Liberals' 50 years of dreadful domestic policy
Posted: December 23, 2010

by Larry Elder

For the past 50 years, the Democrats – and many Republicans who should know better – have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:

Taxes

The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.

President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue. President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35 percent.

President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them. If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true. Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90 percent to 70 percent, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right – and most of the Democratic Party knows it.


Welfare for the "underclass"

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.

The percentage of children born outside of marriage – to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women – exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."

Education

The federal government's increasing involvement with education – what is properly a state and local function – has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.

Where parents have choices – where the money follows the student rather than the other way around – the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.

Gun control

Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas – where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun-control laws.

Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent and robberies by over 2 percent."


"Affirmative action"

Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.

Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters – even in liberal states like California – have voted against them.

Minimum-wage hikes

Almost all economists agree that minimum-wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled – the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.

Economist Walter E. Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary. That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Obamacare

This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care – all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.

Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas.

I'll join, I'm a serious altoholic.

I'd prefer my next slate of alts be Alliance, but I'm bipartisan when it comes to WoW.

From here:


"As for now, I believe this bipartisan plan is the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do for jobs. It’s the right thing to do for the middle class. It is the right thing to do for business. And it’s the right thing to do for our economy. It offers us an opportunity that we need to seize.

It’s not perfect, but this compromise is an essential step on the road to recovery. It will stop middle-class taxes from going up. It will spur our private sector to create millions of new jobs, and add momentum that our economy badly needs.

That was our President in an address today saying the exact opposite of Grayson. Can someone get their story straight? Extending the tax cuts either will create millions of new jobs or it won't. They both can't be right.

Okay, I'll throw my testicles into the ring. First, Amanda Marcotte is a staunch feminist and modern liberal. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's important to note when considering the source of the above article. Not sure why DFT is posting it here as if it was anything but a biased article.

Second, I like how NetRunner tried to completely disqualify GeeSussFreeK's comment by pointing out I'm not part of the national media. That was classic. Apparently NR has never heard of BNN. It's only the smallest national news outlet in all the world.

Third, and most importantly, why does the Democratic fight against "privatization" take precedence over their fight against the civil rights violations? Honestly this comes back to bipartisanship. Going along with the party and all that.

The truth is the TSA is under the purview of the Obama Administration so it opens this entire discourse up to bipartisan rhetoric, and that's all we're seeing here with NR and DFT. I believe if the porno-scanners and the enhanced gate rape pat downs were implemented under the McCain Administration (shudder) then the Republicans would be saying the exact same shit the Democrats are saying now, "These are the times we live in" and "The number one priority is safety" and so on.

And the Democrats would be in the streets protesting them for their civil rights violations. What hypocrisy. Where are our civil liberties loving Democrats? Oh, that's right, they're too busy defending their saintly leader to fight the good fight. Maybe later when a Republican gets in office we'll see the "Party of Peace" rear their pretty Code Pink faces again. Wouldn't that be something?

Corporations and 'market forces' are how we got here. I know that by admitting that, you'd have to tear down your entire belief system and start over from scratch, and that's a lot to ask of anyone. I've got no problems attempting to treat the numerous symptoms, but this kind of shit is going to continue as long as big business is in the drivers seat.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Who said anything about them being the "brainchild" of Obama? You're stuck in that fallacious bipartisan thinking. Just because I've got a beef with Obama doesn't mean I an absolving Bush of his atrocities. But he's not "in charge" anymore, so to insinuate that these porno-scanners are in place now because of Bush's Administration is a fallacious and disingenuous argument. Let's go over the finer points:

First, the TSA today is under the purview of the Obama Administration, so anything it does is the fault of that administration. Period. The chain of command works like this: TSA > Department of Homeland Security (DHS) > Janet Napolitano > Obama. When Obama is no longer the president, then the TSA will be the responsibility of the new Administration... and so on.

Second, more porno-scanners are being added under Obama.

Third, the "enhanced security procedures" are being added under Obama. This includes touching of groins and the added frequency of the porno-scanners.

