At 03:56 PM 3/6/2004 -0800 Doug Pensinger wrote:
>John wrote:
>
>> My data is taken from an enclosed graph, which I will happily send to
>> anyone who asks for it.
>>
>> And in a way, I guess this is a soliciation, as in my mind _The
>> Economist_
>> is head and shoulders above any other news magazine out there.
>
>So how do you answer the critisizm leveled in the article Erik posted last
>month?
>
>http://www.mccmedia.com/pipermail/brin-l/Week-of-Mon-20040202/033450.html
A number of responses to this:
1) As a fiscal conservative, I definitely have to admit that I am not
thrilled about the current budget deficits. Nevertheless, I think that
the budget deficits for the last several years can largely be credited with
producing a very soft landing after the (partial?) popping of the biggest
asset bubble in the US since the 1920's. In addition, given that
uncertainty before the last Iraq war triggered a recession, these deficits
may well have kept the US economy from double-dipping into recession in
2002-2003. Lastly, the current budget deficits as a percentage of GDP
are not the worst ever.... so it is important to remember that things could
be worse. Indeed, US total debt as a percentage of GDP is not at a
terrible level compared to the rest of the world.
2) Nevertheless, even if I concede that large budget deficits were/are
necessary as a temporary stimulus, they obviously should not go on forever.
Obviously, however, it is unreasonable to ask any President to put the
brakes on short-term economic stimulus in an election year. That is why,
however, that even leaving all the other issues aside, I really, I really,
I really, hope that Bush wins re-election. If Bush is re-elected, and the
Congress stays pretty much in the hands of the Republicans (a near
certainty), and an economic expansion holds for the first several years
(also very likely, IMHO), it will be a very interesting real-life
experiment of what is usually called "supply-side economics," and its
ability to balance the budget.
I remain somewhat optimistic on this count that it can be done. Bush's
first tax cut was fully supported by the budget projections of the time,
and even a liberal think tank found that it would essentially return taxes
back to taxpayers in roughly the percentages in which they paid taxes.
The dividend tax cut, on the other hand, was obviously not coming out of
surpluses, but to the extent that it might shift the valuation of stocks
slightly away from capital gains and towards dividends, it struck me as
being essentially a good idea.
Still, it is worth remembering that even Clinton's own budget forecasts
were not predicting surpluses pretty much until the surpluses happened.
Long-term budget deficit forecasts are notoriously tricky, so there may yet
be some reason for optimism that after the economy really gets going again
that the budget may be able to be balanced again..... at least until Social
Security starts imploding, but given that Clinton ignored Social Security
during the "surplus years" and while he was ostensibly searching for a
"legacy" project, and given that Bush is essentially the only Presidential
Candidate in US history to even touch the Social Security issue, I don't
think that Democrats have much standing for criticizing Bush on that
particular point, as their record is just as bad, if not worse.
>Doug
>...he asks again. <SEG>
As I've noted before, I hardly read all posts on Brin-L any more. And if
I don't have time to respond to a post right away, there is so much traffic
on this List that things I mark "save for later" can quickly get buried.
After all, I think that I directly answered a lot of questions from you
about Iraq and "motivatiosn" that I still haven't heard back from you on.
:-) In this case, as noted previously, I don't read most of Erik's
posts, since he has stated that he is unwilling to abide by common decency
standards for polite conversation - and in any case, since there was no
explanatory text included this message, I probably would have browsed right
past this one.
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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