Joe Conason: The Right’s Twisted Blame Game

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090325_the_con_game_of_blame/

The Right’s Twisted Blame Game

Posted on Mar 26, 2009

By Joe Conason


As Barack Obama’s economic advisers confront choices that vary from bad to worse in their mission to revive the financial sector and the broader economy, it is worth remembering that those choices were in essence inherited by the president, who is still new to his office. Listening to his critics, especially on the right, it would be easy to believe that the president is personally responsible for ballooning deficits, gigantic bailouts, ridiculous bonuses, nationalized institutions and careening markets. It would be easy to believe but it’s entirely false—and merely the latest episode in an old political con game that is all too typical of Washington.

snip//

According to conservative theory, the mere announcement of massive tax cuts for the rich by a Republican president ought to have stimulated euphoria in the markets and rapid growth. And according to that same theory, as explicated by Limbaugh, the prospect of a Democratic president with a progressive agenda was what drove the markets down last autumn.

But there is a double standard at work here. When a Democrat is elected president, he is responsible for economic contraction even if he will not be inaugurated for three months. When a Republican is actually president, he need not be held responsible, even well after he takes office.

If that strikes you as inconsistent, then you are beginning to notice how blatant deception passes for conservative ideology. But the deception is even worse than it appears at first glance.

The same Republicans in Congress and on the radio who lionize the late Reagan now complain bitterly about the tax increases on the wealthy in President Obama’s budget. What they never mention is that their conservative idol, faced with the recession that they blamed on his predecessor, likewise raised taxes during an economic slump.

Terrified by the looming deficits that resulted from the supply-side tax cuts, the Reagan administration rolled back many of the cuts just a year after they had passed—instituting what then amounted to the largest tax increase in American history. Those tax hikes took back about a third of the cuts legislated in 1981. But that historic tax increase is never mentioned when Republican legislators invoke Reagan—and they still love to blame Carter for their hero’s recession.

So even as critics roast President Obama and his treasury secretary, honesty requires that they acknowledge that the problems faced by Obama and Timothy Geithner are not of their making. Obama has held office only since Jan. 20—and if held to the Reagan standard, he deserves at least a year to begin correcting the Bush recession.


Joe Conason writes for The New York Observer.

[zbdent]

1. well, remember the ReRushlican economic timeline ...

Bill Clinton inherited an economy that was just coming out of a recession.

Then he put in place an economic package which would cause a depression which would make the 1930s pale in comparison, and not one Republican voted for it, saying "Don't blame us for the economic consequences!"

Then the ReRushlicans said that the economy was growing because of what they were doing.

Then they said that the economy was going so well that the U.S. needed to elect Bush so that his tax cuts could curtail an overheated economy.

Then they said the U.S. needed to elect Bush so that his tax cuts would stimulate a stumbling economy.

Then they said that the market was tanking every time Gore said "Count all the votes!", and soaring when the Supreme Court smacked down that Socialist Pig Gore.

Then they said that the market tanking after Bush was installed was due to Clinton's actions, and that the economy would be better once Bush was sworn in.

Then they said that the market would be fine once Congress passed his tax cuts package, convincing one Republican senator to stay Republican long enough to cast his vote FOR the tax cuts package.

Then they said that the market was nearly destroyed by 9/11.

Then they said that the anemic market was actually doing a lot better than the press would say, and that the tax cuts were working, and that you'd see it much better after more tax cuts.

Then they said that the economy was fine, don't question it!

Then they said that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were causing the economy to falter, and that Pelosi and Reid were causing the price of oil to skyrocket to $140 a barrel.

Then they said that electing Obama would cause gas prices to be at least $10 a gallon.

Then they said that electing Obama in the next few days would worsen the Wall Street decline.

[babylonsister]

2. Hey, I'm trying to forget them over here, but

they're pretty unforgettable, and unforgivable.

:hi: