Mike Huckabee v. Jon Stewart - fiscal policy that's not funny

So I saw an interesting thing the other day on the Jon Stewart . It was a discussion between Stewart and Mike Huckabee. As you might imagine it was confrontational, but not to the degree of say Bill O'Reilly and Rep. Barney Frank.



The crux of the first part of the conversation was on their differences on fiscal conservatism versus liberal policies. Stewart advocates larger Government. By that he means larger influence of Government in the daily affairs of the citizenry. He wants a Government that mandates what cars are made, what profits are allowed and who is lent to. He wants a Government that spends more to provide a mandated healthcare and smaller military.

Huckabee is the opposite of all these things.

But Stewart makes good points in his argument, tinged with sarcasm and humor. Which is great for a parody, but fails to deal with the issues at hand on a more serious level.

Take what Huckabee points out. This Democrat-led Congress failed on every level, and in each Party, to deal with the mortgage crisis which led to the credit crunch. In fact several members of this Congress either lied or have no idea what the hell is going on when they stated the economy was fine. That major financial institutions were secure - which was said at several points in the year - just prior to several major meltdowns. How can we expect a Congress that inept to resolve issues in the stock market, or anywhere for that matter.

And Stewart makes a common misconception as well. He makes the assumption that regulation prevents bad policy. The 2 are not the same.

It was bad policy decisions that made the U.S. auto industry focus on SUV's when hybrid and smaller cars were more logical decisions. Regulation would not change that. And it was the bad regulations, mandating unqualified lenders get home loans, that caused the mortgage crisis in the first place. And bad regulation practices let lead-coated toys into the nation. And it was lack of action by these same oversight groups that failed to prevent or even anticipate the meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as examples.

And one thing I want to directly point out that Jon Stewart said.

"Conservatives would say 'I want a big military'. Well that's Government... The fact that you would trust the Government with tanks and nuclear weapons but not to pass out cheese to poor people. You know, you've got to figure, so...I don't get it!"

Get this. In New Orleans the Government with some 15 agencies failed to provide water to people in the Dome for 3 days during Hurricane Katrina. But there has never been a nuclear weapon that has gone off accidentally or been lost. Nor has a tank been lost. The Government has proven in multiple actions that it is quite good at protecting this nation, when allowed to do so, and engaging in war or military actions.

But in terms of helping the citizenry it is far less efficient. Part of the reason why is the fact that the Government is so big concerning domestic issues that its right hand does not know where is or what is being done by the left. Big Government hurts the people, smaller Government does so less.

Liberals seem to want a Government that is involved with all aspects of daily life. They want Government to make decisions for them, or to assist in that decision process. Yet we see that the more Government there is, the less that is done or done efficiently. So why do Liberals expect that a Government-run healthcare system will be more efficient or helpful than FEMA or the VA or the Post Office, as an example.

And that is no joke at all.