio, make it harder for you to pay your bills, and may cost you your job.
You can't fault the Republicans' slick salesmanship. They have the best public relations packaging. But like the get-rich-quick schemes on late night TV or those "lose 50 pounds by eating chocolate pudding" diets, Republican economic policies sound too good to be true. Because they are.
You can't cut taxes for the richest, hike military spending, slash regulations and enforcement on corporate crime, drive down wages and employment, and then expect a strong economy. It never worked that way before, and it's not working now. The GOP has never figured out how to repeal the laws of economics.
Of course the Republicans present an attractive package to the rich and white collar criminals. Do whatever you want. Pay less in taxes. Have a ball. Joe six pack and Jane middle class will foot the bill. It's a mystery that anyone making less than a quarter of a million dollars a year would ever vote for any Republican for any office from president to dog catcher.
I can only think of one explanation. Too many of us are not paying attention. This lets the Republicans blame their unbroken string of failures on other people and distract us from bread and butter issues. They get away with it by playing this card and accusing us of playing that card.
Republicans use every side-show issue under the sun. They tell tall tales about Democrats I won't dignify by repeating. This year the Republicans are even gearing up to start a war to make voters forget what a mess this Bush economy is, with all the rampant corporate crime and the assault on our rights and freedom starting with the right to vote in 2000. Don't let them get away with it.
Putting the cards on the table and looking at the numbers proves one thing. The Republicans offer nothing of value to any middle or working class family. Their policies don't even help the rich that much.
History proves Republicans always cause high unemployment and high deficits, and usually high interest rates and / or inflation as well. The stock market does better with a Democrat in the White House. Republican Presidents always put more people in the poor house.
Here are the facts. We've had nine recessions since 1950, and all but one came with a Republican presiding over our economic policies. Let's get specific. Bush's tax cuts blew up the surplus and put us back in deficit even before the 9/11 terror attacks. Bush's failed policies did not prevent the recession Bush and Cheney helped cause with their doom and gloom whining all through the 2000 election.
In fact, Republican policies helped kill the Clinton expansion. Remember the eight great years you could count on a raise, good investments, and all the rest that the Republicans want to claim was a "binge" and a "bubble?" Seemed they burst our bubble pretty quickly and now they want to blame it all on Clinton!
Many of the same Republicans who tell us to trust them now predicted Clinton's policies would cause recession if not depression. As President Clinton said at the 2000 Democratic Convention in LA, "Time has not been kind to their predictions." As usual, the Republicans were 100% wrong about everything they said would happen when the Clinton budget passed without a single Republican vote in the House or the Senate.
We know Clintonomics led to record economic expansion. The only depression in sight was emotional depression for the Republicans who were proven wrong again. It's hard to imagine any group of people who have been proven wrong so often about so many things than Republicans on the economy.
When someone on our side suggests giving a hand to help a poor parent feed a little kid, the GOP scolds us that this will only destroy the little tike's incentive to work. When drought threatens to wipe out 1000s of family farmers, Bush says there's no money for that. Those families have to tough it out on their own. Otherwise we will just "reward failure" as if the farmer decided not to let it rain and we can teach his family a lesson.
George W. Bush -- who isn't exactly known for his wide knowledge -- may not know this. American farmers feed most of the planet. Bush is also not known for keeping a grueling schedule, so his saying farm families need more fortitude is like Bambi telling Jaws to toughen up.
The kicker would be that most of these farm states supported Bush in his unsuccessful effort to get legally elected. I guess he doesn't feel any need to repay their support since no one rides a tractor to the US Supreme Court building.
I'd say that was the kicker, but it gets even better. Bush is telling families who voted for him to sit down, shut up and give up their farms because there's no money to help them. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House passed the Bush plan to give a quarter of a billion of your tax dollars to Enron and $billions more to their other huge campaign contributors.
Republicans call that "stimulus" and "tax rebates." This although many of those corporations didn't even pay any taxes during some of the years to get rebates, and some are trying to head offshore to avoid paying any taxes at all. If that makes any sense to you, you must be a Republican.
