A remarkable cynicism

The morbid cynicism at the heart of this op-ed from Sen. John Cornyn is precisely what poisons our political climate with unfounded fears and durable ignorance:

It may be necessary to partially shut down the government in order to secure the long-term fiscal well being of our country, rather than plod along the path of Greece, Italy and Spain. President Obama needs to take note of this reality and put forward a plan to avoid it immediately.

For starters, the U.S. economy is exactly three gazillion times the size of Greece's, and Italy and Spain are suffering inordinately at the moment because of pre-Keynesian austerity measures--not past, unrestrained fiscal extravagances--such as some European John Cornyn would advise. Second, we have our own currency, whose devaluation can boost our exports, and hence our economy--and they don't. Third, the U.S. treasury is the most valued safe-deposit box there is for the world's investors, which renders our borrowing, stimulative costs nil (assuming we're smart enough to spend). Fourth, which loops back to starters, Sen. Cornyn and his Hayekian Mortimer Snerd compatriots wouldn't know modern economics if it bit them in the ass--a hypothesis provable by the fact that the economy has done just that, and yet Cornyn & Co. budges not from its Gilded Age pieties.

Finally, President Obama did "take note" of reality nearly a year-and-a-half ago and "put forward a plan" called the American Jobs Act, which Sen. Cornyn promptly helped smother in its cradle.

Comments

[Marc McKenzie]

"Finally, President Obama did "take note" of reality nearly a year-and-a-half ago and "put forward a plan" called the American Jobs Act, which Sen. Cornyn promptly helped smother in its cradle."

Yep. How quickly they forget. Not just the good Senator, of course, but the Occupy Movement, which failed to mention the American Jobs Act.

If I am wrong about this, I stand corrected.

[Marc McDonald]

I've recently traveled to several nations (including Italy, France and Japan) that are supposedly suffering from terrible economies, according to the U.S. corporate media.
Frankly, I thought these countries looked very prosperous to me. In none of these three nations did I see any of the sort of bottom-of-the-barrel extreme poverty that is increasingly common in the U.S.
For all their woes, Italy and France still have welfare states that are mind-bogglingly generous by U.S. standards. The nations also rank No. 1 and 2 on the World Health Organization's list of best health care systems in the world. (The U.S. is ranked at 37).
Japan, meanwhile, looked to me to be very prosperous and high-tech. After returning from a trip to East Asia, the U.S. looked to me like a drab Third World nation.
It's clear to me that the accepted statistics that we use to measure national economies simply has little relevance in the real world these days.
Economists are full of sh*t if they believe that the U.S. is somehow more "prosperous" than the likes of Japan and Europe these days. No, the latter aren't utopias (no nation is)---but frankly, I think ordinary working people in those nations have a much better overall quality of life than do working class and middle class Americans).

[Frank Moraes]

Cornyn is the gift that keeps on giving. He is also against Hagel as defense secretary because Hagel doesn't want to go to war with Iran. But in Cornyn's defense, when he talks about a plan, he means one that cuts programs for the poorer classes and gives tax cuts to the rich. I know I sound facetious, but that *is* what he means.

Of course, his idea of default would be catastrophic, as I discuss in some depth on my site:

http://franklycurious.com/index.php?itemid=3543

And Marc: don't you know it unpatriotic to travel outside the United States?! You don't happen to like brie, do you?

[James M. Martin]

I am from Texas (where Senator Cornyn hails from) and I can attest, this jerk is nothing but a selfish opportunistic pig. When he was an associate justice on the state supreme court, he wrong the most tight-assed opinions, and it is common knowledge that his chumminess with the insurance industry paved his monetary way to advancing on the political ladder. Also, he's extremely chummy with religious fundamentalists, including a megachurch "pastor" who's leading his sheep to Mid-Eastern conflict so as to speed up the Rapture.