Horrible Things Republicans Have Said

     My wife, who is a Green (Believe it or not, it is one of the reasons I married her.) called me on the carpet for not listing some bad things said by Republicans in my little quiz about Nazis Democrats and Republicans.  As I said in the comments, I would have but I was tired and it was 2 in the morning.  Well, I am wide awake now and I think I have the ultimate horrible thing said by a Republican (other than Richard Nixon, who was a crypto-marxist).

     In the days following the Al Qaida (may the name be for a curse) attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentegon President Bush urged us to "go to the malls".  On December 20, 2006 he told Americans "to go shopping more."

     Now, he is offering us a $150 Billion "stimulus package", as though we are the Roman mob seeking bread rations.   But more than that, he wants us all to go out to Wal-Mart and Best Buy and "increase consumer spending", as though our houses aren't already full of stuff. As though we don't have better things to do with our money than buy more stuff.

     President Bush wants us to individually spend as much as we can for the common good.  Essentially, President Bush is saying the same thing that the Nazis said in their 25 Point Program: "We are convinvened that a permanent recovery...can only proceed from the foundation of the common good before the individual good."  But it seems to me that spending ourselves into individual poverty is no recipe for common wealth.  

     Rather than spending whatever money comes to us via this Keynsian stimulus package, it would be better for us to use it to pay off debt, or if we have no debt, to invest it in wealth-creating opportunities.

      Now don't get me wrong.  I like tax rebates.  I am totally infavor of redicing taxes.  I whole heartedly say with Milton Freidman, "I faver tax reductions under any circumstances, for any reason, for any excuses, at any time."  But taxcuts are perilous if  we do not at the same time reduce government spending.  For there is only one way for a government to spend money without taxation, and that is by printing money, which causes inflation, and as everyone ought to know, and as Freidman also said, "Inflation is taxation without legislation."  And more dangerous to good order and human life than a population that is highly taxed is the madness of a population who's money is worthless.

In the carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said, "If you don't work you die."

                                                        - from The Gods of The Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling