So last night I was listening to one of my favorite liberal talk show hosts, Bernie Ward. He's sound on Iraq and sex and drugs and rock and roll and all the rest of the liberal stuff, but a total economic collectivist.
He was complaining about the Bush administration's plans to have tax advantages and to cut back environmental and labor regulations in New Orleans to make the rebuilding easier. Now, don't get me wrong. Injecting tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in federal loot into a corporatist rebuilding effort is not free enterprise: it is just the state capitalism we are to expect from the GOP. But Ward was upset about the idea of tax and regulatory liberalization. How dare someone hire people for below-Union wages to rebuild the Gulf Coast! How dare anyone make a profit! Ward was also ticked off that Bush supposedly wants to give tax advantages to anyone who volunteers money to those in need over there.
Ward thinks that FDR proved that the feds can spend gobs of tax loot on public works projects without corruption. Sure he did. Sure they can. I can't stand this reverence for FDR on the left, and I never will. They complain that Bush is the "anti-FDR." I wish. What are they trying to do -- get me to vote Republican? Bush's problem is not that he's the anti-FDR, but that he's a mini-FDR. In fact, FDR was one of the few presidents clearly worse than Bush.
With the Hooverian Republicans pushing for soft fascism and the left complaining that the problem is not enough government spending, I am not too optimistic. But, as usual, I am still hopeful. Let's just cross our fingers.
