Not Very Bright, That One

Congressman Eric Cantor, an opportunist if there ever was one, it seems is not very bright. I guess up till now he has gotten over with decent looks and an ability to talk in complete sentences. But unfortunately the problem with being a power hungry politician is that sooner or later you get to a level where you actually have to DO something to justify your stature. It seems the more Cantor opens his mouth the more we see just how empty of a suit he is.

Whether it was last year when he blamed the House Republicans voting against the TARP on Nancy Pelosi hurting their feelings or whether it was his office a week ago releasing a very vulgar youtube parody of an old union ad (this after he campaigned against obscenity in media)in response to pressure put on him to vote for the bill by union groups Eric Cantor has seemed to undermine himself and his party at every turn. So now he comes out with the relevation that he "studies" Newt Gingrich's opposition as leader of the minority in the early nineties as some kind of model for what House Republicans should do now. Then when he catches flack for admitting that he his patterning himself after a guy who got run out of Washington on a rail because of his antics, Cantor doubled down on teh stupid.

Today over at Greg Sargent's Plum Line we find out that Eric Cantor has now released a statement to the media that he ALSO studies Winston Churchill as a model for how to react when in the minority. Now first of all wouldn't you know it, Cantor got the basic facts of when Chamberlain was even the leader of the minority wrong. But the best part of the story is how it might directly relate to the vote on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926.[82] His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget, came after long consultation with various economists including John Maynard Keynes, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Otto Niemeyer and the board of the Bank of England. This decision prompted Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world depression. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by Lord Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries.[83]

Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life. However in discussions at the time with former Chancellor McKenna, Churchill acknowledged that the return to the gold standard and the resulting 'dear money' policy was economically bad. In those discussions he maintained the policy as fundamentally political - a return to the pre-war conditions in which he believed.[84] In his speech on the Bill he said "I will tell you what it [the return to the Gold Standard] will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality."[85]

The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard depressed industries. The most affected was the coal industry. Already suffering from declining output as shipping switched to oil, as basic British industries like cotton came under more competition in export markets, the return to the pre-war exchange was estimated to add up to 10% in costs to the industry. In July 1925, a Commission of Inquiry reported generally favouring the miners, rather than the mine owners' position.[86] Baldwin, with Churchill's support proposed a subsidy to the industry while a Royal Commission prepared a further report.

That Commission solved nothing and the miners dispute led to the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" and claimed that the fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces"—that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men."[87]

Later economists, as well as people at the time, also criticised Churchill's budget measures. These were seen as assisting the generally prosperous rentier banking and salaried classes (to which Churchill and his associates generally belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters which were known then to be suffering from imports and from competition in traditional export markets,[88] and as paring the Armed Forces too heavily.[89]

If you have been following the whole stimulus bill discussion you might remember that Keynes fellow. He is the guy whose theory of economics is the basis for President Obama's stimulus bill. He is also the guy that WingNuts like Cantor have decided didn't know what the hell he was talking about. If Cantor is REALLY studying Churchill maybe he would have noticed what happened when Churchill rejected Keynes' advice way back when. At the very least you have to wonder does he REALLY want to bring this kind of attention to Churchill when essentially he made the same mistake the GOP is right now in rejecting Keynes expressly for political reasons?

Like I said before, not very bright.