The Utter Folly of Keynesianism

Over at Crystal Clear Conservative, my far more eloquent colleague once again rips Keynesian theory wide open. While I can't match her in detail, I feel the need to take the Congress and the economic "chattering classes" to task in the wake of Obama's signing of the socialist porkulus today.

How do these people not get that THE GOVERNMENT CAN'T HELP THE ECONOMY, IT CAN ONLY HURT IT?? It's intrinsically obvious to any serious student of history. From the Peloponessian War to World War II, wars have rescued stagnant economies where government tinkering failed. Is that what we're going to need this time once the Keynesians exacerbate the recession into a depression? We need to rid ourselves of the Federal Reserve and go back to a tight, sound currency backed by gold or other precious metals. You can't print money, it devalues the currency to Weimar Republic levels. That's where these people will take us. Just wait. THIS may be the single biggest reason I could never be a Democrat. Socialism... Er, Keynesianism.

Free markets and capitalism WORK. If the government can just manage to keep its grubby little hands off.

Bush: I had to kill economic freedom to save it!

Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. THIS is his excuse for bailout madness.

Really, George? Really? REALLY?

He's the worst president since LBJ. Yes, worse than Nixon or even Carter. This man cannot be gone soon enough. He had a united Republican government, with a chance in 2002 to end things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Department of Energy, Commerce, HUD, HHS, Education, Labor, and any other number of unconstitutional expansions of the federal government. He made an abortive attempt to reform Social Security. Beyond that, he dragged us into an unnecessary war in Iraq, spent money like a Democrat, exploded the deficit, devalued the currency, and is now giving out money like candy to his corporate friends, courtesy of Hank Paulson and his robber baron friends from Goldman Sachs. If he'd given half the effort to fiscal conservatism that he did to that Schiavo nonsense, he might at least have been decent.

As it stands, he has been an unmitigated disaster for conservatism, and for America. Thanks for nothing, Jorge. At least we stopped your immigration amnesty. I bet your corporate friends are still pissed at that.

Bailout Fallout

After over two weeks of silence and frustration over the passage of the Great Bailout, I'll return to blogging and and vent a bit. Then, back to business as usual. I expected the Senate to pass it.

Let's face it, the Senate Republican caucus SUCKS. Badly. It features a bunch of Senators who aren't even recognizably Republican, let alone conservative. Arlen Specter (here's hoping Pat Toomey challenges him again in two years, I'll go up there and work for him), Lindsey Graham, Lamar Alexander, Ted Stevens, Lisa Murkowski, Mel Martinez, Thad Cochran, John Warner,and yes, John McCain, among many others, aren't worthy of membership in that caucus. McConnell is debatable, as is Liddy Dole. Despite the efforts of conservative heroes like Bunning, DeMint and Sessions, crap like this always passes in the self-congratulatory "World's Greatest Deliberative Body." It's why I stopped giving to the RNC years ago, and have NEVER given to the NRSC.

But my real anger is reserved for the House GOP. Harry Reid mentioned "sweeteners" in the bill to get some House votes. That's code for buying votes with pork. And it worked. Let's look at the House leadership. Roy Blunt has long been a disgrace. He was Tom DeLay's point man on arm-twisting good conservatives into voting for that Medicare drug boondoggle in 2004. He's been at the forefront of every sellout of conservatives principles just like this one. And he led the charge on this. If he resigns today, it won't be soon enough.

Boehner is perhaps worse, because he was once a conservative, and KNOWS BETTER. He called the amnesty bill a "piece of s**t", and made sure it got out that he said that, even though he'd promised Jorge Bush he'd help get it passed. But now he's sold out on the bailout, and along with all the other failures of leadership, he needs to go. I refuse to buy any of his BS excuses for pushing this. He sold out.

Last, but sadly not least, is our own Eric Cantor. He introdued an alternative bill with Hensarling, then flipped and supported the Paulson bill. Both times. So much for Cantor being the GOP hero of the House, and potentially the first Jewish Speaker. So sad. I will never support the NRCC again.

Everyone, without exception, who supported this crap at all, needs to go.

The Great Bailout may be stopped after all...

Per Politico, the one group I thought had a shot at stopping this unconstitutional rubbish may just pull it off... The House Republicans. Pelosi won't push the Democrats to vote for a bailout without the House GOP on board to a great degree, and therein lies the opportunity. Here's hoping that Bush and his minions don't arm twist good conservatives and thereby leave us one final kick in the unmentionables before he leaves office. McCain, with his behavior and choices the last couple days, has ended any chance of my supporting the GOP ticket. Sorry, Gov. Palin.

Bunning hammers Bush and his cronies on The Great Bailout

If nothing else, at least small-government conservatives feel free to hammer away at The Compassionate "Conservative" (cue the laugh track) over his coming to the rescue of his friends on Wall Street. Sen. Bunning crushes it out of the park.

$86 Billion??? Are you SERIOUS?

$86 billion dollars. That's what our friends at the New York Federal Reserve Bank are shelling out to save AIG. When the Fed turned down Lehman Bros. when they showed up rattling their tin cup, I foolishly hoped we'd seen the end of bailouts as we knew it. No such luck.

Deplorable. "Too big to fail." You cannot be serious. Keep in mind that AIG spurned a private equity rescue led by Flowers the other day, hoping to get money from the Fed with no strings so current management could stay on. Sure enough...