The Hillary Compass

One of the scary things about conservatives is how almost the entire conservative world realigned into a Bush-centric perspective, which completely abandoned all previous conservative theory, yet still considered itself to be pure to its original intentions. In a sense, they all set their ideological compasses to reflect that Bush was the new North without even realizing it.

Sure, they used to demand small government, balanced budgets, strict Constitional adherence, and insisted that America wasn't "the policeman of the world." But once BushCheney wanted a powerful government, busted budgets, Constitution-sized toilet paper, and world domination; all that flew out the window and these people didn't bat an eye. They completely betrayed ideas which they insisted were the core of their beliefs, simply because they needed to continue supporting Bush. Even supply-side economic theory was essentially left behind, as they had no problem following Bush's lead in explaining that taxcuts were good for the economy because they allowed rich people to spend more money; which is the essence of demand-side economics. It's actually a bad example of demand-side economics, as there are much more efficient ways of fixing the economy than giving money to rich people; but it's not supply-side no matter who gets the money.

It got so bad that a nobody Congressman like Ron Paul could obtain a relatively sizeable national following, simply because he didn't realign with the rest of them. And most conservatives HATE Ron Paul for that. And oddly enough, some liberals became so misaligned with Bush that they actually started supporting Paul, seemingly unaware that he was an ultra-conservative. I suspect this is the reason the Paul people were so rabid; because they're the ones who would be too stubborn to follow Bush and the neo-cons.

The Cult of Hillary

And I mention this because I've now just realized that Hillary people have done the same damn thing with her. In a discussion of the Hillary-McCain Gas Tax Pander, Mary, a diehard Hillary supporter at Carpetbagger's, has completely reinvented economic theory in order to justify Hillary's plan. And apparently, since all economists insist that Hillary's plan is a bad idea, they're all wrong AND they're Obama supporters who only say these things because they hate Hillary. All of them.

And while she had already been saying this before, she got new life after reading TPM's David Kurtz, who pointed out that if all these economists are right, than the market must be broken. But somehow, Mary reintrepreted his words into meaning that because the economists' theories dictate that the oil markets are broken, this shows that the economists are wrong because the market isn't broken. But of course, that wasn't his point. His point was that he agreed with the economists and that the market is broken.

And of course, it is. And that's in accordance with economic theory: Because demand is so inelastic in the short-term, suppliers can dictate their prices; particularly because it's so easy for them to coordinate their prices and there is no reason to compete against each other. And what's odd is that Mary knows that prices are inelastic (though she never uses that word), and insists that this means that the gas companies won't raise their prices to eat-up the savings. No, I don't understand that either. I mean, if they get to set their prices, which they do, why wouldn't they just absorb our savings too?

Bad Plan, Poorly Executed

But it's obvious that this has nothing to do with the genius of the plan, and I'm quite positive Mary would rather be on the side of the economists if she could. But, she has to back-up Hillary no matter what, so that means she has to invent her own economic theories to justify what appears to be a taxcut which benefits the rich, that economists say is meaningless, and that wouldn't be very much money even if it worked.

I mean, it basically amounts to being the same thing as the rebate checks we'll be getting, except this is based upon gasoline consumption and not income. So while a married family with two kids earning $4000 a year will get $1200 from their rebate check, they can only expect about $35 or so in gas savings over the course of three months. And the real beneficiaries of the gas tax cut would be gas-guzzling rich people who commute from the suburbs in their obnoxiously large SUV. And some schlub who bikes to work every day won't see any direct savings at all. But of course, that's assuming the oil companies didn't sap all the savings first.

And as even Mary has suggested, this bill has no chance of passing. But of course, there is no bill. And while she puts it in conspiratorial terms because Pelosi is a Obama supporter, neither Hillary or McCain has even bothered writing a bill on this; despite the fact that they said they wanted it to start later this month. So essentially, Hillary's invented yet another non-issue to use as a rightwing talking point to beat up Obama, and we're supposed to talk about how caring and brave she is for doing this. And all this shows that Obama is callous and pandering, because he agrees with the experts and isn't trying to help people save $30.

As it was with Bush, the Hillary supporters have realigned their ideological compass so that they point towards Hillary, and if Hillary appears to be going in the wrong direction, it's everyone else in the world who is wrong.