Tag Archives: economics

Budget Cuts

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Because it isn’t possible to get the same bang for fewer bucks by using the smaller amount more efficiently.  No, just keep throwing money at the thing; if a single dollar sticks, it’s sufficient.

That’s the apparent position of folks on the left like Bill Nye, the guy with a Master’s degree in Engineering who represents himself as “The Science Guy.”

Nye, who served as an honorary co-chair for the March for Science, chided lawmakers who ignore scientific research in areas like climate change and railed against the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts.

I’ll leave the irony of a climatista chiding others for ignoring scientific research to others.  The question here is the budget cut proposals that so confound the engineer.

It’s possible, and it’s necessary, to spend our tax dollars much more efficiently, but this is a fact as lost on pseudo-scientists as it is on most any Progressive-Democrat.

The Congressman Misunderstands

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What he misunderstands, though is a very expensive thing to misunderstand: basic economics.  Congressman Joe Crowley (D, NY), Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and member of the House Ways and Means Committee said in an interview with PJMedia‘s Nicholas Ballasy that he’s willing to “experiment” with a VAT in the US, “what effect that will have.”  And

PJM: … A traditional VAT tax that works in other countries or that other countries have, at least, do you think that could work in the United States?
CROWLEY: Well, it’s been something that we haven’t necessarily gone to in terms of—sales tax, for instance, is typically a states’ issue, you know, states have used that nominally in terms of tax purposes in terms of the impact. A VAT would be usurping that, taking for the federal government as opposed to state, and I think we’re open to talking about that and seeing what effect that will have because I do think that bringing our overall [corporate tax] rate down does make us more competitive, a more attractive place.  …   So I don’t think we have to go to 12% or to 20% per se; getting that right down is what we’re attempting to do and doing it in a way which is the least invasive or hurtful to the average working man in this country.

First, there’s a hint there: that “States’ issue” bit.  Other countries that use a VAT (which taxes an item sold at every stage of its production—at every stage at which value—as defined by the taxing government—is added to the product in production—so that by the time the end user buys the item is paying mostly tax value and not product value) are not federal republics like the US is, where the States in the federation are on an equal plain, at least nominally, with the central government in most national domestic areas, like taxing.

Second, it does no good to an economy to lower tax rates in just one area while other tax rates are increased in other areas (vis., the imposition of a VAT) to make up for it.  Total, overall taxes must be lowered, all tax rates must be reduced.  It’s the increased retention of money in the hands of citizens who work and who own businesses—shareholders—that spur economies, not the transfer of that revenue to government for spending.

Third, it’s not at all least evasive or unhurtful to force the average working man to pay a VAT-inflated price for everything he wants to buy or must buy.

Then this tidbit:

PJM: We’ll see. It’s going to be a quite a debate.
CROWLEY: It will be. There is a reason why neither healthcare nor tax reform was suggested by Democrats after the election as things we could work on right away—it was infrastructure. We did that for a reason—for some reason, that seems to have been lost on everyone.

Yewbetcha.  The Progressive-Democratic Party standard plan: get spending locked in first, then see about taxing to pay for it.

Refusal

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Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) said he would never work with a President Mitt Romney.

Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his “severely conservative” agenda is laughable[.]

Then Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) stated his refusal to work with President Donald Trump:

He moved so far over to the right that it’s virtually impossible to work with him[.]

If that wasn’t clear, the Progressive-Democrats have made it so:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) said congressional leaders can reach an agreement on spending, but only if the White House stays out of negotiations.

The Party of Obstruction is making another thing possible: maybe it’s time to eliminate procedural filibusters in the Senate on all matters related to spending and revenue.  Force the opposition to filibuster the old fashioned way, actually taking to the floor and speaking, instead of hiding in the comfort of the sidelines with a vote.

Disruptions

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Senator Ben Sasse (R, NE) opined in the Friday Wall Street Journal about economic disruptions and how we’re undergoing the largest one in human history.  However, he exposed a number of misunderstandings about both disruptions and about proper policy responses the current one (stipulating that it’s the largest one in human history, but its size is irrelevant to the principle involved).  For instance:

[W]e don’t have a national-security strategy for the age of cyberwarfare and jihad.

This isn’t a matter of disruption per se, though. Defense establishments always have to adapt to new strategies and weapons systems. Even political disruption which he laid off to the 17th century’s invention of nation-states isn’t all that with today’s failed states and network entities like the terrorists Daesh and al Qaeda.  What did that Treaty of Westphalia of invent away from after all?  Political entities built around clans, principalities, networked entities like the feudal, often marriage-related polities.

We also lack seriousness about tackling the entitlement crisis.

True enough.  However, this, too, isn’t about responding to disruption per se.  A return to small, limited government handles this by putting solutions to the putative purpose of Big Government entitlement largesse back where it belongs: in the hands of American individuals and our families, friends, churches, and private charities.  Government does have a role here, even a properly small, limited government, but only from the bottom jurisdictions up, and only as a last resort, not the default entry.

And what about the policy implications of the economic disruption?

Again, this has nothing to do with disruption per se.  That return to small, limited government would handle this, just fine, including Sasse’s concerns regarding education and job (re)training.  Big Government involvement, especially here, is routinely obstructive.

[O]ur politics are not yet up to the challenge.

Nor need they be; this is Sasse’s underlying false premise. What is needed is more laissez faire and less Big Government fare.

Foolishness

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James Capretta and Lanhee Chen of American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, respectively, have a piece in a recent Wall Street Journal edition that talks about how to “nudge” uninsured Americans into getting health coverage plans.  It’s impressive in its…foolishness…(I’m being polite).

Congress can help these Americans and many others get insurance by enrolling them in no-premium, no-obligation plans from which they could withdraw if they wanted to.

No. Not only no, Hell no. No squared. We’ve enough Big Government intruding into our private lives, arrogantly presuming to make our private decisions for us, without adding this to the steaming pile.

But how to make sure people stay covered?

None of your business, and none of Big Government’s. This is an individual’s choice whether to stay.  Or even to get a plan in the first place.  Full stop.

But their [Republicans’] plan also must make sure most Americans have health insurance.

No it mustn’t. It need only ensure Americans (all, not just your “most”) have access to insurance. That access will come most broadly from a free market in which actual insurance policies are sold (not the currently available welfare coverage plans that Big Government is trying to force on us in ever diminishing variety and ever increasing cost). The decision to buy—the decision to participate at all—can only be the individual’s in a free nation.

And: keep your hands out of my pockets looking for money with which to pay for your “no-premium, no-obligation” schemes.  Of course you—and every American with two neurons to bump against each other to form a ganglion—know that your schemes won’t be free or without obligation: someone is going to pay for that stuff.

Talk about false premises.  Jeez.

Finally: when did these two AEI and Hoover Institution denizens join the Progressive-Democratic Party?