My doctrine is not mine...

My doctrine is not mine...but him that sent me.

Last Monday the first major GOP presidential debate occurred in New Hampshire. The Debate marked the first time that major candidates, such as Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Michelle Bachmann graced the stage for an evening marked by brotherly love amongst the candidates and a refusal to criticize front-runner Mitt Romney and blame for everything wrong deflected towards President Obama. Some of my favorite moments included:

• Mitt Romney's demagoguery about the "Obama Depression." Despite bad employment numbers, Obama's economic programs pulled us out of a depression a year ago in a jobless recover.
• Michelle Bachmann's to abolish the republican-established Environmental Protection Agency
• Tim Pawlenty's refusal to criticize Romneycare (or "Obamneycare" as he has called it at recent rallies).

But perhaps my favorite moment came when Ron Paul was asked how he would remedy the decrease in US manufacturing. In case we were confused on whether Congressman Paul was an ideologue stuck on two policy issues, his answer should clarify that: abolish the Fed. Yep, the Fed.

According to Paul the Fed's policies have weakened the dollar[1] and no one wants to invest in the weakened dollar. Ergo, manufacturing sucks. But he's dead wrong. If monetary policies were to create a weakened dollar it would stimulate manufacturing in the States. Say the dollar were to be decreased 10%. Then there would be a 10% discount for all foreign purchasers. Europe would have a 10% discount on everything that it bought from us. China would too, but domestic labor prices are so low in China that they wouldn't buy much from us regardless. In the other side, a weakened dollar would make foreign imports more expensive; so we would by less from abroad. Both of these effects should increase manufacturing within the States. Which brings me to my title.

Congressman Paul, and many in the GOP field, are strict doctrinaires. They espouse an unflinching belief that their doctrines--whether it be abolishing the Fed, cutting taxes while reducing the deficit, or privatizing anything and everything done by the federal government--provide some general theory of relativity for governing on which all the world can be governed. That fact of the matter is that the Fed is not responsible for jobless rate, trickle down economics was debunked twenty years ago, and even Adam Smith would argue that the free market doesn't solve everything. But that doesn't refute republican doctrines, they're just trials of faith for the true believers who are going to take back our country.

[1] Given that we have yet to see real inflation, I think this assumption is questionable but I will assume it for sake of argument.