Speak for Middle America (Jay Cost) from the Weekly Standard
"Say what you want about George W. Bush’s domestic agenda, it was geared toward these people. Whether the policies were sound, Bush’s middle-class tax cuts, his “ownership society,” No Child Left Behind, and private Social Security accounts were all about making these people more prosperous and secure."
"It was geared toward these people?!? Let's look at this set of disastrous initiatives or meaningless slogans: Bush's middle class tax cuts: the only time in US history the government has cut taxes during a time of war. Result: off-the--charts deficits which resulted in very little economic bang for the buck. Remember -- this was one of the LARGEST tax cuts in US history. Second, Bush's "ownership society" -- an empty slogan that meant nothing to average voters. Third, "no child left behind", a polic that inaugurated the era of teaching-for-the-test, testing-all-the-time programs, widely viewed now as a terrible "reform" for students, teachers, and parents alike. And finally, the privatization of social security, a program which even when it was proposed, was widely panned by analysts and rightly feared by seniors. The key to understanding Cost's analysis here lay in these words: "whether the policies were sound..." With Cost (as with most right-wing pundits) the point is to have effective "selling points", not to advocate sound policies. The current GOP advocates nothing. Once in power, their forte is endless symbolic votes designed to please Wall Street or to mollify Tea Party types. They advocate nothing; they do not look to solve any REAL problems -- only send slings and arrows at largely imaginary ones.
No comments:
Post a Comment