The GOP Economic plan: It’s turtles all the way down

Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time begins with this story:
"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At teh end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever, " said the old lady. "But it turtles all the way down!"
I’ve come to the conclusion that the GOP subscribe to the same tortured logic as the elderly lady in this tale when it comes to tax cuts.
Let’s take for example Tim Pawlenty, the current front runner for second place in the GOP primaries. His plan is to introduce a combination of tax and spending cuts, which would thereby create an environment that would allow us to sustain an average GDP growth of 5% for the next ten years. He believes it can be done because we’ve done it in the past and China and Brazil have been to accomplish this much. This plan is pure fantasy. a) we’ve never sustained growth of that magnitude for a period close to two years much less a decade. b) China and Brazil combined would still only have a fraction of our GDP. The most insulting aspect of this plan is that to believe it is to imply that the problem with the Bush Tax cuts, which have been in place for over a decade and have resulted in zero job growth, were too small. After a decade where the only growth has been in the distance between the rich and poor in this country the solution is more of the same. The leeches haven’t fixed your ailment, well I have a guaranteed solution more leeches.
The story above is supposed to indicates a simplicity of thought, It is that simplicity of thought that permeates the GOP plans. In days we will reach the debt ceiling and the only solution the GOP is willing to consider is spending cuts. They’re big talking point which they’ve drilled into our collective consciousness is Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem it has a spending problem. all you have to do is cut spending and all our problems go away. The problem is this is totally disconnected from the true immediate problem our country actually faces: Unemployment. Sure there are tons of problems in this country, we don’t have a decent energy policy, our schools don’t work, and it seems like mother nature is actively trying to kick us off the continent, but the big banner problem right now is the 9.2% “official” and 16% unofficial unemployment numbers. Most of these other problems have been around for decades, and will continue to be around for years to come but everyone agrees that the employment level is far too low for a healthy nation. If we are facing so many problems why are we focusing so much attention on the deficit? The answer is that a reduction of government spending feels like it will fix the economy, it won’t.
14 trillion dollars sounds like a crushing amount of debt, and any other nation in the world be on the brink of economic collapse if their financial burdens were as large as ours, but we have to remember America is not any other nation. I don’t mean this in an American exceptionalism, chest thumping jingoism. I mean this in quantitative and qualitative terms America is set apart from the other nations on the globe. The American dollar is the global currency, This doesn’t just mean that the dollar can be used almost anywhere in the world, it means that besides the local currency the only other currency guaranteed to be held by the banks are American dollars. No other currency on the planet is as transferable as the American dollar. In addition America has the largest and most powerful military in the world. this is important because military support fosters economical stability, a nation of vast wealth but limited military is always under threat by competing nations which leaves their currency suspect. These particularities make our economic options unique.
America is cash poor. Meaning we’re currently short on cold hard cash, it does not mean we are broke. We have some of the most valuable assets on the planet. This leaves us with a vast potential for wealth. This is the reason that international corporations, and governments are still more than willing to invest in US futures at historically low rates. Centering our discussion solely around reducing the deficit is insane as the consensus amongst economists is that any reduction in spending will result in slowing if not totally stopping or recovery.
Often times when I write here I try to avoid mentioning the GOP. It was a deliberate attempt to engage in something of an ideological argument instead of a political argument. The reason is I felt politics is just how you play the game to move towards your belief, but the current fight over the debt ceiling is deer hunter territory. I’m liberal, I believe that the government can, should and does have the ability to help all Americans reach the highest level of success. At the same time I’m not dogmatic in my beliefs and can accept that many people believe that spending 30% of the GDP on government services will have unintended negative consequences. The problem is GOP leadership isn’t engaging in ideological debates over the deficit, none of their arguments are even mathematically consistent forgetting logical consistency. This fact alone explains their turtles all the way down approach to the economy. I can agree with conservatives on government bureaucracy, waste, and fraud, we need conservatives to expose and fight against those aspects of our society. But that is not what the GOP is fighting for, nor are they fighting for small businesses that could do a lot better if there was fairness in the tax code. The GOP is fighting for the GOP, not conservatives, not the average joe; no, for the GOP, it’s the GOP all the way down.


P.S. Some may think I'm overstating America's ability to obtain cheap debt, but consider this, in Europe Greece, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, and now even Italy are all teetering on the edge of stability, Japan has been rocked by national disaster, the middle east is in revolution, and I'm sorry but South America and Africa are still decades away from being able to borrow enough to satisfy the global giant pool of money that needs to be invested each year. We can borrow more money because there is simply no one else big enough to take our place.