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Streetcar Line
False Choices From a Failed Messiah
A boundless ego laid bare as he slams GOP’s “past policies.”
The Anointed One, the Occupier of the Oval Office, who will accept his party’s renomination for president tonight in Charlotte, has created chapter and verse of the political version of an Old Testament — a mythology explaining how the United States fell into economic difficulties and why his attempts to extricate us from distress so far have been unavailing. The problem is that, like most mythologies but very much unlike the real Old Testament, the Anointed One’s explanations are entirely wrongheaded, and sometimes outright dishonest.
The Anointed One (henceforth A.O.) has repeated ad nauseam the claim that the only thing his opponent Mitt Romney offers is “the same failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place.” The problems with this claim are two-fold. First, the Romney-Ryan team clearly does offer different policies than those of the past. Second, the policies of the past that Obama blames implicitly (he’s never very explicit about the details) are far from the ones that caused our “mess.”
The first point could be elaborated at great length, but let’s zip through it as quickly as possible. Romney and especially Paul Ryan offer a bold break from the previous 14 years: Rather than accelerating the rate of federal spending growth, a problem that has been growing steadily since the fall of 1998, they propose to go in the exact-opposite direction by slowing the spending train. Instead of increasing regulation, which (despite A.O.’s false claims) has been growing on numerous fronts for the whole of this young millennium, the Romney-Ryan team pledges to roll back regulations, especially those costing the economy more than $100 million each. Instead of adding more and more complications to the tax code, which is conduct to which politicians of both parties have shown an addiction since they began unraveling the 1986 Reagan-Kemp-Bradley-Gephardt nearly-flat tax almost as soon as its ink was dry, the RR team has repeatedly dedicated itself to simplifying the code.
Also: Unlike in the past, RR would expand individual choice in health care. Unlike in the past, RR would push determinedly for all-systems-forward energy development. (G.W. Bush barely even tried to allow more drilling in the Gulf and offshore of the Mid-Atlantic states.) Indeed, the only “past” policies RR would emulate (updating them, not copying them) are the ones that held sway and worked well from 1994 through 1998 and from 1981 through about 1989. As we shall see, those are policies, and certainly results, for which Americans should devoutly yearn.
Here’s where the second part of A.O.’s meretricious mythology comes in. Of the only two (vague) “policies” I can find him specifically blaming for today’s crisis, one was actually non-existent and the other was demonstrably beneficial. The first is a rather generic claim that a specifically Republican failure to “regulate” somehow caused the financial crisis. This, of course, is nonsense. It is instructive that A.O. never identifies which regulations were left undone. The truth is that the regulatory state overall grew during the Bush presidency. The other truth is that one major area that went unregulated, namely the market in credit default swaps and related entities, was left wild and woolly due to a decision made jointly by bipartisan (Reagan-Bush-Clinton) Fed Chair appointee Alan Greenspan and by Democratic power brokers Arthur Levitt, Larry Summers, and Robert Rubin. Such regulations are indeed among the only ones conservatives of a certain strain (I am one of them) wholeheartedly support. Because derivatives in effect become traded/used as the equivalent of money itself, and because we believe money as a basic unit of exchange should be regulated just as a football’s size and shape must remain the same throughout a game in order that the entire rest of the game be fair and sensible, we always support “sound money” and some controls over instruments (such as derivatives) that themselves become units of exchange.
Yet another truth, almost certainly even more important than the first two, is that rather than a lack of regulations being largely responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, it actually was government interference and regulations that demonstrably caused much of the crisis. Conservatives elsewhere have documented the outsized role of the Community Reinvestment Act, and especially the Clinton-era regulatory changes therein, in adding horribly to the housing bubble by forcing lending institutions to allow people to buy houses even though they by all commonsense standards couldn’t afford them. Perhaps even worse, the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were given carte blanche to deliberately distort the market while its Democrat-crony board members made millions of dollars off the backs of the middle class. As is well known, when the Bush administration tried to rein in these out-of-control entities, Democrats led by Barney Frank fought them off, thus adding dangerous amounts of new helium to the aforesaid bubble.
When further regulation (this time bipartisan), this time of the energy market via a misguided energy bill, helped send gasoline prices soaring, the seeds of public panic were sown. When Tim Geithner and company bailed out Bear Stearns in March of 2008 rather than merely ensuring an orderly move into bankruptcy, they raised the level of moral hazard, cemented the idea that some institutions were “too big to fail” and thus encouraged the even larger investment banks to continue reckless practices, and also raised the idea that the failure of such an institution would be a catastrophic event. (If the comparatively smallish Bear could not be allowed to fail for fear of economic systemic disaster, then of course a failure the size of Lehman’s would be seen as a cause for completely over-the top panic.) With near-panic among the general populace due to suddenly skyrocketing gasoline prices combined with panic in the financial markets due to the Lehman collapse (and fed by breathless statements by Geithner and company), what might have been a manageable slowdown was turned into a cause for world-is-ending hysteria in September of 2008.
