What would you do?

 At last night’s GOP debate the participants and Republicans in general, want to make the case they if they were in charge (of the White House or the entire world), they would do things differently and the result would be a better economy.   Well, to them I say, “What would you do differently?”.

Tax Cuts! – Tax cuts are the answer to all that ails us as a nation. 

But wait, didn’t we go through 8 years leading up to 2009 and President Obama, in which the GOP ran the country and set its policies?  Didn’t these 8 years give us tax cuts that should have put our economy in an incredibly positive position?   As the economy was sliding into recession in 2008 that culminated in the financial meltdown, weren’t the tax cut policies the GOP wants to sell us already in place?   Didn’t seem to help, did it?  

Wasn’t about 25% of the $820 billion stimulus that President Obama signed into law made up of tax cuts?  Yes, it was!  Didn’t seem to help, did it?  In fact, check out a story in the Wall Street Journal that told us exactly why they wouldn’t work.

Eliminate Regulations! – Too many regulations are keeping the economy down.

Well, again I have to point to the 8 years with the GOP in control and siding with business over the public and consumers.  During this time many of the government agencies whose job it was to provide oversight to industry were staffed and led by industry insiders.  So, as 2008 wound down, the economy should have been at its peek ready to reach new highs, right?  Well, not exactly.  The economy was failing.

So 8 years of GOP rule that should have been the perfect setup for optimum taxes policy and regulations didn’t provide the foundation our economy needed to hum.  The GOP’s answer to this is to do more of the same.

What we have gotten in the first decade 2000 is a larger split between haves and have-nots.  We have a financial industry (that makes no hard goods) making record profits, but a larger economy with stubornly high unemployment.  We have companies with large sums of cash, but individuals struggling to make ends meet.  We have the GOP with an attitude that workers, laborers, and everyday people are the problem with their expectations of employment, health care, and fair treatment – just look at Wisconsin and Ohio.

Our government needs to employ policies that results in an increase in demand.  The resolution to our economic problems is in raising demand, not increasing supply.  This is not brought about by giving the $40K to $60K wage earner $800 to $1,000 more dollars in a year (tax cut), that won’t do anything good to our larger economy.  Rather, it will further reduce our countries ability to pay for the things that are needed.

OK, so what would you do different to really make a positive change in our economy?  Are tax cuts and regulation elimination your answer, or something else beyond the GOP's imagine?