voiceofsandiego.org: James Goldsborough... Lessons for the GOP

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009 | Franklin D. Roosevelt, running for president three years into the Great Depression, promised to "take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." Meanwhile, President Hoover, buying Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's belief that the depression would "purge the rottenness out of the system" tried nothing.

Roosevelt took office amid national panic. Wall Street had collapsed, the economy had been sinking since 1929 and unemployment stood at a quarter of the work force. One thousand homeowners a day were losing their homes. Voters gave the Democrats big majorities in both houses of Congress in '32. Like Roosevelt, the nation was ready to "above all, try something."

So were Congressional Republicans, who during the "Hundred Days" rallied behind Roosevelt's boldest moves, including the Emergency Banking Act, which closed down banks and sent in national inspectors to reorganize them, and the Economy Act, which Republicans supported over Democratic opposition.

Barack Obama faces nothing so dire as 1933, though there are reasons to agree with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman that "this looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression." But just as in '33, Republicans face their moment of truth: Do they want to use government economic tools to avoid a second Great Depression, or do they agree with un-elected GOP leader Rush Limbaugh, who says of Obama: "I want him to fail."

Consider Limbaugh's words: Obama failing means economic recovery failing. Economic recovery failing means doing nothing to prevent the second depression that Krugman warns about, a depression that didn't end until the massive recovery program called World War II finally put people back to work.

Obama failing means our political system failing. Three months ago, Obama won a comfortable majority vote and more than twice as many electoral votes as his opponent. The situation is analogous to 1933 with this difference: Republicans wanted the president to succeed in 1933. Today, the Senate GOP would use the filibuster to have him fail.

If GOP memories are too short for 1933, how about 1993? That was the year every Republican in Congress voted against the Clinton deficit reduction act. The Clinton bill raised taxes, reduced the debt, set the country on a decade of growth (ending with a budget surplus) and drove a stake through the cold hearts of supply-side economists, who since the Reagan years had argued that tax increases led to economic decline.

What is particularly bizarre about current GOP policy today is that in 1993 Clinton was proposing tax increases. This year, Obama is proposing tax cuts. As he said Monday during an impressive first White House press conference: The last thing the nation needs in this crisis is "ideological blockage."

Obama entered office seeking reconciliation and bi-partisanship. As in 1933, the choice for Republicans was clear: party or nation? "Unless we do something to adapt," GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell told his party two weeks ago, "our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery ... we risk becoming a permanent minority party."

McConnell's fears are justified. In November, the GOP won only the South and the Midwest. The trend among important cohorts like women, voters under 45, gays, Hispanics, Asians and Afro-Americans was strongly to the Democrats. Socially, the GOP was competitive in November among only four groups: seniors, Southerners, the wealthy and religious fundamentalists.

By opposing the majority's plan to keep the nation from sinking into depression, Republicans are doing nothing to adapt. Their mantra for every problem -- whether wars, booms, recessions or depressions, is the same: deregulation and more tax cuts.

How is that consistent with the call to adapt? How does it keep the GOP from becoming a permanent minority party? Wouldn't it be smarter to join the process? Wall Street's objections to the plan Tuesday was over its lack of specifics, not over any shortage of tax cuts. By playing a positive role, Republicans could hope to appeal again to those Republicans and independents who historically have supported the GOP, but hate what it became under Bush.

Instead, Republicans repeat their tax-cut mantra and work to remove aid to the states from the plan -- which has Republican governors from California to Florida fuming. Standing by Obama's side Tuesday, Florida's Republican Gov. Charlie Crist shouted, "this bill is for the country." Instead of backing the bill's banking provisions -- ones that, as in 1933, will send government auditors into banks to approve them or close them down -- all House Republicans opposed the bill and all but three Senate Republicans.

How can a rationalist -- or nationalist, for that matter -- follow the advice of someone like Limbaugh who militates for national failure at a time like this? One can criticize the plan for lacking specificity and not being comprehensive enough to deal with the magnitude of the problem, but the GOP's sulking on the sidelines is pitiful. As Obama said Monday, "They doubled the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility."

James O. Goldsborough has written on foreign affairs for four decades, both from the United States and abroad, where he worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Herald Tribune, International Herald Tribune and Newsweek magazine for 14 years, reporting from more than 40 countries. Visit his website here. Submit a letter to the editor here.

Vlad, You are not the only one to find distortions in Goldsborough's ramblings. There are very few journalists these days who even attempt to be objective. Almost all are propagandists and, in Goldsborough's case, suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Posted by josil | reply to this comment
February 13, 2009 1:23 pm

What is really strange is Goldsborough's bothering to write about Rush Limbaugh's center-stage hissy-fit, wishing aloud that Obama would fail. Limbaugh is a jackass. Somebody recently said that the reason the GOP (led by John McCain) has backed away from any form of bi-partisanship is that there are few moderate Republicans left in the United States Congress and the right-wingers who do remain are distancing themselves from the "stimulus" package so they can run as I-told-you-so political candidates in 2010 and regain a majority in one or both houses of Congress. All predicated on the economy still being in a shambles at that time. And maybe it will be, thanks to the anything-goes unregulated financial system Bush countenanced. It would be nice if all elected officials could recognize this national emergency and pull together, but then again, maybe political bi-partisanship is just not possible, ever.

