Demagoguery

[fpb]

If it is true that the Republicans are refusing to negotiate any kind of tax increase whatsoever, then they are being stupid. In times of rising state deficit, governments raise taxes. That's what they do. That's what Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe did in the (in)famous budget of 1981, one of the loci classici of Thatcherite history and one of the most fiercely debated budgets in history. Margaret Thatcher's own account is freely available. Taxes are cut when revenues increase and budget deficits decrease. To insist on no rise of any kind in taxation is to delude your own followers, because some way, tax income will have to rise. If if is not done by direct raises it will be done by letting inflation gallop while keeping allowances and tax rates unchanged, which will be a lot worse than a clear and announced rise in taxation.

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[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

Or, alternately, citizens could note that their government, which cost them 1 trillion and change to operate in the 1990s has mysteriously increased to 3 trillion currently, in a time of very low inflation, and concluded that their government is ripping them off and needs to be pruned back to more sensible levels of expenditure. After all, we own it.

For the more careful analysis, check this out.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is called apportioning blame, and to do it in the middle of a mortal crisis is about as stupid as to play with gasoline in a fire. In 1940, Winston Churchill put several of the people who had been most guilty of appeasement in his government. Why? Because in a mortal crisis you simply call on every resource you have. Right now, what is needed is to reduce debt, fast and by any means possible. Find the cash where it is. To insist on cutting while one part of the economy takes no part in the general sacrifice is idiotic. And to assume you are speaking for all true Americans is politically both stupid and dangerous. We in Italy have just passed an emergency budget in two days, including savage cuts and tax increases, in a similar situation. There will be time enough to work out who's to blame after the fire has been put out.