Carville’s Way

“It’s the economy stupid.” James Carville 1992

“It’s the economy stupid.” American voters 2024

Haruspices are gathered from coast to coast trying to divine why the reincarnation of Adolf Shicklgruber won such a resounding victory. Psychiatrists are treating legions of Hollywood celebrities, rock stars and over-educated graduates of Ivy League universities for Stage 5 Trump Derangement Syndrome. Suicide prevention hotlines have had to add 5 million new phone lines and bookings for international flights have gone asymptotic for both escaping snowflakes and felons from the Biden administration. Job placement firms specializing in finding jobs for now unemployed political analysts are swamped with embellished resumes…they would be wise to retain fact checkers.

The answer to the Why is simple. Just ask our oldest living ex-president, James Earl Carter. If you will recall Carter conceded the 1980 election before the polls closed on the West Coast. In 1978 he had not yet fully transitioned from president to buffoon but he had been leaving a trail of breadcrumbs beginning in 1976. In the presidential debate with Ford he told the assembled Democrat booboisie, HL Mencken’s term for people prone to ignorance and stupid mistakes (i.e. graduates of Harvard and Brown), that the world would run out of oil by 2011. It was downhill from there.

But what ultimately did him in was runaway inflation. In 1979 the rate was 13.3% and in the election year of 1980 it had been “reduced” to 12.5%. Mortgage rates reached 15 to 17%. It became clear that Carter had no clue as to the cause of the problem nor did he have a solution and he was retired to a well-deserved obscurity. Would that Obama had become as invisible as Carter became.

The Biden administration breathed new life into the inflation monster and Kamala thought the answer was to give everyone a free tire pressure gauge…also useful for price gauging. The media threw a bunch of shiny object distractions at the electorate…abortion, existential threats to democracy, transphobia, nightmares about climate change and Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift…but inflation was on display in every emporium across the land. Great campaign line: Before Biden my gas tank only held $50 worth of gas now it holds $100.

In 2024 the sage advice of Senor Carville became operative once again. Happily it was ignored by the intellectually challenged Democrat candidates and their benighted advisors. So perhaps it is time to analyze why profligate Democrat administrations get tangled in the inflationary barbed wire. The iconic Milton Friedman has written extensively about the part monetary policy plays in causing inflation. However there is more to the issue.

There is an argument that the more the government intrudes into the day to day operation of the national economy the more the spendthrift instincts of our federal overseers create new mischief. The dirigistic proclivities of the Left are well documented and went unchecked during the administrations of Carter and Biden.

In 1915 Benjamin Parke DeWitt wrote a book, The Progressive Movement, which is a blueprint for the implementation of fascist/dirigistic economic policies. For example, DeWitt does not trust corporations, such as General Electric, and suggests a need to “place these private corporations under effective supervision.” This begs to obvious question: Who should be responsible for this “supervision”?

As we have noted in previous posts the greatest national economic progress and the greatest elevation of the economic fortunes of the people took place when free enterprise was allowed to flourish. After the Civil War the economic growth in America was the envy of the world. All measures of societal progress were positive…average incomes grew, life expectancy increased, innovation blossomed and education flourished. This golden era ran aground at the end of the 19th century coincident with the introduction of the Roosevelt/Wilson Progressive agenda. It is ironic that the so-called progressive movement became a restraint on economic progress.

The result of this bureaucratic intrusion into the American economy under the management of our unaccomplished New Elite is a Rube Goldbergian labyrinth of government agencies and boondoggles that is very good at spending money and very bad at accomplishing anything substantive. The Department of Education (thank you Jimmy Carter) is the best illustration of how we waste money to promote ill-defined and questionable programs implemented by wastrel foot soldiers of the unbridled state. It is our fervent hope the Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy will unravel the Gordian regulatory knot that is now embraced by the Deep State.

So how will they accomplish the elimination of wasteful spending? How will they ferret out counterproductive schemes and machinations designed and implemented by unelected functionaries working in anonymity? Every agency of the Federal Leviathan must be fully and completely audited. Every tax dollar being expended must be identified and accounted for. Every program should be subject to Congressional review. Every agency must be downsized and employees must work on-site subject to direct supervision. Goals must be set and there must be measurements of success identified. It is likely that workers will fight hammer and sickle to avoid accountability.

Financial discipline, Exhibit 1: In 2024 the Democrats collected a record campaign war chest of more than $1 billion, lost the White House, the Senate and the House and ended up more than $20 million in debt. QED

It should be remembered that George Washington’s cabinet consisted of four members one of which was the Postmaster General. Those were the days!