akuma587 said:
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.
|
Funny how you seem to forget that the Republicans have not run our economy for 2 years now.
The Democrats had a chance to end the war (by not passing the bill to fund it). They didn't, but it's not there fault.
The Democrats could have regulated Fanny and Freddy two years ago when this issue was brought to congress. They didn't, but it's not there fault.
This whole "we can make shit decisions because they made shit decisions before us" is getting old.
Yes, Republicans screwed up. That does not make it OK for Democrats to screw up even more.
