The economic theories that politicians now practice are often a muddled mess. The Republican Party's economic policy is currently a disaster area.
Democrats:
At least the Democrats are consistent, and tend to agree with each other. They have stuck with Keynsianism and have begrudgingly accepted some supply-side and Friedmanesque policies to good effect. They are no longer advocating the ludicrously high tax rates we had in the past, although they can be a little too quick to intervene sometimes. Not exactly in tune with what most economists think is an ideal economic policy, but its a tried in true formula that the Democrats have modified in light of newer economic theories, which has made it a better policy than it was in the past.
Case and point: Obama will likely hold off on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans until the Bush tax cuts naturally expire or until the market recovers, whichever comes first.
Republicans:
An absolute mess of an economic policy. The Republican Party itself has no idea what economic policy it stands for, and is horribly inconsistent. In recent years, they have essentially taken what they thought were the best ideas of all the policies and glued them together to bad effect.
1) Like Keynsians they are for government intervention and large government deficits at times, but unlike Keynsians they are unwilling to raise taxes.
2) Like conservative economists (roughly the kind of principles Friedman advocates) they are against government taxes and regulation, but unlike conservative economists they have no problem with deficits and are willing to intervene in the market (well at least enough Republicans are for intervention that the government ends up intervening anyways)
3) The one thing all Republicans agree on these days is low taxes, which is ironically what has crippled their brand of fiscal conservatism once deficits started soaring out of control. From their "tax-and-spend" liberal brethren they adopted the "spend" strategy but left behind the "tax" strategy.
Its all a big mess, and the Republican Party needs to figure out a coherent economic policy again or it will sink further into obscurity. They blame government for spending too much money out one side of their mouth but then propose even bigger budgets out the other.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
