Radicals who "want to destroy the credit of the US government"

Who are they ?  The Financial Times' Martin Wolfe calls them out - the "Tax Cuts Uber Alles" GOP.  Money quote from the "Communist" FT's chief economics commentator: 

To understand modern Republican thinking on fiscal policy, we need to go back to perhaps the most politically brilliant (albeit economically unconvincing) idea in the history of fiscal policy: “supply-side economics”. Supply-side economics liberated conservatives from any need to insist on fiscal rectitude and balanced budgets. Supply-side economics said that one could cut taxes and balance budgets, because incentive effects would generate new activity and so higher revenue.

The political genius of this idea is evident. Supply-side economics transformed Republicans from a minority party into a majority party. It allowed them to promise lower taxes, lower deficits and, in effect, unchanged spending. Why should people not like this combination? Who does not like a free lunch?

How did supply-side economics bring these benefits? First, it allowed conservatives to ignore deficits. They could argue that, whatever the impact of the tax cuts in the short run, they would bring the budget back into balance, in the longer run. Second, the theory gave an economic justification – the argument from incentives - for lowering taxes on politically important supporters. Finally, if deficits did not, in fact, disappear, conservatives could fall back on the “starve the beast” theory: deficits would create a fiscal crisis that would force the government to cut spending and even destroy the hated welfare state.

Read the rest of Wolfe's piece, The Political Genius of Supply-Side Economics, here - it's an excellent debunking of the phony "tax-cutting deficit hawks" of contemporary "conservatism." 

Comments

[pablo]

Don't be angry with me Reg, but is this really new?

Grover Nordquist wanted to shrink government so it could be drowned in the bathtub.

Reagan ran on gov't as the problem.

As moronic and stupid as I must sound to you, isn't the very last thing and Right-winger would want is a social entitlement that works.. and if (forgive my pompousity) there is a social program deemed politically unassailable then the twofold strategey is to defund it so it fails and/or privatize it.

Silly me. I forgot to exempt the Right's wet dream: Military Spending; habitual, unlimited, and either on or off the books.

Damn me again! If in fact a loss occurs in a sector of the ecomomy, the Right reserves the (pun here) right to socialize it while seeking to privatize any profit.
To grease the supply side and grow the economy according to these conservatives... who as children amused themselves by pulling the wings off of insects and now enjoy pouring water down the necks of muslims...
deregulation is essential!
These being deficit hawks... as opposed to deficit hawks of the liberal variety who do all of the above except the part about the insects....
Now I am aware that you are about to pounce...but I say that even supply siders have a wee bit of the deficit hawk in them...or to put it another way... a preference for some entitlements and an aversion to others....but the ones they love, the military entitlements leave the country breathless and at the end of a republican term...broke.

[reg]

"is this really new?"

Obviously not. As most folks who follow politics know, the term "supply-side economics" was popularized in the late '70s by the WSJ Right, around Jude Wanniski, Jack Kemp and Irving Kristol, and became the core economic theory of the Reaganites. And of course, increasing military spending while pounding "big government", "taxes" and "deficits" was another pillar of their program. There's been lots of discussion and analysis of this for three decades. But thanks for bringing me up to speed.

[reg]

Pablo - you have a weird habit of taking the point of a post, explaining it as though no one else understands it and has no frame of reference to contextualize it, and then expecting us to thank you for stating the obvious with more than a whiff of arrogance. It makes you look stupid - although I know you're exceptionally well read (Louis Althusser!) and enjoy good Brazilian music. You might think about this quirk. I'm trying to help you in your efforts at appearing to be intellectually and politically sophisticated.

[pablo]

Maybe Reg prefers that one not state one's mind.. as obvious and as out of touch as he may think I might be?

It's good you have raised the issue of 'wierd habits' and 'context' as I have taken umbridge with the certitude proffered as dogma by liberals..the certitute buttressed by reams of facts and lacking much- if any- critical analysis.

In short, a lack of a sense of self-deprication: a smugness insured by strict adherence to a single narrative.. which when challenged then manifests itself in a defensive posture prone to lash out. The issue at hand becomes no longer the target. Instead it is replaced by focusing in on the disruption as a threat to the narrative.