If A.O. wants to avoid the “failed policies of the past,” then it is these liberal policies and ones like it, not the conservative ones, he would renounce.
On the other hand, the second vague “policy” A.O. has blamed for the current problems is what he calls “trickle-down fairy dust.” This is odd, because what the Left for more than 30 years has falsely called trickle-down economics has clearly and overwhelmingly worked, again and again. It worked under John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s. It worked when Ronald Reagan did it starting in 1981, creating not just the “seven fat years” of then-unprecedented economic growth (and millions upon millions of new jobs) that the Wall Street Journal once boasted of but also stretched over into a whole other decade of growth broken only by the small Bush and Clinton tax hikes of 1990-94.
When a Republican Congress not only cut the budget in 1995-98 but also again applied “trickle-down” remedies in the form of a substantial capital-gains tax cut, the economy boomed again for another five years. And when the Bush tax cuts trickled (or, rather, gushed) throughout the American polity in the last decade, the economy boomed again in a massive recovery from the 9/11-induced slowdown. Yes, boomed. People forget that the economy was humming, with very low unemployment through early 2007 — until Bush-era spending and regulation, the Clintonite-inspired housing bubble, and the Federal Reserve’s crazy policies combined to finally undo the combination of fiscal responsibility and modest/simple tax system that worked so well but that A.O. derides.
So the Anointed One pushes a mythology of conservative perfidy when in fact conservative policies worked like a charm, while at the same time he ignores a long and obvious litany of prior leftist culpability and refuses to take responsibility for the utter failure of his own policies to do any good. (Actually, his policies didn’t just fail; they flat-out got in the way, retarding recovery while adding trillions of debt. But that’s a history, a true one rather than a mythology, for another day.)
All of this mythmaking, with Barack Obama ludicrously presented as the anointed civic savior of us all, is deeply harmful to American society. He would merit comparison to the Pied Piper of Hamlin, except that the comparison is trite and that the Piper’s destructiveness at least was confined to one small town. Instead, we must reach for another analogy.
Perhaps Ozymandias (Obamandias?) will do. A.O. certainly can match his “sneer of cold command.” And his administration, by any cogent analysis, has been a colossal wreck. Such is the usual result from self-anointed saviors.
About the Author
Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom. Follow him on Twitter @QuinHillyer.
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Jack in Wi| 9.6.12 @ 6:29AM
Sure Obama has been horrible and deserves to be replaced. But every President since Reagan has gotten progressively worse then his predecesor. Will Romney break the mold and be better? I doubt it, but hope springs eternal.
Stan Redmond| 9.6.12 @ 9:10PM
First things first. Dump Obama and hopefully Romney can start firing his minions from public office.
Appleby| 9.6.12 @ 6:49AM
When I first laid eyes on the sand sculpture of Obama given prominent position (at least until the laughter got too loud) at the DNC, the first thing I thought of was Ozymandius. Unfortunately, the serious lack of classic education allowed this trenchant verse to blow right by the Tweetheads.
TLP| 9.6.12 @ 9:44AM
Really?
I thought it looked like Ozzy Osbourne.
Seriously.
Oldefarte| 9.6.12 @ 11:14AM
Perhaps what the people of Iraq did to that stature of Sadaam Hussein should be duplicated concerning this sculpture??????
Von Mises Jr| 9.6.12 @ 7:33AM
Mr. Hillyer is correct. Freddie Mac was created by a Democrat Congress in 1970 to package the Fannie Mae (FDR) "affordable housing" loans. Carter in 1977 passed the CRA that mandated Sub-prime mortgages. Clinton in 1995 had Janet Reno enforce "Redlining" standards on the banks overwhelming the system. So it is ironic that Carter and Clinton were up to their eyeballs in the Sub-prime financial crisis and speakers at the Convention.
Clinton also repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999. He is also directly responsible for situations such as Corzine's MF Global scam. But that is child's play compared to the LIBOR interest rate scandal that is the elephant in the room that everyone refuses to talk about.
Geithner is on record in front of Congress admitting he knew all about it. Sixteen major international banks including Citi and BOA (led by Rubin, Weill, Dimon and others) fixed the overnight rate and then converted variable bonds and mortgages to fixed lending plans knowing that Fed rates were going to near zero.