Posted by Fed Up | reply to this comment
February 12, 2009 9:38 pm

Bipartisanship in 1933 meant a bipartisan failure to bring our country out of the Great Depression. As Mr. Krugman points out, it was "a depression that didn't end until the massive recovery program called World War II finally put people back to work." Why then, would Republicans want to back a path set forth by the Democrats that they do not believe will bring us out of this crisis. Action, for the sake of action, is no action at all.

Posted by Hugh | reply to this comment
February 12, 2009 11:27 pm

The current Republican Party has sunk so far to the right that they think the current middle of the roaders are really liberals. Until the moderates in the Party find some way to regain some control of their Party, the Republicans will remain an unappealing alternative for the majority of the nation. Quite frankly, it is disgusting to watch the lies and obstructionist tactics of Republicans these days. I used to respect conservatives in the past but find it difficult to find one I can trust. President Obama has gone out of his way to build unity only to be faced with the left over Republican politicians from the Limbaugh, Bush and Gingrich years. I do have to smile and then shake my head in amazement every time Republicans cheer these three people.

Posted by Jim S | reply to this comment
February 13, 2009 9:17 am

This article is so convoluted it distorts all accuracy of history and truth. Rather than go into each point of untruth, or contortion of logic, the reader should just read it line by line and analyze it. It's pretty obvious that he has some sort of logic diversion. There is no way anyone would have passed the present bill that is before Congress, back in 1933. Obama is running blind, hopes for the best, and hurries his plan through. No one in Washingtion has even read the proposed bill in its entirety. No one can defend logically the wide expansion of government that the bill would permanently create. There are truths and untruths, in Goldsboroughs statements, Such as his statements about Clintons tax hike in 1993, the largest tax increase in American history. Analysts compute that it cost every Americanover$1500inr Don'tbelievealotofth

Posted by David S | reply to this comment
February 13, 2009 10:30 am

You didn't put Mr. Limbaugh's comments in context. Rush said, "If his policies are socialistic, then I want him to fail." ...or something close to that. He did not just say, "I WANT HIM TO FAIL."

Posted by Billy Bob | reply to this comment
February 13, 2009 1:30 pm

Another load of C*** from this author. He has been doing it for 40 years. I consider myself a moderate Republican my wife is a moderate Democrat. We don't think this spending package will work and in 6 months there will be another one. California especially is in real trouble. We have been losing population and more will leave with these tax hikes. look for a lot of vacancies in your strip malls. Manufacturers are fleeing the state already. My recall is that until the Republicans forced reform after 92, the economy was slipping. The tech revolution drove the 90's and when the collapse came, we went into a recession before Bush took office. Enjoy your $13.

Posted by lee | reply to this comment
February 13, 2009 3:49 pm

Frankly, I think all this talk of "bi-partisanship" and "team of rivals" and traveling down memory lane to 1933 is hooey. I am interested in 2009 and where this country is headed. As far as I can tell, it's into the Hudson, and I am willing to give Barack Obama and his people a chance to get the engines going again and to pull up out of the death-dive. The Republicans are a shadow of their former selves -- Rockefeller, Rudman -- I don't know, surely there were others who were intelligent and decent and could work for the best interests of the nation in an emergency. ESPECIALLY WHEN THE DISASTER WAS CAUSED BY THEIR OWN PARTY'S ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY. (Don't get me going.) Both Goldsborough's focus on the past and his beating the drum for Clinton leave me cold.

Posted by Fed Up | reply to this comment
February 13, 2009 4:55 pm

It's the other way around! If the economy is failing, it means that Obama failed. But, of course, he can blame it on Pelosi and Reid.

Posted by Mike Leach | reply to this comment
February 15, 2009 8:54 pm

In 2006 the people in the United States had a negative savings rate for the first time sense 1933. In 2005, I believe it was, we stopped reporting how much funny money we were printing-up. As well, we appear to be only now discovering, the true extend and effects of all the ‘off the books’ governmental spending that took place from 2001 to 2007. So, let us see what President Obama was handed when he took office. Was it not the largest, most expensive, most indebted, and most invasive Federal Government in the history of our nation? Was it not a nation, which, from 2001 to 2006, had a net loss of some 2 million middle-income jobs; the first time a job loss of that magnitude had taken place sense the 1930’s, no? Moreover, those shifts took place after the spring 2001- tax cuts. What do you know about?

Posted by Really? | reply to this comment
March 4, 2009 5:22 pm

Lessons for the GOP

By James O. Goldsborough