Hey GOP: What if Prosperity Is Returning to America?

Question for the Grandiose Ornery Party:
What if Prosperity is Returning to America?

Shocking news!

Economic growth, in Q3, returns to commanding heights unseen since the previous century . . .  under Reagan and Clinton.

This has confounded good Republicans, as noted by MSNBC’s Steve Benen, "In fact, the gross domestic product reached 4.9% for the quarter — a level of growth unseen during Donald Trump’s first three years in office — exceeding expectations. . . .  It was, by any fair measure, 'stellar' news, made better when combined with recent data pointing to low unemployment and inflation rates that are dropping."

Mr. Benen upbraids us Republicans for ignoring this wonderful news.

He meanwhile betrays his own tribalism by noting this to be "a level of growth unseen during Donald Trump’s first three years in office," turning a willfully blind eye to the fact that this level of growth also was absent during Barack Obama’s eight years in office.

I forgive Benen for that. He is a good Democrat and that’s how the game of politics is played: good solid partisanship.

I am a bad Republican. (No, not a RINO; I am actually more conservative than my party.)

I hereby make public confession of my partisan badness, putting country over party, allowing my devotion to prosperity (American and world, complementary not contradictory) to trump, pardon the expression, my partisan loyalties.

How bad?

I did not vote for Biden’s predecessor, whose disposition I found intermittently charming but . . . policy dubious. Nor did I vote for Biden, writing in the name of my inamorata in 2016 and 2020 (and again will in 2024 as she is the one most qualified to best govern).

That said, withholding my vote for the Republican presidential nominee (pointless, anyhow, in my deep blue Maryland which would have given its electoral college votes to the Unabomber had he been the Democrat’s nominee) is considered political heresy.

Rightly.

Heresy derives from Greek hairesis, "choosing for oneself," rather than being governed by dogma. Guilty guilty guilty!

That said, facts, as John Adams, stealing from Tobias Smollett, observed, are stubborn things. And as I wrote here at Newsmax a few months ago, "Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton fomented sustained 4%-range growth. Their successors did much worse: George W. Bush, 2.25%; Barack Obama, 1.59%; Donald Trump, 1.03%. To be fair, pre-COVID President Trump clocked in at 2.3%, 2.9%, and 2.3%. Not much better than Bush."

I shrug my shoulders.

My guilt runs deep!

I am a conservative columnist who has been praising Biden as a good Democratic capitalist who vanquished the progressive "Democratic Socialist" base of his party and who went on to lead his party to victory over the Republican mercantilists in three successive elections despite his few expedient but obnoxious concessions to his progressive base.

Though he talked a good game Biden’s predecessor, raucously proclaiming prosperity, ended up providing a pale imitation of the Reagan-Clinton policies whose "(relatively) stable dollar and (relatively) low tax rates doubled real per capita GDP from $30,000 to nearly $60,000. Per the St. Louis Fed, U.S. nominal GDP soared from $2.7T to $26T, world nominal GDP from $11T to $96T."

Biden’s predecessor aggressively tanked the dollar, leading, after the standard lag, to the renewal of the worst inflation in 40 years (quelled under Biden). His vaunted cut in "the top income tax rate from 39.6% to 37% paled in comparison to the '80s drop from 70% to 28%. Trump's cutting the corporate rate from a nominal 39% to 21% sounded bigger than it was, the effective rate having been at 18.6%."

Biden’s predecessor provided a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Equitable prosperity?

Not so much.

I am one of very few surviving original gangster (O.G.) supply-siders of the Reagan era, founder of the Prosperity Caucus and, more recently, co-founder and chairman of the 200,000-plus follower Capitalist League.

And I only am escaped alone to tell thee: the Democrats (including Joe Biden who, as a young senator, voted to cut the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28% and the capital gains rate from 28% to 20%) were full partners in enacting the policies that brought us the wonderful equitable prosperity of the ‘80s and 90s.

Despite Republican disparagement of Bidenomics, Biden’s record of economic growth has been respectable.

Nothing against political propaganda! Just, we deserve better quality propaganda than the GOP is dishing out.

Will the sizzling growth rate of the previous quarter continue? My Magic 8 Ball says, "Reply hazy, try again."

Still . . . GOP attacks on Bidenomics are mere tribalism. Does the Grandiose Ornery Party wish to regain power?

Then let the Republicans listen to this heretical Republican and offer a credible suite of policies of opulence through capitalism hidden in plan slight, there for the taking!

Badmouthing Biden is a recipe for our, not his, defeat. Bring on real prosperity policies!

If this be heresy, make the most of it!

Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $94T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.