subgenius wrote:No matter the President or the Congress...every single budget and/or tax bill and/or fiscal policy has an "economist" willing to sit in front of a tv camera and proclaim how it will result in an economic disaster of disastrous proportions that makes the GD look like a bonus check.
"GD" = "General Dynamics?"
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
subgenius wrote:No matter the President or the Congress...every single budget and/or tax bill and/or fiscal policy has an "economist" willing to sit in front of a tv camera and proclaim how it will result in an economic disaster of disastrous proportions that makes the GD look like a bonus check.
"GD" = "General Dynamics?"
Great Depression.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
subgenius wrote:No matter the President or the Congress...every single budget and/or tax bill and/or fiscal policy has an "economist" willing to sit in front of a tv camera and proclaim how it will result in an economic disaster of disastrous proportions that makes the GD look like a bonus check.
Put your hair out Kevin Graham, nobody takes your economic posts seriously anymore.
Feel free to point out any time in history when the vast majority of economists from both sides of the political aisle have said this about about previous tax bill.
What you ignored is that these are Conservative economists. I wouldn't post this if it were just Left leaning economists, but virtually no one (aside from the few hired yes men in Trump's corner) think this is a good bill.
EAllusion wrote:The last two Democrat presidents were boxed in and had their true spending desires thwarted by Republicans. There's plenty of reason to think those Republicans were using national debt concerns cynically to block Democrat agenda rather than because they actually cared about fiscal responsibility. It seems like that strain in Republican politics died sometime in 1990 and went out of office when George H.W. Bush was defeated. But Democrats nonetheless have consistently wanted to spend far more then they actually succeeded in doing.
There are fiscally conservative Democrats. Russ Feingold from Wisconsin was an example of one. Most deprioritize deficit spending as a concern over pie in the sky spending desires.
I wonder what it even means to talk about a politicians "true spending desires." Anything a politician "wants" to do goes through a filter of what is feasible in the current environment and what they have to say to retain power. More importantly, when talking about their "true spending desires" it needs to be considered in context of their "true taxation desires." After you peel back all of the layers driven by the political reality, what is left?
As far as I can tell, democrats would generally agree with Keynesian economics, which in its most abstract form says that the budget should be balanced over the economic cycle--run a deficit when the economy is in a recession, and run a surplus when the economy is in an expansion.
I'm sure in private conversations some Republicans would agree with that too, and I'm sure there are others that would say that as a matter of principal, the government should balance the budget over the calendar year rather than over the economic cycle.
But I think in their heart of hearts, most Republicans really believe first and foremost in tax cuts, because cutting taxes stimulates the economy. If a tax cut results in a deficit, cut the taxes some more and give it more time.
I'm not suggesting that every single spending proposal a Democrat says they favor would be policy if they had sufficient political power. I don't believe Bill Clinton planned on exploding the federal budget like he promised every state of the union address he gave. I do think we have to take seriously what Democrats say they are for and what the attempt to pass when they have a chance at passing it. Both Clinton and Obama were significantly more spendy when they had a shot at it and in their serious political rhetoric. The idea that any fiscal restraint that someone wants to attribute to their presidency can be attributed to their leadership is naïve to the point of dishonest. It is Republican Congresses and politicking that kept their spending desires in check. Clinton in particular gets credit for surpluses from his presidency when that had more to do with the '94 Republican victory and lucking into a a substantial economic expansion driving up revenues. This is not to say Clinton's compromise politics can be dismissed out of hand, but the man wasn't God-Emperor of the country.
There's plenty of room to criticize Republicans as only favoring fiscal conservatism when as a cudgel to beat back Democratic programs who then spend like drunken sailors on shore leave when they have power. But that criticism doesn't erase they fact that their cynical politics has helped rein in spending relative to what Democrats otherwise would have done if they had greater control of the purse.