January 17, 2018

Laffing All the Way to the Bank

https://thedailybanter.com/2018/01/laffing-all-the-way-to-the-bank/
"Increased public debt was what happened during the tax cuts of the 1920s, Reagan’s cuts, and Bush 43’s cuts. More recently, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s massive cuts left the Bayou State reeling and selling off government real estate and vehicles to stave off a shutdown. Governor Sam Brownback’s radical meth-induced tax cuts in Kansas essentially bankrupted the state.  But for the scheming folks who in recent years have foisted these twisted experiments on their guinea pig citizens, the measures were not failures in any way. They see farther down the road than we do. They have a coherent game plan, albeit nothing whatsoever like the one they roll out every couple of years on Meet the Press.  You see, good fiscal policy is a one-note tune. When a recession hits, we need tax cuts for the rich to provide the proverbial trickle down antidote. Should a recovery come, you don’t want to slow the momentum, so more tax cuts for the rich. When the following recession arrives, well, see above. And if it doesn’t work you’re obviously not doing enough of it. There is that old, hackneyed expression about laughing all the way to the bank. These days it’s more like giggling to the hedge fund or smirking to the Cayman Islands. But when the smiles fade, radical long-term tax cuts not supported by sound economic analysis leave us with four horrible choices—decimate the social safety net, print more money, borrow more money, or default on the national debt. Right wing kamikazes can live with any of these, but option number one—disassembling the nanny state that communist Franklin Delano Roosevelt put into place 80 years ago—is by far the most orgasmic reactionary option.  And if you’d like to discover what life was like for Chileans during the 1970s under rule by the Chicago Boys, you basically have two choices—read Naomi Klein’s enlightening book, The Shock Doctrine, or let Paul Ryan and friends control all branches of government through the year 2028."