House of Eratosthenes

President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats face in 2012 running for reelection into the stiff headwind of a terrible economy – largely of their own making.

In just the last four years, the federal government – run by a Democrat Congress since 2007, and adding a Democrat President in 2009 – has increased spending by 29%.

2007 Federal Budget: $2.73 trillion.

Note: This was the last all Republican budget – the House, Senate and White House were at the time all run by the Rs.

2011 Federal Budget: $3.82 trillion.

Note: This is an estimated total. Because the Democrats that were at the time running the House, Senate and White House didn’t write a budget – because they were afraid to go on the record with how much they actually wanted to spend in advance of the 2010 election.

Meaning – it could have been WORSE.

That is a $1.09 trillion increase – in just the last four years.

Behold the nation’s third Age of Bailout.

And the resulting Age of Bailout economy has been – atrocious.

Now, some people tell me I should be more open to the other side, I shouldn’t automatically presume people are irrational just because they lean left.

Okay, tell you what. I will believe in rational liberals when I see liberals behaving rationally. Here’s how someone would behave if he leaned left, but functioned as a creature of logic and common sense: He’d say, okay this didn’t work.

I do not demand or expect an overnight conversion. The liberal can go ahead and believe in Keynesian economics if he wants to. But he would say: We are going to pull this off the production floor, now. We are going to put this in a laboratory setting and tinker with it until we get it right. We are gong to start working with hard numbers…maybe we’ll designate a state, one friendly to the left-wing agenda (there’s no shortage of ’em)…and try out this “shot in the arm for the economy” thing within the borders of that state. If ever that works, we’ll arrive at a percentage and we’ll make a reappearance on the national stage with our revised, tested plan.

If you happen to be receptive to the Age of the Bailout, if you happen to like centralized economic planning and you really think that is the hope for the future, that is the next logical move.

And I’m sorry, I don’t see anyone saying or proposing anything close to that here. Hey don’t blame me. I’m not the one making the situation. I’m just noticing.

Liberals don’t need facts or experimental data, they have The Theory.

Normal people use the word “theory” synonymously with “hypothesis.” As in: “given these conditions, I expect that X will happen if I do Y. Let’s figure out a way to do X while keeping all other conditions constant, and see if we don’t get Y. If we do, the theory is confirmed.”

Leftists don’t work that way. All their “experience” is literally academic. They learned everything they feel they need to know in college, where the ability to play fancy word games was far more useful, professionally and socially, than actually building something ever could be. In academia, you don’t get As by closely reasoning from X to Y and thence to Z; you get there by pulling wildly counterintuitive but politically correct “conclusions” out of a few standard texts (all of which, let us note, are themselves highly theoretical). This is called “doing Theory” — and yes, that’s the phrase they use — and it’s exactly as practically useful as it sounds. That it’s unfalsifiable by design ( nobody “does Experience”) is a feature, not a bug. If, after all, your dissertation rests on the assumption that the Civil War was caused by latent homoerotic tension between Abe Lincoln and Jeff Davis, the last thing you want is actual photographic evidence of Jefferson doing the nasty with Mrs. Davis (no matter how valuable that might prove to be on eBay).

That’s how the liberal mind works. And, really, why not? Playing cute word games got them As at Princeton, which got them that internship at the nonprofit, which got them into law school at Harvard, where clever word games got them As again, which got them that job at the DNC, which got them elected to Congress in whatever gerrymandered district they parachuted into. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? And after all, if the Theory don’t fit the facts, it’s easy enough to play clever word games –racism! sexism! The right wing noise machine! — and simply change the facts.
- Severian | 07/19/2011 @ 08:57
“But foolish Pride has rule inside, — and mightier then my own”. Before we point fingers at the Leftists, let us tend to our own house. Plenty of irrational behavior on the Right, behavior that put the Leftists in charge. Porkbusters had it’s heyday when the Deficit was one tenth of what it is now, and it was getting smaller (as it was most every year W was president, while we were at War! Quite the hat trick, not that he got credit for it…). As we face actual doom, let us not forget the many, many tantrums the Right threw, the tantrums that got the Democrats control of Congress, in veto-proof amounts, and the Presidency. This dream the Right has of cutting the Gordian knot, of “My way or the Highway” has caused a lot of damage.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 07/19/2011 @ 09:31
True enough, the Right are no angels. But when “our” guys screw up, as we so often expect them to, we point out that they screwed up. We don’t vote for demigod philosopher-kings, we vote for people — and all-too-human people at that.

