Tag Archives: spending

An Example

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…of why Progressives and private pocketbooks—or public pocketbooks—are a bad mix.  This is former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, in the San Francisco Chronicle, on why public works projects are—deliberately—under costed when they’re foisted off onto the public, us folks who must pay for these things.

News that the Transbay Terminal is something like $300 million over budget should not come as a shock to anyone.

We always knew the initial estimate was way under the real cost.  Just like we never had a real cost for the Central Subway or the Bay Bridge or any other massive construction project.  So get off it.

In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment.  If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved.

The idea is to get going.  Start digging a hole and make it so big, there’s no alternative to coming up with the money to fill it in.

It just doesn’t get much more cynical than that.

 

h/t The Wall Street Journal

Keynesian Stimuli

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If the point of Keynesian spending is to inject money into the economy to make up for diminished private demand, then an equally valid Keynesian stimulus would be to reduce taxes and leave the money in the private economy in the first place.

Which, in fact, Keynesians actually recommend: Galbraith, John K, The Great Crash 1929.  And as that Evil Republican (!?) John Kennedy actually did in the early ’60s, that Evil Republican Ronald Reagan did again in the ’80s, and that Evil Republican George Bush the Younger did yet again in the early 2000s.

Spend more, tax less—either one produces the deficit spending that is actually what Keynes thought appropriate.  Except that taxing less—eliminating the government as (inefficient) middleman in the deficit spending—produces the more efficient stimulus, to the extent that government stimulus can have any beneficial effect at all.  And spending more is how politicians buy votes.

Hmm….

Spend, Spend, and Tax

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President Barack Obama offered, the other day, a “grand bargain” on taxes and spending that only a Progressive could love.  Obama offered to lower corporate tax rates (so long as he got to delete enough non-“green energy” subsidies to get a net increase in Federal revenues), if only he could use that increase to spend more (and not pay down our Federal deficit).

“I’m just going to keep on throwing ideas out there,” Obama told a crowd of supporters, challenging Republicans to offer counterproposals.

Never mind that those Evil Republicans in the House already have passed a large number of…counterproposals…over the last couple of years.  Those jobs bills, among all the other counterproposals, are languishing in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

It Isn’t Your Money

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Or, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama will neither sign government funding bills that slash domestic spending nor negotiate with Republicans over spending cuts to reduce the federal debt limit.

That’s not all.  He told ABC’s “This Week”

I think the president has made crystal clear, he’s not going to negotiate over the debt limit.

But he’s willing to “work with” all comers.  Sure.

This President, and his cronies in the Senate, are perfectly willing to blow up our credit rating (or what’s left of it after their last fiasco just a couple of years ago) and shut down the government if they’re blocked from taking more of your money away from you (in their demanded higher taxes) or taking more of your children’s money away from them (in their demanded continuing borrowing) and spending ever more of your money (their demanded spending increases).

All because these…politicians…think they know better than you—or your children—what that money should be spent on, and they’re convinced it’s their money and not yours in the first place.

Spinning

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From the National Republican Congressional Committee, and on the heels of President Barack Obama’s latest Presidential Bull on the economy, comes this compilation of the…pivots…that  Obama has made during his administration.

  • “Obama Aims to Shift Focus To Boosting Jobs, Economy” (Wall Street Journal, 7/18/13)
  • “Obama Pivots to Jobs Tour at End of Scandal Filled Week” (ABC News, 5/18/13)
  • “Obama’s Texas Trip An Attempt To Refocus On Jobs, Economy” (Washington Times, 5/8/13)
  • “Obama: State Of The Union To Focus On Jobs” (USA Today, 2/8/13)
  • “Obama Turns To Congress For Jobs Help” (The New York Times, 6/1/12)
  • “Obama Turns Attention To Economy After Fundraising Pitch” (Associated Press, 5/11/12)
  • “Fresh Off Debt-Ceiling Brawl, Dems Pivot To Talk About Jobs” (The Hill, 8/3/11)
  • “Obama To Focus On Jobs” (San Jose Mercury News, 1/23/11)
  • “Obama To Focus On Jobs, Spending In State Of The Union Speech” (The Tennessean, 1/27/10)
  • “Hill Democrats Set To Pivot To Job Creation” (Washington Times, 1/25/10)
  • “Obama Pivots To Jobs As Key Theme” (Politico, 1/8/10)
  • “Obama Turns Focus To Job Creation” (Associated Press, 12/5/09)

Sort of gives new meaning to the phrase “political spin.”