So maybe some Republican can explain this to me. If we the tax payers give Enron $250,000,000.00 dollars as a reward for ripping off their own customers and employees like Bush wants to, what kind of incentive is that? If we reward the illegal activities and failures of Enron, exactly what lesson does that teach the vast majority of honest businesses? I dare any Republican to compare the record for Clintonomics to "Bushonomics" I or II.
While any Republicans are chewing on those questions, the rest of us can move on and consider these facts. President Clinton's small tax increase on the wealthiest few percent -- and his other pro-growth policies -- erased the $290 Billion deficit Bush's father left behind.
Clinton took over for Bush I and found the biggest deficit ever -- at least until Junior came along -- and turned around and left the biggest surplus ever to the guy's kid. It's pretty obvious how much that helped the US economy
Let's look at what happens when you do what Clinton and the Democrats always do: making the Federal Government set a good fiscal example of playing by the rules and living within its means. This versus what the Bushes and Republicans always do: cutting taxes on the idle rich until the country can't pay its bills much less invest in the future and encouraging cheating with lax enforcement.
Clintonomics policies gave us the strongest, longest expansion in US history. Republicans can call that a bubble, a binge or whatever they want. I call that a time when happy days were here again. The Clinton years saw well over 20 million new private sector jobs. Bush I and Bush II combined haven't come close to one million net new jobs.
I challenge any Bush fan to ask Americans if they're better off now than they were with Clinton's economy. Or if they remember what it was like with Bush's father trying to run things for that matter.
We tried this whole Bush scheme before. Most famously leading up to the Great Depression. We let the rich run amok and saw a real stock market bubble. That burst, and the economy which was focused on catering to the high rollers went into reverse. It took over fifty years for the Republicans to nerve up the guts to try the same scam again, this time under a flashy new name: Supply Side.
A bunch of people with hardly any economics training decided that all the real historians and economists who knew lousy Republican policies caused the Great Depression were wrong. These Supply Siders were led by a faker named Arthur Laffer who lied about his own education and economic credentials. Laffer drew a curve on a napkin, and called it "supply side" economics, the answer to all our problems. It was simpler for them to explain this idea than to explain why it's always failed in the past.
Basically supply side Republicans just want to slash taxes for the wealthy and "free" big businesses to do whatever they want. Overwork and underpay people. Risk the health and lives of their employees and customers and other people with unsafe products, dangerous working conditions, and rampant pollution.
These supply side folks actually wanted to increase the supply of poisons like lead in the environment. Not unlike Bush II's plan to increase poison mercury in your drinking water. Supply siders think the problem is the rich are too poor and the poor are too rich. The weak are too powerful and the powerful are too weak.
Their solution? Let big business run wild. Give all our money to the wealthy. Comfort the comfortable. Afflict the afflicted. That's the same remedy the supply siders always offer. It never works. It only makes things worse.
Teddy Roosevelt's and Franklin Roosevelt's leadership helped put an end to these destructive business abuses, but a few hard core right wingers wanted to turn back the clock to the McKinley era. They sold this odd ball concoction of economic double-talk first to Congressman Jack Kemp and then to perpetual candidate Ronald Reagan.
Reagan picked up Laffer's napkin and ran with it. This was the birth of supply side "Reaganomics."
The Republican Senate and the shell-shocked Democrats in the House (undermined from within by right wing "Boll Weevil" Dixiecrats) passed the Reagan package through Congress Reagan went on TV and told America his policies were in place, and get ready for best economy ever.
That was in 1981. The numbers prove Reaganomics failed miserably by 1982. The promised investment boom turned bust as junk bond rip offs tantalized but ruined investors and businesses cannibalized each other with "corporate raids" and orgies of mergers and acquisitions. We suffered double digit unemployment for two years in the worst recession since the Great Depression.
It shouldn't have shocked anyone that the same lousy policies which caused the Depression in the late 1920s would hurt the economy again in the early 1980s. The shock is that some people still claim Reaganomics work! In fact, the economy only snapped out of its coma after top congressional Republicans and Democrats forced Reagan to end these destructive policies.
