Sure they do - Pence, Boehner and others have said time and again: let them fail. The reason you see companies massively screwing up (and the taxpayer over) again and again is because Congress bails them out. Stop bailing them out. The rest will get the message.
2. They have no clue how to increase employment (and just implementing “more tax cuts” and “slashing regulations” isn’t going to do it).
Ever run your own businesses? I have, and still do so. Cut my taxes and stop new regulations, and promise both will stay that way for 5 years, and I'll hire right now. As will a lot of businesses. You don't hire now because you don't know what the tax situation will be, or what new regulation will be dropped on you as well. So you bunker down and just get along, for now.
3. They have no plan on how to deal with China.
Unfortunately, they did at one time: ignore them. Focusing on China means not focusing on the US. If the Chinese want to cut the market on plastic cups and electronics production, so be it. Most of those jobs were lost in the US not from being shipped overseas but from productivity and robotics. We build more than anyone else, but use fewer people to do it because we're much more productive per hour.
Ignore China's "trade problem" and focus on just making it competitive for business to operate in the US. We'll win, I know we can, I know the Chinese business mindset - it's an easy win if we just focus on improving our own business culture, rather than tearing down another country's economy.
4. They have no real intent on repealing Obamacare.
Pence, Boehner, and others who WILL BE in leadership in a few months have been at the forefront of calls to defund Obamacare. You know why they won't repeal it? Because THEY CANNOT. Obama will veto any repeal, and unless the GOP has 2/3rds of the House AND Senate, it's dead. So rather than tilt at windmills (repealing), they're focusing on what they CAN do - defunding. Not putting funds in the budget will get by Obama because he cannot add to a bill.
5. They have no credible plan on how to deal with the entitlement train wreck.
Never mind the 4 years of the GOP and Bush trying to push through reform of Social Security and Medicare... Now they have the economic numbers - and a scared electorate - to make it even easier.
You know, one of the biggest problems the GOP will face in the next 2 years are negative conservatives who refuse to look at reality, what's happened in the past, and what can realistically happen in the next two years. It'll be a ton of carping from the right, which is EXACTLY what is NOT needed...
Get behind and SUPPORT the GOP when they make progress; if they don't go far enough, tell them why we're disappointed in their coming up short, we're excited they went as far as they did, and they really REALLY need to keep coming. Let's try the carrot rather than always the stick...
Make it ten years, and repeal some of those old regulations; then we'll talk. :-)
Good post!
1. Who bailed out Wall Street in the first place?
Bush. TARP was all Bush’s baby. Well, and that idiot Paulson’s too... Bush was ignorant enough to allow clowns like Paulson and Cox to wreck the markets to save the banks.
As for going after the banks now? The GOP leadership still doesn’t get it. They’re already talking behind the scenes about how to let the banks find a way out of being hoist on their own petards in this foreclosure charlie-foxtrot.
2. Yes, I have run my own business. Employed people too. Will be starting another one in a couple of years. Tax cuts won’t help unless there are customers. And customers for many businesses are in short supply. That’s why many small businesses aren’t taking on debt to expand, or spending on expansion: no customers. Or customers who don’t commit to long term spending.
Yes, the regulatory uncertainty (especially about Obamacare) as well as the tax regs is putting a huge amount of burden on small business. As I like to ‘splain to the pointy-head types: in a small business, they don’t have dedicated lawyers and CPA’s on the payroll to figure this stuff out. There’s the head of the business who does most all this stuff, and the more regulatory change forced down on them, the more they have to take time away from actual profit-pursuit to deal with the regulatory compliance.
But relieving regulations now won’t bring customers back to 2006 levels. Consumers need discretionary income and they don’t have that. We need a plan to increase household incomes in the US, and that has been missing over the last 10 years. That’s why the banks created more and more stupid loan products to allow people to buy things they could not afford: disposable income was stagnant since 2001 or so. The only way that the “Bush economy” happened was a radical increase in the private sector debt.
3. Ignored it? Ah, no. The GOP was a cheerleader for WTO admission for the PRC.
We don’t need to worry about tearing down China’s economy. Just respond to their currency manipulation (ie, their peg). The Congress could implement standards for food and consumable product safety that are quite obviously needed, and they could also grow a pair on the issue of Chinese product dumping.
