"We do need the private sector to be able to keep more of what we earn and produce [sic]. Government is going to have to learn to be more efficient and live with less if that's what it takes to reign in the government growth that we've seen today."
and,
"And the rescue plan has got to include that massive oversight that Americans are expecting and deserving."
Or this pair:
"Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem so, government, lessen the tax burden and on our families and get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper."
and,
"We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings [...]"
If you believe, with John Dickerson, that this debate was about rebranding Sarah Palin for future use, you have to square these statements. This is the Republican VP candidate calling for massive regulation of financial markets alongside massive deregulation. My brain, together with my hair, stood on end! WWMilton Friedman D?Never mind that Palin is participating in the same overt hypocrisy of Reagan's "Government, you are the problem," pretending that government is something you can be in and not of, something you seek but won't accept, (also, necessarily, presuming that government is something other than the things we choose to do together), etc., the way that diehard evangelicals read the Letter to the Romans' "Be ye not conformed to this world, but be transformed," and find free license to run a child-rape cult...Again, never mind all that. Never mind the soggy logical turf her handlers are inhabiting there. What kind of party brand can you build on this?
What I would have given for Biden to have started autistically screeching "Fuzzy Math!" or "Voodoo Economics!" Clearly, we need a shock into awareness. The party brand -- listen up, Mitt! -- that is built when you promise to shrink government while maintaining an open-ended war in Iraq, while increasing non-emergency approprations for defense, USW, is the Bush-Cheney brand. It is deficits don't matter. It's this kind of pigeon shit.
Maybe it's an Eastern thing, like "Spending and tax cuts are the father and mother of the ten-thousand things," but my guess is it's far from it...
IF, on the other hand, you struggle to comprehend why anyone thought this a successful appearance for SP (at 01:19 here, she called Al Qaeda Shiites:
she said the trouble on Main Street was trickling up to Wall Street (which she didn't mean to say, clearly, but is true nonetheless), and this is recalled off the top of my head, God knows what other horrors lie in that transcript), then the above are just parts of a cynical "Sure, you can have your cake and eat it, why not?" gesture.
No Republican president has ever shrunk government and none ever will. We all know this. But the only thing worse than a will-wank-for-coins tactic is a will-wank-for-coins tactic that doesn't work. The tax-cut-spending-increase bait-and-switch will crash the Republican party (and looking very far ahead, the thing I really fear is a hard nut of a latter-day GOP emerging when this party goes -nova, the remaining True Believer fiscal conservatives sloughing off the excess gas of the past 14 years to become a mighty quasar, a radio beacon audible throughout the universe; those guys are more comfortable on AM anyway; the Hensarling Quasar is a metaphor pret a porter).
Either the tune is going to change, or Jeb Hensarling will be the only one standing When the Revolution Come...
--
ds
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