NoodleFood: Jim DeMint, Man of the Day


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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Jim DeMint, Man of the Day

By Diana Hsieh @ 7:36 PM
While I'm sure that I'd have some mighty strong disagreements with South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, he seems to be the only politician talking sense about the current financial crisis. Here's his press release:
DeMint Opposes Wall Street Bailout: Plan does not solve the problems that caused the current credit crunch, and could make them much worse

September 22, 2008 - Washington D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) announced his opposition to the $700 billion plan proposed by the Bush Administration to bailout Wall Street.

"After reviewing the Administration's proposed bailout plan, I believe it is completely unacceptable. This plan does nothing to address the misguided government policies that created this mess and it could make matters much worse by socializing an entire sector of the U.S. economy. This plan fails to oversee or regulate the government failures that led to this crisis. Instead it greatly increases the role for Secretary Paulson whose market predictions have been consistently wrong in the last year, and provides corporate welfare for investment firms on Wall Street that don't want to disclose their assets and sell them to private investors for market rates. Most Americans are paying their bills on time and investing responsibly and should not be forced to pay for the reckless actions of some on Wall Street, especially when no one can guarantee this will solve our current problems."

"This plan will not only cause our nation to fall off the debt cliff, it could send the value of the dollar into a free-fall as investors around the world question our ability to repay our debts. It's also very likely that this plan will extend the cycle of bailouts, encouraging other companies to behave in reckless ways that create the need for even more bailouts, triggering an endless run on our treasury. This plan may make things look better for Wall Street in the next couple months, but the long-term consequences to our economy could be disastrous.

"There are much better ways of dealing with this problem than forcing American taxpayers to pay for every asset some investor doesn't want anymore. We should start by reforming government policies and programs that created this mess, including the Federal Reserve's easy money policy, the congressional charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act. Then Congress should pass a number of permanent and proven pro-growth reforms to encourage capital formation and boost asset values. We need to make permanent reductions in the corporate tax and the capital gains tax rates. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world, which encourages companies to take jobs and investment overseas."

"It's a sad fact, but Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this Administration. The Administration said the bailout of Bear Stearns would stop the bleeding and solve the problem, but they were wrong. They said $150 billion in new government spending using rebate checks would solve the problem, but they were wrong again. They said new authority to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would solve the problem without being used, but they were wrong again. Now they want us to trust them to spend nearly a trillion dollars on more government bailouts. It's completely irresponsible and I cannot support it."
In response, a friend of mine who works in the financial markets said:
He puts the blame squarely where it belongs -- on govt policies. The programs he wants "reformed" are some of the real baddies -- (they should be abolished rather than reformed). He calls for tax cuts which is fine of course, but that needs to be paired with calls for spending cuts. Otherwise we will aggravate the inflation problem that he rightly points out will result from Pauslon's plan.

Most impressive was the absence of blaming things on 1) the use of leverage 2) bad decisions by private entities, 3) lack of regulation over the private sector 4) greedy fat cats on Wall street 5) speculators and short-sellers.
Indeed.
Labels: Finance, Politics

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Comments

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 19:28:30 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
Got gold?

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 19:40:56 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: OistPostGrad
E-mail: ttcrunch(at)lycos.net
DeMint is good on economics but terrible on social issues. He is one of the leading Social Conservatives amongst senators. He opposes abortions and gay marriages and even worse. I am almost certain that he initiated a bill that would prevent homosexuals and single mothers (!) from teaching in public schools. He has been one of the strongest supporters of advocating for school prayer and has introduced legislation that would allow schools to display banners reading God Bless America. He is also militantly anti-immigration. So he is a very religious Republican that happens to have some knowledge of economics which is not surprising as he is not a lawyer but a former businessman with an MBA.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 21:01:09 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Dan G.
I think the appropriate position is to support his position/act (singular) not the man.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 21:43:35 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: OistPostGrad
E-mail: ttcrunch(at)lycos.net
"I think the appropriate position is to support his position/act (singular) not the man."

I totally agree. I only pointed out DeMint's record to show that he wasn't a consistent defender of individual rights and in point of fact is an enemy of them in the social sphere. I just wanted to illustrate what a state we are in when one of the few politicians who defends capitalism to any extent is, in essence, a religious fanatic.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 5:27:57 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Don Kenner
E-mail: dbkenner(at)earthlink.net
"I just wanted to illustrate what a state we are in when one of the few politicians who defends capitalism to any extent is, in essence, a religious fanatic."

Correction: the ONLY politicians who defend capitalism are religious (fanatic is a matter of degree, I guess). The non-religious, faux-religious, closet agnostics are the worst on economic freedom. In fact, they almost always advocate some sort of socialism as the answer to our "problems."

This correlation between non-belief and hatred of capitalism grows exponentially when one moves from Washington to Academia. Perhaps atheism/agnosticism is just a pose for the left; they do it because it sets them against the "fascist right," i.e., anyone who advocates (in theory, if not in practice) free markets and personal responsibility. I think if Rush Limbaugh were to declare himself an atheist and a Darwinian, you'd see hoards of leftists rushing to embrace the socialism of Jesus and denounce the "fascist" Darwin.

If only Jim DeMint were advising McVain on economic matters. With our luck, he'll become McVain's spiritual advisor.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 8:59:23 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Hmm
If you're going to support DeMint for his position on the bailout, despite his horrendous Christian conservative political views, shouldn't you lavish the same praise on congressman Ron Paul, who is also making a stand against the bailout and government regulation, despite his horrible libertarian political views? At least Ron Paul actually opposes regulation, while DeMint frequently has supported greater regulation and government spending when in line with his political agenda.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 11:08:36 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: RT
Ron Paul can be a bit of a whack-job, but I have to say I loved watching him on live TV today during Bernanke's congressional testimony, mentioning the Austrian School of economics and Ludwig von Mises, and how the Austrian Business cycle theory explains exactly what we're going through. Regarding the Paulson/Bernanke bailout plans, Hayek said it best 76 years ago:

Hayek in 1932:
"Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. . . . To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection �" a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end. . . . It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.We must not forget that, for the last six or eight years, monetary policy all over the world has followed the advice of the stabilizers. It is high time that their influence, which has already done harm enough, should be overthrown."

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 22:40:46 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: John Kim
E-mail: kimster343(at)hotmail.com
I agree that DeMint should be supported for his rational stand with regard to the mortgage crisis. But its shocking just how much of a cultural conservative he is. Here is a link to a book he wrote titled 'Why We Whisper'.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Whisper-Restoring-Right/dp/0742552527

From the description:

"The authors' categories are broad and their terms stigmatizing, but the distinction is immediately apparent, and their intent is specific: to expose left-leaning bias in the "value-free" rulings supported by morally relativistic secularists in legislation, court cases and the mainstream media. Referencing numerous hot-button issues-gay marriage, divorce, cohabitation, abortion, pornography and gambling among them-the authors review in fine detail a number of arguments (many familiar) about the societal and economical damage suffered by an America rapidly replacing foundational virtues with unstable secularist values."

We have the skeptical, relativist secularists on the Left and the mystical, dogmatic moralists on the Right. How long can freedom last with such choices?

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