Your post, Robert, is actually a perfect example. Ever seen a comment thread on Daily Kos? For every self-righteous Faculty-Lounge Lenin and Credit Card Che in there lambasting Dear Leader for not being socialist enough, there are ten who want any critics of Obama, on any grounds whatsoever, burnt at the stake. Does any politician on the right — with the glaring exception of Sarah Palin — have that kind of fanboy brigade? And even Palin would, I think, come in for a drubbing were she actually elected to something, because ultimately results matter. The left loves the idea of “stimulus” in the same way they love the idea of Obama — it’s just soooooo awesome and wonderful that they can’t give it up, no matter what the real-world consequences are. Reality is ugly and messy and all too often a choice between the lesser of two evils. The Theory is beautiful and pure and pristine, as clean and precise as the contrast between black words and white paper. Some people just can’t see past that. We call them Lefitsts, and God love ’em, it’s probably congenital. It’s our obligation to try to understand them, and help them if we can, while preventing them from doing any more damage.
- Severian | 07/19/2011 @ 09:47
I’m not talking about “our guys”, I’m talking about us. If the Left has “The Theory”, and deny reality in their quest for it, the Right has a problem in the other direction, “Not seeing the Forest for the Trees”. Again, Porkbusters. The Right (not the leaders, this was the grassroots) had no idea of “Forest”, no strategy, no awareness of the other side and what they could do. Just anger at the size of the Deficit and the amount of “Earmarks”. Deficit was getting smaller at the hour of the Porkbusters, and the only reason that we knew so much about the Earmarks was because the Republicans had made it the Law that they be part of the public record. No matter. “Deficit’s Too Big! Got to teach them RINOs a Lesson!”. Giving us a tenfold increase in the Deficit and an unknown increase in the Earmarks (for that law got repealed the minute the Democrats were back in charge. Funny, that.). If the Leftists have a problem with “Philosopher-Kings” and “Beautiful Theories”, we have a problem with “Corn Kings” and “Too Pragmatic to make a Plan”. The Right turned on W very quickly, over really, really (in hindsight) issues. The Right, not “our guys”, the Right played “Gandalf on the Bridge” over illegal immigrants the very moment that W was trying to deal with Freddie and Fanny. “We” won, and with our victory, the economy was destroyed. Not the first Pyrrhic Victory we’ve had. So, before we try and understand the Left, we should try to understand ourselves.
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 07/19/2011 @ 10:43
If we’re going to understand the people who couldn’t see the forest for the trees, shouldn’t we try to understand what might have motivated them?

Here it is twenty-eleven. If you go out and make the case for kicking the democrats out, you can’t say “Things Were Better Under George Bush” even if that is, measurably, true. Bush has a dirty name. I don’t wish to debate whether that’s deserved or not — the answer is, partially yes and partially no. But let’s not lose sight of the fact: The reason he has a dirty name, ultimately, is that he isn’t really a conservative. He aroused anger on both sides by diminishing his ideological identity with the reach-across-the-aisle stuff.

Does “compassionate conservatism” even begin to have a claim, that history should look back on it fondly? Does it even come close?

As usual, the problems are created through the authorities leaning too far left; and they’re blamed on the initiatives that leaned right. How is the public really incensed at George Bush, what’s the one thing he did to really piss off the hoi polloi? Ironically it’s the one thing he got right: Making up his mind that Saddam Hussein needed to go, and sticking to his guns until it got done.

The never-vetoed-a-single-spending-plan (until I think in his last two years he did, IIRC, when it was far too late to salvage a reputation) — that never gets mentioned. And then there’s John “I’m too nice a guy to bring up Jeremiah Wright” McCain.

In view of all we have learned, I’m leaning toward more purity tests, not fewer. I think the public will see an honest candidate when they meet one who behaves the way honest people behave: Here’s what I believe, I’m not backing down from it, if you disagree I hope we can be friends, if we can’t, then oh well.
- mkfreeberg | 07/19/2011 @ 10:54
We know what motivated them. They won’t shut up about their “Motivation”. We’re trying to educate them, so they stop “cutting off their nose to spite their face”. The whole “(fill in your topic of choice) must be stopped no matter the Cost!” people. The people still talking about the “Bush deficits” after Obama gave us a World wide Depression.