Even Jimmy Carter, often used as the example that Democrats can't run an economy proves Republican policies are at fault. Carter began the era of tax cutting for the wealthy and deregulation and conservative economics failed almost as badly for Carter as they did for Reagan and Bush I and II. Almost. We can add Ford, Nixon, and Eisenhower to complete the list of Presidents who led us into recession with wrong headed right wing economics, only to rely on Democratic economics to lead us back out.
What does this matter to you as a voter? Even if your own job survives the Republican policies designed to cut wages for most Americans by driving up unemployment, Republican economic and fiscal mismanagement still costs you dearly. I know some people still claim Reaganomics worked. Some even credit that colossal failure for the Clinton boom. The numbers belie these claims.
We are still paying off the interest -- not even the principle -- on the borrow-and-spend Reaganomics debt. Reagan -- not Tip O'Neill or Ted Kennedy anyone else -- proposed, lobbied for and signed into law eight straight out of balance budgets which tripled the national debt. Three dozen Presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter and all the Congresses all put together never managed to roll up even one trillion in national debt. Reagan left us burdened with THREE TRILLION in debt. Think about that.
Federalists, Whigs, Democrats and Republicans -- all of them all together from 1776 to 1980 accumulated a total of $994,298,000,000 -- less than a $trillion -- in total debt while winning several wars and building a nation during peace. All of them in total reached only about one third of the national debt Reagan left behind: $2,867,538,000,000 -- nearly THREE Trillion.
Some claim Reagan's debt was OK because it helped bring down the USSR. Of course Reaganites can justify some of the defense spending during the 80s to contain the real but exaggerated Soviet threat. But no one can claim Reagan scared the USSR into submission by spending $1,200.00 on coffee makers and $980.00 on toilet seats. Those who say Reagan huffed and puffed and blew down the Berlin Wall have to explain how much more other Presidents did while borrowing so much less.
Consider all we Americans accomplished while borrowing about one third as much as Reagan did. We won independence from the mightiest empire on earth at that time, and fought off their efforts to conquer us. We bought vast lands from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean from France and Alaska from Russia. We built the Erie Canal system, the transcontinental railroad, the national highway system, and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
We brought water and power to entire regions with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Hoover Dam. We funded science and education with the land grant college system and the Manhattan Project. We sent men to the moon several times.
We won wars against Spain and Mexico. We won World War One. We defeated Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Then, our Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe. We can throw in all the rest of our foreign aid and the GI Bill which sent countless people to college and the VHA which helped our vets own homes.
Don't forget all the federal college loans and grants. Public housing. Head Start. Food stamps. Education. Social Security. Medicare. The New Deal. The Great Society. All welfare combined. Reagan ran up triple the borrowing for all of that and more America accumulated over 200 years in just eight short years!
Yeah, Reaganomics failed. The crushing debt tells only part of the story. The slow real growth, declining real wages for most Americans, the loss of good paying jobs with benefits and more failure prove Reagan was the worst economic president since Hoover.
It was so bad under Reaganomics the subsequent recovery (after Congress ended Reagan's policies) made a weak expansion fueled by massive debt appear robust. If Reagan hadn't convinced people that the mess he created was Carter's fault, he would never have served a second term.
Reagan's policies failed in the 80s just like they failed when Hoover tried them in the 20s. These policies have always failed and always will fail. They're failing now under Bush II. Why are we letting Bush and the Republicans use these tried and false failures again in the 2000s? Maybe Clintonomics spoiled us.
The long Clinton expansion and the strong stock market lifted the rich and middle class to new heights, and the poor began to enjoy the benefits. A strong economy -- of which a bull stock market is just one part -- supports itself. That rising stock market expressed confidence in the economy, and also provided a ready supply of investment capital for people with good ideas to start and expand their businesses.