Fourth, Obama even admits the buck stops with him.

Lastly, Obama ran on a platform of "change". That change was meant to "correct" the ills of the previous administration, including the Bush Doctrine, FISA, the Patriot Act, and domestically the DHS. It hasn't been corrected. It's gotten worse.

Who said anything about them being the "brainchild" of Obama? You're stuck in that fallacious bipartisan thinking. Just because I've got a beef with Obama doesn't mean I an absolving Bush of his atrocities. But he's not "in charge" anymore, so to insinuate that these porno-scanners are in place now because of Bush's Administration is a fallacious and disingenuous argument. Let's go over the finer points:

First, the TSA today is under the purview of the Obama Administration, so anything it does is the fault of that administration. Period. The chain of command works like this: TSA > Department of Homeland Security (DHS) > Janet Napolitano > Obama. When Obama is no longer the president, then the TSA will be the responsibility of the new Administration... and so on.

Second, more porno-scanners are being added under Obama.

Third, the "enhanced security procedures" are being added under Obama. This includes touching of groins and the added frequency of the porno-scanners.

Fourth, Obama even admits the buck stops with him.

Lastly, Obama ran on a platform of "change". That change was meant to "correct" the ills of the previous administration, including the Bush Doctrine, FISA, the Patriot Act, and domestically the DHS. It hasn't been corrected. It's gotten worse.

Not all anti-Obama videos are pro-Republican. Then again, this one may be. I don't know. I just dislike what the TSA is doing in this country, and Obama (and specifically Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, featured prominently in the video) could change that if they chose to do so, but they've made it worse.

If McCain was elected, we'd be seeing the exact same thing. To me, it's not bipartisan.

@Matthu: of, for and bipartisan. Good one.

I find commercial media political analysis to be pretty stupid in general. They often get hung up on petty details, missing the important points, or perhaps not allowed to speak of important points for fear of scaring off corporate investors. I don't waste my time with either Olbermann (though I don't think he should have been booted off his network) or O'Reilly, although Maddow is pretty good. PBS, NPR and print media offer much deeper, more intellectual coverage, probably because they worry less about pleasing advertisers and can focus on doing their job.

The center is all very relative in our politics. Right of center Democrats who support common sense programs like health care are considered extremists; in the rest of the world, healthcare is a bipartisan issue. The American 'center' lies between right of center moderate dems, and batshit loonies like Sarah Palin on the right. It's not really a middle at all, it's more of a mean; a mean that shifts further and further to the right.

I challenge you to find a genuine liberal extremist who holds any political sway.

Anyway, I agree with Maher that being centrist for the sake of being centrist is a fools errand. It doesn't make you wise, intelligent or in any way independent. When you look at the agenda of the American right, it's easy to see that it is all based around sucking up to corporations. Cap and trade, corporate tax cuts, limiting social services, climate science "skepticism".... They offer nothing helpful to the average Joe. Once you cast a vote for corporatism, you lose the right to call yourself independent.

Anyway, the laptop is almost out of juice, so I'm going to cut this short...



In reply to this comment by hPOD:
It's hard to take an obviously biased [and somewhat insane] Bill Maher seriously. Maher hasn't been watchable for about 4 years now, and he's getting worse and worse. I understand the point you're trying to make, but as a person who truly stands in the middle, I see the extremes in both sides all the time, and that includes Olbermann. Unlike most, I actually DO watch Olbermann AND O'Riley. Well, not Olbermann anymore, but you get the point. I know you want to believe that everything Olbermann touches on is fact based, and everything O'Riley opines on is propaganda based, but that's not reality. There are times both make solid points, and there are times you can tell their <insert right/left> leaning opinions shine on their biased tendencies.

My voting record stands by the fact I call things as I see them, down the middle. In the last 5 Presidential elections, I've voted for 2 Republicans, 2 Democrats and 1 Independent.

A lot of people love to say they're down the middle, and they can see/hear both sides, but their slanted voting records show otherwise. I don't vote for parties, I vote for candidates, whether those votes end up being mistakes in the long run there is little I can do about, but the fact is, I'm one of the very few that actually does ride the fence. Quite a few of my friends, for example, claim the same...but their voting records show pure republican or pure democratic bias.

