Debunking deficit spending myths
This story is laugh-out-loud funny, if you don’t buy the deception that the Democrats have gotten fiscal religion and are now more pious than a congregation of Republican pigs at the trough.
In November, I wrote:
It is true that the Republicans, in the US, haven’t had a stellar record on government spending since 2000. It has a high standard to meet, if it is to match its own rhetoric. It has been vulnerable to attack over profligacy, and in particular over Bush’s refusal to veto fat-laden bills. (Or rather, his inability to do so in practice because he has no line-item veto.)
It’s got so bad, I’m told, that the Democrats are now the party of fiscal responsibility, and if I’m a small-government libertarian, I should prefer to see Democrats in charge in the US.
As it turns out, the voting on specific anti-spending measures reveals the Dems to be consistently in favour of spending.
But it’s getting worse. Lacking a disaster in Iraq to pound the Republicans with, the Democratic candidates have turned their rhetoric to the economy. This means they get to bid each other into the stratosphere with spending proposals.
Everyone whose vote they can possibly buy is being offered large wads of tax money. Par for the course, you may think. After all, they’re big-government spendthrifts, and even self-proclaimed economic conservatives find it hard to resist the temptation to promise princely payouts to political plebs.
But won’t spending billions make the deficit worse? That’s what the Democrats have been saying for ages now, hasn’t it? For what it was worth, their complaint was partially valid, even though it was motivated more by opposition than by principle. The US can easily afford modest deficits when necessary, and there’s no real link between deficits and economic performance (or, for that matter, between the “twin” deficits of budget and trade). However, a profligate government can’t be in the interest of taxpaying citizens. Whenever possible, individuals, not the state, are in a better position to determine how their own money is best used. Anyway, the biggest deficit culprits besides war spending are the bloated and bankrupt entitlement programmes the Democrats keep threatening to expand.
“Stimulus shouldn’t be paid for,” said Hillary Clinton now. Eh? That sounds nice. Can I have me some stimulus that doesn’t need to be paid for too? With this sort of conjuring, she’s going to make people think she’s a witch, and it’s only a tap of the heels from there to “wicked”.
The entire piece is instructive, but this is worth quoting:
But wait, what about those evil Bush deficits? Only weeks ago, Democrats claimed those were the road to perdition, even if the deficit had shrunk to 1.2% of GDP last year thanks to booming revenue growth. […] Yes, many will fret that these tax cuts would only increase the deficit. But now we have even Robert Rubin and Hillary Clinton instructing us that deficits don’t matter. Somewhere, Dick Cheney is smiling.
Ouch!
