Stimulus, Limbaugh, Inanity and Worse

There are some odd and unpleasant things going on around the politicking on the so called stimulus bill. The President of the United States, the Democratic Party, and various left wing pressure groups have attacked Rush Limbaugh for saying that he wants President Obama to fail in his efforts to implement what Mr. Limbaugh sees as a left wing agenda. Some have sought to conflate opposing the bill with being like Limbaugh and wanting the president and, by implication, the nation to fail. There is a great deal wrong with this, and it should be obvious to people irrespective of what they think about either the president’s or the commentator’s politics.

The Democratic Party and the pressure groups can say what they want with reckless gusto about Rush Limbaugh or anyone else if they feel like it. The president is different. It is completely inappropriate, and for that matter unpresidential, for a president to threaten or attack any private citizen for expressing criticism or dissent. People often use the term “chilling effect” to speak of the result of acts or statements by officials that, while not overt censorship, carry the hint that someone might be far better off shutting up. Personal attacks by the most powerful man in the world can be seen as intended to have such effects (particularly when considered in the light of attempts by Democrats to force Limbaugh off the air through federal regulatory action). They are also beneath the dignity of the office. President Obama has plenty of hopelessly devoted sycophants in the traditional media. He should leave this sort of work to them.

Beyond that, the whole flap about people wanting President Obama to fail or succeed is absurd. The debate is playing out at the intellectual level of a bunch of superannuated former student council twerps of the sort who, back in high school, really believed that pep rallies made the team play better. Not swooning over Obama is seen as equivalent to lacking school spirit. We need to state the obvious. Sensible people do not cheer for a politician to succeed or fail in office in the way they root for a football team to win or lose. Instead, they judge his policies one at a time. They want the politician to succeed in those instances when his actions are good, just, and beneficial and to fail when they are bad, unjust, and harmful. Experience shows that the latter is more often the case than the former. Time will tell with Obama, as with every president, but only fools want a politician to succeed without knowing at what.

Finally, the stimulus itself seems to be a more a monstrosity of pork and welfare than anything that will stimulate the economy. For all the talk of spending on infrastructure, such spending is only a small fraction of the bill’s tab. There are few real tax cuts, and the ones that are there are not optimal for stimulating growth. There is also an egregious multi-billion dollar handout to state and local governments to tide them over the recession. I suppose the idea is that, even at a time when taxpayers and productive elements of society are scaling back and losing jobs and business, it would still be unthinkable for the bureaucratic segment of society to tighten up, shed fat, and contract a bit. By calling the mess the House just passed a stimulus bill, the president hints that he has a finely warped sense of humor, a deep and heartfelt contempt for the intelligence of the American people, or both. People should hope that the bill as it stands is only some sort of stratagem, and that the president and the congress will either do nothing or come up with something better in the end.

Bailouts and Unmaskings

One of the distressing things about the recent monetary crisis is that is has revealed so many people to be unprincipled and dishonest. I am not referring to the politicians of both parties who have abandoned their professed beliefs in a logrolling frenzy of bailouts, panic, and handouts in the last four months. People who pay attention already knew that most politicians are scoundrels and hypocritical posers. Their behavior has been execrable, but hardly surprising. Neither am I talking about the out and out con men who have been exposed by recent events – Madoff and all the little Madoffs who have come or are coming to light as things have gotten tighter. There are always con artists out there. It is not odd that a system wide margin call would smoke a few of them out.

No, I am thinking of some so-called honest people – some bankers, business people, and manufacturers who may have generally made their way in the world by working productively and dealing fairly and been proud to do so, but are now pushing up to the bailout trough with all the other little piggies and squealing out specious justifications for doing so. It seems that they are all for free markets when they are doing well, but want to socialize their losses when things get rough. There is not much good to say about the former high-fliers who shirk responsibility for their failures and show no shame or reluctance over begging for public assistance. Whatever else these people are, they are not principled believers in a free economy and free competition. Many now seem to be sloganeering opportunists who don’t believe in anything in particular.

We have even had some people in various places try to have it both ways on TARP by announcing that they took or want to take TARP money and then claiming that they do not really need it. There is surely good reason to be skeptical about the veracity of such statements, given the costs and restrictions attached to the payouts. However, in one sense it almost does not matter whether they are true or not. A person who seeks a government handout he does not need is a welfare cheat. A person who needs his handout but says he does not (perhaps to avoid frightening stockholders or depositors) is a liar. Neither one commands a whole lot of respect. Nor do all the other actual and wannabe corporate welfare queens out there.

An Open Mind on Obama

I think we need to keep an open mind about Barack Obama. I know that many friends of liberty disagree, and I understand their reasons. He came up as a leftist, voted in the Senate as a leftist, and won the early contests in his party’s presidential race as a leftist. It is not completely unreasonable for people to conclude from these facts that the man is a leftist. However, I am not sure that he is. Sensible people regard all the actions and statements of professional politicians with cynicism and suspicion. We have certainly seen plenty of instances where (usually Republican) politicians profess a deep commitment to freedom and limited government before being elected and turn out to be big government porkers and cheerful boosters for unnecessary wars once in office. We should give Obama the benefit of the doubt and consider the possibility that he may have been as calculating and disingenuous as most other politicians are. Remember he came up as a big-city, black politician in the Democratic Party, a position in which moderation and tacking to the political center are not exactly tools for political success. Then he gained his early lead over Senator Clinton partly by winning over his party’s fervid true believers on the left, a group of people who take their doctrine and orthodoxy pretty seriously and yearn for candidates who will give them that old time religion in a totally undiluted way. It is interesting that as soon as he stopped needing such people, he (mainly) stopped pandering to them. His actions in the fall campaign and his statements and appointments since election suggest that he might govern in a fairly moderate and pragmatic way. Of course he could be faking now too, but even if so, it is encouraging that he wants to appear to be a centrist. (To successfully pretend to be one for four years, he would often have to act like one.) There is even the chance that he really is a moderate left-centrist and will do a fair job as president.

At least he seems to be a smart and articulate guy who made it more or less on his own. He isn’t a hereditary pseudo-patrician or a yahoo, and that is a point in his favor. (Our current president, oddly, manages to be both of those.) He also knows how to appear to be reasonable, which could indicate that some of the time he is reasonable. So I think that, while of course remaining appropriately cynical and suspicious, we should not assume that he will be a bad president. He could be another Carter, but maybe not. He might be another post-1994 Clinton or even a Jack Kennedy. I suggest that we wait and see and not buy the wheat grinders and the freeze dried food just yet.