The government and bankers stole the difference. It is tens, if not hundreds of trillions that Towns, Hospitals and mortgage borrowers owe banks that is bankrupting all the above. Wait until that crap hits the fan. And it was brought to you by the Democrat Party for the most part.
TLP| 9.6.12 @ 9:48AM
Did he just say "Analogy"?
I'm running an Analogy Contest at Ben Stein's place.
This might be right up your alley, Von.
And, I hear that there's gonna be Prizes.
Interested?
Von Mises Jr| 9.6.12 @ 10:41AM
I'm going with the NYC Police Department, TLP.
When I visited NYC to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art several months back, I checked out OWS at Zucotti Park. There were about two hundred drug addicts at best.
Allegedly the cops were telling the homeless that the OWS had food and were giving it away. Of course the 99% OWS cop car crappers were not about to share their food they got from the NYC Teacher's Union with the hobos.
You can't make this stuff up.
Oldefarte| 9.6.12 @ 11:33AM
Weill and Dimon caused $trillions of investment benefits to hundreds of thousands [myself being one of them], so please don't go crapping on "bankers". Whatever misdeeds they may or may not have done is completely minor to the governmental welfare hurricanes of taxpayer-fraud that the Franks, Dodds, Kennedys, Kerrys, Clintons, Obamas etc [aka """"""Democrats"""""] have instituted throughout the history of this country. As Quin rightly states above, this excrement mostly began with the CRA of 1977, and the financial snowball has been slowely cascading down our hillside ever since. Whatever the banks/financials did or did not do was in response to same [AFFORDABLE HOMES, CREATIVE FINANCING, VARIABLE MORTGAGES, WOLFMAN'S RAPE OF THE FED,ETC], so let give credit where credit is due. It's the GD DEMOCRATS, STUPIDS!!!
Von Mises Jr| 9.6.12 @ 1:57PM
Do some researches on the LIBOR rate swap scandal my friend? Wait until your town goes broke or your local hospital closes its doors. Your gains will be also wiped out along with your investment.
Oldefarte| 9.6.12 @ 2:44PM
All TOWNS are going broke, or haven't you received the memo yet? Every "town" is in the financial toilet, and it is not due to your noted LIBOR problem. Try researching LABOR UNIONIZED STATE/LOCAL GOVERNMENT SALARIES/PENSION BENEFITS/HEALTH INSURANCE PACKAGES paid by taxpayers. Every state/local/Federal government could/should have its expenses reduced by 50% and would still have waste, fraud and abuse inside their budgets [check out Jerry Brown's recent budget reduction proposals as an example]. I can only hope that they all go "broke" and/or "closes its doors"......then maybe the taxpayers won't be burdened with paying the welfare to indigents, the lazy, and the uneducated to sit on the rear ends and collect governmental welfare paid for BY THE TAXPAYERS. No, the problem with municipalities is not related to the LIBOR interest rates, but instead with their GSA styled overblown/wasteful expenses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jaytrain| 9.6.12 @ 8:28AM
never Ever omit from the "failed policies of the past " the disasterous effects of the Community Reinvestment Act . The rampant inflation in the housing market was caused by the Obama's of the world sueing to force the banks to give mortgages to anyone with a pulse who could sign their name , AND we now have the results of Obama's , he , himsel'fs , little piece of the disaster . Of the 187 plaintiffs represented by Obama in a 1996 suit against Citibank all but 18 are in default or in foreclosure or plain bankrupt . All of those unqualified ( other than qualified by their minority status ) borrowers blowing a hole thru the housing market and Obama's fingerprints all over the mess . Draw the line straight thru from Obama the Litigator to the collapse of housing values endured by every home owner . Draw the line straight from Obama to the mess he inherited .Pin the tail on the donkey . 169 deadbeats brought to you by Barack Obama , Community Organizer .
champa911| 9.6.12 @ 8:40AM
very, VERY well done!! Thank you for arming us troops with effective ammo.....
Nancy in NC| 9.6.12 @ 8:43AM
I wonder how many of the Dims actually bowed before the sculpture. Ironic it's made of sand...pretty much like the AO.
We can add another of the 10 Commandments broken...false idols to add to lying and coveting. And don't forget murder.
TLP| 9.6.12 @ 3:22PM
I'm wondering how many of them kneeled before it, looking for its Penis?
Oldefarte| 9.6.12 @ 9:16PM
Wait now, don't talk about Barney like that!!!!
EricTheRedVM | 9.6.12 @ 9:05AM
Thank you for addressing these points, Mr. Hillyer. Every time Obama says "the failed policies that got us in this mess in the first place" I've wanted to pull my hair out!
