In general, people prefer tax cuts, I agree, but then why haven’t we seen payroll tax cuts at the top of their agenda and pushed on a daily basis as part of an alternative stimulus bill? For the most part, they remain wedded to changing marginal income and capital gains taxes.

I don’t know, but I would guess that the latter types of cut are most favored by the party’s donor base. Politics needs money as well as votes, and donors have the public choice advantage of being a more concentrated and informed group.

There’s also the problem Jetan alluded to with regard to the Democrats. Payroll taxes are linked to the fiction that Social Security and Medicare are forms of insurance. Theoretically these taxes aren’t even taxes.

For Republican lawmakers to get together on an ‘alternative stimulus’ seems attractive at first. But wouldn’t hammering out all the compromises require a lot of staff work for something that certainly won’t pass and probably won’t even be voted on? Do American parties in opposition usually do that kind of thing?

I didn’t say ‘popular’. I said ‘[not] especially unpopular with swing voters.’ The difference matters.

Yes/no poll questions are of limited value. They don’t tell us how people prioritize issues, or what will move their votes.

My point is that the GOP’s electoral fortunes have been mostly the results of Iraq, Katrina, and the recession. Recent increases in protectionist sentiment may have contributed in some geographical areas. But there is no need for people who oppose protection on policy grounds to go running to embrace it out of electoral panic.

I should acknowledge that Paul Ryan has specifically raised this issue and made a proposal for the GOP to argue for a sound money policy, albeit not one tied to gold if I understood correctly.

Thank you.

Sound policy is more important than a tie to gold. In the 1970s a tie to gold didn’t prevent inflation. Inflation eventually killed the tie to gold. Even in its heyday, the ‘gold standard’ didn’t prevent the government from using fractional reserve banking to manipulate the money supply.

Monetary policy is in the stratospheric ozone for the average voter. I would be delighted if the conservative movement would rediscover Milton Friedman, but that’s not what will get the Republican Party back into power.

Jetan:

Judging our monetary policy, if we can call it that, by temporary fluctuations in partisan electoral results is nothing short of unhinged.

I agree. In this context, however, the point is a strawman, and moreover concedes the actual point at issue.

Obviously, Novak and Kudlow got their wish and the now almost meaningless Dow and S&P zoomed.- this in spite of not adding one iota of value to the American economy or, as we are now all too aware, to any of the companies that were traded on those exchanges. If I traded you a share of GM for a share of Anaconda Copper, at least the share certificate of AC would have some historic value.

Even now, we see hacks – not to name names (Glassman, Kudlow, Cramer, Santeli) -still trying to flog their produce even though it is depressingly clear to all that their wares are long past their sell-by date.

I quite agree that the payroll tax cut would be both wildly popular and very stimulative. So much so that it is a mystery why Democrats haven’t embraced it. I suppose they are afraid of the Republicans getting their nose under the tent of Social Security.

I respectfully suggest that if you believe the GOP’s trade policy is popular, you have been misinformed. Like many other things, it is popular with many people inside the party, but free trade and globalization generally are viewed negatively by at least half the country and have been for several years. In general, people prefer tax cuts, I agree, but then why haven’t we seen payroll tax cuts at the top of their agenda and pushed on a daily basis as part of an alternative stimulus bill? For the most part, they remain wedded to changing marginal income and capital gains taxes. That’s what I’m talking about when I say they are standing pat on tax policy.

Monetary policy? Besides Ron Paul, does anyone of prominence even talk about monetary policy?

Republican tax and trade policies didn’t cause the recession, nor are they in themselves especially unpopular with swing voters. Bush wouldn’t have won a second term if they were.

It’s natural for grassroots Democrats to blame the Iraq war on right-wing devils, on Bush and Cheney and the neo-cons. But that ignores some important history. A majority of Senate Democrats backed the war, and so did foreign policy luminaries of the Clinton administration like Madeline Albright and Richard Holbrooke. Kenneth Pollack wrote a book supporting the war.

So, what kind of re-examination can we expect? Are conservatives to be less bellicose toward a perceived enemy of American than Democratic foreign policy wonks?

I’m not so sure anyone knows the overall ‘truth’ of Iraqi politics, including those in the thick of it. When I hear the Maliki has arrested some Sunni leaders, I don’t know if that means he is trying to crush the Sunni completely and they will soon rise up again, or that he is cutting deals with some Sunni leaders and suppressing their rivals. If Maliki ultimately succeeds in consolidating power, the surge could well be judged a success. (I’m being a devil’s advocate, as I opposed both the Iraq war and the surge.)

The popular view on the right is hardly inexplicable. (Am I taking you too literally again?) Few Americans care about Iraqi politics. If American casualties are minimal, then the anti-American bad guys must have been defeated.