the GOP's snake oil solution
Thomas Frank's op-ed in the WSJ, "The GOP Peddles Economic Snake Oil," opens with puzzlement over what's going on in the center ring of the GOP's big tent:
OK, let me get this straight: The central axiom of conservative Republicanism is that government is inherently corrupt and can't do anything right.Over many years of ascendancy, conservative Republicans have filled government agencies with conservative Republicans and proceeded to enact the conservative Republican policy wish list -- tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing federal work, and so on.
And as a consequence of these policies our conservative Republican government has bungled most of the big tasks that have fallen to it. The rescue and recovery of the Gulf Coast was a disaster. The reconstruction of Iraq was a disaster. The regulatory agencies became so dumb they didn't even see the disasters they were set up to prevent. And each disaster was attributable to the conservative philosophy of government.
Yet now we are supposed to vote for more conservative Republicans because we learned from the last bunch of conservative Republicans that government just doesn't work.
Frank's latest book (The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule) keeps getting closer to the top of my to-be-read stack...