Change Means Never Having To Face Facts
By THOMAS SOWELL
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 4:30 PM PT
In an election campaign in which not only young liberals,
but also some people who are neither young nor liberals,
seem absolutely mesmerized by the skilled rhetoric of
Barak Obama, [only when he has teleprompter] facts
have receded even further into the background than usual.
As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly,
few people even raise the question of whether what few
specifics we hear represent any real change, much less a
change for the better.
Raising taxes, increasing government spending and
demonizing business? That is straight out of the New
Deal of the 1930s.
The New Deal was new then but it is not new now.
Moreover, increasing numbers of economists and
historians have concluded that New Deal policies are
what prolonged the Great Depression.
Putting new restrictions on international trade, in
order to save American jobs? That was done by Herbert
Hoover, who signed the Hawley-Smoot tariff when the
unemployment rate was 9%. The next year the
unemployment rate was 16% and, before the Great
Depression was over, unemployment hit 25%.
One of the most naive notions is that politicians are
trying to solve the country's problems, just because they
say so ‹ or say so loudly or inspiringly.
Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem,
which is how to get elected and then re-elected. Barak
Obama is a politician through and through, even though
pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get
elected.
Some of his more trusting followers are belatedly
discovering that, as he "refines" his position on various
issues, now that he has gotten their votes in the
Democratic primaries and needs the votes of others in
the coming general election.
Perhaps a defining moment in showing Sen. Obama's
priorities was his declaring, in answer to a question from
Charles Gibson, that he was for raising the capital gains
tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the
well-do***ented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains
had produced more actual revenue collected from that tax
than the higher tax rates had, Obama was unmoved.
The question of how to raise more revenue may be the
economic issue, but the political issue is whether socking
it to "the rich" in the name of "fairness" gains more votes.
Since about half the people in the United States own
stocks ‹ either directly or because their pension funds
buy stocks ‹ socking it to people who earn capital gains
is by no means socking it just to "the rich."
But, again, that is one of the many facts that don't matter
politically.
What matters politically is the image of coming out on the
side of "the people" against "the privileged."
If you are a nurse or mechanic who will be depending on
your pension to take care of you when you retire ‹ as
Social Security is unlikely to do ‹ you may not think of
yourself as one of the privileged. But unless you connect
the dots between capital gains tax rates and your
retirement income, you may fall under the spell of the
well-honed Obama rhetoric.
Obama is for higher minimum wage rates. Does anyone
care what actually happens in countries with higher
minimum wage rates? Of course not.
Economists may point to studies done in countries around
the world, showing that higher minimum wage rates
usually mean higher unemployment rates among lower
skilled and less experienced workers.
That's their problem. A politician's problem is how to
look like he is for "the poor" and against those who are
"exploiting" them. The facts are irrelevant to maintaining
that political image.
Nowhere do facts matter less than in foreign policy issues.
Nothing is more popular than the notion that you can deal
with dangers from other nations by talking with their
leaders.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became
enormously popular in the 1930s by sitting down and
talking with Hitler, and announcing that their agreement
had produced "peace in our time" ‹ just one year before
the most catastrophic war in history began.
Sen. Obama may gain similar popularity by advocating
similar policies today ‹ and his political popularity is
what it's all about. The consequences for the country
come later.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
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