Clinton got the Federal Government out of the business of borrowing hundreds of $billions, and that relieved pressures on interest rates. When business can borrow at low interest, expansion is easier and more certain to succeed. When firms expand, they hire more people who, as consumers buy more products and services. This drives up wages, spending and consumer confidence which further encourages economic expansion.
Economics is hardly a mystery when you break things down into their basic parts. A rising stock market means profitable investments and that allows greater returns for banks and insurance companies. That higher return on equity lets them lower insurance and interest rates to businesses and consumers alike.
This success breeds confidence which breeds more success and so on. This is the tried and true Democratic model. All this is pro-growth in ways simple minded tax cuts for the idle rich could never be.
Unfortunately, the same cycle works in reverse. Or more accurately doesn't work. When the economy tanks and the stock market runs with the bears, all that profit fed expansion ends. Huge tax cuts for the rich and cuts in education and services for the rest cannot promote growth. Time and again, Republicans refuse to accept these basic economic principles.
Republicans think cutting services helps the economy. Wrong. That throws people out of work. Republicans claim slashing taxes for the wealthy lets wealth trickle down to other people when business activity increases. That's also false. Huge deficits from reckless Republican tax cutting increase interest rates which increase costs of doing and expanding business.
These Republican policies reward the idle and punish the adventurous. They divert investment from productivity to conspicuous consumption, and choke off growth. Profits fall. Layoffs replace raises. This failure feeds on itself as those out of work or fearing loss of jobs cut back on spending. People stop buying cars, so car makers stop making cars, and have to stop paying people to make more cars. Same with home building, chocolate making, your job and mine.
Costs to the government actually increase as the unemployment lines get longer and more people go from paying taxes to collecting benefits. Republicans can't run the economy except into the ground. It's really that simple, and every story in every business section of every newspaper proves every word of it. Somehow the Republicans still don't get it.
Deficits represent demand for money which the federal government must borrow to operate. When the government pays down debt -- as during the Clinton / Gore years -- the demand for debt declines and the economy expands.
When the debt increases, that means the US Treasury must by law conduct auctions to finance our government. Those auctions are promises we the tax payers will pay any investor with a few thousand dollars whatever interest rate the market demands.
Each person investing in these "Treasuries" is not investing in a new or existing corporation. That capital is not funding private sector expansion. Therefore, when Bush's unfair reckless red ink tax cuts and largest ever budget put Uncle Sam back in line for borrowing, he drove investors and businesses -- the whole private sector -- to the back of the line for credit.
Bush's reckless fiscal irresponsibility increased pressures on interest rates and made expansion more risky. Then Bush decided to just give companies like Enron $billions of our tax dollars without investing in the economy, or producing any products, or hiring any employees. Bush winked at their contributors who stepped up their efforts to rip off people and cut corners. Look what that did to the economy in the 1920s, 1980s and now.
If economics is as simple as I've said, why is there so much controversy? Mainly it's a matter of perception which sometimes overrules reason and compels some to contradict or ignore the cold hard numbers. Different people have different philosophies which dictate how they view the same evidence.
Moderate / liberal Democrats and Greens versus radical Naderites versus reactionary right Republicans and libertarians each have very different views concerning the role of corporations and government. In a nutshell, Naderties seem to think government can do it all, and business can't do anything right.
Republicans think government can do no right, and big business can do no wrong. Democrats are in the middle, calling the facts as they see them and letting the chips fall where they may.
Most of the Greens I know are well informed and thoughtful. Most voted against Bush in 2000, and are like the Vietnam Era McGovern Democrats. Ralph Nader is not a Green and isn't much like the real Greens. Nader is the teacher who gives everyone a D or an F no matter how well they do, because...well, I don't really know why. Nothing ever seems to be good enough for him. If castor oil took on human form and wore a grey suit it would be Ralph Nader.
I guess all the new jobs, new national monuments protecting the environment, and the higher standard of living for working people under Bill Clinton and Al Gore upset Nader. Those Democrats proved the American system Nader claims is broken can actually work. Nader won't have any of it, and he's leading as many people as he can into political oblivion.
