Comments on: CONFESSING HERESEY

By: David

David — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:33:07 +0000

“And the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the Congress but in ourselves.”

Amen, Brother Heretic. Preach on.

By: Melanie Haddon

Melanie Haddon — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 04:57:50 +0000

You want to use money from Social Security to pay for the hurricane?

Oh, and TANF, is just what it is called. TEMPORARY. Listening to folks still blather on about people spending their whole lives on “welfare” is getting old. TANF is available for 18 months at a time, with a 5 year lifetime limit.

By: Will Franklin

Will Franklin — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 22:28:02 +0000

I agree quite a bit.

Porkbusters is gimmicky and hardly meaningful in the grand scheme of things. Glenn Reynolds showed almost no interest in Social Security reform when it was the big topic. Same with other bigtime bloggers. Frustrating.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 18:46:35 +0000

Your asertion that the federal budget is not like our household budgets is a larger and more significant truth than you may realize and needs to be explored in order to honestly frame the debate over government spending.
The federal government unlike a household is not revenue constrained. With a fiat currency (one that is exchangable only into itself - (not a given amount of gold or other commodity) and a floating exchange rate (not pegged to any other currency or basket of currencies) the federal government does not rely on tax receipts to spend money.
The government spends via a credit to a reserve members bank and debits the treasuries account at the fed. When you pay your tax it in no way improves the govenments abaility to spend and having spent the governments ability to spend further is in no way deminished.
An important accounting identity to keep in mind is the the public sector defecit is exactly equal to the private sector surplus. The private sector can not run a surplus (savings) unless the public sector is in defecit - those budget surpluses in the late Clinton years were a contributing factor to the recession that followed. The notion that our grandchildren will inherit mountains of debt as a result of gov’t spending now is misguided.
When the gov’t issues bonds it does not do so to raise money. The gov’t spends money as outlined above. Bond issuance acts as a reserve drain and is necessary to maintain a non 0 fed funds rate.
Taken to an extreme increasing gov’t spending when the output gap approaces or is 0 is inflationary but there is no such thing as the gov’t being unable to afford to spend on a certain project.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 17:46:53 +0000

Interesting argument, but I would have taken a different route. There are those who may agree with you, but suggest that pushing the issue to the forefront may elevate pork as a hot button issue. After all, $30 billion saved is $30 billion saved. Right? It is far better to spend $30 billion helping the people of New Orleans than to build a road for 500 people in Alaska. Right?

It occurs to me that the porkbuster idea is simply trading one pork project for another. Does anyone honestly believe that the government will efficiently and fairly distribute those funds in the Gulf? If we spend our money on transportation we at least have a bridge, road, bike trail, whatever to show for it.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 17:00:48 +0000

You suggest cuts in AFDC, but that program no longer exists. Perhaps you meant Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), which replaced AFDC in 1996.

By: hector

hector — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 15:03:08 +0000

Unfortunately, the essence of politics is “Who gets What”! Congressman get elected to their positions by promising, and get re-elected, on their ability to deliver the most for their constituents. The only tangible thing that congressman can deliver to their constituents is money (in the form of projects and such). Alexis DeTouqueville in his book, “Democracy in America” (a must read) talks about the downfall of America and its democracy is when the citizenry realizes that it can draw from the public till. Unfortunately, that is what we are viewing with the burgeoning budget. Congressmen bribing their constituents for power from the public till and the citizenry expecting said bribe.

By: stackja

stackja — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 13:47:55 +0000

Start by shifting the mindset, less government, more individual action, not easy, but maybe blogs can start the change.