Flying Pink Unicorns

Today the GOP held its last debate before the Iowa caucuses. Every debate has a fair bit of pandering, but GOP debates are particularly laughable because of just how far out of touch with reality one must be (or at least pretend to be) to win GOP votes these days. Here are my favorite laughable comments:

1) When asked if we face a "Tsunami of debt, Roooooody Giuliani said yes, argued that we needed to cut the number of federal employees (wimpy b/c they are a TINY TINY percentage of the problem, but ok), and that we needed to CUT taxes-- he mentioned the estate tax, and the corporate tax. I'm not making this up! He said that CUTTING the corporate tax from 35% to 25% would INCREASE REVENUE TO THE GOV'T. I doubt VERY seriously that there is a single mainstream economist who believes for a nanosecond that cutting the corporate tax rate would do anything other than signficantly reduce the amount of money received by the US government. This is supply side lunacy. There is something to supply side economics, of course, but this is NOT the part of that branch of economics that has any merit. But it is an article of faith among the GOP at this point that cutting taxes increases revenue. Makes you wonder why they never advocated patriotically CUTTING taxes to pay for the Iraq war. I cannot overstate (a) just how stupid this "viewpoint" is; or (b) the damage it has already done to the republic. To be fair, he did NOT argue that eliminating the estate tax would raise revenue. But, despite a "tsunami" of debt which Giuliani acknowledged he said we should eliminate it anyway. Well, that's a position.

2) John McCain promised a "Manhattan Project" to make us oil import independent within 5 years. He knows perfectly well we will NOT be oil import independent in anything like that time frame, no matter what we do.

In 2006, the United States used about 20.5 million barrells of oil per day. The US produced about 8.36 million barrells per day (we are the 3rd most prolific oil producer in the world, a fact which not many know), thus we imported the remainder, about 12.2 million barrells of oil per day.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables1_2.htm

Nothing of any consequence has changed in these numbers in the last year.

The idea that any combination of government actions can quickly change these facts, absent say banning all cars from America, is idiocy. John McCain knows this perfectly well.

3) When asked what SACRIFICE would be necessary to pay off our debt, Mayor Roooooody talked about federal worker attrition (fine) and tax CUTS. Yup, that's the sacrifice required to pay off the debt, tax CUTS. Rooody is anything but a loon, but the GOP base these days is so far out of touch with reality, and GOP leaders so unwilling to tell it the truth, that you get craziness like this.

3A) On Health care, Rooooody called for fewer people on gov't health care (that's a perfectly defensible position, even though I vigorously disagree with it) but said that more people should be given tax incenctives to buy private insurance. I know, I know, you're thinking, "what about those that can't afford it." HE'S A REPUBLICAN, HE AINT WORRIED. But never mind that.

3) Rooooooooody then said that as a LOT more people buy private health insurance, prices will come down and quality will increase. Well that's ODD-- as demand soars for a service, the price will DROP and the quality INCREASE? Competition CAN do that (many more people buy computers than 10 or 20 years ago, prices are the same or lower, quality is massively higher), but gee, would you bet your child's health care on it? Typically, if more people wish to buy a product or service prices go UP not DOWN. Computers are a GOOD, not a service. Its much easier to improve the quality of a good, and manufacturing improvements and desgin improvements allow for a decline in price. Not necessarily true with a service.

4) Duncan Hunter said that he wants to bring back high paying manufacturing jobs lost due to bad trade deals. Let's see, we WERE paying $50/hour (counting benefits) in Ohio, we're now paying $4 an hour in China, and we've sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into the factory. And you want us to come back to Ohio? YEAH.

I met Duncan Hunter by chance in the Miami airport and talked with him for about 15 minutes. He certainly seemed a sensible fellow, fully in touch with reality. But we're running for office, sooooooo..........

5) Huckabee says that job migration is due to: (a) excess taxation; (b) excess regulation; and (c) excess litigation. No mention of wages or health care costs. INSANE.


6) McCain and Roooooooody squarely said that they thought climate change was real and was in part caused by human activities. HEY WAIT-- that's a perfectly sensible position, one that I agree with. And Al Gore, and Hillary......

Ah well, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Stay tuned for my review of democratic idiocy at tomorrow's democratic debate. Hopefully they won't make jackasses of themselves anywhere near as well as the elephants did.