I’d also recommend that all computers used in sensitive government offices and industries be required to be produced in the US. That’s another topic for another time, but I sense that the PRC is playing a very long game on the computer & consumer electronics issue that may result in some very ugly surprises down the road.
And as for your rose-colored glasses of “I know we can win.” No, you can’t. Not when there is a currency arb peg in place. Double the value of the yuan and then we might be able to win, but with a peg in place, there is no chance. Currency arb coupled with labor available below minimum wage will always beat whatever we can do.
4. Sure they can. No excuses. They can’t get a “all at once” repeal rammed through, but as Robert Byrd used to demonstrate, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. The Republicans don’t like doing any hard legislative work, but Obamacare could be taken apart piece by piece, in one piece of essential legislation after another. They can start by exempting some industries from OC’s requirements, or by pushing the start date into the future, etc.
5. The GOP wanted to implement “private savings accounts.” That wasn’t going to work then, and it won’t work now. Let’s face facts: Most people are friggin’ morons when it comes to the financial markets. Many of them are Harvard MBA’s, too. Or worse, Harvard economics majors. Look at what happened to Harvard’s endowment at the hands of Larry Summers.
This level of stupidity is what allowed the housing bubble to happen, and the dot-bomb bubble, and so on. Now especially, there is no way that the GOP’s ideas of running your own retirement are going to fly.
So what the GOP should do is radically increase the annual contribution limits to 401(k)’s and IRAs, and just talk about ONE thing for SS and Mediscare: means testing. Just say “There’s no need for the government to give Bill Gates and Warren Buffett a Social Security check.” Just that ONE thing - means testing - breaks the “entitlement” legal roadblock.... and after that, just like the income tax, they can start playing with the means testing limits.
The Democrats will howl like ruptured ducks even at this one little change.... but if they GOP persisted, they could play the DNC’s own game against them. Quit talking about revolutions in the system. Just try to implement one small change that puts the camel’s nose into the tent and make the one little change be the goal.
But the GOP won’t. They want to talk about huge, radical change. That won’t ever happen.
I’m voting for you! I’m voting for you! Well, said. Now is the time to stand up! Slash the spending! No new regs (& cut a lot — especially state & local which doesn’t allow people to make do with what they have — this is not the time to not let people hang their clothes on a clothesline to dry nor grow their own food in the front yard).
>>2. They have no clue how to increase employment (and just implementing “more tax cuts” and “slashing regulations” isn’t going to do it).
>
>Ever run your own businesses? I have, and still do so. Cut my taxes and stop new regulations, and promise both will stay that way for 5 years, and I’ll hire right now. As will a lot of businesses.
>You don’t hire now because you don’t know what the tax situation will be, or what new regulation will be dropped on you as well. So you bunker down and just get along, for now.
What about if they said this was the new tax policy:
— All [personal] income will be taxed at 10%, no exceptions, no exemptions, no credits.
— All sales will be taxed at 5%, regardless of items sold.
— The federal government will not change these terms, or add new taxations thereon, before 2020; all other federal taxation is hereby repealed.
I think your post is spot on, and quite cohesive. I couldn’t agree more, with the exception of one overlooked point, and that is the RINOs we still have in congress. I’m not so sold on Boehner myself, but I have hope. What I am leery about, are the old guard GOP, the McCains and Grahams who will still call the shots.
I fear that any newcomer will not be allowed on any committee of substance, but further, I think they will be treated as the red-headed stepchildren, especially if they were pushed in by the TEA movement.
Don’t kid yourself, the McCains types still in office lost friends in this bloodbath, and they were forced to spend millions on campaigns in districts that they thought they were entitled to. McCain and his ilk will still “reach across the isle” and I fear at the same time, he, Rove, Graham, Steel and the like will push hard to continue to diminish the TEA party and punish those who dared to take this nation back.
Once again, this is just speculation on my part, so I could be, and I hope I am, wrong.
Excellent post.
Terrific response. Thanks for taking the time to do it.