Ken (Old Texican)| 9.6.12 @ 10:07AM
Quin,
thanks for the reminder.
One question; if by hook and crook and fraud, and lies, Obama manages to win this election, your job becomes a very frightening one.
I have a pretty good "hide-out" for you to write.
Qestion, did your daddy ever teach you to shoot?
In self defense mode I was taught to only go "bang bang bang" with my six shooter to "keep-em duckung" until I could get to my long guns.
Of course.....I was born and and raised in Texas.
If Obama wins shut up and move here.
With a second term he will have his personal Gestapo. Move with aclarity. I will put the Texas Rangers up against his thugs ten to one odds, and I will be a deputy, along with some 5 million other Texan men and women.
RCV
doesn't have a clue. He thinks if the American Gestapo forms, he can duck with slick words.
Answer? "POWPOWPOW, thanks RCV for giving us cover. You are no longer needed."
Quin, Texans will simply not accept Obama's blueprint.
We certainly will not form up in hopeless grey lines. We will simply see to it that Obama's mandates are ignored here.
RCV| 9.6.12 @ 11:30AM
Quinn will continue to write unhampered and unmolested on TAS when Obama is reelected in nine weeks or so. And it will be because the electoral votes will line up his way, not because of hook or crook or fraud.
The American writ will continue to run in Texas, Ken. We still have functioning federal courts there to insure it does.
And despite your ever-increasing paranoia, no American "Gestapo" will be forming. Really, Ken. Get a grip on reality and enjoy life in the greatest country on earth.
TLP| 9.6.12 @ 3:30PM
We already have a Gestapo.
We've got one at the NLRB. Just ask Boeing.
We've got one at the EPA. Ask all of the Coal Miners, and their Families, who are now on Food Stamps.
We've got one at the Interior Department and the Energy Department, who Forged Documents to give to a Federal Judge in the BP Oil Disaster Findings.
And, we've got one at Justice, where Black Panthers CAUGHT ON TAPE violating the Law, are given a Pass, and who Runs Guns to Mexican Drug Cartels, so their Furher can use the Inevitable Muredered Mexicans, as a Prop, to further his ambition to Eliminate the 2nd Amendment.
WTF is wrong with you?
mike 3/505| 9.6.12 @ 5:38PM
All of those agencies listed also have their own ARMED enforcement agencies.
TLP| 9.6.12 @ 7:50PM
Exactly.
And, you didn't hear it from me, but, I have a funny feeling that you might be getting all of Purps Comments.
Like I said...........You didn't hear it from me.
Oldefarte| 9.6.12 @ 9:21PM
Speaking of a "Gestapo", have you by chance cought up on what is goin on at Homeland Security. If memory serves, didn't Janet's FEMALE chief of staff resign the other day for PUSHING A MALE UNDERLING'S DESK INTO THE MEN'S BATHROOM AND FOR ISSUING DETAILED SEXUAL INUENDOS TO OTHER MALE SURBORDINATES? STF sounds GESTAPOISH to me???????
Occam's Tool| 9.6.12 @ 10:27PM
That story on ICE was broken by Debbie Schlussel, who no one is sourcing it to. Fair is fair, even if she is a crazed Wolverine. (Michigan grad)
Occam's Tool| 9.6.12 @ 10:25PM
RCV:
I used to have a video boxing game that featured great champions. One of the ones it featured was my favorite, Rocky Marciano. The character's favorite comment was always, "you're going down."
Only one man ever went 15 rounds against Marciano (Ezzard Charles), and he was knocked out the second time he fought him. That was the only championship bout that Marciano did not win by knockout.
Marciano was from Massachusetts. I predict another Massachusetts Mauler will be in the Oval Office next year. Enjoy your semi-literate Liberal demigod while you have him, RCV, 'cause, "he's going down!"
RCV| 9.7.12 @ 6:34PM
Marciano was always one of my favorites as well, Occam.
Happy anniversary and all the best to you and your family!
RCV| 9.7.12 @ 6:36PM
P.s. - my wife Sharon and I will celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary next month.
Mimi | 9.6.12 @ 10:42AM
Boy...we got dealt the best THICK SUGAR-COAT
ON MANURE we could ever imagine last night....These pages will get a lot of words in reaction to Bill Clintons speech....as always long but entertaining.! The fact checkers from both sides will be busy! There will be stories on why he did " THE O" such a undeserved favor and if the sugar will be so good to hide the taste of the manure.
