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Re: Kasich delivers Ohio

By: Cactus Flower in ALEA | Recommend this post (0)
Mon, 22 Feb 16 2:52 AM | 88 view(s)
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Msg. 18185 of 54959
(This msg. is a reply to 18184 by DigSpace)

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I know these aren't your beliefs, but let me tell you why I think these ideas are not very deep.

How do you define "large government"? The only thing I hear is Republicans demanding reduction. When does small get too small? When is large too large? These sizist memes are too inexact to be useful.

If folks want to reframe their belief systems thoughtfully, they should phrase things a bit differently: where government provides a net benefit, you want to have it; where it provides a net cost, you don't. There is no general rule of government size. There are social environments, many of which may benefit from some government contribution. The type of government contribution you want is the sort that suits the problem. There is no general rule of what contributions match which problems. You build knowledge over time.

For me, that is a statement of traditional conservative philosophy. But you can't find folks who believe in this. It's all "government is necessarily bad, markets are always benevolent" and other such mush.

I have not encountered Republicans who believe in 1-3!!!

Anyone who believes in 4 would have let the world economy destroy itself in 2008, so those folks ain't learnin'. Fortunately, the Fed knew better. What's good for the banks is okay for the rest of us, if extraordinary harms occur when not doing so. The invisible hand hasn't got eyes so it doesn't know where it's going. Sometimes the cliff is up ahead.

Anyone who believes in 5 would also have been content with the lack of regulation of Wall Street leading to 2008, so again, in need of edumacation. Markets do better when someone regulates/stops harmful behaviours before they do the harm they would do otherwise. People cheat and steal. It's a known thing that doesn't vanish because you say it's a marketplace. Markets are pricing mechanisms. So you generally don't want governments to get in the way of that (exceptions for monopolies, oligopolies etc).

Public protections are necessary because folks naturally pass their own costs to third parties eg poisons from mining flushed into rivers that go downstream and affect everyone. People who believe 6 should either read Pigou or just consider the algal blooms at the bottom end of Texan rivers and ponder how they got there.

I have time for 7 and 9.

You get Clean Water Acts because you have government departments that care about the environment.

Surely the ones who believe 1-3 abandoned ship eons ago.

I agree that the Dem candidates are weak this time out. That is a shame.


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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Kasich delivers Ohio
By: DigSpace
in ALEA
Mon, 22 Feb 16 2:16 AM
Msg. 18184 of 54959

there are well-educated fiscally conservative republicans that fundamentally believe that the inefficiencies of government on balance outweigh the benefits large government might provide. In my experience these republicans often
1) oppose the Bush tax cuts
2) support the notion of a heavy petroleum (gas) use tax
3) believe in state support of education
4) believe in the abolition of govt guarantees in all their forms (FHA, student loans, etc) believing that these things create artificial price bubbles by creating unbalanced demand
5) oppose regulation in all its forms when it aims to shape markets
6) believe in local control of land (have issues with the BLM, FS etc)
7) oppose government intervention in all matters "social" (reproduction, affirmative action)
Cool believe in things like the Clean Water Act but hate bureaucracies like the EPA
9) believe in zero/near zero corporate tax ("double taxation" being the bugaboo, taxing the corporation and then taxing the dividends again)

They exist, there are many.

Regarding trump and the low information Republican voter, it is rather confusing. KY and WV, states with massive poverty, states with third world econcomies (based almost entirely on the use and price of commodities like coal), fully cogent of the fact that a decent dose of union rights and progressive taxation would serve them well ... but somehow almost revel in their poverty. Those are hard to figure, but the rest are the folks the GOP managed to dupe: unions are bad, govt is a corrupt conspiracy, if it weren't for immigrants we would all somehow be rich. These folks don't see distribution of wealth, don't see rising productivity in the face of falling incomes, they just don't get it. It seems the chances are good that they become non-voters again over time, they were non-voters before the Nixon coalition and the Reagan bolstering of it, but they are not going to get their red meat, their situation is not going to improve, and they are not going to get their candidate .... they are going to get Romney v2.0 (Rubio).

I see the country moving left. I see many of these folks eventually voting with the left. It is just a matter of a more articulate leader. HRC is a tired old bag of "New Democrat" thinking (the whole bunch are largely DINOs). Bernie is too class warfare sloganesque. Somebody will come along and clarify the distinction between corporations and government and workers, see the government as an extension of "the people" that the clear stated (Jefferson) purpose of government is to stand for the people in opposition to 1) the church and 2) the corporation.

Once the dust settles, the low information voter leaves, the social issue voter leaves, and the "moderate republican" will once again take hold of the republican party (read Clinton and that ilk changes registration). The Republican party becomes a coalition of larger government pro-corporate (Clinton, Bush I) and smaller government pro-corporate (Mark Cuban) and the other side becomes a true labor party and abandons its "moderate" any trade is good trade, deregulated markets that Clinton and Bush I represent.

Trumps folks go home a sulk.


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