A mere collection of facts has been depreciated in this world. It days past reading and regurgitation could pass for education. However in the new world of Wikipedia anyone can assemble data and in quick order.
Analysis- on the other hand- is accomplished by rearrangeing facts through crirical thinking and provides the distinction between the mere trained from the educated. What imagination is to the poet, facts, are to the historian. The exercise of judgement comes in their selection, the art in their arrangement.

My direct answer to you Reg: If you post on a blog which invites comments don't be shocked to hear a contrarian response. My views on Althusser are incidental; and like my taste in music are not subject to review or ratification...and not a all germaine to the discussion of supply-side economists cum tricksters, those dirty-harry's aiming at the hapless liberals.

[reg]

Irony alert - Pablo warns against "a smugness insured by strict adherence to a single narrative..." !!!

"my taste in music are not subject to review or ratification" - you're the smug little creep who launched a broadside against people who post here on the basis of your surmise about the range of their musical and literary tastes and knowledge. You're also the one with your panties twisted. You are free to comment here. Just don't expect to be taken seriously on the basis of the output you've offered to date.

[pablo]

Reg, you are projecting an awful lot and not illuminating the subject at hand; me... or is it perfidious supply-siders?

Today I am the "smug little creep...with twisted panties... not to be taken seriously..". Hard to belive that I don't rock your world, reg. You seem at times to awake at 6AM bashing poor pablo....
These ad-hominums slung like gin in my direction this July, when taken in their fetid totality, indicate that you at least take me very seriously indeed.

But why not attack on fact instead of fiction?
Here you write:
"you're the smug little creep who launched a broadside against people who post here on the basis of your surmise about the range of their musical and literary tastes and knowledge"
What bullshirts, Reg! You are inventing things for partisan identification.
I wrote that I doubt that you and two others have not read PERSONA NON GRATA which RP lists on the right and I did not comment on yours on anyone elses musical taste.
What I did write about in particular was the translated content of NERUDA SONGS as recorded by Luciana Souza.
I also did (and do) recommend Camus at Combat: Writings 1944-47 (especially for you)
and Canto General (especially for RP based on the sentiments expressed by his list)

How about this? Stick to impressions about the topics at hand. My general theme on these topics loosely aggragated under 'republican perfidity' is that the doppleganging dems enjoy the fruits of empire and will criticize right wing excess only in rhetoric.
You should be able to perform a discussion of these topics more like a patient etherized on the table...so let us go then...you & I.

[reg]

Pablo: "Not only do I doubt that none save the host have read these works or are familiar with the music of Luciana Souza, I now accuse them of an profound anti-intellectualism which is founded on making their own material comfort sacrosanct to a world of ideas"

Not only are you a creep, you don't have the balls to stand by your own asinine comments.

[pablo]

Well Reg: The numerous denials of your being angry seemed to have melted away revealing the white heat of emotion.

Let me review the context of what transpired. Here were my remarks:

"Does the apparatchiks duty to sycophancy supplant the individual critical thinking which this blogs founder gives us on a regular basis?
Must party loyalty relegate reason to that of a cyber parrot?
Contributors to this blog are invited to look to their right and see the excellent books and music which brings a certain sentiment. Not only do I doubt that none save the host have read these
works or are familiar with the music of Luciana Souza, I now accuse them of an profound anti-intellectualism which is founded on making their own material comfort sacrosanct to a world of ideas."

I accused you of lacking sentiment not knowledge.
In fact on several other occasions I referred to you as being "erudite" and "well read".

The fact is that you don't like harsh criticism...meaning that criticism which goes to the heart of basic liberal assumptions...and so your response reverts to infantilism...
'How can a guy who lives outside the USA have any cultural understanding'

or-

'how is it a socialist lives in three houses'

or-

every four letter word you can think of?

So I repeat again:

Contributors to this blog are invited to look to their right and see the excellent books and music which brings a certain sentiment. Not only do I doubt that none save the host have read these
works....
for if you had your posts would exude a more ecumenical tone.. One which would broaden the narrow confines of the lib-conservative debate seen on outlets like MSNBC... broadened to at least what is seen in europe and the humbled by comparison latin america.

[reg]

Just read this dishonest screed - "I accuse you of lacking sentiment not knowledge." You've doubled down on my assessment of you - a rancid little jerk, steeped in self-regard and unable to approach a discussion on any terms other than your biases and one-dimensional "analysis."