Since we are in a moment when Republicans (to use Ann Richards’ famous dig at George H.W. Bush back in 1988) have suddenly “discovered” wage stagnation and income inequality after years and years of denying such things could exist in this best of all possible economies, it’s a good time to make sure they aren’t playing their old game of adapting the same old agenda to new circumstances.
That’s the topic of my weekly column at TPMCafe, and you can color me skeptical that there’s anything new being advanced so far, other than the claim that tax cuts, deregulation, devolution, domestic spending cuts and so on and so forth just happen to be the magic solution to this year’s problems as well as yesterday’s and the day before’s. Interestingly enough, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul are both advancing dissenting agendas (one on domestic policy, the other on foreign policy) that actually hearken back to very, very old conservative ideologies. But you don’t go to the museum for new ideas.
