Reversing Reich Rhetoric

An FB post from a friend claiming this video as an Econ and Politics 101 primer prompts my point-by-point rebuttal below:

Reich is the king of cherry-picked half-truth and the twice-spun straw-man argument, even when he's accurate on his facts (which he's not always--that part often turns out to be "selective" too, and usually missing proper contextualization). Conservatives think that leaving more earnings in the hands of the earners makes sense, so yes, low taxes. Conservatives think that regulation should be done from the local level up, not from the federal level down, so yes, fewer regulations. But low wages has NEVER been part of the Conservative economic argument, instead the argument is that when employers are free to let the market choose the wages, wages tend to settle HIGHER.

TX and KS are 25 and 26 for average income in 2014, CA was 3, that much is true (although 25-26 are NOT bottom of the barrel, by any stretch). But, now ask how that translates into cost of living: TX is 13th and KS 15th for purchasing power, CA ranks 40th for 2015. In other words, Reich is starting his argument upside down--the high wages in CA are overbalanced by low purchasing power, and TX and KS give their citizens, on balance, more bang for the buck.

KS economic growth has been slow, he's not wrong, but it's a non sequitur, because economic growth has many other factors, and because even in lower economic growth conditions, purchasing power is still higher there, as shown earlier. Also, by cherry-picking growth as his sole indicator he ignores that the unemployment rate has dwindled to nearly half the national average.

And for the conservative answer to CA's supposed growth spurt, another National Review article, where context paints a fuller picture, provides the answer: CA did well, but TX and other red states still have good indicators.

Now, from there is where he gets really bizarre: states invest? Certainly they spend tax money on education, but let's ask my grad school buddy in a CA publicly funded institution how hers compares with the nation: she'll tell you that it's CHRONICALLY underfunded. States DO invest, but they invest much more POORLY than private parties do, because it's not their own skin in the game they're risking. And the worst of the poppycock is this: why is it assumed that just because Conservatives don't want GOVT to be the investing party, that somehow Reich can conclude that conservatives don't want the investment in people AT ALL?? In KS and TX, the investments ARE made--small business growth in KS, for example, in a previously cited article, is evidence that Kansans invest in projects that THEY think will be productive and worthwhile to others. How is that NOT an investment in people?

On protecting the beauty of the state, Reich is overstepping yet again, on two levels: 1. KS and TX both have strict environmental protection laws in place, and are homes for high concentrations of staunch conservationists--it's a longtime liberal lark that conservatives somehow want to live with dirty air, water, and land, and don't appreciate nature; 2. CA has gone so far off the deep end with overly protective environmentalist rules that they create real man-made disasters for humans--the recent drought is cyclical, and population growth was predictable, but environmentalists obstructed every proposals for new reservoirs for 30+ years, so when the drought hit, there wasn't enough water for the human beings.
CA doesn't invest in people, it invests in govt programs which often aren't interested in the people they're supposed to care about at all.

Now as every good rhetorician does, Reich throws in a "in fairness" statement to make a show of his own objectivity before he attempts to blow even the fair point out of the water, to make you think his argument is even more bullet-proof. But he's not counting on you to stop and think about the rhetorical sleight of hand he's pulled: he claims TX hasn't diversified enough because its govt doesn't make "adequate investments", but it's not TX that makes investments at ALL, but rather TEXANS. Why should a state govt be deciding for anyone which part of private industry to support with tax money? Govt's role is NOT to invest in a private business, or even in a private industry, but rather to promote investment by others by ensuring a level economic playing field, and by getting out of the way. If the economy is a competition, govt is the ref, NOT the coach, despite Reich's illegitimate and unconstitutional wish to see the ref pick a side.

Happy to see, though, that Reich seems to finally agree with Conservatives that federated union of states allows them to function as a laboratory for experiments in administration. I know it's disingenuous (Reich is a solid socialist who doesn't actually believe states should function separately at all, but instead should be controlled by a managed economy run from a central location), but he demonstrates the effectiveness of that conservative idea even when attempting an (ill-formed) argument against others.