Is conservatism dead in America?
March 18, 2008
The conservative movement is dead. So says the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF). The liberal advocacy group held a press conference to draw parallels between the Carter years and the current election year. CAF Co-Director Robert Borosage says “the recession is similar to the kind of economic chaos we had in '79.” Stan Greenberg with the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research told Cybercast News Service that in recent years conservatives have pushed policies that have caused the public to turn against them and seek other, radical solutions.
What’s newsworthy is that now liberals are finally acknowledging that the Carter presidency was a disaster. They’re now grasping at straws trying to compare it to the Bush years. Democrats have always had success using the economy against Republicans. Any time there’s a cyclical downturn they attempt to blame it on Republicans in order to wrest power from them. It’s a strategy that’s worked for them since FDR.
Conservatives, on the other hand, understand that the government has little to do with the economy save screwing it up with more regulations and higher taxes. Did anyone really believe the incredible prices houses were fetching 18 months ago were real? The Bush tax cuts jump started a faltering economy that was on the precipice of disaster following the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, prosperity is the mother of stupidity. Most people are short-term thinkers and they thought the housing boom would last forever. People got into more house than they could afford; many with adjustable rates that allowed them to pay less per month. Lenders saw no end in sight to the rising home prices and took risks on people who should not have been loaned that kind of money. The lenders thought, worst case scenario, they would get the house back and actually get their money back. Then the bubble burst. Adjustable rate mortgages began to adjust out of the reach. Homeowners started having fire sales trying to get out from under them. Their panic brought the neighborhood comps down and, all of a sudden, everyone’s house was worth less. Of course, everyone’s house was worth less already, they just didn’t know it. The market, in essence, corrected.
In other words, we were the victims of our own success. The great economy that was spurred on by the Bush tax cuts caused such euphoria that people lost all sense of reality. But, typically, the liberals once again turn to the government to bail everyone out of the stupid mistakes they made.
Recessions are cyclical because humans are sheep. It’s like watching a flock of starlings. The whole flock will fly decidedly in one direction then suddenly turn in another, all being led by a few lead birds. Just a couple of years ago, everyone was trying to cash in on the economic boom. Now they’re just as thoroughly convinced we’re in a bust, fed primarily by an eager news media.
To compare these times to 1980 is to ignore reality. In 1980, inflation was 13.5 percent. Today it’s at 4.3 percent. Unemployment was 7.2 percent. Today, it’s 4.8 percent. The prime interest rate peaked at 21.5 percent under Carter. Right now it’s around 6 percent. The guys over at the Campaign for America’s Future hope you just don’t remember the Carter years. Nice try, fellas, but the similarities between 2008 and 1980 stop at the fact that both are election years. Their belief that the conservative movement is over is simply wishful thinking. If we really want to go back to the Carter years then we’ll elect either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama president.