Kind of like cutting taxes without actually cutting spending? I understand your point, but the problem I have with it is that there is no possible way to ensure that people in the future will do what is necessary as part of a long-term plan. You do the right thing now and hope that others follow the long-term plan that you envision, but there is no way to ensure that they do. I don't see that as a good reason not to do the right thing now.
Not quite... because cutting taxes means the money is in the hands of the consumers. It means that the government will eventually have to either reduce spending or it will have to take more money from the people. We all know how much the politicians like telling people their taxes are going to be raised.
The right thing now would be to pay down debt. Not keep increasing it. Especially when the idiots in DC have proven that they are going to waste the stimulus on short term stop gaps (which we do not need) rather than solving problems.
And the Ike talking point is stupid.
Why is it stupid Dung? Because it is 100% FACT. Take a look at the fiscal year ending debt for the past 60 years. Show me any other where the total national debt went down.
Clinton raised taxes and followed it up with spending reductions. The trouble was that the government had to make interest payments and, while it never actually made the debt clock tick backward, it was approaching that.
Yeah, those interest payments were on what again? Oh yeah, the debt that you want to keep increasing. Guess what, those interest payments are quite a bit larger thanks to Bush and Obama. Also, interest payments are a government expense. It is fucking absurd to pretend otherwise.
And then Bush was elected. The fact of the matter is that when the government actually comes close to paying down debt, the Republicans will cut taxes and you will support them.
Wow... so again, the tech/telecom/internet bubble never burst in your world? 9/11 didn't happen?
Also... who controlled the purse strings in those years where we actually came close to reducing the debt? Oh yeah, that same Republican Congress. Yes, I will support tax cuts. Because out of the two choices:
1) tax cuts and the government keeps on outspending revenue
2) tax increases and the government keeps on outspending revenue
I choose the former. More money in my pocket and less in the hands of the government.
At this point, you do have to raise taxes to pay down debt. That's why Paul Ryan's Republican wet dream budget doesn't achieve balance, i.e. continues running deficits, until 2040.
and Obama's wet dream keeps deficit spending in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars a year.
But you do highlight why your spend spend spend strategy always fails. Sooner or later you have to increase taxes to the point that it harms the economy in order to pay for what you have been spending. You want us to follow the European example of continuing to push the payback further and further into the future until their is no choice but severe pain. That is where Europe is at. Yet you and Krugman and the other warped Keynesians continue to pretend that more spending is the solution.