A DIABOLICAL PLAN TO BANKRUPT THE GOVERNMENT?
“The Most Feared Man in Washington is ...”Grover Norquist, the chief “Enforcer” of the ‘no new taxes’
But in fact this pledge has not succeeded in its stated goal of lowering government spending. In fact it has mainly succeeded in starving the main engine of economic growth, consumer spending. For each time Republican administrations have cut taxes in the name of shrinking government, this has instead shifted wealth from the lower and middle income classes to the top income brackets, which lowers the overall demand for goods and services.
As former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman said in an April 23 New York Timesop-ed:
While not the stated objective of policy, this reverse Robin Hood outcome cannot be gainsaid: the share of wealth held by the top 1 percent of households has risen to 35 percent from 21 percent since 1979, while their share of income has more than doubled to around 20 percent.
Why hasn’t the ‘no new taxes’ pledge succeeded? Because Republicans are no better at cutting government spending than Democrats — in fact, worse. Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan have chosen to borrow to pay for their hot and cold wars, rather than sharing the sacrifice, driving us ever deeper into debt.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/harlan-green/starving-the-beast-of-gov_b_887781.html
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Ryan’s “fiscal conservative” brand has gotten impressive traction, but now that he’s announcing he’s leaving Congress in January, it’s worth noting (not for the first time) that Paul Ryan Deficit Hawk has never behaved like a deficit hawk. In his two decades in Washington, Ryan has consistently supported tax cuts and spending hikes that have boosted deficits, while consistently trashing Democrats for failing to cut deficits. It will inevitably be described as “ironic” that Ryan came to Congress when the budget was in surplus and left with deficits heading toward $1 trillion, but those deficits are his greatest legacy.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/tory/2018/04/11/paul-ryan-legacy-record-budget-red-ink
Yes, Stockman conceded, when one stripped away the new rhetoric emphasizing across-the-board cuts, the supply-side theory was new clothes for the unpopular doctrine of the old Republcan orthodoxy. "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickld down,'" he explained, "so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."
Stockman knew that the CBO base was a bit unreal.Therefore, the total of "cuts" was, too.
Stockman explained: "There was less there than met the eye. Nobody has figured it out yet. Let's say that you and I walked outside and I waved a wand and said, 'I've just lowered the temperature from 110 to 78.' Would you believe me? What this was was a cut from an artificial CBO base. That's why it looked so big. But it wasn't. It was a significant and helpful cut from what you might call the moving track of the budget of the government, but the numbers are just out of this world. The government never would have been up at those levels in the CBO base."
.. Still, things might work out, Stockman said. The tax cuts would make people happy. The economy might start to respond, eventually, to the stimulation of the tax cuts. "Who knows?" Stockman said
From David Stockman, it was a startling remark. He would continue to invent new scenarios for success, but they would be more complicated and cloudy than his original optimism. "Who knows?" The world was less manageable than he had imagined; this machine had too many crazy moving parts to incorporate in a single lucid theory. The "random elements" of history -- politics, the economy,the anarchial budget numbers -- were out of control.
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Excerpts from “IRONY” (Amazon) by Theo. Nicholson: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520964846/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_dp_U_hT2YAbTB7GHP2
State laws became more and more restrictive because both slave master and legislator understood that in order to maintain dominance, ignorance has to be institutionalized and be pervasive. This was true for slavery and it is also true for present day political environment. Both politician and slave owner understood that the mixture of illiteracy, religion, and strict laws would lead to firmer control of the life of its subjects. The founding fathers of this great Republic (America), many of whom were slave owners, called for “a separation of church and state,” in their founding documents because they understood that “power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
..After we have talked and tried many things (forms of governance) may we ultimately conclude that our starting point has to come after reflection on the message Christ delivered in his sermon from the mount; a sermon which infers: after we’ve received love and being thus informed, love reciprocates?