Maher has let his anti-religious lunacy get the better of him, and this is coming from an avid Hitchen's fan, who is also anti-religious. Hitchen's said it best when he mocked Maher's crowd for believing anything he says and laughing at any Bush joke he used. If I cared enough, going back to the beginning of the United States, I'd venture to say that I could find good things and bad things every single President has done, including Bush Jr and Obama.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
0:50 is relevant to our conversation:

http://videosift.com/video/Bill-Maher-Critiques-Stewart-Colbert-Rally

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^iL0VmyDr:
I sooo liked him, but I voted for Nader in 2000 {my bad} and that didn't work out. It ended up seeming to me that the best idea is to vote for the lesser of two evils that might have a chance.

I hope you don't feel that way. Your vote for Nader was very important for a number of reasons. 1. It put more focus to those outside the bipartisan machine. 2. Also it's very important to vote your conscience and not get persuaded by the bipartisan masses who claim you're throwing away your vote. This is nonsense.


No voting for Nader is just throwing your vote away. Just like it doesn't matter that much if you vote for Obama or McCain. Just one will be unapologetically war mongerlike...and the other will do it more covertly. It's just like Reagan when he couldn't do what he wanted he went underground and used proxy armies to fight his wars and rain terror down upon South America.

>> ^iL0VmyDr:

I sooo liked him, but I voted for Nader in 2000 {my bad} and that didn't work out. It ended up seeming to me that the best idea is to vote for the lesser of two evils that might have a chance.


I hope you don't feel that way. Your vote for Nader was very important for a number of reasons. 1. It put more focus to those outside the bipartisan machine. 2. Also it's very important to vote your conscience and not get persuaded by the bipartisan masses who claim you're throwing away your vote. This is nonsense.

DFT hath labeled thy confused when thy is not.

And I appreciate that NetRunner copy-and-pasted partisan's dictionary.com definition. Classic.

I see that the two of you think I'm using liberty in a way that makes me partisan. If the tea partiers use the word, as well, does that mean any use of the word is partisan? Or are you referring to me being Libertarian, as in part of Libertarian Party? Well, I am not a member of that party.

Would you agree that liberty means freedom? Would you agree that liberty is what a free individual has? That is, it is to be 100% free without coercive influences and restriction? So murder would also be an act of liberty. I do understand that true liberty isn't my version of liberty, because my ideology excludes things that harm other people, so maybe that's what you two are thinking makes me partisan, I don't know.

I suppose when I say partisan, maybe I should say bipartisan. How will that do for you two? Fair?

and google "obama social security"

on the first page there's links to MSNBC and crooksandliars.com about the administration's "cat food commision."

I don't understand how the deficit commission is not a product of bipartisan politics. anyhow don't want to argue about it.

>> ^marinara:

deficit commission is actually bipartisan.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/62034
points 2-4 are actually democratic positions. Am I wrong?
if I am excuse the downvote


Yes, you're wrong. Dem's do NOT want to end Social Security, nor are they wanting to extend Bush's tax cut for top %1.

The deficit commission is "bipartisan", but it's a total joke. Obama put it together because of senate GOP fillibuster/stalemate, but GOP isn't doing shit even from within the "bipartisan" commission.


(ps: Linking to Jane Hamsher / Firedog is a bit, uggh. There's a reason they're called the "Firebaggers". They like Obama about as much as Michelle Bachmann's Teabagger party does.)

I'm not sure. From that article you linked to, it looks like it may be Kashkari's position more than the Dem's (he was originally appointed by the previous administration). Either way, don't mind the downvote - always important to 'keep it real' as they say. If the Dem's do work towards positions 2-4, I sincerely hope Americans ditch the 2-party system for good.>> ^marinara:

deficit commission is actually bipartisan.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/62034
points 2-4 are actually democratic positions. Am I wrong?
if I am excuse the downvote