Cons success: Count the talking points

The midterm elections are quickly approaching and everyday the Democrats chances of retaining a majority changes. One day they will keep their majority, the next they have already been ousted. In supreme Conservative fashion, the op-eds and editorials are ringing with talking-point bells.

On October 8th, Charles Krauthammer penned the column Dem’s failure: Count the ways. It is nothing more than talking points strung together with pointless polls and Conservative opinions masquerading as everybody’s.

Krauthammer’s column should have been called Cons success: Count the talking points. Here’s the well-paid author’s column as a list.

Krauthammer, “Dem’s failure: Count the ways”

1. Obama and “his lack of empathy”

2. Problem with policies = “ideology”

3. Nancy Pelosi

4. “Mandate to change American social contract” with a “European social-democratic stamp” [AKA Socialism]

5. Government extending into “health care, energy, education, finance, and industrial policy.”¹

6. Stimulus

7. Gold

8. “Massive overhanging debt”

9. “1,000-page micromanagement of every detail of American health care”

10. Taxes. All of them.

11. Stephen Colbert

¹ The current thinking on the Right is to present what Obama is doing as unprecedented.

That’s why statements like this are so ludicrous; it’s as if they are saying: “None of these things were a problem until OBAMA got here!”

Government has been involved in health care since 1965. Health care is, disgustingly, still a for-profit enterprise – and the money is still rolling in. With the exception of Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Veterans Health Administration, corporations are still in charge of keeping you alive. Furthermore, with all this talk on the Right about “personal responsibility”, one of the biggest reasons for personal bankruptcy is medical debt. It’s not out of control credit card debt or losing a job – although those are problems – throwing you onto the streets but rather getting sick and going broke because you can’t pay for it.

As for energy, it wasn’t too long ago that a private energy corporation almost single-handedly destroyed the lives of millions of Americans as well as an entire ecosystem. But sure, let’s get government out of that too. I know, that was months ago.

In regards to education, the government has been involved in the sculpting of a better citizenry since the 1800s. So, the idea that the government is just recently (read: 2008) getting involved in education is stupid.

Next up is finance. Similar to my energy argument, the financial industry is the main reason why we are in the current economic situation. In 2010, we have rampant unemployment, millions of foreclosures and yet Goldman Sachs still rakes in $4.42 billion – 40% lower than the year-earlier figure. Forty. Percent. Lower. Wow.

And lest we forget to mention the Flash Crash in May when the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points before paring those losses—all apparently due to a computer. But, yeah, let’s leave the financial markets alone…

As for the “industrial policy”, I’m assuming that Krauthammer is in the same boat as the scholarly patriots over at American Thinker who counter their own argument of “Obama's industrial policy is designed to make America non-competitive in the world economy” with a chart in the middle of their own article. America’s manufacturing has been on the decline for a lot longer than the two-years Obama’s been in office. This is their argument:

First, U.S. industrial policies by the radical Democrats have imposed terrible burdens on the U.S. economy that are making it more and more inefficient through high non-competitive labor costs, carbon regulation, artificially high energy costs, and numerous government mandates.

Here is a summary of recent aspects of our industrial policy as proffered by the ruling Democratic Party:

●Huge and ineffective stimulus expenditures

●A 3.0-trillion-dollar increase in our national debt in two years

●Unemployment at 9.6%

●A job-killing moratorium on drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska

●Adoption of a tax on energy use called Cap and Trade

●The EPA aggressively regulating emissions resulting from the combustion of carbon fuels

●The EPA working to regulate fluids used in the production of abundant shale-sourced natural gas

●Elimination of the secret ballot (card check) in proposed unionization to increase union power and high-cost labor in our economy

●Imposition of costly health mandates on small businesses

●Increasing domestic taxes on business earnings made and taxed in foreign countries

This list is sufficiently comprehensive for anyone to get the picture, especially if he or she is in business.

Yes, the list is comprehensive if you are "in the business" or are a tea partier. Again, their "arguments" are nothing more than a list of talking points.