Reasons to be optimistic about the future

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

My column last week centered on pessimism and the reaction one might have to it.

At the end, I suggested I would counter my own argument this week and provide an optimistic view for one of my political persuasion.

And that is simply this: We are finally seeing the death throes of the progressive liberal movement in the United States. By most accounts, it is 100 years old, starting with that liberal segregationist, Woodrow Wilson.

My own reckoning is it started a bit earlier, with Teddy Roosevelt's American Antiquities Act of 1906. But no matter when it started, it is coming to a close.

The only thing left to be determined is whether it ends peacefully or violently.

The last and final blow to the progressive liberal agenda occurred on Sept. 13, 2012, when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke announced Quantitative Easing III, the plan to purchase $40 billion per month of mortgage backed securities "until there is a real turn in the economy."

In other words, indefinitely.

Who created the Federal Reserve? Let's see, that would be President Woodrow Wilson, wouldn't it? And as long as the Ponzi scheme was young and relatively small, the Federal Reserve could keep the lid on.

In other words, back when there were just programs like Social Security, farm subsidies, welfare and so forth, the programs of the other Roosevelt, FDR, era, they were not too big to suck in the whole economy.

But that wasn't enough. In the 1960s, LBJ had to have Medicare, and federal funds for schools, etc., etc.

Then, one of the biggest liberals of my lifetime (and that is saying a lot), Richard Nixon, came along and decided we could afford to subsidize passenger train travel and shackle businesses, the only source of tax revenue (either directly or through their employees' wages) with the EPA and OSHA.

Yes, we need an EPA and we need an OSHA, but not in the monster form they have become.

Then, George Bush, and I'll be happy to blame him for this, came up with the Medicare Drug Plan. (The problem with George Bush is not that he was too far right, but that he was too far left).

And now we have Obamacare. As I was reading this column, I scanned a story about the Darden restaurant chain (Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze and more) which is working hard to figure out how to reduce most employees' work week to less than 28 1/2 hours so they will not fall under the requirements of Obamacare.

(I guess they finally read it, Ms. Pelosi.)

The poverty rate is the same as it was when LBJ declared the War on Poverty. If there is one liberal progressive program that has delivered what it promised for whatever cost or savings it purported its passage would realize, I would like to know about it.

Failure, failure, failure. And now Fed Chairman Bernanke has admitted the piggy bank is empty and he is going to create money out of thin air. It is almost impossible for this to end pleasantly – think Weimar Republic in the late 1920s.

The Progressive Liberals accuse the right of being shrill while they are really the ones that are truly being shrill. If all their programs had worked, if all the promises they made had been kept, our national debt would be very low, poverty would be eradicated, everyone would graduate from high school.

They meant well, but it didn't work.

They have tried plenty of excuses, but none of them hold water. It has been popular to blame George Bush's "costly wars."

I wish there never were wars, but it is a complete mischaracterization to call the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan "costly" (and while I say that, I pause to offer all the respect due to anyone whose loved one lost their life or was permanently maimed in these horrible situations).

For perspective, let's look at a few wars in American History.

• The U.S. Civil War cost 11.3 percent of the country's GDP in its costliest year.

• World War II, in its costliest year, was 35.8 percent of GDP.

• Iraq: 1.0 percent of GDP; and,

• Afghanistan: 0.7 percent of GDP (source: CRS Report for Congress, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22926.pdf).

As for blood, sadly, we just recently had our 2,000th death in Afghanistan, and, again, every one of those is a tragedy.

However, 2,000 represents less than .00006 percent of the U.S. population. What was the count in the Civil War? We lost 2 percent of the population.

See how desperate the progressive liberals are to find something, anything, on which to blame the failures of their programs? The only thing left to do is to figure out how to unwind 100 years of entitlements in a manner that does not destroy society.

The game is up.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga., following decades of wandering the world, and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.