You can’t blame anti-Trump conservatives—well, you can’t blame them too much—for squirming under the pressure of having to constantly agree with, you know, liberals that Donald Trump is a continuing disaster and disgrace to the United States of America, easily the worst man ever to occupy the White House, a man without honor or scruple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, but, Jesus!, I get so sick of having to get up every morning and agree with Paul Krugman!
Yeah, I’d hate it too, since I often don’t agree with Paulie, but, well, I’m sorry, conservatives, that doesn’t mean that you have to go out of your way to find areas of agreement with Trump, areas where “it’s not so bad”, particularly when it is bad. Because then you’re know basically lying—lying to protect Donald Trump!
First up is the once nobly principled George Will, so disgusted with Republican free market heresies that he officially left the party a couple of years ago, particularly infuriated by the party’s apostasy on free trade, a topic on which I very largely agree with Georgie. So, one up for Georgie! But, well, a guy gets lonely, you know. You know? So now George is taking a particularly pompous swan dive on the Republican tax bill now stumbling, like Frankenstein’s monster, through Congress. “Explains” George
“This tax legislation, an amalgam of earnest hoping and transparent make-believe, is a serious lunge for sustained 3 percent growth. Without this, the economy, and hence the entitlement state, will buckle beneath the strain of 10,000 of the elderly each day becoming eligible for Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans purport to know how changed tax incentives will affect corporations’ and individuals’ decisions, and how those decisions will radiate through the economy. Republicans do not know — nobody, including the Republicans’ equally overconfident critics, does — but they might be right, and their wager is worth trying.”
Yes, they might be right! They might be! So it’s a wager worth trying. Well, how about this, George? Suppose we all stood on our heads—all of us, every man, woman, and child in the United States of America—at the same time! That might create “sustained 3 percent growth” as well! It might! You can’t prove that it won’t, can you? So it’s a wager worth trying, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Yeah, I do repeat myself a lot when I get excited, and I can’t even stand on my head, but if George will hold my legs, I’ll hold his, and we can get this show on the road!
In fact, George, there is no good reason at all to believe that this “lunge” is serious at all, is anything other than another gigantic Republican handout to the donor class. In any event, George, and others, have frequently thrown cold water—indeed, icy cold water—on the idea that government policies can significantly affect economic growth. And I don’t recall George talking about “serious lunges” or “wagers worth trying” back when the Democrats were in power—you know, when the unemployment rate was 10% rather than 4.1.
Larry Kudlow, “Mr. Supply Side” and recovering coke addict1 has similarly cautious/incautious, glass is 51% full so let’s fucking go for it views, according to Politico’s Ben White:
“‘The individual side of this is maybe not the worst thing I’ve ever seen,’ Larry Kudlow, a prominent economic commentator and former adviser to President Ronald Reagan, said in the latest POLITICO Money podcast. ‘But when you end the state and local deduction, because rates are still relatively high, you are going to hurt a lot of different people. So the internal logic was not good and this is not a true tax reform bill.’
“Kudlow, who helped design the corporate tax cuts that are the centerpiece of the GOP effort, also told me the rest of the bill will lift growth and fatten paychecks even if it means higher short-term deficits.”
“Even if”, Larry? You know it’s going to add at least $150 billion a year to the national debt every year for the next 10 years! And It’s pretty clear that the corporate tax cuts aren’t going to fatten paychecks. They’re going to fatten dividends!
Okay, this is getting kind of long, since I’m such a good sport that I feel morally obliged to let these dishonorable schmucks make their own arguments in their own words, but, well, if you’ve made it this far, I’m still not done. Another trope of the ATINOs (Anti-Trumpers In Name Only) is the “Democrats do it too” meme, earnestly espoused by Meghan McArdle, who “explained” back in May that those Democrats and those Republicans were both cawazzy wrong about the estate tax before conceding that the Democrats were totally right and that in fact the tax should be made a whole lot tougher2 and who is now “explaining” that while what the Republicans are doing in ramming through their terrible tax bill is, well, terrible, well, the Democrats did the same thing with ObamaCare, the only difference being that the Democrats held six months of open hearings and open debates on the bill, while the Republicans conducted no open hearings and no open debates. Oh, and that the Democrats did everything including getting down on their knees to beg for Republican support while the Republicans made it clear from the beginning that Democrats wouldn’t be allowed a single word in the proceedings. That’s all!
Unsurprisingly, the sexual harassment issue is another topic ripe for the “Democrats do it too” meme, the only difference being that Democrats resign, while Republicans get elected. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Move along. Nothing to see, nothing to see.
Worst of all is a “rebirth” of the Republican “argument” waged with particular fury when then FBI Director James Comey failed to indict Hillary Clinton for use of a private email server while secretary of state: that a failure to indict a Democrat is ipso facto proof of corruption, now expanded to include the obvious corollary, that willingness to indict a Republican is equally criminal and corrupt. In a recent column, the WashPost’s Dana Milbank gives an overview of this repulsive meme as it manifests itself among Republicans in Congress, a meme that would, if broadly accepted, give Trump the unlimited license to violate the Constitution that he so clearly desires. And it is working its way through the posse of right-wing chin-strokers as well.
There are, however, a few brave conservatives—okay, one brave conservative, whom I’ve pilloried like few others, and when the topic turns to Iraq, I would pillory him again3—who is honest, and his name is David Brooks, and here is some of what he has had to say:
Today’s tax cuts have no bipartisan support. They have no intellectual grounding, no body of supporting evidence. They do not respond to the central crisis of our time. They have no vision of the common good, except that Republican donors should get more money and Democratic donors should have less.
The rot afflicting the G.O.P. is comprehensive — moral, intellectual, political and reputational. More and more former Republicans wake up every day and realize: “I’m homeless. I’m politically homeless.”
Update
To his credit, George Will is very much not enthused about the nuclear war that Trump is trying to gin up with North Korea.
- I didn’t know this about Larry. I’m sure that lots of recovering coke addicts are fine people with intelligent views on economic issues. But Larry isn’t one of them. ↩︎
- In fact, in a venue other than Bloomberg View, from which she usually holds forth, Megan argued the point elegantly and intelligently that Why Do We Allow Inheritance at All? ↩︎
- Recent Dave on Iraq: “Iraq, well, Iraq was Iraq. But at least it was undertaken out of great moral principle.” [Quoting from memory since I can’t find the link. Dave can sue if I got it wrong.] So it’s alright to kill tens of thousands of innocent people and wreck an entire nation if you meant well. Thanks, Dave. ↩︎
