Lessons for the US, from Germany and Japan.

Ron Kitching referred to United State’s SBS News commentators Shields and Brooks being in a quandary as to the trillion dollar “stimulation” package, including:

Shields: Americans rebuilt devastated Germany after WW2. Americans rebuilt devastated Japan after WW2. We can surely rebuild America.

Ron points out:

Shields is quite wrong on both of those points. It was the wise economic decisions of Finance Minister Ludwig Erhard that rebuilt West Germany. He eschewed money printing, reduced taxation and the recovery was so dramatic, that unemployment went from 50% to zero in 10 years.

And five million new workers had to be imported from Greece, Turkey, Italy Spain and France.

In Japan’s case, it was Japan’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Tanzan Ishibashi who dictated Japan’s economic policies. He abolished the tax on the interest of savings. He cut tax on dividends from 11% to 7% and cut personal rates by 10%. Corporate tax rates were dropped from 42% to 40%.

Curiously tax revenues rose by 15% and voluntary savings rose by an astonishing 31.5%.

Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea also copied West Germany’s recipes and made astonishing gains in ten years.

It seems that some of the GOP are starting to realize that where the party has failed miserably in the eyes of many of its supporters over the years, is economics and are moving to resist the irresponsible spending in ‘Porkulus’. The Governors referred to below seem to be making an effort.

Several days ago Eric Dondero posted on the possibility that some Republican Governors would reject stimulus money, because of the risk that the areas that the money is slated to go into could entail a risk of establishing programs that would stretch state budgets thinner after federal money stops coming.

A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package – despite provisions inserted by Congressional Democrats into the law that could pit these chief executives against their legislatures.

In Idaho, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter said he wasn't interested in stimulus money that would expand programs and boost the state's costs in future years when the federal dollars disappear — a worry also cited by Jindal and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Sanford recently told Newsmax that the stimulus “has a lot of deficiencies. I think it’s going to make the problem bigger and longer.

The three libertarian Republicans, Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, & Butch Otter, are joined by three other Republicans, conservatives Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, and Haley Barbour of Mississippi. Jindal even went so far as to suggest that his State may not want, nor need the $4 billion slated for Louisiana in the Obama plan.

Hot Air now reports that Bobby Jindal is the first off the starting blocks: -

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he will decline stimulus money specifically targeted at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage, becoming the first state executive to officially refuse any part of the federal government’s payout to states…

“The federal money in this bill will run out in less than three years for this benefit and our businesses would then be stuck paying the bill,” Jindal said. “We must be careful and thoughtful as we examine all the strings attached to the funding in this package. We cannot grow government in an unsustainable way.”

He will accept cash for transportation infrastructure and a modest increase in unemployment benefits but drew the line at unemployment insurance lest it mean a $12 million tax hike for Louisiana businesses three years from now.