Post
by dr.placebo » Thu Oct 23, 2008 9:36 pm
Frankly, the spending proposed bothers me as well. At this point there is no one with a national following willing to be rational about economic balance. But we have had enough of tax cuts and lavish spending in the last two Bush terms to convince me that it is unlikely to be worse with the D's. After all, the last time we had a surplus it was with a D president who was also reviled by the R's for being a liberal.
Personally I'm something of a (John Maynard) Keynesian. That means one tries for a balance, but is willing to run a deficit in bad times and run a surplus in good times. To get to a balance one has to pay for what one gets. It is in large part a broad based unwillingness to either pay enough or to spend less, cutting across all party and class lines, that has brought us to this economic meltdown. Well, that plus a general cult of dishonesty and greed.
There is something in cited article from the Cato that strikes me as being inconsistent. The proposed cap-and-trade for carbon emissions is estimated as $100 billion, and the article claims that it will be a "steep tax" on various energy intensive sectors. But that cost is quite low compared to the US energy budget, the GDP, and even the incremental cost of the inevitable oil price spike that will return when the economy recovers. And if the proposed plan is followed the real cost should be much less because there will be expansion in renewable energy production in the US that should start to lower energy costs. I could put people to sleep about energy policy, but it's another example of being willing to pay for what you get. Business-as-usual for energy is not sustainable.
I'm hoping for a pragmatic Obama to emerge. He has shown a great deal of promise and thoughtfulness in running his campaign. What I've seen of McCain does not encourage me, since he's thrown in with the same crowd that has been in power for the last 8 years, and he has shown a distressing tendency towards volatility, and a truly awful choice in his running mate.
I could be wrong, and I'm sure that I'll be disappointed in something over the next 4 years regardless, but that's how I'm placing my bets.
