The Republicans' Six Point Economic Plan

The Republican prescription to the economy can best be summed up in a six-point plan:

1.      Deregulate the financial industry, which is guaranteed to create another major crisis one or two decades down the road, at the expense of the 99.9 percent.

2.      Selectively cut red tape that would allow businesses a carte blanche to burden society with negative externalities, but continue byzantine regulation on immigration, taxation, and social issues, making it much harder to attain the American dream.

3.      Aggressively slash taxes for the "job creators," better known as hedge fund managers whose financial speculation brought the country to its knees and (usually) mediocre or shitty CEOs who get ridiculous golden parachutes for running their companies to the ground.

4.      Make draconian cuts towards discretionary spending, the social safety net, infrastructure, and education (which will be replaced by vouchers that mostly benefit the upper middle class and utterly fail to shore up the system as a whole). You know, the same things that promote social mobility, help out the 99.9%, and ensure the longevity of our economy and very social fabric.

5.      Pick winners (fossil fuels) and losers (renewable energy) even as they decry the concept of picking winners and losers.

6.      Run up the debt because their budgetary plans do not even stand up to basic arithmetic, reducing fiscal flexibility in an inevitable future crisis.

The Democrats are far from guilty for bad governance, but this is a warning to anyone who dares to vote Republican. They do not stand for conservative principles such as simplified taxation, free markets, or even fiscal conservatism. They stand for two things: obstructionism and crony capitalism. They cynically attempt to enrich their biggest donors, allowing these deranged millionaires and corporations to contribute more towards campaigns. This results in a vicious cycle.

It saddens me to see that a party that is the laughing stock of the rest of the world remains competitive at all, let alone is dangerously close to regaining power merely 4 years after 8 years of The Washington Consensus triggered a deep crisis in the U.S. and the Eurozone.