Most of these are articles written over five years
ago and are more likely opinion than fact.
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On Jun 29, 10:30 am, "M. Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Keith In Tampa
> As is typical by far left extremists, this article is
> carefully manipulated and taken way out of context.
> What is surprising is that a purported libertarian,
> Michael Johnson posted it.
> MJ
> Sadly, Keith in Tampa is reduced to hurling fallacies in
> hopes that no one notices his failure to actually address
> the words, concepts or ideas presented.
> Regard$,
> --MJ
> "In fact, modern Republicans are almost a mirror image
> of the original party."The Awful Truth about RepublicansBy Robert B. Ekelund,
> Jr., and Mark Thornton
> [Posted March 25, 2004]
>
> Anyone who wants cuts in the size and scope of
> government should be concerned and frustrated
> with the policies of President George Bush and
> the Republican-controlled Congress. Government
> spending has increased enormously and the
> federal budget has plunged ever more into
> deficit.
> Protectionism, regulation and government power
> are on the rise, and we are at war or in conflict
> with a record number of countries around the
> world. The Republican-controlled Federal Reserve
> has pushed interest rates to below 1% while it
> frantically tries to flood the economy with
> money and credit.
> Even mainstream economist Jeffrey Frankel has
> recently noted (in the Milken Institute Review)
> that the "Republicans have become the party of
> fiscal irresponsibility, trade restriction, big
> government, and failing-grade microeconomics."
> However, there has not been a sudden sea change
> in party platforms and the rampant fiscal
> irresponsibility of the Republicans is not a
> mystery; they are merely returning to their
> historical roots. The Republican Party was
> established as a party of big government and
> economic intervention. Their reputation as a
> party of limited government is of more recent
> vintage and stands on a flimsy foundation.
>
> The Republican Party that emerged in the 1850s
> was an amalgamation of historical influences,
> third parties, and interest groups. One group
> that entered the Republican Party was the
> Free Soil Party, whose primary platform was
> free land and subsidies for farmers. In
> contrast, most Democrats favored selling off
> the public lands to finance government
> expenditures, keep tariff rates low, and
> prevent deficit spending.
> Also joining the Republican Party in the 1850s
> were supporters of the Know Nothing Party.
> The Know Nothings were most concerned about
> immigrants coming into the country, competing
> against labor, and suppressing wages. They
> favored restrictive immigration and protective
> tariffs to keep wages high, while Democrats
> supported both immigration and free trade.
> The Whig Party formed the core of the Republican
> Party with its economic platform consisting of
> protectionism for industry, a national bank and
> currency, a large national debt, and a larger
> federal government engaged in extensive public
> works.
> Also joining the Republican ranks were the
> Prohibitionists and the Abolitionists. Members
> of the Republican Party generally shared an
> opposition to slavery and advocated policies
> of containment and colonization.
> The ambitious economic agenda of the Republican
> Party had its roots in the economic platforms
> of Federalist icon Alexander Hamilton and Whig
> leader Henry Clay. They advocated protective
> tariffs for industry, a national bank, and
> plenty of public works and patronage. The
> flurry of new laws, regulations, and bureaucracies
> created by Lincoln and the Republican Party
> during the early 1860s foreshadowed Franklin
> Roosevelt's "New Deal" for the volume, scope
> and questionable constitutionality of its
> legislative output.
> In fact, the term "New Deal" was actually coined
> in March of 1865 by a newspaper editor in Raleigh,
> North Carolina, to characterize Lincoln and the
> Republican Party platform. Lincoln’s massive
> expansion of the federal government into the
> economy led Daniel Elazar to claim, " . . . one
> could easily call Lincoln's presidency the ‘New
> Deal’ of the 1860s."[1] Republicans established
> a much larger, more powerful, and more destructive
> federal government in the 1860s, just as Bush and
> the Republican Congress are doing today.
