Why Didn't You Yell At Me

Today we were late for church. I lost track of time, reading the morning news which dealt endlessly with the riot in Washington D.C. My wife also lost track of time while applying her makeup. When she realized we were running late, she said to me, “We are late, why didn’t you yell at me?”

Why didn’t I yell indeed? In the first place, when I do yell at her (rarely) I get, “Don’t yell at me”, and it isn’t a mild request! To be serious, yelling is most clearly not a valid communication tool in most cases.

Oh sure, if someone absent mindedly walks into the path of oncoming traffic, a yell would be appropriate. But, too often yelling is used to make an emphatic point, or gain attention, or bully. Yelling politically is almost always inappropriate and does not lead to good decision making.

That has been the mode of communication for the past few weeks in Washington by conservatives. Tea Party Patriots (oxymoron), have been screaming about the debt “crisis”, warning of fiscal disaster, federal socialism, communism, you name it.

For sure the biggest yell of the “Patriots” is to weaken and shrink the federal government, because it spends too much and regulates too much and just does everything too much.

So they yell, they rant, they scream, and they sure don’t compromise.

The louder they yell, the further they get from reality, and from the ONLY remedy that has ever helped the United States get out of an economic downturn.

When people are thrown out of work, lose their homes, and go bankrupt they stop spending money. That lack of spending, “consumer demand depression ” decreases or “depresses” economic activity. A chain reaction takes place; more people lose their jobs, and if it goes on long enough and deep enough, a depression ensues.

Government spending contrary to the tea party yelling is NOT a huge part of America’s economy. At present all government spending makes up not more than 20% of GDP, which is NOT all economic activity.

Regardless, government stimulus can work to turn the tide of recessions, by encouraging marginal job creation and growth, thus partially encouraging consumer demand.

Government stimulus, as we have just recently witnessed with President Obama’s stimulus package, must be strategically planned and applied to have much effect, because the government can only affect the economy just so much. Contrary to the conservative rant the stimulus did work to lessen the impact of the recession, and in the opinion of most economists the recession is in fact over. Unfortunatley jobs creation and hiring is ALWAYS the last development of recessions ending. This lag is what is feeding tea party yelling; ironically because not one Tea Party Policy (if they have any) has a valid job creation component in it. The Republican promise of “jobs, jobs, jobs” that helped them win the House of Representatives in 2010, has not been kept in the least. All Republicans have been concerned about is the debt and balancing the budget, which in effect costs people their jobs.

In short, in 2010 Republicans simply lied about job creation.

I hear the yelling beginning right now.

The government must do something (anything), as in the Great Depression, to lessen human suffering, and in a sense tide people over through hard times. The private enterprise system in American is so much larger than the federal and state governments, this is about all the government can hope for even with the most effective public programs; getting more citizens through the hard times in one piece. In the 30s that is what the New Deal did, kept people from starving to death, tided the country over until the war changed everything. The New Deal did lessen suffering markedly, saved the capitalist system, and set the stage for an unprecedented economic growth after World War II.

The Tea Party’s demands for huge government spending cuts will for sure stall the economic recovery, and also mean more suffering for millions of Americans. Recent studies show that these will be minorities and the young, particularly children.

In a sense, the yelling is for more suffering, unfairly applied to those who can protect themselves the least.

The rich will not feel anything, because all of the conservatives’ proposals refuse to increase taxes or take away tax loopholes. Recent studies also show the top 1% of the America’s elite are making huge profits and increasing their wealth at record levels, while the rest of the nation gets poorer.

The Bush tax cuts and wars, which caused well over 70% of the present deficit, continue to basically starve the federal government, since trillions are still being paid to support the “war on terror” overseas (also don’t forget “Homeland Security” spending that amounts to billions of dollars with no revenue to offset the spending).

Bush was re-elected with a conservative strategy that is used by weak candidates; cut taxes and increase spending and nobody can beat you. Of course, this resulted in a fiscal nightmare for the country that is playing out today.

A “cuts only approach” is virtually being screamed at the American Public everyday, and even Democrats are talking about only cuts to deal with the deficit

This is crazy, since tax cuts and unpaid for wars are the vast majority of the cause of the debt we currently have. In fact, studies show that if the Bush tax cuts had been stopped last year when they should have, the deficit would be falling today.

Reducing the deficit will help the economy, no doubt about it. But revenue must be increased and cuts must be made for any valid debt reduction to take place. The cuts only that is being screamed at us will only depress the economy more, resulting in more recession, more debt, and ultimately the scorn of higher interest rates.

Regardless, the Tea Party Patriots continue to yell, scream, threaten and basically extort the United States with the threat of default to get their way. And their yelling “way” will lead the country further into economic collapse.

Don’t yell at me!