white male consumer

Support for Obama’s stimulus plan has slipped markedly in the past two weeks, according to recent Rasmussen polling. The news cycle has been dominated with Republicans pushing tax cuts and balking at arguable spending. Not a single one could even be swayed in the House to vote for the plan. Partisan politics and stimulus plans got you down? Don’t let it – this is indicative of a fundamental difference between conservatives and reality:

Once the Stimulus Kicks In, the Real Fight Begins by Robert Reich
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Obama is facing the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Even fiscal conservatives concede that when consumers stop buying and businesses stop investing, as they are now, the government must step in as the buyer and lender of last resort.

But the moment the economy appears to be on the mend, conservatives such as Feldstein will want the government to cut spending. In their view, this is the only way to get the economy fully back on track. But others believe that it is precisely the track we were on that got us into this mess in the first place.

Those who support the stimulus as a desperate measure to arrest the downward plunge in the business cycle might be called cyclists. Others, including me, see the stimulus as the first step toward addressing deep structural flaws in the economy. We are the structuralists. These two camps are united behind the current stimulus, but may not be for long. Cyclists blame the current crisis on a speculative bubble that threw the economy’s self-regulating mechanisms out of whack. They say that we can avoid future downturns if the Fed pops bubbles earlier by raising interest rates when speculation heats up.

But structuralists see it very differently. The bursting of the housing bubble caused the current crisis, but the underlying problem began much earlier — in the late 1970s, when median U.S. incomes began to stall. Because wages got hit then by the double-whammy of global competition and new technologies, the typical American family was able to maintain its living standard only if women went into the workforce in larger numbers, and later, only if everyone worked longer hours.
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Robert Reich continues, illustrating how economic conservatives are naturally less inclined to support a stimulus plan that results in long-term sustainable economic growth. Read it.

All talk of America’s common interest aside, contrasting ideologies means different paths to separate goals. The paradox of Reagan conservatives: if you believe government to be the problem, your natural inclination is to run it into the ground. Joe Brewer on commondreams.org:

The narrow reporting on current Congressional politicking would lead one to believe that conservatives simply want a different bill to be passed. By now it should be clear that this just isn’t the case. The truth is that conservatives want to be sure Obama and his progressive colleagues at all levels of government are not able to do their jobs. Imagine what would happen if Obama succeeded at delivering money to state and city officials to build mass transit, generate renewable energy, and provide affordable health care to the populace. This would be the fulfillment of government’s moral mission – to protect and empower our citizens.

A successful progressive Obama presidency would mean a fundamental shift in American politics: the pendulum’s long, slow motion back from Reagan’s own revolution.