Daily Archives: 17 June 2014

Let’s Be Careful Out There

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Hillary Clinton, according to The Daily Caller, worries. The woman who just lately sat in the Secretary of State’s chair said this in response to a question about who, after herself, was the most viable woman presidential candidate of either party:

Whoever runs has to recognize that the American political system is probably the most difficult, even brutal, in the world.

The Washington Post‘s congressional reporter Ed O’Keefe had this thought about Clinton’s thought:

Would Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto agree?

And that’s just a couple of women. Does anyone thing Golda Meir had an easy time of it? Margaret Thatcher?

How about the male side of political systems: Leon Trotsky, perhaps, or Joseph Stalin after him? Or Lin Biao? Maybe Pol Pot’s nameless competitors? Is northern Korea’s political system a stroll in the park? Was eastern Germany’s? And so on.

This delicacy is resident in the woman who would sit in the President’s chair.

Hmm….

Another Reason to Reduce Financial Support for the IMF

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[T]he [IMF] said there is significant slack in the [US] economy and authorities must do more to stimulate growth in the near term. At the same time, Washington must cut spending and raise revenue in the long term to avoid public debt overwhelming the country’s finances.

The best option is for the government to boost spending, notably on infrastructure, the IMF said.

This is a clear misunderstanding of the role of government in a free nation’s free market economy—by folks who should know better. Hence the need to reduce support: these folks are merely squandering what they have.

No, Washington must not “do more to stimulate growth” in the private sector, other than by reducing its enormous boot print and getting out of the way of our economy.

No, Washington must not “raise revenue in the long term” except by getting out of the way of our economy and letting its growth and increased and increasing health generate more revenues for government through increased and increasing economic activity. Here, I’m eliding the premise that Washington actually needs revenue increases.

No, Washington does not need to “boost spending.” As the IMF pretended to notice just above, Washington must cut spending. In fact, Washington must cut spending to below actual revenues and quit crowding out the private sector and private enterprise.

Full stop.