Jeb? Not Jeb!

Oh no!

With the big boys and girl now officially in the presidential race we are all going to suffer from political pablum for the next year or so. So far the signs are not good.

I find the Jeb Bush effort the most depressing so far. And that’s after only a day or so. His primary claim to fame rests on his days as governor of Florida. His campaign is gushing with all sorts of supply side promises. Jeb [his last name has discreetly disappeared] stands, we are told, for free enterprise. Free at last from the stranglehold of Obama’s quasi-socialist grip. At least that’s what I surmise.

Just this week I ran into someone here in Vermont who was positively apoplectic about our government’s policies since the crisis. Those policies had, I was told, stifled growth, cost us millions of jobs, and generally loused up the business environment.

Now, I happen to agree.

Our government has done a very bad job of getting the economy rolling. But I doubt that my interlocutor and I would agree where to place the blame. He would, I assure you, blame Obama. After all it is ‘well known’ by those who take themselves really seriously on these matters that he has poisoned the business environment. And American business is, presumably, easily frightened. So much so that even though profits have reached all time heights, and wages have been crushed by the onslaught of manic cost cutting in order to preserve those profits, CEO’s fall over themselves to criticize the administration.

What for?

Now that’s a little opaque. It seems to be a general malady rather than anything specific. Obama sometimes says nasty things about business and that makes CEO’s feel sad and unwanted. These are the self-same tough minded folk who take all those tough decisions to cut jobs even though it pains them to. They’re tough. They got to the top by being tough. Did I mention they’re tough? Yet they melt like butter when Obama says something critical. Poor dears.

I have a somewhat different perspective. I happen to think the administration was weak when we most needed strength. That was back in 2009, when we needed a whole lot more deficit spending to boost demand and to crank the economy out of its near depression. The administration misunderstood – that’s the most benign excuse I can come up with – what the crisis really was. Its efforts were too little. And when the penny finally dropped the Republicans had won the 2010  elections and were firmly in control of the discussion.

So we slipped into terrible economic management. Our focus shifted towards deficit reduction and the so-called terrible consequences of expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. By falling foul to this false message we hobbled ourselves.

And therein lies the cause of our malaise: Republican advocated austerity at a time when we needed expansion. Fortunately it didn’t sink us, but it certainly slowed us.

Back to Jeb: his record in Florida was based entirely on his oversight of a massive real estate bubble. It was utter fiction. We know that because once the bubble burst Florida shed jobs at an alarming rate. Jeb managed to leave office just before the bottom fell out, so his record belies his impact. That seems to be a family trait.

In any case I have a suggestion for the Bush campaign: his logo is currently Jeb! With the exclamation mark both substituting for his infamous last name and indicating a presumed excitement. I think this is inappropriate. It ought not be Jeb! but Jeb?

As in ‘really?’

Supply side? Again?

How many times does this debunked idea have to float to the top of our political debate before we finally sink it for good?

Jeb?