Britannia Rules the Way
Today's moment of clarity: this statement by George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.
The chancellor, who's undertaking Britain's biggest budget squeeze since the Second World War, is facing pressure from the left to spend, spend, spend.
Pretty heady stuff for a 40-year-old Tory.
Here's the key passage:
Those who spent the last year telling us to follow the American example with yet more fiscal stimulus need to answer this simple question: why has the US economy grown more slowly than the UK’s so far this year?
More spending now, paid for by more government borrowing and higher debt, would lead directly to rising interest rates and falling international confidence that would kill off the recovery not support it.
Instead, we’ve got to work hard to have a private sector that competes, that invests, that exports.
In today’s world, that is the only route to high quality jobs and lasting prosperity.
To the eight Republicans on the stage in Iowa -- plus Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Thaddeus McCotter and anyone else listening -- I say: memorize this passage, recite it every day, keep repeating it for the next 14-and-a-half months.
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Comments :
Sep '10
Re: Britannia Rules the Way
You know I find myself from time to time lapsing into a morass of technobabble about Keynesian multipliers and whatever else.
It is refreshing to hear a politician speak plainly and clearly.
Or is he a mean, angry conservative who is holding the economy hostage?
Mar '11
Re: Britannia Rules the Way
Ross Conatser:
Or is he a mean, angry conservative who is holding the economy hostage?
That's what the leftists in the UK say. Oh, strange - that's what Mr Obama is saying... hmm, is there a connection?
Dec '10
Re: Britannia Rules the Way
I agreed with him when he said it, but have no conficence that British voters will agree with him.
I'll agree with an American politician that says it, but have no confidence that undecided or Independent American voters will agree.
There is only one thing that American voters can do to turn this around and that is grow voters. Not a politician mealy-mouthing a message to appeal to the mindless that do vote, but neighbors that kinda make our non-politically active neighbors get up and go vote.
My neighbors don't read Ricochet. That is where the margin is; not amonsgt the great middle of "undecideds" and "Independents". It's amongst the "don't votes because I hate all of thems". Straight talk as this, without preamble and weasel words, is the sort of thing that would appeal to the Don't Votes. I no longer care how the undecideds or Independents vote.