It seems that every new political moment brings in its train a new menagerie of Republican pseudo-facts and finely drawn nonsense meant to confuse and obscure any actual discussion of the public policy issues of the day. So it’s time to start cataloguing them. A week or so back I heard Jonah Goldberg yakking on about how Herbert Hoover was actually a Progressive. (Which may constitute some modest advance from his earlier confusion of do-gooder grade school teachers with Nazi prison guards and SA paramilitaries.) And then today this little nugget has transmogrified through the GOP sound machine into Herbert Hoover as a closet Keynesian who apparently started the whole New Deal before Franklin Roosevelt was even elected.
Like most sophistries, there’s an element of truth in this one — but much of it is based on semantic evolution. Hoover was part of the 1912 Progressive party and he was in key respects a Republican Progressive in the early 20th century meaning of the term — which is to say he was a technocrat who believed in scientific management and things like that. It is also true that as the Depression deepened Hoover did take some very limited steps in the direction of government intervention in the economy, though ones that were dwarfed by Roosevelt’s subsequent spending programs and regulatory innovations.
Fundamentally, Hoover was captive to the economic orthodoxy of the day which was hostile to government intervention and relied on volunteerism and placed a great deal of emphasis on balanced budgets. The straw-man version of Hoover’s presidency, in which he sat back and did nothing for four years, waiting on the market to correct itself is a caricature. But broadly speaking, he was unwilling to take decisive action on virtually every front, though some of the efforts he began on a very small scale were expanded dramatically to great effect under Roosevelt.
History is always complex. But to the degree public policy discussions don’t leave room for extended detours into historiography, the broad brush outlines have to suffice. And once again, the Republicans are peddling the standard up-is-downism meant to confuse the discussion and fight for the eventual triumph of absurdity and nonsense.
That’s the headline. A few Democratic stragglers, but not a single Republican in the House voted for the Stimulus Bill on round one. For all the clatter and noise, looks very like 1993.
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) revealed more of himself than anyone cared to see, at the expense of Salon‘s Joan Walsh, this evening on “Hardball.” In a debate with Walsh over tax policy, Armey let loose with this chauvinistic gem: “I am so damn glad that you can never be my wife cause I surely wouldn’t have to listen to that prattle from you every day.” Take a look:
As you know, this afternoon the House passed the Democratic Stimulus package with a sprinkling of Democratic defections and no Republican votes. From the standpoint of political accountability, if nothing else, this clarifies things. If the public ends up judging this a success or a failure, they’ll have little doubt who to punish or reward for the decision.
But let’s step back and take stock of what the public appears to be seeing.
This afternoon, Diageo/Hotline released the second part of its recent poll (Jan. 21/24), which leaves little doubt about the public mood.
Now that Democrats control both the White House and both Houses of Congress, Democrats in Congress currently find themselves as beneficiaries of President Obama’s high favorability and job approval ratings.
Specifically, The Diageo/Hotline Poll of 800 registered voters conducted by FD from January 21-24, 2009, finds that 49% of voters say they approve of the job Democrats in Congress are doing, while only 26% of voters who approve of the job Republicans in Congress are doing.
And, while the 111th Congress has been in session barely three weeks, the Poll finds that the Democratic candidate leads the Republican candidate 46% – 22% in a generic 2010 congressional election match-up, with 27% of voters saying they are undecided.
So, President Obama is extremely popular. The Stimulus Bill is pretty popular. Hill Democrats are reasonably popular. And Hill Republicans are deep in Bush unpopularity territory, as much as they now try to distance themselves from the man they once wrapped their party around.
It grated on a lot of people — and I include myself — to see Obama going every extra length to cater to Republican nonsense. But it’s left little question who was doing what. One benefit the Republicans carry out of the 2008 election is that most of the remaining Republicans come from districts that are so red that it’s hard for Democrats to ever contest them. But not all of them. And in a lot the industrial Midwest especially, the GOP is the party of ‘no’.
Late developments, from the Wall Street Journal:
In an effort to prevent financial upheaval at America’s credit unions, federal regulators guaranteed tens of billions of dollars in uninsured deposits at the powerful financial institutions that service them — an unprecedented move that shows how the credit crisis continues to ripple through the economy.
Regulators also injected $1 billion of new capital into the largest of these wholesale credit unions, U.S. Central Federal Credit Union of Lenexa, Kan., after its unexpected loss Wednesday of $1.1 billion for 2008. U.S. Central serves essentially as a main clearinghouse for the others in the network.
Credit unions in general were believed to be among the most conservatively managed financial institutions. Wednesday’s sweeping move comes amid mounting losses on mortgage securities.
We gave Politico a hard time today for their piece on the neo-Hooeverite alternative to the Stimulus Bill. So here’s their companion piece on those who support a bigger Stimulus Bill. They originally said they’d run this piece Thursday. But it seems they advanced the schedule.
Unified Republican control of government required a disproportionate number of Republicans on cable TV; apparently unified Dem control requires mostly Republicans too.
Fmr. Sen. Coleman: What I’m fighting for is more important than Law & Order.