This is not about making the case for kicking the Democrats out. This is internal, this is about dealing with the burning need so many Republicans have to grab defeat from the jaws of Victory. A unhappy example right here. “Bush wasn’t really a conservative”, “He never-vetoed-a-single-spending-plan”. In what way was he not a Real Conservative? 100% pro-life, good on National Defense, pro-freedom, lowering the Deficit in a time of war. His actions look amazingly Conservative to me. “But, But he never-vetoed-a-single-spending-plan!”. Why would he (until, as you point out, the Democrats got control of Congress and spending exploded)? He was getting what we wanted. The Deficit was going down. What kind of a pathetic loser tilts at the windmill when he’s winning? We have our answer, “Real Conservatives”, the ones who threw the tantrum that got Democrats control of Congress in 2006 and increased the Deficit by a quantum, because Bush wasn’t “hard core” enough for them…..

And then there’s the odd Republican belief in the “Magic Bullet”. If only (Candidate X) had (Done/Mentioned/Stood Tall/Etc) we would have won. Especially silly here, where McCain was cruising to a solid victory until the Republicans choked on the “Bailout”. You know, the obvious “Magic Bullet”. Right or wrong, the three days to crack like an egg was pathetic, and just too close to the Election for McCain to overcome.

I know. You and too many other Republicans. It’s why the Democrats control the Country with a minority of the voters. You are doomed to fail, because the people you are talking about don’t go into Politics, they go into Business. People go into politics because they want to work with other people, “Come, let us reason together”. Even the sainted Reagan. But ok, let’s have a purity test. You know, there are some Republicans who are such RINOs that they think the only way to become a U.S citizen is to deal with a corrupt Democrat controlled bureaucracy that is so incompetent that it gave papers to the 9/11 hijackers a year after 9/11! How, exactly, do we get these big government trusting RINOs, these “false flag” Conservatives out of the party?
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 07/19/2011 @ 12:08
Here‘s what I’m talking about:

2001 budget, 1863$B
2002 budget, 2011$B
2003 budget, 2160$B
2004 budget, 2293$B
2005 budget, 2472$B
2006 budget, 2655$B
2007 budget, 2729$B

The democrats control the country because too many people are looking at the Republicans and saying, “What exactly is it they stand for?” Now if this problem did not exist, and the GOP could say “We’re for cutting the size of the government” — with the history to back that up — would the democrats be able to win elections right now? I doubt it. The public doesn’t like their platform either. But the perception is out there, that with the democrats at least you know what you’re getting. Maybe that doesn’t motivate democrats to get out and vote, as much as a few planted whores pretending to faint in Obama’s audiences. But it does motivate Republicans to stay home.
- mkfreeberg | 07/19/2011 @ 13:00
I think they’re positions, not “purity tests,” but either way, I’m for ’em. There’s a vast difference between “getting elected” and “holding an elected official’s feet to the fire,” and one can only measure wins and losses in the relevant column. I was for Bush in 2000 because the thought of a President Gore still makes me soil myself (he’s the one guy who might could make Dear Leader look humble); that’s a “win” for “us,” I suppose. But when G-Dub started doing his “compassionate conservative” thing, lots of folks — myself certainly included — should’ve told him to stuff it; that “we” didn’t is a “loss.” We “won” again when we kept John F. Kerry out of the White House (shudder), but “lost” when we let Bush take that as a mandate for more compassionate conservatism.

But to say that hardline, cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types cost “us” the 2008 election? That’s a bridge too far. I know because I was one of those “_____ must be stopped, no matter the cost!” people. Still am. I was chomping at the bit to vote for John frickin’ McCain, God help me, because I thought Substitute Jesus would be every bit as bad as He has turned out to be. What’s more, I’m chomping at the bit to vote for literally anyone but Obama. Bachman, Palin, Pawlenty, the rotting corpse of Herbert Hoover, Chico the Homeless Guy Who Rants on the Street Corner.

