CALLER: In 2019, there’s gonna be a $1 trillion deficit. Trump doesn’t really care about that. He’s not really a fiscal conservative. We have to acknowledge that Trump has been cruelly used.
LIMBAUGH: Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.
Well I will say this it is about time to be honest. I wonder if there will be a fiscally responsible government in my lifetime; especially one that doesn’t put it on the bottom of the population to pay for the debt.
Neither party has deserved anyones vote pretty much ever - but you should be able to find a candidate that is at least close to what you want on one side or the other. They will ■■■■ it up royally, but ya gotta play the odds that someday, there will be a politician that won’t be a (borderline) criminal.
I’ve been calling your average DC politician Keystone Keynesians for years now (think Keystone Cops for the cultural association).
Keynes spoke of pump priming in bad times, cutting spending in good.
With Keystone Kensians they see bad times demanding more spending and good times as an opportunity to spend more … the one constant in that equation (more spending) should be obvious. So instead of pump priming it’s more like economic masturbation and they’re like that one character in Dr Sax.
… even when Nixon infamously said we’re all Keynesians now they were already transitioning to Keystone Keynesians. I consider Keynes’ failure to understand that ultimately what those in power would hear from him is “spend”, a simple justification to be spendthrift, his greatest failure.
When the Constitution was obeyed by the Federal they could screw so little up because they lacked power that by default ours was among the least competent at being incompetent as far as governments go.
Now with Arbitrary government and endless possibilities to screw up they are easily the most competent at being incompetent … thanks a lot FDR and Mr No Repeal Eisenhower…
Can you, for instance, show how folks up in Congress do not look at bad times as requiring more spending and good times as the opportunity to spend more?
Or can you deny that there would be a transition time from when people may have actually been Keynesians to when they were not though they thought themselves to be?
You may disagree that the transition was already underway when Nixon was in office; however, through the 70s, by the time the House (in the waning days of the Carter Administration) changed budgeting rules for a form of Base Line Budgeting that assumed across the board increases and led to reductions in the rate of increase being deemed reductions in spending the transition was certainly complete, at least among most all Democrats and so-called “moderate” Republicans (with the transition among most all Republicans being complete by the time Not So Radical Republicans appeared in Reason magazine in '98).
As for asserting Keynes failure, economics is ultimately about what people do and it does not matter how good your math is if you get the philosophy so profoundly wrong with respect to how real politicians will misapply your notions.
If you want to say something a a hot mess please describe WHY. Offer refutations.
I, for example, could with complete candor say so-called “progressivism” is a hot mess and after sin itself is everything that is currently wrong with the nation and if I offered no proofs wouldn’t that be the same as your refutationless post?
Not that I’m not used to folks on the Left in the US not getting that reason why because they love Arbitrary government (vs Canada just having a different government).
The reason why is that there actually was a lawfully delegated Power to levy those taxes. They were not examples of Arbitrary governance as, for example, a federal minimum wage statute is.
The similar problem with early so-called “nullification” crisis were that they were not actually examples of the States trying to lawfully abrogate statutes from D.C. that Congress had no lawful power to enact, but were instead attempts to arrogate laws covered by actual delegated Powers. In that sense “nullification” has never been really tried.
I understand why those who wish the AoC were still in force have a poor view of the whisky doings and I comprehend why those who love Arbitrary government have motive to act as if it was no different than anything government does because they would hate to be forced to live under a federal government that obeyed the Constitution (resulting in an a complete end to federal progressivism).
No one has to play the odds. But people continue to do so. Both parties know that the vast majority of the voters will select one of the two primary candidates no matter who they put forth. That means we don’t do the deciding, they do it with little regard to what we want beyond lip service. Because they know we’ll choose between the crap sandwich and poison pill. So don’t get your hopes up.