One more night of this and we can get ROMNEY to pry the LID off all that unable to be spent cash and go after the Dem's so forcefully it will put them out of sight for a good long time. They need to admit some stark wrongs here...veer back from the SHARP LEFT TURN and make up their minds if they even believe in the ALMIGHTY GOD !
The left is doing a " PALIN" on Ryan...and this time we had better wake-up and STOP IT cold! We have a lot of young warriors in the WINGS...good men of steel they all need our support. WEST is another help him out! They put the money on our top guys....MATCH IT!
Sixty one days we have....back the ones we chose to run UP TO THE HILT!
LindaF | 9.6.12 @ 12:32PM
The Pied Piper comparison is not quite right - after all, the Piper DID deliver on his promise to rid the town of rats.
He only piped away the children when the town refused to pay him.
Obama, on the other hand, does NOT deliver on his promises, and exhibits the lack of concern about the well-being of children, unless they suit his plans - AND have achieved some level of post-birth consciousness that fits his definition of "live".
aware| 9.6.12 @ 8:22PM
Speaking of false choices, how about Obama vs Romney. An even bigger false choice than McCain vs Obama.
Oldefarte| 9.6.12 @ 9:25PM
It'll only be a "false choice" for the STUPIDS out there who once again acted "STUPIDLY" on 11/4/08 in granting the rest of us the last four years of total incompetence by completely inept POTUS. Other than that, it's no 'BIG F*&KING; DEAL" as some moron would declare!!!!!!
aware| 9.7.12 @ 5:56AM
I almost wish your puppet of the New World Order would win so I could rub your face in every expansion of Leviathan, every debt ceiling increase and every dagger thrust in the backs of "conservatives" he rams through.
You don't even begin to see how far the goal posts are moved to the left with Romney as your nominee, do you.
Oldefarte| 9.7.12 @ 1:04PM
Take your "New World Order" liberal artsy-fartsy crapola and SHOVE IT WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE, Underwares! Listen moron to what R/R are saying [aka ya boy about H&C, Wealth Redistribution etc; which has been knocking us up our taxpayer heads for the last four years]. Listen to the wordings GOVERNMENTAL EXPENSE REDUCTIONS, LOWER THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT, etc idiot. It bees a comin! Tell your labor union lackies in the Federal department to go to their Plan B for employment and excessive health care plans, since they are about to get furloughed, terminated, early-retired!!!!!!!!!!
Mickle | 9.6.12 @ 11:57PM
Instead of increasing regulation, which (despite A.O.'s false claims) has been growing on numerous fronts for the whole of this young millennium, the Romney-Ryan team pledges to roll back regulations, especially those costing the economy more than $100 million each.
aware| 9.7.12 @ 5:59AM
Since Obama had complete control of all branches of "government" and yet still barely got Obamacare passed, I'd like one of you smart guys to tell me how with far less dominance you expect to "repeal" same.
Oldefarte| 9.7.12 @ 1:08PM
PRESS THE ELIMINATION BUTTON, sort of like ya boy does with his version of immigration laws that are not Federally inforced for political purposes. Two can play that game, Underwares; and his draconian BS will be reversed as the first order of business in January[hey maybe R/R will dole it out to an WELFARECARE CZAR and then force Van Jones to accompolish it]!!!!!!!!!
Skippy| 9.7.12 @ 3:25PM
Simple.
Issue Exec. Order waivers to every State.
Wasn't that easy?
Jobe| 9.8.12 @ 3:00AM
It isn't just the municipalities that are going broke. I just read a column by David Broadus in the Warren Tribune Chronicle (Lordstown is a suburb of Warren, hence a strong GM presence) which cogently and simply explained why GM will be on the verge of bankruptcy within the next 5 years. The thrust of his column was that any person who understands business and economics would have eschewed a "bailout" and would have given GM a bridge loan, allowed the company to go into bankruptcy thus forcing it to change the practices that brought it to the verge of failure. One of the most obvious things that need to be corrected is the unsustainable pension and buyout system. Within 5 years, GM will be right back where it was when obama purchased the unions votes at the expense of the salaried personnel and the bond holders.
Brian Richard Allen | 9.8.12 @ 11:53AM
Wow.
Well said.
delahaya| 9.8.12 @ 1:30PM
I think the red herring that conservatives fall for is convincing liberals of these economic truths. The problem is, many liberals recognize these truths. Its just that growth and prosperity simply aren't their goals - forced equality is. If taxing "the rich" raises unemployment and even lowers tax revenue that is not the point and liberals don't care. The action is the goal - to soak "the rich". They have to lie and cover up for their useful idiots and the "swing voters", but again - growth and prosperity are NOT the goals of modern liberals. We ignore this fact at our peril.