Mayor Daley, Economic Doofus

CHICAGO MAYOR RICHARD DALEY HAS PROVEN that he's just as ignorant about the economy as most Democrats are.

A telling story in the Chicago Sun-Times today had everything you need to prove this. For example:

The Republican National Committee fired back at Mayor Daley today for condemning as a meaningless “handout” plans to give Americans a tax rebate to stimulate the faltering U.S. economy.

Say, hasn't it been fun to watch major Democrats scramble frantically to see who can call for the biggest tax refund? Hmmm, aren't these the same idiots who have been dissing the "Bush tax cuts" for several years, telling us that tax cuts just don't work? Why, yes! They are! But suddenly - in an election year - those same economically ignorant brain stems are emphatically for tax cuts. The bigger the better, in fact.

The Sun-Times continued:

“It’s no secret Mayor Daley would rather raise taxes than support tax rebates. On the bright side, Chicagoans will be able to use these tax rebates to pay for some of Daley’s tax hikes,” said RNC spokesman Chris Taylor, apparently referring to the $276.5 million in taxes, fines and fees that balanced Daley’s 2008 budget.

Right, and that's the problem with Daley and his kind. They don't seem to understand Econ 101. Take money from people, they have less money. If people have less money, they will spend less. When people spend less, there is less money in circulation. When there is less money in circulation, less things and services are being bought and paid for, and so employers are forced to lay off and/or hire less people. Oh, and because this causes fewer sales and fewer income earners, the resulting tax revenue stream into the government's coffers dwindles. Duh. This is understandable to any bright seventh grader. But not to Mayor Daley. Not to the average Democrat.

Mayor Daley was not satisfied to merely point out that he would fail Econ 101. He continued, proving not merely ignorance but downright stupidity:

“People want a job. They don’t want a handout. They don’t want welfare and they don’t want a handout of $500. It doesn’t answer anything. So you take the $500. So you spend it within two weeks. Then what happens after that?” Daley said.

Ye gods, what a moron. That "handout of $500" Hizzoner referred to is not a handout. It's a return of money that was not the government's in first place. It's a return of stolen property, in essence. But as to what happens to that hypothetical $500: IT GETS SPENT. Duh. Spent on crazy shit like food, rent, gas bills, electric bills, and maybe a nice dinner or a new coat. But it's not merely $500. The mayor's arithmetic is off, somewhat. It would really be more akin to over $1,000,000,000 (that one billion dollars for my Democrat readers), because the refunds are not being limited to (a) only $500 nor (b) to just one person.

But Daley continued. Quoth the Sun-Times:

“The answer has to be how do you get federal money out of Washington immediately into the construction industry…There has to be a long term commitment [by] Democrats and Depublicans [sic] of putting people to work. If Franklin Delano Roosevelt put people to work, why can’t we as a great nation decide to put more and more people to work…There’s nothing wrong with a publc [sic] works project…We could rebuild our schools, parks, libraries [and] infrastructure.”

So Daley is no ordinary moron, he is no average Democrat. He is a soft socialist. Can somebody please point out to me where in the Constitution it gives the government - at any level - the responsibility to "put people to work?" If FDR, said Daley, can put people to work, why can't a nation as great as we are "decide to put more and more people to work." The capper: "There's nothing wrong with a public works project."

No, nothing at all if you're talking about roads, hospitals, and the like. But if we're talking about another FDR New Deal type program, there are serious problems. For one thing, the constitutionality of FDR's programs were, to put it mildly, suspect. For another, to undertake something on a comparable scale today would be massively expensive - trillions of dollars. For another thing, the economy today simply has a cough and a cold, compared to FDR's economy of walking pneumonia.

If we listen to the economic policies and "wisdom" of Daley and the Democrats, they will not only bring pneumonia. They will bring on full cardiac arrest.