I am often tempted to revive my old “Idiot of the Week” feature, for those who would qualify for the award are too numerous to even count.  On my radar today is a man I have written about before, back in 2018 when he was nominated by the former guy to the position of Director of the National Economic Council.  Here’s part of what I wrote about him at the time, just to give you some background …

It is said that Kudlow has been wrong about almost everything for at least the past several decades.    Take this one, for example:

“Despite all the doom and gloom from the economic pessimistas, the resilient U.S. economy continues moving ahead. There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen.  The Bush boom is alive and well. It’s finishing up its sixth consecutive year with more to come. Yes, it’s still the greatest story never told.” – Larry Kudlow, 07 December 2007

Note the date … according to the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (the official arbiter of U.S. recessions) the recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, and thus extended over eighteen months. (A side note: President Obama, who has often been blamed for the recession by the GOP, did not take office until January 20^th 2009, fully 13 months after the official start of the recession, and just 5 months before its end.)  And this is the guy who will now be advising the president, the man who leads the nation into either poverty or prosperity, on economic issues???

In 1993, when Bill Clinton proposed an increase in the top tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, Kudlow wrote, “There is no question that President Clinton’s across-the-board tax increases … will throw a wet blanket over the recovery and depress the economy’s long-run potential to grow.” This was wrong. Instead, a boom ensued.

The list of his faux pas is long, but the above examples should be enough to convince you that this man does not understand basic economic principles and wears blinders to shut out reality most of the time.

Kudlow’s background includes a degree in history from The University of Rochester in Rochester, New York.  Kudlow also attended, but did not complete, Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he studied political science and economics.  He should have stayed there longer.

He worked in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under Reagan … remember ‘supply-side’ economics and the ‘trickle-down’ theory?

Kudlow held his position with the National Economic Council until January 20^th, when President Biden was inaugurated, and Kudlow was replaced by Brian Deese.  But Kudlow has crossed my radar twice in the past few days … like a boomerang, he keeps coming back!

Kudlow has apparently replaced former Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs. Kudlow’s show, Kudlow, debuted in Dobbs’ old time slot last Tuesday, and since then his guests have largely been members of the former guy’s administration, such as Nazi sympathizer Stephen Miller (former senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting), Robert Lighthizer (former U.S. Trade Representative), Steve Mnuchin (former Secretary of the Treasury), and Moncef Slaoui (former Operation Warp Speed chief advisor).  I’m not sure what relevance any of these people have today, but then … this is Fox.  I’m not sure what relevance Kudlow or Fox have at this point, other than to tell lies that some people will buy into.

But what really set my radar off was when he attempted to blame the widespread power outages on the fact that President Biden was elected!  He wasn’t able to explain how he came to that conclusion, so instead he rambled a series of vague idiotic statements about the President …

“I think they’ve moved very rapidly toward the progressive left position on a lot of these issues. He tried to temper it with talk about unity. There was some talk about moving to the center, that there would be more balance, there wouldn’t be a far-left progressive agenda. Unfortunately, in the early weeks—what, we’ve got a month here—it has been a left, progressive agenda. He’s gone after the energy sector. You saw some of the consequences in Texas. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Let me clarify here.  What happened with Texas’ power grid was the fault of Texas politicians being both stubborn and unprepared.  It was not wind turbines, though yes, some of those did freeze, but natural gas wells and coal piles also froze, and those are the source of more of Texas’ electricity than the wind turbines.  Energy producing equipment was damaged by the deep freeze.  But the biggest culprit was the state of Texas itself, that decided to have their own power grid and disconnect from the two major energy grids, the Western and Eastern connections.  Independence from the rest of the nation was their stated goal (it should be noted that on January 26^th, Texas State Representative Kyle Biedermann filed a bill to create a ‘referendum to the people of the State of Texas on the question of whether this state should leave the United States of America and establish an independent republic.’  No, they cannot simply secede from the nation, but this is just one example of their stubborn desire for independence.  And the situation with Texas’ power grid that took numerous lives, is a result of their stubbornness, not a result of Joe Biden’s election!

I thought … I hoped … we had seen the last of Kudlow, but thanks to Rupert Murdoch and the management at Fox, he now has an even louder voice than before.  Sigh.  I think we should be generous to members of the former administration and give them all a nice, long vacation … perhaps to Siberia for 4 years!