America's Accelerating Downward Spiral

by Peter Ferrara - March 23rd, 2011 - The American Spectator

For two years now, I have been arguing in this column and elsewhere that President Obama's economic policies were a throwback to the 1970s, and so were going to produce the same result as the 1970s -- the worsening cycles of inflation and recession known as stagflation. With last week's reports regarding the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, those results are now here.

But these developments are just several further spins in an accelerating downward spiral for America that leaves our traditional prosperity, high standard of living, and national security extremely vulnerable to three looming disasters...

It has been a catastrophe for our nation that so few Republicans have believed these predictions of the economically literate. Unfortunately we have few of our own leaders who were not scared to death that what Obama was doing might actually work. They neither believe in or understand free enterprise. George W. Bush is a perfect example. His economic track record is socialism lite. We have two wings of our party that now embrace socialism. The "compassionate conservative" wing and the "country club" wing. With that being true it is hard to mount a strong defense of free enterprise.

As a result, the Republican leadership has been afraid to condemn many of the actions of the Obama czars and appointees. The Republicans will not criticize the Obama people because they are in over their heads when it comes to economics. They don't know, so they stand there befuddled and unsure.

When people like Ferrara who understand economics talk, Republican leadership doesn't even listen. It makes them uncomfortable. However by their failure to act they are complicit in the disaster that is coming.