Wrong-Way Gingrich

By Tom Kando

On May 24, Newt Gingrich wrote another stupid editorial: He said that the California election a week earlier had demonstrated that the people are fed up with “Big, Corrupt Government,” and that this presages an imminent anti-government rebellion by the American people. Gingrich has it totally upside down:1. Only 15% of the electorate voted in the special California election on May 19. If 65% of these people rejected most of the propositions, and assuming that their vote reflected a “rejection of government,” this means that 10% of California voters expressed their opposition to “big government.” Hardly a mandate!

2. Gingrich urges us to look at the “record of the Obama administration,” which he blames for our current problems. This is absurd. Obama has been in charge for four months - trying to fix the mess created by his predecessors. Shouldn’t we look at the eight-year record of the Bushites, and before that, at the twelve years of Republicanism from 1980 to 1992? Over the past 29 years, Republicans have been in charge for 20 years, Democrats for 8 (and those eight Clinton years were the best in memory!).

3. The record which needs to be looked at is that of nearly three decades of unfettered, unregulated Capitalism. That is what has ruined the country, not government regulation.

4. Gingrich writes that “people are fed up with the elites.” But he picks precisely on the wrong elite. It is not the public sector’s excesses which have ruined the country, but precisely the opposite, the private sector elite - Wall Street, AIG, the Banks, America’s Big Three auto companies, etc.

5. Gingrich writes that Detroit was ruined by “Big, Corrupt Government,” and he adds that during the 50s, Motown enjoyed the highest per capita income in America. Furthermore, the Unions are what is ruining America, he continues. What utter idiocy! The facts adduced by Gingrich prove exactly the opposite of his claim: Detroit thrived precisely when the UAW was strong. Today, the unionized percentage of the labor force is a small fraction of what it was in the fifties. What ruined Detroit is the car companies’ refusal to make good, fuel-efficient, competitive cars like Honda and Toyota.

6. Gingrich avers that California’s state budget is bloated. Wrong again: Two years ago, the general fund was $105 billion. This year, it’s down to 87 billion, and it’s going to be pared down a lot more. We have had a 25% budget reduction, while population has increased. Well over half the states have higher taxes than we do in California (See Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee, May 26, 2009).

Let me put it schematically: Bozos like Gingrich and Limbaugh say that government is the problem and uncontrolled Capitalism is the solution. In reality, uncontrolled Capitalism is the problem and government is the solution. Yes, there is a (slight) move towards more “socialism” in America - finally, thank God (Call it Keynesianism, if you prefer). We need more of it, not less. The federal stimulus package means more public works, not less. And this is as it should be, as it was also the right answer to the Great Depression 70 years ago, in the form of wonderful projects such as the TVA.

Maybe in some decades from now the pendulum will swing back to the right, but thank God we are in for a period of greater government intervention, not less. For the foreseeable future, Republican policies are headed for the dustbin, and that’s a good thing.leave comment here