Well, there are policy wonks who say we’re already past the danger point, so you still have to decide for yourself which wonks you are going to listen to. Handing it off the “wonks” isn’t an answer.
The deficit is second in importance to the economy, and the economy is in bad shape. So, any policy wonk that claims we are past the danger point is an idiot. The only way to fix the deficit, is to fix the economy. Doing it in the other order doesn’t work.
Well, you were the one who said you would listen to policy wonks when I asked a simple question. It’s OK to change your mind or admit you were wrong.
You are right. I have to move my goal posts a bit. I will let non-idiot policy wonks work out the details.
:rolleyes: It’s an important question, but if you don’t want to discuss it, that’s fine. Just don’t pretend like it’s all so simple because it isn’t.
It isn’t simple. That’s why I don’t feel that I’m qualified to discuss it. When the economy was fine, we were running surpluses. Idiots decided that meant tax cuts were a good idea. Now, when the economy is in bad shape and we are running big deficits. The connection is clear, and anybody that disagrees is probably just trying to justify some strict Libertarian nonsense rather than solve a problem. The problem is the economy, not the deficit. Fix the economy and the deficit will follow.
Its a gamble, John, all economics is a gamble, a ratio of risk and reward. But for good or ill, we have built a consumer economy, and if the consumer has no money, we have no economy. Cutting taxes is very much like spending money, but you just give it away without going to the trouble of counting it. The people you give it to may very well invest, that is prudent, that is wise, and that is useless. The money has to go to people who will spend it, and spend it now.
Let say you have a raging infection. We needn’t be specific. And Dr Krugman says take ten doses of this antibiotic, called stimulus. Now, maybe seven doses is enough, maybe. But you damn sure don’t want to take one dose and nine glasses of water, to make up the difference.
Will it work? Probably. Is it guaranteed? Nope. But the bulk of academic economics has moved to a place where its the accepted model. So, you’re plahying poker, you’re “gambling”, you take advice from Doyle Brunson or any one of the various Kardashians?
Just to be clear, I’m not saying we need to panic about the debt right now. I’m just not willing to buy into the idea that we need to ignore the deficits until the economy recovers, no matter how long that takes and no matter how much debt we rack up. There is no “wonk consensus” about where the trip point is, even if there seems to be a consensus that it isn’t right now.
There’s nothing to debate. Trying to act as if Iraq is all Bush’s fault requires one to ignore exactly how we ended up in Iraq the first place. And, contrary to what seems to be popular belief, it wasn’t in spite of Democrats.
Because that’s what I said, right?
(No, it wasn’t.)
Partisans trying to call someone else a partisan is always classic.
Sorry to be all serious, but it really isn’t funny that you thought prr was straightforwardly explaining his view. The view he expressed is one held only by an extremely miniscule minority of people in the radical fringe, and even among those who hold it, the number who would actually express it in a discussion like this one is even more vanishingly small. If you would find it unsurprising to hear the view expressed straightforwardly in the course of a debate over the merits of leftist and rightist thinking in America, you have a seriously and dangerously skewed understanding of just what it is your opponents actually value and believe. They emphatically don’t think the rich should be “taxed into submission” so to speak.
Actually…
In matters where expertise is required for understanding, and where experts disagree, the best thing for a non-expert to do probably is just to wait and see how they settle things. The wrong side may win out, but if non-experts take over the issue, there’s no reason to think there would even be a tendency for the better argument to win the day.
Problem is, that approach assumes the experts are also motivated by the greater good, not partisanism. There are some highly partisan experts out there, and that partisanism is at the root of their disagreement. So, you have to pick the right experts, or the right people to pick the experts, and that’s where a citizen’s responsibility to do the evaluations and vote accordingly comes back into it.
And let’s just note that BOTH parties would say that, essentially. The Dems want to spend more to stimulate the economy, and the Republicans want to cut taxes to help the economy (as if that will work). Ryan’s plan would reduce deficits, but not eliminate them, and it includes big tax cuts as well as spending cuts.
That’s pretty much how I read this…The Dems voted in favor of the resolution in large part because of the misrepresentations of the Republican administration, true/false?
Yeah, actually I have seen pretty good arguments that, in the absence of expertise on a subject, knowledgeable judgments of experts’ (roughly speaking) moral character can do as a fair stand-in for help choosing which expert to listen to.
Here’s the breakdown of votes for and against the Iraq war in the House and the Senate. Here’s the failed repeal vote. One can see the overwhelming but not exclusive trends, just as some Republicans could be swayed to vote for measures such as the Hunger Free Kids Act. We can still assign the preponderance of blame to a party which doesn’t vote as a monolithic bloc.
I think it’s more like responding to a comment along the lines of “We don’t need government money to pay for fire houses and fire engines, what we need is more heroes like Fireman Smith![huge applause break]”
That is a fantastic analogy.
I don’t believe that.
The resolution was political cover. It was not constitutionally required. It was very clear that Bush intended to go to war no matter what. There simply weren’t enough Dems with the balls to stand up to him and the extremely toxic “why do you hate America, you commie traitor surrender-monkey” environment created by Republicans and the right wing media at the time. Some people have to learn the hard way.
I agree with this. The concerted misinformation campaign that the Bush admin came out with right around the time of the vote was designed to make it difficult for anyone to vote against the authorization to use force. The bill itself included weasel words that suggested it was authorizing every means short of force but allowing force as a last resort.
In truth, it was largely poltical cowardice that motivated Dems. They gave the keys to Bush knowing that his promise to only go to the store and back following the speed limit was bullshit.