One of the areas that doesn’t seem to change is the deficit and our growing national debt. The irony is that as bad as things were during Obama’s presidency things have actually even got worse during the first two years of Trump’s presidency:
It would seem like unless there are really structural changes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that deficits will never go away? What are your thoughts?
I would counter that its fair to conclude we cannot grow our way out of the mentality that Keystone Keynesians govern by: that bad times demand more spending and good times are an opportunity to spend more.
As for those programs, there is no delegated power for them and they should not exist at all.
FDR was the Cassius to the Republic but Mr No Repeal Eisenhower the Brutus.
I’m no proponent of Keynesian economics. There were some who argued that the debt grew under Obama because of his policies, well the deficits are even worse now than when Obama left office, and I am no fan of Obama. Clearly government spending is a huge problem but it would seem that is not likely going to be touched by either party.
Just think back in days of Clinton/Gingrich. Imagine if they were able to continue down there journey?
Think back what happen? They wanted to take on pharmaceutical and medicare waste/corruption.
NYSlime did wonderful investigation back around 98? And they found something like 22 percent of all medicare/medicaid spending to be wasteful or due to corruption.
But someone without mentioning any names decided to push Newt out.
Don’t even try! You are way out of your league on this one! In fact you don’t even know what trickle down theory is, and how the middle class gets expanded! Hint! Its not social entitlements and Democratic policies!
No, no … I wasn’t referring to Keynesians but to Keystone Keynesians, the difference being explained: “that bad times demand more spending and good times are an opportunity to spend more.”
Keynesians cut spending in good times.
Keystone Keynesians (think Keystone Cops for comparison) increase spending in good times.
When Nixon infamously said that we’re all Keynesians now he was wrong, not just because we were not “all” Keynesians but because the self styled Keynesians were already transitioning into the Keystone type.
At issue was that Keynes fundamentally misunderstood how his ideas would be received by actual politicians: that in the end ALL they would learn from him was an excuse to spend more and to have more power.
This represents a fundamental failure in his philosophy and should invalidate his work. I would argue that he got it wrong for precisely the reason why so many economists get it wrong: they do not start-to-finish with how people are prone to behave but instead want to describe economies as if rational entities.
This distinguishes someone like Adam Smith from men like Keynes: whatever his flaws Smith he tried to look at how people actually behave and how they might behave to make themselves and their nation more prosperous. Even his idea of free trade was relative to its benefit incurred to the nation and its people (and not to anything like globalism or world citizenship) which is entirely proper and right.
Clinton was dragged along. It wasn’t what he wanted (he wanted that legacy) but he still took credit for it.
He started out to move farther to the Left and lost the Congress.
Have you ever read an article in Reason called Not So Radical Republicans from 1998? It’s online and deals with the crumbling of party discipline in the RNC.
But even then, despite what the article states, the so-called “moderates” were willing to go along with conservatives if it was in opposition to a Democrat POTUS. To that end they didn’t do as much reaching across the isle to engage their spendthrift ways until W was in office, when they suddenly got the idea that they were the go-to guys if he wanted anything. They went on a spending spree, or what we thought was a spending spree but then the Democrats got the House.
But immediately when Zero was in office they were willing as pure partisans to dig in their heels with the conservatives they normally barely tolerated to resist. Thus those that voted for Part D voted against Obamaharm.
Yes, Clinton had his wake up call…and then he made that big speech. The era of big goverment is over.
Newt dragged his ass to somewhat a balance deficit. And that wasn’t enough, they wanted to tackle waste/corruption in defends an medicare/medicaid when repugs…yes repugs attempted to push Newt out. Remember it was Bonehead Boehner that was one of 4 that made the first attempt.
Why? Because Newt was attempting to cut into their favorite programs/donors.
Evidently they succeeded in pushing Newt out and then we witness up tic in spending when Bush taken office. He cut taxes and bumped up spending. Then repugs blown that out with as you said with Medicare Part D.
This pissed lot of us off, some of old timer might remember I was advocating staying home in 06 other BNN.
Repugs evidently lost the house and dems came in and blown the budget even farther.
I agree Clinton and the GOP worked together to both raise taxes and cut spending in a manner that lowered the deficit while not adversely effecting the economy.
But we were discussing Trickle Down Economics and I thought you were referencing the Clinton era as proof it works. I could be mistaken.
Trickle down works if you cut spending as well…and thus the problem.
My biggest beef I’m for cutting spending.
But how are you going to cut spending by adding new social programs?
Hell we can’t even agree to go after waste and fraud in medicare/medicaid and defense department.
Now I’ve been told that it doesn’t amount to much…only few trillion dollars that been siphon out of our treasury since Clinton/Newt days due to waste/fraud.
But you keep suggesting trickle down is something it is not.
Trickle Down is the economic theory that if you cut taxes for the wealthy the money they save will ‘trickle down’ through spending and investment to the middle and lower income classes.
It has nothing to do with spending cuts, or spending increases for that matter.
Pointing to the Clinton era as proof that Trickle Down works is wrong because Clinton did not enact tax cuts. He raised taxes, and cut spending in his effort to balance the budget.