Dan

Calabrese

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July 14, 2008

Phil Gramm Has You Dead to Rights, So Quit Whining and Get to Work

It says a lot about the current state of affairs in America – and nothing good – that people get offended and outraged when someone tries to tell us things are really not so bad.

Former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas has apparently lived too long and done too much to care. We need more people like this. It would be fantastic if the presidential candidate Gramm is advising – John McCain – would think and talk like this. (He isn’t. Oh well.)

In an interview last week with the Washington Times, Gramm said what needs to be said about the economy, and perhaps more importantly, about the state of mind of the American people. Labeling the supposedly horrid economy a “mental recession,” Gramm placed responsibility squarely on the backs of those whose mush-filled minds simply believe whatever they hear about the economy. As the Times reports:

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline, despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in this economy,” he said.

“We’ve never been more dominant; we’ve never had more natural advantages than we have today,” he said. “We have benefited greatly from the globalization of the economy in the last 30 years.”

Got that? You think there’s a recession – which as a matter of indisputable fact, there is not – because you hear all the time how bad things are and you believe it.

Gramm is right. This column has detailed in the past how so much of the media, especially the Associated Press, leads people to think we’re in the midst of a recession, even while they are forced to admit in the small print that we really are not.

Ideally, people should question the headlines they read, but as a practical matter, most people are too busy to do anything other than take a cursory look at what the media spits out. It’s not surprising that so many people believe we’re in a recession, despite the ready availability of evidence to the contrary.

What is more troubling, however, is how politically dicey it has apparently become to offer good news. The Democratic National Committee jumped all over Gramm’s statement and is trying to make sure it gets aired everywhere possible. In a press release annoyingly headlined “Out of Touch Much, Phil,” the DNC denounced Gramm’s statement as callous and reassured the American people that everything is truly awful.

The McCain campaign, not wanting to risk appearing optimistic, distanced itself from Gramm’s statement, saying, “John McCain travels the country every day talking to Americans who are hurting, feeling pain at the pump and worrying about how they’ll pay their mortgage.”

Well that’s a relief!

Americans have become conditioned to think that if the president empathizes with your personal misery, this is going to somehow make you better off. During the last “change election,” Bill Clinton felt your pain and George Bush was out of touch. At one of Clinton’s inaugural events, comedian Dennis Miller (before his post-9/11 conversion to conservatism) exclaimed, “Finally, a president who gets it!”

Gets what? That we’re having a national pity party and the president is expected to bring the sour grapes?

The U.S. economy has grown every quarter since 2002. Our unemployment rate of 5.5 percent is just a tad above what’s historically been known as full employment. Yes, we have some problems. Oil prices are high because we’re too dependent on foreign imports and China and India are consuming it like crazy. The dollar is weak because the Federal Reserve Board went too far cutting interest rates to avoid a recession – probably because it didn’t want to listen to all the whining!

But these are problems we can solve, and that’s what a real leader would say. If you’re hurting because you’ve got problems, fix them. Yourself. Some candidate for public office coming around feeling your pain isn’t going to make you any better off. If anything, a candidate who can show you how to access opportunity is the one who might be able to be of some help to you.

But if you can fix your own problems, then you’re not a victim and you don’t need the government to fix them for you by fingering a villain to punish on your behalf – which ultimately does you no good anyway.

Phil Gramm is right. Quit whining. You’re doing no good for yourself or your country. And if you think the president of the United States – whoever he is – is going to make things better for you, you’re setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. Maybe the fact that you think that way is the reason you have problems in the first place.

Now get to work.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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