Today’s Guest Saturday post comes to us from Pat Slattery of the Free Market Project– Pat has a suggestion for the Republicans in Congress that at least some others also support. He published this article originally on November 23, 2012.
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Give Him What He Wants. Clean Up Later.
During the past four years I said we needed to fight Obama, not to make him fail, but because it was clear to me from an economic standpoint that his policies would make the United States fail. I was of the opinion that we couldn’t allow all of the damage that was looming actually come to pass and that we had to stave it off.
I’ve changed my mind. I’m beginning to wonder if the best thing we could do is to cave. Let Obama raise taxes all he wants on whoever he wants. Allow people to experience the best and worst of Obamacare. Give him everything he asks for.
Why? “Pat,” you say, “He’ll ruin the country. We can’t give up. We have to fight!”
President Obama is a man who got re-elected on excuses and demonization of his opponent. “Nobody could have fixed this economy in four years.” It was still Bush’s fault. Worse, he got away with blaming Republicans for their opposition to his brilliant, job creating, plans. He counted on the forgetfulness of the general populace (and it’s a good bet whenever a politician does this) in order to act like he got nothing he wanted. Those first two years when he got everything he wanted? Those years when policies were put in place that took an economy which was doing what economies do after a steep recession–have a steep recovery (GDP had already grown to 3%)–and put the brakes on it, reducing it to feeble under 2% (really, barely over 1%) growth. Never happened! Just like we were never at war with Eastasia, Democrats never got all they wanted.
He never owned the economy. He didn’t take the hit he should have taken. He was able to blame Republicans. “If only they’d gone along with my plans, we’d be in much better shape.”
Let’s let him own it, lock, stock, and barrel. Tax the living shit out of the top 2% of earners. Screw it. We’ve been saying that the result will be a loss of jobs, a lack of investment, and that it will actually reduce revenues. We have history backing us up with a lot of data. But people don’t listen. France just gave the Obama plan a shot and its having predictable results there (capital fleeing the country). People don’t pay attention. They need to see it again. They need to have it affect their lives.
Conservatives should say, “We’re giving him what he wants. Here’s what the result will be… But the man won the election and claims a mandate for his plan. We’re going to let him have it. We are clearly on the record: It won’t do what he thinks it’ll do. It will cause this country harm. It will result in stagnation of the economy at best, or a new recession at worst. Remember what we’re saying. President Barack Obama and the Democrat Party own the economic results of these policies, because the policies are theirs.”
To do otherwise, to fight him, thwart him, or compromise with him, will simply give them (Obama and the Democrats) a bunch of new excuses when what are largely, but not entirely, their policies fail. “If the Republicans hadn’t stood in our way, it would’ve worked.” They have trained the population to think in terms of victimhood. They will claim that the brilliance of their economic plan was watered down by Republicans; that they were victims of sabotage. They just did it in this last election. They will do it again in 2014 and 2016.
Give Obama all he wants. Be a damned rubber stamp. Just stand back and say, on the record, what the results will be. Perhaps, just perhaps, when things turn out the way we predict (and they will, because we’re actually working with a real understanding of economics and history), people will finally wake up to the fact that we know what we’re talking about. It’ll be painful, but not nearly as painful as sitting through another election where conservatives trying to do the right thing is simply used as an excuse by Progressives and liberals for why their programs weren’t more effective–and having them win using that excuse.
Asylum Watch 
Shortly after the election, Pat, I wrote a post in which I suggested that the Republicans in Congress had two options: a full frontal attack into the face of superior forces using their control of the purse strings to do what was right for America at the probale cost of being voted out of office at the mid-term electios. The other option was an unconditional surrender as you are suggesting for the same reasons.
I am beginning to think the best way to handle this is exactly what Pat Slattery is suggesting. Warn the American people of what the results will be if Obama implements all of his plan. Tell them we are against it, in its entirety, and then abstain from the vote. Let them carry the day and when the predictable happens, put it on display for all of America to see. Maybe then, they will wake up and realize what a terrible they made by giving Obama a second term.
I think it may be the most workable strategy I’ve heard in a long time.
I go along with this strategy. That way, the takers will find out more quickly that Uncle Sam’s pockets aren’t all that deep.
I’ll be linking to this on Monday.
The best idea I have heard yet, other than using the purple ink on the finger when we vote. I think they need to totally own this next 4 years. Yes, we should object and give the reasons why, but let them have what they want. Maybe after 4 years of a massive downfall, the people that voted for him will change their minds about him. I say we do it this way….can’t be any worse than it has been.
I didn’t watch this episode of Trifecta http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=7739 at PJTV until this morning. Apparently I’m not the only one thinking that letting the Dems have their way is a good idea, or that doing so while explicitly warning what the results will be is the way to handle it. One of the Trifecta guys made a good point: As long as the media is an extension of the Democrat party, any effort to negotiate or modify Dem plans will be seen as the reason for the plans’ failure. We’re like owners of an ignorant puppy, trying to get the puppy to keep from getting harassing the cat because the cat is going to scratch him on on the muzzle if he keeps bothering it. Eventually, you just have to let the puppy find out for itself that getting claws across the nose is a really, really bad idea. Only then does the ignorance become insight. Maybe, just maybe, if Dems have their way and it not only doesn’t work, but it causes real pain, will people say, “Hmmmm… Perhaps I didn’t realize how this all really works. It may just behoove me to learn about economics, or at least start believing someone other than the Democrats.”
Pat, you are assuming they can think for themselves, which most have proven not to be able to do. I do hope they are fast learners, however, or they will suffer right along with the rest of us and wonder just what happened. I am for letting them get what is coming to them, if I have to suffer for something I had no say in.
I couldn’t agree more. Well done. I have often said that nobody is going to take this shit seriously, until we have a full on depression and they feel the pain with 8 dollar gas. I say bring it!
To hinder them in any way will simply end us bring blamed. Excellent path. We first must go through the pain sooner or later.