Month: February 2010
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Pubs: You Had a Blank Piece of Paper for Eight Years
Since you didn’t do anything, why should we think that you’ll do anything this time? Here’s the cost of doing nothing: In case tea-partiers are finding the arithmetic troubling, if we’d adopted the Clinton plan we’d currently be saving close to half a trillion dollars a year. If we’d adopted Nixon’s plan, we’d be saving…
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Where Did the Deficit Come From? From “Conservatives,” of Course
While poking around for info on the previous post, I came across this graphic: Which comes from this especially great WikiPedia page. Which just re-emphasizes what we’ve seen since WWII, and especially since 1980: Related posts: Largest Oil Spills Talking About Food Trends in Intergenerational Mobility: Declining Opportunity Since 1980 Galbraith Translates “Trickle Down”: Eat…
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Okay, “Conservatives,” What Spending SHALL We Cut?
Not surprisingly, somebody went out and asked them. Here are the results: Source. I think this pretty much speaks for itself, though it’s worth noting the commonly misunderstood fact that foreign aid accounts for less than 1% of Federal spending. Related posts: It’s Unanimous: Cut Spending! (As long as you don’t cut spending!) What’s Wrong…
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“Out of Control Spending”? Not So Much
A comment by flipspiceland on a previous post, about Democratic senators and “out of control” spending, got me curious about our spending numbers compared to other large, prosperous countries. Short story: our governments (fed, state, local) are incredibly frugal compared to the rest of the world. This even with a defense budget that’s larger than…
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Democrats are Profligate Spendthrifts! Oh…Wait…
Damn I’m busy today. I came across yet another great Wikipedia page that I really had to share: National debt by U.S. presidential terms. I’ll just share a little top-line data. There’s much more over there. Average Increase, 1978-2005 Spending Debt GDP Under Democratic Presidents 9.9% 4.2% 12.6% Under Republican Presidents 12.1% 36.4% 10.7% Who…
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Galbraith Translates “Trickle Down”: Eat Shit
In digging around for the previous post, I came across this beaut on Wikipedia (can’t believe I’ve never seen it before), and just can’t resist sharing it: The economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that supply side economics was not a new theory. He wrote, “Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a…
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David Stockman on Starving the Beast: “It doesn’t work. Game over.”
You remember David Stockman, right? Reagan’s “whiz kid” budget director? He’s the man who engineered the last thirty years of Republican dominance by implementing The Reaganomics Strategy: borrow money from our children and from abroad to buy votes at home with the “I’ll cut your taxes” pander. Stockman has never been the type to twirl…
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Cutting Taxes Creates Growth: Yeah, Right
Cactus at Angry Bear does yeoman’s work yet again to drive a spike into the heart of voodoo/trickle-down/supply-side Reaganomic ideology, demonstrating what economists have known for decades: Keynes was right. Over the short term–one to three years–raising taxes hurts economic growth. Deficit spending (read: low taxes and high spending) promotes economic growth over the short…
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A “Center-Right” Country? Not So Much.
Gallup: Solidly Democratic or leaning Democratic: 33 states (plus D.C.) Fairly evenly balanced: 12 states Solidly or leaning Republican: 5 states Four words for Democrats: get out the vote. Related posts: Pubs and Dems: Brands and Beliefs Engineering a Permanent Democratic Majority Everything Sez: “Obama Landslide.” What Gives? McCain’s Steel Ceiling: Who Loves Ya, Baby?…