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It'll be the death of modern c...,
2009-02-06 09:38:08
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thank you, oh Senate, for this holy amendment....,
2009-02-09 09:43:36
Welcome to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kentucky:
SENATE MINORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL: The question of whether or not the economy needs help is really not in debate. I don't think there's a single member of the Senate that believes that no action is the appropriate course for us to take. But one of the good things about reading history is you learn a good deal. And, we know for sure that the big spending programs of the New Deal did not work. In 1940, unemployment was still 15%. And, it's widely agreed among economists, that what got us out of the doldrums that we were in during the Depression was the beginning of World War II.
Apparently what we need now, according to the GOP senate leadership, is a Federal Production Board organizing all economic activity by fiat: rationing everything from basic materials and fuel to fresh fruits and vegetables to the banana filling in Twinkies; nationalizing whole industries; establishing wide ranging wage and price controls; setting top marginal income taxes to over 90% and expanding the tax base - during WWII the number of Americans subject to the income tax increased from 4 million to 43 million; and, you know, more or less implementing a full on command economy.
Mitch also seems to be suggesting that the stimulus package is far too small, at only 3% of GDP per year, where World War II the Generational Theft War sent the debt to GDP ratio soaring from 40% to 120% in the space a few years, even while GDP itself doubled. We'd need at least an $11 trillion dollar stimulus bill to do anything similar.
This is his argument against voting for $800 billion over two years?
The Republican position on this, and seemingly their entire economic framework - I've been hearing this stuff about how World War II proved the New Deal was a failure from conservatives for 20 years - is completely incomprehensible.
:: posted by buermann @ 2009-02-07 11:44:17 CST |
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