Posted by
Chris Field on Thursday, July 10, 2008 8:52:14 AM
My friend
Mac Johnson, who wrote a brilliant piece on gas prices for the
June issue of Townhall Magazine, has a smart, funny
piece at Human Events today.
Titled "
John McCain's Economic Plan: Only 33% Stupid," the piece takes an honest, and therefore painful, look at some of McCain's economic ideas. When you get to the end of it, you realize that McCain wasn't joking when he said he doesn't understand economics.
To be fair, and Mac is, there are some good things McCain has proposed, including:
[T]he most important and avoidable factor driving up the
cost of food right now is our idiotic infatuation with the
mathematically ludicrous idea of making “biofuels” out of the corn we
used to use for “food.” We are currently destroying 25% of all the
corn in America in order to make just enough expensive low-quality
motor fuel to replace 0.6% of global oil. The inflationary pressure of
the price of food skyrocketing is substantial, coming on the heels of
oil price surges. Corn ethanol as biofuel is a threat to our economy,
among other things.
McCain wisely proposes to roll back corn
ethanol mandates and remove the $0.54/gallon tariff that prevents U.S.
fuel producers from importing cheap Brazilian sugar-based ethanol to
compete with the corn-based product. To get more fuel, McCain
radically proposes we drill for it at home, instead of relying on
foreign oil or glorified corporate moonshiners. This is unusually
clear thinking for politician.
But then, as Mac points out, McCain's ideas go downhill fast, especially with regard to his home mortgage subsidy plan.
McCain’s plan is to use government to give new cheap loans to the
“deserving” homeowner in default. Evidently, “deserving” is a new term
for “those with poor judgment,” because the only people getting HOME
welfare are those that ran out and got subprime adjustable rate
mortgages at the height of the housing bubble and are now shocked to
find that the rates on those mortgages are actually adjustable. ...
If
you, like me, passed up that stupidity and got a fixed rate mortgage
despite the fact that this meant you struggled to pay more for years
while others used the surplus income provided by the introductory rate
on their ARMs to buy gold-plated disposable jet skis for their pit
bulls, then you are now officially a chump. You can keep on paying.
That’s your punishment for forethought. John McCain now wants you to
pick up the tab for everyone else, too.
It's nothing new to those who are honest about the career of John McCain.
That’s pretty much the pattern of the whole “jobs” plan, and for that
matter, McCain’s career – two common sense ideas followed by an excerpt
from the Unabomber manifesto, Ted Kennedy’s website or some other crazy
diatribe. In fact, I see this economic plan as a wonderful preview of
what a McCain Presidency might be like for conservatives: two steps
forward then one step off a cliff.
So now we return to what's been the GOP argument for the last few months -- at least he's not as bad as Obama.
How inspiring.