> In fact, modern Republicans are almost a mirror
> image of the original party. Protectionism was
> a high priority of the early Republican Party.
> They quickly enacted the Morrill Tariff, which
> raised tariff rates to extremely high levels,
> and their extreme protectionism continued
> throughout the era of Republican dominance.
> There is really little debate that these
> Republicans were the primary proponents of
> protectionism, particularly in the areas of
> steel and textiles. Modern Republicans, from
> Reagan to Bush II, have given us protectionism
> for a variety of favored industries, including
> steel, as well as the "managed trade" of
> NAFTA and the WTO.
> In the area of deficit spending and the
> national debt, the early Republicans, like
> their present-day counterparts, produced
> large deficits and national debt. Pre-Civil
> war Democrats had worked effectively to
> eliminate the National Debt and to close
> the national banks.
> Modern Republicans have built an unprecedented
> pile of debt. The growth in the national debt
> really started to take off when Reagan was
> elected in 1980 and continued to skyrocket
> through his second term and that of George
> Bush, Sr. When Clinton was elected in 1992
> the growth rate in the national debt began
> to decline and almost stopped growing when
> George Bush, Jr. was elected in 2000. Since
> then the national debt has skyrocketed.
> In recent years Republicans have been awful
> in the area of monetary policy, but that is
> also a long tradition in the Republican
> Party. In their early years they nationalized
> money and banking, a policy that helped
> big-city banks at the expense of the common
> citizen, particularly in the South and West.
> As Robert Sharkey noted:
> As the National Banking System took
> shape after the War, it was apparent
> that human ingenuity would have had
> difficulty contriving a more perfect
> engine for class and sectional
> exploitation: Creditors finally
> obtaining the upper hand as opposed
> to debtors, and the developed East
> holding the whip over the undeveloped
> West and South. This tipping of the
> class and sectional balance of power
> was, in my opinion, the momentous
> change over the twenty-three-year
> period, 1850-1873.[2]
> Looking at the consequences of this legislation,
> leading monetary economists concluded:
> The provision of the Acts of 1863 and
> 1865 that established the national
> banking system were designed to remedy
> two perceived defects of the antebellum
> state banking system. One was the
> circulation of a wide variety of state
> bank notes, often at a discount, which
> made for an inefficient payments system.
> The second defect was instability of
> the note issue; marked by over issue,
> bank runs and failures, and periodic
> suspensions of convertibility into
> specie. To remedy the first defect,
> national bank issues of U.S. bond-secured
> currency replaced state bank notes. To
> remedy the second defect, stringent
> reserve and capital requirements,
> oversight, and regulation by the
> Comptroller of the Currency were
> conditions for national bank charters.
> Unfortunately, the remedies did not work
> as intended by the architects of the national
> banking system. Instead, the system was
> characterized by monetary and cyclical
> instability, four banking panics,
> frequent stock market crashes, and
> other financial disturbances."[3]
> Favoritism for big business has always been a
> hallmark of the Republican Party. As a consequence
> they tend to favor subsidies, public works
> projects, and regulations that are favorable
> to incumbent businesses. The biggest public
> works project in the nation’s history was the
> building the intercontinental railroads, a
> policy that truly galvanized the membership
> of the Republican Party.
>
> Republicans also sponsored the Sherman
> (Anti-Trust) Act of 1890 and the Act to
> Regulate Commerce of 1887, which had the
> stated purpose of protecting the general
> public but the effect of protecting big
> business, particularly railroads, from
> competition. Modern Republicans seem even
> more in love with public works projects,
> even in far-away Iraq, and for that matter
> the moon and Mars.
> In the area of regulation, Bush and the
> Republicans have regulated the Internet in
> the name of Spam and telephone calls to put
> telemarketing out of business. Were those
> temporary annoyances so terrible that they
> required sweeping and permanent federal
> regulations? Their malevolent Patriot Act
> and the ...
>
> read more »
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