Herbert Hoover has always been in danger of falling down the memory hole. He had the misfortune of losing to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose long shadow, and the devotion of liberal historians, threatened to blot him out entirely. When he is thought of at all, the picture of him is someone who was out of temper with the times, representing some antiquated world of benignly neglectful capitalism while FDR and the New Deal were the future. (more)
Just imagine how different our national predicament might be today if the leaders of both major political parties favored limiting the power of our central government, lowering taxes, enabling individual initiative, and opposing public employee unions and crony capitalism, while the “progressives,” who favor government takeovers of key industries, higher and more redistributive taxation, and ever more powerful unions in the public and private sectors, were a distinct minority with little influence. (more)
There is some disagreement over when the word “jawboning” first entered the English language. Some believe that its initial use characterized Herbert Hoover’s attempt to convince employers to maintain wage levels after the crash of 1929, while others believe it was first used during the Second World War, when officials at the U.S. Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply attempted to restrain wartime profiteering. Politicians since at least the Johnson administration have engaged in the technique, and while its etymological origins may be in dispute, the term has since entered wide use, referring to a form of moral suasion, usually by government officials attempting to alter behavior or influence markets. (more)
One thing we do know about economics and the effects on the federal budget: (more)
The last time I checked, the United States of America was a constitutional republic with three co-equal branches of government. Obviously, the president and his wife missed civics class and believe we are living in a monarchy. What else can explain their outrageous behavior? They think they are the King and Queen of America, to hell with the U.S. Constitution. (more)
When the stock market crashed and credit markets froze in the fall of 2008, conservatives panicked. And they had reason to. After all, the unfolding financial crisis bore striking similarities to the financial crisis of 1929, which, in addition to precipitating the Great Depression, discredited conservatism in the eyes of a generation of voters and ushered in an era of liberalism that would last for half a century. (more)
Most Americans accept, grudgingly, their government’s heavy subsidy of American farmers. But few know that the U.S. government may soon subsidize Brazilian farmers as well. On June 17, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office formally agreed to pay Brazil almost $150 million a year in “technical assistance” to compensate for the damage our cotton subsidy program has done to Brazilian agriculture. (more)
President Obama has been talking tough on deficit reduction, but many left-leaning pundits and economists warn that such rhetoric will prolong the economic slump. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow warned that Obama’s proposed partial spending freeze was Herbert Hoover’s strategy, while Budget Director Peter Orszag cautioned that FDR’s attempt in 1937 to rein in the deficit prolonged the Great Depression. These warnings may also help prolong the economic slump because they are based on faulty history. (more)
The backlash was fast and furious on the left over the news Monday night that President Obama will freeze spending for parts of the federal budget for the next three years. (more)
Abstract: What do conservatives want? To be free, to live virtuous and productive lives, to be secure from threats beyond and within our borders, and to live in a society that sustains and encourages these aspirations: freedom, virtue, safety–goals reflected in the libertarian, traditionalist, and national security dimensions of the conservative movement and coalition. But to achieve these perennial goals, conservatives must communicate in language that connects with the great majority of the American people in all stations of life. Virtually all conservatives hold in common the conviction that there is indeed an "eternal meaning." The recent past has been unsettling to American conservatives, but in the words of William F. Buckley Jr. nearly 50 years ago, "the wells of regeneration are infinitely deep." (more)
