13 Ways In Which Republicans Are Wrong

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I’ve got a piece coming up in the next issue of the magazine about five economic memes that deserve to die. By the time it was done, it had actually turned into six memes, but apostate Republican David Frum goes me seven better today by listing 13 — yes, 13! — ways in which the Republican consensus on the economy is wrong, wrong, wrong:

  1. It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.
  2. It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.
  3. It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”
  4. It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.
  5. It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.
  6. It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.
  7. It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.
  8. It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.
  9. It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.
  10. It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.
  11. It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.
  12. It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.
  13. It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment.

I have to say, once people break with the Republican Party these days, they really break. They don’t become Democrats or anything, but if anything, they actually savage their former comrades more than Democrats do. I’d love to see something this pithy from, say, Barack Obama. It’s inspiring.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate