Move Over Jeb! Mike Huckabee Promises 6 Percent Growth

     I've said it before and maybe you think I'm joking. I'm really not. Trump's policies are mostly better than the GOP candidates-Trump is not really a conservative Republicans this is kind of a parody or pantomime.-but he's better at it than they are. Why else is he leading in all these polls as he delights in telling us ad nausea-um-and I for never get tired of hearing by the way.

    http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-sad-thing-is-trump-still-sounds.html

    He's not a conservative Republican but he is a kind of mutated Right wing populist.

    http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-question-is-asked-is-trump-false.html

    http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/it-should-be-obvious-trump-is-no.html

     I trace his genealogy in US political history to George Wallace, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot-though Perot was an unusual populist in being basically in the Center; most populists are on the Right or Left.

    But Right wing populism is actually much more prevalent in Europe than the US. Today we have the rise of UKIP in Britain, La Pen in France, Golden Dawn in Greece-who formed a coalition with Syrzia; a classic coalition of Left wing and Right wing populists; Trump also clearly resembles  Italy's colorful, disgraced former President, Berlusconi. e

   Trump's Right wing populism centers around

    1. Hostility to immigrants which is very much a GOP sentiment right now as the party demographically is threatened by all these Latino immigrants

    2. The belief that everyone is ripping us off. The Mexicans, the Chinese-even Japan which hasn't been so powerful in 25 years. Basically what economists like Scott Sumner derisively call autarcky.

    3. He also plays things brilliantly on foreign policy. He gives GOPers what they want he claims to be the most hawkish man in the world. But he also brags that he's the only one in the race who opposed the Iraq war-in 2004 to be sure.

   So he both gets to be the toughest hawk in the world and criticizes Jeb from the Left and ties him to his brother at the same time.

   But on domestic issues you get that Trump's instincts are pretty sane. He's really prochoice and mostly just pretends otherwise but still defended Planned Parenthood.

 http://www.salon.com/2015/08/12/the_real_lesson_of_donald_trumps_support_for_planned_parenthood_the_gop_primary_has_stopped_making_sense_entirely/

 He in the past has said that Democratic economic policies are superior to Republican economic policies and probably hasn't entirely changed his mind. He criticizes Obamacare of course but then says that single payer works great in Canada and Sweden. He seems to think it would have worked in the past in the US but now the time is passed-mostly because he's running as a Republican.

 He's also calling for a wealth tax that many liberals probably will find attractive.

 Some of what he says is absurd-like we're going to build a fence and Mexico is going to pay for it or much of his autarchic arguments.

  Yet I don't think anything he says is as silly as Jeb! boasting that he'll give us 4 percent growth. Now Huckabee has one-upped Jeb and promises that he'll give us 6 percent I guess he wins though as 6% is better than 4 percent right?

  Though Krugman's plan is even better than 6 percent: he promises 6 percent and a pony. 

  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

 "Jeb Bush has made the ludicrous promise that, if elected, his still to-be-determined economic program will launch the United States into 4 percent economic growth. Reuters reported out the genesis of this promise a few months ago. “There were no fancy economic models or forecasts when former Florida Governor Jeb Bush first tossed out the idea that 4 percent annual growth should be the overarching goal for the U.S. economy,” it revealed. Just a bunch of guys on the phone pullin’ numbers out of thin air:"

 http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/08/huckabee-checkmates-jebs-4-growth-promise.html

 There you go. Who needs any fancy, shmancy economic model? Down the liberal academics. Let's just come up with numbers out of a hat. If you want some insight for how they got to 4 percent bear in mind that this idea number was hatched at the George W. Bush policy institute.

 Ok, enough said.

 "Even if we don’t make 4 percent it would be nice to grow at 3 or 3.5,” said Glassman, now a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In that conference call, “we were looking for a niche and Jeb in that very laconic way said, 'four percent growth.' It was obvious to everybody that this was a very good idea."

"(George W. Bush’s policies didn’t produce anything close to 4 percent annual growth, but the Bush Institute has made 4 percent growth its major theme, in keeping with the general Republican practice of acting like the Bush administration never happened.)"

So now Huckabee has basically just said 'plus one' and piggbacked on Jeb's brilliant epiphany with his own even better one. I mean if 4 percent is then surely 6 percent is an even better one-and 6 percent plus a pony is better still.

"Huckabee, the winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, who is running as an economic populist, said 6 percent growth or more — notably upping the ante over Jeb Bush’s promise of 4 percent growth — would be possible through what he calls the Fair Tax, a type of national sales tax. Economists have expressed skepticism at Mr. Bush’s promise of 4 percent growth, so Mr. Huckabee’s 6 percent plan may cause even more raised eyebrows."

"The beauty of this is that Bush can hardly call Huckabee’s promise unrealistic or made-up, without having to concede his own promise is also unrealistic and made-up, just less so. Bush has no grounds to argue against Huckabee here. Think about it. You walk into a caucus, you see 4 percent growth sittin' there, there's 6 percent growth right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?"

I think about the only thing you can say about Jeb's economic discussion is that at least it enables him to avoid discussing foreign policy and lionizing the Iraq policy of his brother. About the only saving grace for him is that there are other issues to discuss. However, it's shocking how bad his discussion of economics is.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/08/14/jeb-bush-keeps-finding-new-ways-to-be-wrong-about-iraq/

But then remember this is the George W. Bush policy institute and it all makes sense.