Sanity Plea?

This will be a nearly pure look at the issue that

exit polls say voters care most about this election.

There is little doubt in my mind that the elections of 2010 will be looked back at and examined as the most acute example of voter amnesia in American political history. To have a landslide election of the size and strength that the US had in 2008, and then such a strong reversal just two years later speaks volumes to the abilities of persuasion that either one side or the other has. In 2008, the Dems took 8 seats from the Republicans, and as of now 6+ seats have fallen back to the Red. In the House this is even more apparent, with the Dems falling from 257 seats in '08 to the 190-ish they'll have when the remaining counties are decided.

It's clear that voters in this country have had a change of heart. The question that is begging to be asked is are they justified in this reversal of desires after such little time has passed? Voters overwhelmingly wanted politicians to focus on bolstering the economy, both in '08 and now again in 2010. This seems like an absolutely reasonable and in fact necessary demand considering that the real unemployment rate is around 17%. Of course, how to go about reducing the unemployment rate and getting things to flow back in the right direction is something that people have differing ideas on. This is a legitimate disagreement in which both sides can argue rationally without resorting to appeals to emotion or values not mutually shared. However, it ultimately boils down to the Right wanting either

A) A policy of Non-intervention in the markets, in which case voters are making a mistake in expecting improvement unless they feel that government intervention via stimulus and monetary policy. The assumption that voters have when they say they are voting in new politicians is that these new politicians will work on the issues they care about. If they are knowingly electing a bunch of non-interventionists than their only logical rationale is the previously mentioned stance that intervention is doing more harm than help.

B) More tax cuts either across the board or that are targeted at business specifically. Whether or not Americans realize it, the vast majority of them unarguably received a federal tax cut from the Reinvestment and Recovery Act (Stimulus). This is on top of the tax cuts that were passed by President Bush in 2003 that have been extended, which is effectively all of the tax cutting that the Right is going to want as far as average Americans are concerned. Most tax increases that people have seen lately are a result of state governments trying to scrounge up money to balance their own budgets. The anti-tax sentiment that results from this shouldn't be reflected in national offices, but it surely seems that many people don't see the distinction or recognize the real source of many policies. Unfortunately,the incoming wave of red senators and congressmen / women haven't actually proposed any policies outside of "tax cuts and less government regulation"

That's it. That is literally the entire plan of the conservative movement in this country to fix a hemorrhaging economy. So people have voted for either politicians that will do nothing to help, or politicians that will just ride the wave of the previous congress' actions and de-regulate industries that are severely under-regulated already.

Despite Wall Street and the banking industry getting us into the largest recession since the 1930's and contributing greatly to the housing collapse, Republicans in both the House and the Senate opposed H.R. 4173 (the financial reform bill) and it passed along party lines. The rationale here is that the industry cannot be policed, because the government sucks at regulating and can only cause harm. So the repercussions for this colossal failure by these banks and this industry would be non-existent if it were left up to the conservatives.

The International Finance Corporation, a division of the World Bank, ranks economies on a "Ease of Doing Business" scale on the basis of ten indicators ranging from paying taxes to employing workers and enforcing contracts. The US ranks 4th in the World behind only Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong. To say that US businesses have nothing but red tape and regulation to weed through is simply not the case when you look at it relative to the rest of the industrialized world. The World Bank even clarifies this ranking, saying

"The ease of doing business index is

limited in scope. It does not account for

a economy’s proximity to large markets,

the quality of its infrastructure services

(other than services related to trading

across borders), the strength of the financial

system, the security of property

from theft and looting, macroeconomic

conditions or the strength of underlying

institutions."

When these things are considered, it becomes clear that the United States is a great place to do business. It has one of the largest markets, with a relatively strong infrastructure and sufficient security for businesses in general.

There simply isn't justification for a change of heart on the basis of economic recovery. I doubt anyone would make the claim that many industries aren't burdened with some unnecessary or clunky and inefficient regulation, to chock the entire economy's issues up to them is simply scapegoating on an immeasurable scale.

Voting in the party of no-regulation and tax cuts to solve a problem they are in no small part responsible for is ludicrous and mind blowing even when you leave out the radically enraging social and international policies of these incoming elects.