Revisionism run Amok

An article by lefty talk show host David Sirota was posted on Salon.com and got picked up by Real Clear Politics. In the article, Sirota asks the question: "Why are we so willing to repeat history's mistakes?" He then points to examples that only Sirota or someone delusional could choose. My favorite one is "America experienced its most storied growth under the New Deal's aggressive financial regulation." What utter BS; that is not history, it is fantasy. The agressive financial regulation to which Sirota refers was enacted in 1933 and early 1934. For the next seven years, America languished in the Depression. Indeed, in 1937, there was a drop so steep in GDP that some at the time called it the second depression. A double dip, but into depression not recession. It is the only time in our history that we had a double dip depression. For the next six years (1940-1946), the whole country was moved into a command economy to maximize output for World War 2. sure there was growth, but it had nothing to do with the financial regulations. After the war, growth was the result of millions of men returning home, starting families and needing homes, cars, and the like. This was about a decade of pent up demand that hit the market all at once. It propelled growth. financial regulation had nothing to do with it. So when was the storied growth to which Sirota refers? Was it in the 1960's when Kennedy's tax cuts took over? The late sixties when the Vietnam war spending was the engine of growth? The seventies when the economy went through the Carter stagflation? Certainly, he is not refering to the 1980's under Reagan. By then, the regulation to which he refers was being modified. In short, there was no great period of growth that had anything to do with the regulations he so admires from an ideological perch.

Another of Sirota's howlers is "Ronald Reagan proved the failure of trickle-down tax cuts to spread prosperity before George W. Bush proved the same thing." After the Reagan tax cut, the US had a period of enormous growth. The economy produced over 25 million new jobs. What could be better proof of spreading prosperity than all those new jobs? And the Bush tax cuts? For years, we heard ad nauseum from the lefties like Sirota that the new jobs they created were just as hamburger flippers. it is strange to think that there were suddenly ten million more people serving fast food, but that was the mantra. The point, however, is this: How many Americans are happier with the Obama years where we lost eight million jobs? Even a bad job would beat no job, and most of the jobs from the Bush years were not bad ones.

The truth is that Sirota's article should really be entitled "Why are Americans willing to ignore the failed ideology of the left?"