Carter's economic plan squared

I personally couldn't care less that Barack Obama is black. I wasn't moved with waves of emotion that a black man had been elected president or that same was proof that America had somehow, overnight, purged itself of its remaining vestiges of racial inequality in the weeks leading up to the election. I argue that America had done that long before – and I argue that his being elected proves my point.

For the record, I would have been equally unmoved if America's first president of color would have been Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas – albeit I would have been indescribably more pleased for different reasons notwithstanding.

When it comes to the person elected president – I care singularly about the individual's qualifications and policies. I know my position offends those who rejoice over a black man's victory; however, in my mind that is their problem. I look upon them as myopic and, by definition, just as racist as those who would not vote for him because he is black. The only difference being that the final numbers can be argued to reflect more blacks voted for him because of his skin color than whites voted against him because of same.

I am beyond being concerned with skin color and better for it. For those still hung up on pigment – it is they who are the poorer. I care about Obama's policy views, especially his economic policies.

I would be the first to say that economics is not my specific field of expertise. But that doesn't mean I don't comprehend the difference between failed economic policies of the past and those that actually work.

Obama subscribes to Keynesian economics, which I would argue – with the single exception of its implementation during the Great Depression – does not work. And it can be argued that, even then, it was other factors that contributed to the success of said economic theory.

A simple explanation of Keynesian economics is that it calls for government intervention to jump-start a sagging /failing economy. John Keynes' economic theory argued for a circular flow of money, i.e., one person's spending goes toward another's earnings, and that as that people spend their earnings, they are in effect supporting another's earnings. Keynes opposed free-market capitalism and the belief that an uninhibited market will achieve economic balance on its own.

Simplistically put, Keynesian economics also opposes too much personal saving in favor of spending as a means to jump-start the economy. And while that may read as logical – it is the means of effecting said spending that portends the draconian intervention as a means of accomplishing it.

It calls for a massive redistribution of wealth whenever needed, as determined by government. Keynesianism argues that if those designated as poor are given sums of money, they will spend it rather than save it, and thus promote economic growth. To be fair, this was the intent of this year's economic stimulus checks – the difference being that the public, as a whole (well, almost as a whole), underwrote the checks that went to individuals and couples earning below a specified amount.

Raising taxes on the so-called wealthy and penalizing businesses for being successful, with the intent of giving to those who already contribute (vis-à-vis taxes) little or nothing to the economic climate, doesn't work. It didn't work for Jimmy Carter when the top personal income tax rate was 70 percent. Artificially increasing the spending power of the lower 50 percent, by increasing the tax burden on the top 5-20 percent of income earners didn't work then, and it won't work now.

As has been argued by free-market capitalists, myself included, the lowering of the capital gains rate, the cutting of the corporate tax rate and making it easier for small businesses to start – get credit and operating capital – without the millstone of government weighing them down – is the proven way to build a vibrant economy from the ground up.

Ronald Reagan understood this basic economic principle, as did President Kennedy, and as does President Bush – a fact his father, George H. W. Bush, forgot and Bill Clinton, who ran as a centrist supply-sider, pretended to favor before ultimately turning to the Keynesian left.

Many, vastly more economically versed than I argue that Obama's economic plan, if implemented, will make France look like a burgeoning economy and Carter's economic plan look like one of genius.