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foolsguineaSometimes people say that the 1990's had better fiscal policy because there was a GOP Congress and a Democratic President, and they balanced the budget.
The GOP cut the wrong things, though. They didn't keep up physician training with medical demand, worsening medical price inflation; they abolished welfare, which hurt demand for basic consumer goods & undercut the manufacturing economy. In these ways, they balanced the budget short-term but screwed over the middle class long-term. Economic growth was lessened & the deficits came back larger.
The GOP say they want to grow the economy, but their principles and assumptions get in the way. It's like going to a dentist who drills new cavities in your teeth.
The sad thing is, we didn't really have a better policy in the 1990's. We had crappy policies, the societal effects of which were delayed but landed on us in the next decade, & the immediate fiscal failures were obscured by the dot-com speculators' bubble. We had a short-term surplus, very, very small for a bubble economy (which students of US history before deficits became de rigueur can see), & long-term pain. And we have the same factions in similar positions today, only at least the right wing are more bloodthirsty.
We don't need Bubba back. We need Give 'Em Hell Harry back.
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I'm a former anarchist, & while yes, there is corruption in the US system, the common "break government to end the lifeblood of corruption" solution doesn't work. I'd like to think a Hayekian unfettered free market would self-correct, but it's actually more chaotic and dangerous than a managed economy. We need both more socialism and less corruption, which is very hard to do, but better than chaos.
If everything is freely for sale, so's political power. Anarchy doesn't last. Economic freedom empowers people like slavers and fascists eventually, and then everything is taken away. There's a reason Europe today is social democratic; classical liberalism gave rise to fascism & ruin.
_ _
I write things in threads and think, I should save that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I want to remember what I said. So here.
from http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/963511.html
The GOP cut the wrong things, though. They didn't keep up physician training with medical demand, worsening medical price inflation; they abolished welfare, which hurt demand for basic consumer goods & undercut the manufacturing economy. In these ways, they balanced the budget short-term but screwed over the middle class long-term. Economic growth was lessened & the deficits came back larger.
The GOP say they want to grow the economy, but their principles and assumptions get in the way. It's like going to a dentist who drills new cavities in your teeth.
The sad thing is, we didn't really have a better policy in the 1990's. We had crappy policies, the societal effects of which were delayed but landed on us in the next decade, & the immediate fiscal failures were obscured by the dot-com speculators' bubble. We had a short-term surplus, very, very small for a bubble economy (which students of US history before deficits became de rigueur can see), & long-term pain. And we have the same factions in similar positions today, only at least the right wing are more bloodthirsty.
We don't need Bubba back. We need Give 'Em Hell Harry back.
_ _
I'm a former anarchist, & while yes, there is corruption in the US system, the common "break government to end the lifeblood of corruption" solution doesn't work. I'd like to think a Hayekian unfettered free market would self-correct, but it's actually more chaotic and dangerous than a managed economy. We need both more socialism and less corruption, which is very hard to do, but better than chaos.
If everything is freely for sale, so's political power. Anarchy doesn't last. Economic freedom empowers people like slavers and fascists eventually, and then everything is taken away. There's a reason Europe today is social democratic; classical liberalism gave rise to fascism & ruin.
_ _
I write things in threads and think, I should save that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I want to remember what I said. So here.
from http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/963511.html