The Naderites are so well-meaning but so misguided. I mean that with respect for their commitment, but sadness about their willingness to unleash the worst on America. I can't imagine more than a few Americans ever adopting Nader's stern, Draconian views.
The tiny cadre of Naderites hated the Clinton / Gore years so much they helped Bush. Now they're more miserable than ever. If Naderites have any use for the free market and the private sector, I haven't seen it. If they do it's not very free or private.
Republicans seem to have the total opposite view. On regulation, they're like the babysitter that lets the kids stay up all night and eat chocolate cake three meals a day. That's the Republican way, and they make it too tempting for too many in the business world.
Slipshod, lazy and greedy people always try to see how much they can get away with. We see that with Bush they figured they could get away with anything.
The Republicans and even the Greens complain that these shady business deals went on all during the Clinton years too. Well of course they did. The day after some people invented money, someone invented a way to cheat it out of them. There will always be crooked operators tricking people -- exploiting customers and employees. That's not the real question. The real question is: What are you going to do about it?
No one can eliminate greed and corruption. Now Bush is talking tough, and a few corporate crooks are in trouble. But Bush and Cheney are up to their ears in shady deals themselves, and neither one will come clean with the American people about it.
Bush's pal Kenny Boy Lay is still living it up, so most people aren't convinced. When you consider the importance of setting a good example, not too much has changed. Even throwing the crooks in prison won't bring back all the 401-k's and jobs devastated by these bad business practices.
Republicans reward corporate crime and help it along by slashing and blocking regulation and enforcement. They do it until the public gets angry and then the GOP tries to make a big show of doing something about it, but underneath it all they really think businesses should be left alone to do anything they want. That's the entire basis of the Republican supply side laissez-faire ideology.
We always will have bad business practices, but it always gets worse with the Republicans minding the store. Bad Republican policies hurt the economy and reached the breaking point leading into the Great Depression.
Democrats took necessary steps to repair the damage and we called it the New Deal. Then we saw the bad old days return when Reagan attacked the New Deal. The economy took a nose dive, and we lost $trillions in the S&L scandals of the Reagan / Bush 80s. Now we're seeing the same mistakes repeated during the Bush II years.
Democrats try to hold business accountable without driving them out of business. Great Presidents like Bill Clinton and FDR managed to contain the worst of the abuses. If the right wing Republicans on the Supreme Court hadn't fought FDR on the New Deal and if the right wing Republicans in the Congress hadn't done the same to Clinton, we'd all be much wealthier and happier. That's what the Republicans do. They fight for the strong against the weak, and end up hurting the economy, which ironically hurts everyone including the wealthiest.
With Republican mismanagement, the government competes against the private sector to finance debt. Weaker companies can't borrow to get out of trouble and end up bankrupt, throwing millions of people out of work. Bad companies think they can get away with practices that end up discrediting them and everyone else. Even honest, well-run corporations get hurt. In the end, this Republican laissez-faire theory ends up as letting corporate criminals get away with murder, and letting them have your money for free. Where's the sense in that?
Benefits from Democratic economics benefit businesses, but also consumers and the environment. Profitable corporations in a sound economy can meet their regulatory and other responsibilities. They hire more people and pay better wages. Colleges can invest their endowment in a steadily growing stock market, and can afford to offer more financial aid to poor students -- expanding the American Dream.
When Democrats run the economy, businesses and investors enjoy strong return on their capital, and interest rates fall. This helps people borrow to buy a home, a new car or major appliance. Personal income goes up as people get raises and their stocks and mutual funds blossom. All this fosters expansion and the economy grows.
When Republicans make the government run in the red by giving tax money to big business and the idle rich -- and when the powerful pay less than their fair share in taxes -- investors get a bigger and safer return by lending money to a profligate government. Interest rates rise, investment falls, and the economy fails. Democratic economics work. Republican policies always fail.
Like James Carville said, "It's the economy stupid." As Harry S. Truman said, "If you want to live like a Republican, you better vote Democrat."
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