We must love boisterous blowhards. As Americans, we are fixated on people who make loud, definitive declarations so we can stand behind them waving our oversized number-one foam-fingers chanting: Go team! Win! If you take away all the nebbishy number-crunching and bureaucracy which is most of government politics is all posturing and platitude landing.
Theres an entire industry (cable news) solely devoted to bold assertions as entertainment. This means were subjected to a colossal amount of failed predictions and prognostications. Yes, if both sides say theyre absolutely correct at least one has to be wrong.
But as Americans we like the courage it takes to stand up and be inaccurate. We hate handwringing and pandering - its just not fun to watch. We still like that swagger of a sure-of-himself cowboy. We love to love them, and we love to hate them which is why Republicans tout Congressman Paul Ryans budget plan as brave despite being unable to bring themselves to call it pragmatic.
Ryan, a widely admitted Ayn Rand fanboy who seems unaware that she wrote libertarian-fantasy fiction while collecting social security and Medicare, is the new GOP it guy. After the State of the Union, Ryan gave the rebuttal (dubbed a Debbie Downer), and his name is what the GOP wants you to think of since theyve been re-branded as the fiscally fretful Tea Party.
And, in homage to Republican titles meaning the opposite of what theyll actually do (e.g., The Clean Skies Act), Ryans plan is titled, The Path to Prosperity.
In early April, Ryan wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: A study just released by the Heritage Center for Data Analysis projects that The Path to Prosperity will help create nearly one million new private-sector jobs next year, bring the unemployment rate down to 4 percent by 2015, and result in 2.5 million additional private-sector jobs in the last year of the decade. It spurs economic growth, with $1.5 trillion in additional real GDP over the decade. According to Heritages analysis, it would result in $1.1 trillion in higher wages and an average of $1,000 in additional family income each year.
Ooh, a study! How authoritative! The Heritage Foundation also loved the Bush tax cuts. LOVED them. In April 2001, they released a study stating: The Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis (CDA) conducted a dynamic simulation of the proposals in the Presidents tax relief plan. The final results show that the Bush plan would significantly increase economic growth and family income while substantially reducing federal debt.
The federal debt grew nearly $5 trillion under the Bush Administration.
And increased economic growth? New York Times economic journalist David Leonhardt wrote of the Bush Years, In the four decades that the Census Bureau has been tracking household income, there has never before been a full decade in which median income failed to rise.
In the 14-page 2001 report complete with color graphs and footnotes, Heritage Foundation authors D. Wilson and William Beach decided the Bush tax cuts would:
1) Effectively pay off the federal debt;
2) Reduce the federal surplus by $1.4 trillion;
3) Substantially increase family income;
4) Save the entire Social Security surplus and increase personal savings;
5) Create more job opportunities.
They continued, As Chart 1 shows, over 1.6 million more Americans would be working at the end of FY 2011...
You dont need to be an economist or have ever uttered the phrase think tank to know each point, to put it gently, did not come to fruition.
To their credit the Heritage Foundation still has the report on their website, which is what I call actually brave. Especially since their analysis was erroneous completely and unequivocally wrong. The limp excuse that the Heritage Foundation couldnt have accounted for 9/11 still doesnt explain why they continue touting the same failed policies over and over again. This time Ryans. Trickle-down, supply-side, make-the-rich-richer policies have not done what they were supposed to do. In fact and in reality, theyve done just the opposite.
How will this time be different? It wont.
But being louder and doubling down can effectively obscure the track record.
And has.
© Copyright 2011 TinaDupuy.com; distributed by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. Tina Dupuy is an award-winning writer and fill-in host at The Young Turks.
