Tuesday, June 19, 2012

When the guys you hired to fix the problem find new problems

One of the classic stereotypes of our age is the auto mechanic, or the plumber, or other skilled tradesman, that you hire to do a small job for you, then all of a sudden the mechanic "finds" something that will be a big, expensive job that the mechanic stands ready to fix.

In your mind the question comes up - did the mechanic screw it up intentionally or negligently and now seeks to make lemons into lemonade?

When I hear Republicans talking economics today I hear that mechanic, only in my mind there is no doubt the problem was caused by the mechanic that now wants to be hired to fix it.

The deficit?  Its easy to document that the biggest explosions in the deficit since WW II have always been directly traceable to Republican tax cuts and military spending, with one exception.  That exception is the deficit caused by the emergency bailouts that kept the world financial system afloat after Republican policies blew it up in 2008.

The jobless rate?  Republicans controlled the government from 1995 to 2007 and managed to blow the economy up more thoroughly than at any time since the Great Depression.  It took 25 years after the great depression before the economy got back to normal, and they are ripping Obama for only making modest progress in 3 years, even though they have been dragging their feet in every way possible to prevent Obama from making any progress.

Republican economic solutions?  More of the same policies that caused the problems.  They are like a guy who drove a car of a cliff who now wants to take the wheel of the tow truck trying to pull the car out  of the canyon.

In an ideal world voters would give the Republican's a reality check in this coming election.  But the one thing Republicans are really good at is wrapping their sows ear ideas up like a silk purse and finding a way to sell them to the voters.