Politics

Republicans re-elect Boehner speaker. All that talk about ousting him was more theater.

Thomas Sowell still doesn't understand Republicans.

"To me, the Republican establishment is the eighth wonder of the world. How they can keep repeating the same mistakes for decades on end is beyond my ability to explain."

They didn't make any mistakes. They calculated that they'd rather loot a minority portion of big government than a majority portion of small government. They believed they would make more money by promoting big government and losing than by promoting small government and winning. And they're right. The more money the government spends, the richer they and Democrats get.

"It is not just Republican presidential candidates who cannot be bothered to articulate a coherent argument, instead of ad hoc talking points. Have you yet heard House Speaker John Boehner take the time to spell out why Barack Obama’s argument for taxing “millionaires and billionaires” is wrong?"

Republicans can't make that argument because they support the same taxes as Democrats. The difference between them is a tiny percentage, not one of principle, and the tiny percentage difference is just for show. Look at Sowell's question: "Have you yet heard House Speaker John Boehner take the time to spell out why Barack Obama’s argument for taxing “millionaires and billionaires” is wrong?" When have you heard any politician call for abolishing any taxes? He framed the question wrong as an act of propaganda. He should have framed it "...Obama's argument for slightly raising taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" is wrong?" Once you see the difference is "slightly raising", the argument is shot. Once you accept that your property really belongs to the government in the form of taxes, you have no principle from which to resist tax hikes.

"What we all should be worried about are high tax rates driving American investments overseas, when there are millions of Americans who could use the jobs that those investments would create at home."

If lower tax rates are better than higher tax rates, then no taxes is best of all. You get nowhere when you're arguing over stealing slightly more or less of people's money. Republicans cannot make a principled case for resisting higher taxes because no such case exists. The reality is Republicans want higher taxes because higher taxes enable increased spending, and spending makes them rich. Republicans just can't say that and keep their jobs. Sowell confusion stems from his mistaken belief that Republicans, or any politician, wants to voluntarily harm his own economic interest to benefit others. Politicians are not Jesus Christ. They are not saints. They are people out to advance their own interest like everybody else, and the way they advance their interest is by using the power of coercion to steal more and more of our money and funnel it to their plutocrat cronies who subsequently return a significant portion of our stolen money to the politicians who provided it to them.

"Some people may take solace from the fact that there are some articulate Republicans like Marco Rubio who may come forward in 2016."

It seems like every conservative commentator looks at Marco Rubio like a savior. This is a grave mistake. Rubio is no different on policy than any other Republican. Rubio loves high taxes, though he will take a position on rates slightly less than Democrats. He loves increasing government spending, though he will take a position on spending growth at a slightly lower rate than Democrats. He'll support crushing regulations like Republicans always do, just slightly less than the Democrat nominee. The only reason conservatives like Rubio is he's Hispanic. They believe that alone will win him enough votes to win the presidency. But so what if he wins? Nothing will change. Our country is being ground to dust by government. The buildings around us are decaying. Roads and bridges are decaying. Factories are decaying. Our power grid is decaying. These are all signs of capital depletion, the inevitable result of government spending, regulations and money printing. Government is depleting our capital stock at an alarming rate - we can see it with our own eyes - and the only way to turn it around is to dramatically cut government spending and regulations at every level and to adopt sound money.