But here’s the thing: people like me will turn out regardless. It’s those other folks, the ones who don’t associate with the Republican brand identity, who will stay home. And that’s where “purity tests” or whatever come into play — in the primaries. That’s why I want the primary field to be as wide as possible, and the process to be as long and as bruising as possible. By the end of it, we’ll know exactly what the nominee stands for, and the Vast Muddled Middle can make their choice accordingly (and it won’t hurt that the longer the primary goes on, the less time Obama and the press (I repeat myself, of course) will have to demagogue and paint the R as the child of Satan). Once we’re over that hump, then we start the long and arduous process of keeping our new Republican president’s feet to the fire.
- Severian | 07/19/2011 @ 13:29
A lovely piece of bait and switch, one that Republicans keep doing to themselves and thereby getting Democrats elected. We were talking about the Deficit, which was going down under W. So, Real Republican that you are ™, you make the Perfect the Enemy of the good and bring up the budget numbers, which, of course, have to get bigger as the country gets bigger. Now, the Republicans have the “history to back it up”, but it doesn’t matter because people like you keep moving the goal posts. Not consciously, I’m sure. If you were thinking about it, you would have been subtler about the “bait and switch”. The real question is “What can we do to stop Republicans from comparing Republicans one vote majorities with Democrats control of the Presidency, the House (in veto-proof numbers) and the Senate (as in, two/thirds control)”. Come, now. ” With the democrats at least you know what you’re getting. “. Yes, people knew exactly what they were getting with the Democrats, that’s why the Democrats kept control of the House and Senate in 2010. Right.

Yep, that’s what it’s all about. Republicans staying home. Republicans stayed home and gave us Carter. Republicans stayed home and gave us Clinton. Republicans stayed home and gave us Obama. We’re still digging out of the hole Carter put us in, giving us the Middle East that has been so good to us these thirty old years, the less said about Pornstar the better, and we all love the National Health Care Obama has given us. We know it’s going to work, how could it not, being based on the best socialized system in the world, the British one? Given how badly the “Real Republicans” shafted themselves with these stupid tantrums and sit outs, what can the Republicans do to get the “Real Republicans” to take the gun away from their own forehead? You would think at some point that people would realize that half the Country is Democrats, and stopping the Democrats from getting elected and causing unspeakable disasters is “what you get” when you vote Republican, and it’s all we can hope for now. I mean, really. Has there been a Democrat elected since the start of the 20th century who has not been an complete mess? You liked Wilson and Ethnic Self Determination? FDR and the Great Depression? Truman and the Korean war and an almost complete surrender the the Soviet Union? Kennedy and vote fraud on a national level and incompetence to the point of almost causing a nuclear war? Johnson and Affirmative action and “Guns and Butter”, the “Great Society”? Who have you got on the Republican side? Even Nixon comes off as heroic when compared to Pornstar. Republicans know this. And they still stay home……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 07/19/2011 @ 13:57
Ah, Severian, you are not one of the “cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face types”. Those are the people who work themselves into a lather about the Republican in front of them, while forgetting the choice is an imperfect Republican or actually Evil (Pornstar, Gore, The Messiah, etc). Our humble host talking about staying home rather then vote for “that RINO, McCain” is an example of COYNTSYF. Can’t tell the difference between a 100% pro-life, honest, hard working War Hero with positions you don’t agree with and The Messiah? A sure sign of someone who has forgotten how bad Democrats are……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 07/19/2011 @ 14:08
Back when I was just starting to vote, the democrats in Congress would say to President Reagan “We’ll make you a deal. We’ll cut these programs for you over here, if you hold off your veto when we increase those other programs over there.” What went on with George Bush was “We’ll make you a deal. We’ll spend the money on Iraq, but you don’t veto anything.” So years ago it was cuts-for-increases, and in the present day it’s increases-for-increases.

Then, on the way out, Bush sees he’s still unpopular so he has to go Keynesian with the S&L bailouts and try to make some friends back. Which he doesn’t do. And now Mister Change is in there saying, don’t you dare criticize Me for a zillion other bailouts because I’m just doing what the last guy did.

The charts over here are looking really scary. Especially Fig. 2, “Federal Outlays by Category, 1950 to 2075 (as a percentage of GDP).”

See, this is the kind of thing that makes makes it clear we need to think, long and hard, about exactly what it is we want. I don’t think having the letter R after the guy’s name is good enough. Government is exploding out of sight…because people are voting for democrats when they don’t even like ’em too much…because they don’t really know what it means to be a Republican. Too many back-room, reach-across-the-aisle deals. Stick to the principles of smaller government, none of this stuff happens.
- mkfreeberg | 07/19/2011 @ 15:16

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Age of the BailoutTuesday, July 19th, 2011

Age of the Bailout
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011