Obviously Jim, dcguy, Admiral Gerrib and Godzilla need it. They can’t legally pick your pockets without it.
The saddest part is even with a weakened economy a government spending freeze without any reduction in the size of our government pays down the debt and they can’t even do that. This has got to be the very definition of out of control. Losing trust in government is one thing. If we ever lose trust in the value of money it’s game over. Only a few isolated farms might survive that.
a government spending freeze without any reduction in the size of our government pays down the debt
No, not even close. This year’s revenue won’t come close to equalling last year’s spending.
This year’s revenue won’t come close to equaling last year’s spending.
You said a mouthful there. Jim, did I say anything about freezing revenues? Also, raising revenue does not mean increasing tax rates.
At least freeze but better reduce spending. I’m using the definition of reduce that common folks understand. Not the lying weasels redefinition of cuts to mean increasing less.
raising revenue does not mean increasing tax rates
How would you get from $2.9T to $3.7T of revenue in one year without raising rates?
At least freeze but better reduce spending
How much? What would you cut?
There are a couple approaches that might be considered.
1. Cut some of the spending. I know, that’s heresy to a Democrat but it actually is possible.
2. Grow the economy. You don’t grow the economy by raising tax rates or adding ever more burdens to businesses. That’s also heresy to Democrats but it has been proven to work more than once.
Raising tax rates almost never come close to generating the predicted levels of additional revenue. In quite a few cases, raising tax rates actually results in reduced revenues. People change their behavior in response to economic incentives or disincentives. Democrats seem to foolishly believe that if you just keep raising the tax rates, people will go on as before meekly paying ever higher taxes. It doesn’t work that way in the real world.
Looks like when JFK was killed, he took a bit of the soul of the Democrat party with him. Now, they celebrate communism and high taxes.
Funny, just before JFK was killed he was accused of being a Communist.
“In February 1962, Walker entered the race but finished last among six candidates in a Democratic primary election that was won in a runoff election by John B. Connally, Jr., the choice of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. ”
It is interesting how wikipedia calls him right wing when he was a Democrat. It also reports that Walker was an intended target of Oswald. And it also reports that, “He was temporarily held in a mental institution on orders from President Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. RFK demanded that Walker receive a 90-day psychiatric examination.[14]
However, the Attorney General’s decision was promptly challenged by famous psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, who insisted that psychiatry must never become a tool of political rivalry.”
Maybe Democrats haven’t changed that much.
Not sure what you are trying to get at. Walker was a Democrat fighting against segregation in the South. He also held anti-communist views, which today’s Democrat party certainly don’t endorse.
So, I guess you agree with me?
“Walker was a Democrat fighting against segregation in the South. ”
Should read fighting FOR segregation in the South.
” If we ever lose trust in the value of money it’s game over. ”
Quantitative Easing by the federal reserve, out of control deficit spending, open contempt by the regime for property rights, you might be justified in thinking they want us to lose faith in the dollar so they can get their revolution and finally do away with the last vestiges of the old US.
Who needs the federal government to be so large? Why, all the otherwise unemployable people who draw paychecks from it, that’s who! While there are pockets of actual competency within the government, they make up a small percentage of the federal workforce. In fact, the word “workforce” applied to the federal government is an oxymoron on the magnitude of “civil war” or “political science.”
Where else but government would most of them go? There are few private sector jobs for regulation writers, bureaucrats, and associated ner-do-wells that make Wally from the Dilbert cartoons look like an over-achiever. It’d cost society far less to just retire them early, close their offices, tear down the buildings and salt the ground to prevent anything to ever grow there again. However, doing that wouldn’t generate the kind of campaign contributions to the Democrat party that they’re accustomed to. The Democrats might actually have to become the party of the working people as opposed to the party of government. That will not do.
Who needs the federal government to be so large?
Indeed. We need a government, but we don’t need a massive federal one. While the federal follies are occurring during the shutdown. Literally hundreds of governments across the US continue to function just fine. No one is worried about lack of police or fire protection. Roads are still being repaired. Trash is still being picked up. Parks and zoos are open all over the place. We don’t need a massive federal government at all.
What if the rightful functions of small government can be more effectively provided by a free market?
Surely, then, even a small government would not be needed.
Note the birdbrained denunciation of “anarchy” from Moby Matula’s guy, Harry Reid.
Personally, I’ve always found useful Nock’s distinction between “government” (that is, those institutions society creates to protect itself from aggressive force) and “State” (that is, what “government” becomes when its proper and circumscribed role is expanded to become, in the words of Voltaire, “a device to forcibly extract money from one pocket in order to put it into another pocket”). In his excellent new book THE TYRANNY OF CLICHES, Jonah Goldberg discusses how the Left–around the time it decided to re-package State-socialism under the more friendly-sounding, warm-and-fuzzy label “liberalism”–became enamored of the mystical/Hegelian concept of Der Staat, which is what “liberals” worship today.
In that sense, in terms of The State (as opposed to night-watchman government) , I AM an anarchist.
Given Professor Reynolds is employed by the University of Tennessee, it appears, Glenn
needs Government.
And where does the government get its means of existence? The answer is by forcibly taking from the productiveness of the private sector. Without the private sector, the government ceases to exist.
So, the government owes its existence to the private sector, and yet the politicians and the government employees and the Democrats think it is the other way around.
What this means is that with a smaller tax burden, through having fewer social programs or whatever, the private sector would live on just fine. It is the government sector that can’t live without taking more and more of what it largely has not earned. Police and military and courts are “earned”. However, social programs are generally just taking from one pocket and putting in another, and in general not helping along the way either. Just making a slightly more comfortable serfdom. Some breadcrumbs taken from others in exchange for votes.
If Glenn believed what he says about the Government, he’d quit the UT, and teach
at a private school.
Douchenozzle is certainly doubling down on the illogic tonight.
Why is it illogical to suggest that somebody who loves small government might want to get a private sector job instead of a government one? Especially if the person in question seems to spend more of his time blogging than actually working at the government job.
For one thing, because Glenn doesn’t have a government job. For another thing, because “small government” doesn’t mean “no government,” despite Harry Reid’s asininity? For yet another, because Glenn’s piece was primarily about the Federal government?
Reynolds is employed by the University of Tennessee, which is a government entity of the state of Tennessee. He is an employee of the state of Tennessee, thus, by definition, a government employee.
The University of Tennessee is a land-grant university, and received initial funding from the Federal government under the Morrill Act, and set up agricultural extensions under the Hatch Act. It sure looks like big government to me.
Yes, he’s a federal government employee, and yet he hadn’t been furloughed. Right. Guess he must be “essential.”
We know you’d like to live in a totalitarian world in which the federal government having the slightest tentacle into anything in which you’re involved makes you a ward of the state, and that anyone who points out the flaws of Leviathan is an anarchist should go off and live in the woods, but Glen doesn’t share your views, and is much better at both facts and logic. That may be one reason that he’s a hell of a lot more influential than you and Douchnozzle.
Rand, please at least pretend to read what was written. Nobody said Reynolds was a Federal Government employee. But he for damn sure is a government employee (state government) and the portion of the state government he works for was created and draws significant funding from the Federal government.
It’s not quite as illogical as people yelling “keep government out of my medicare” but there is a certain irony in a man who can’t be fired (due to tenure) from a government job making a side career out of criticizing government.
If the University of Tennessee Law School is typical, most of the students are using federal student loans to help pay their way (annual cost for UTK law: $39k for Tennessee residents, $58k otherwise). The federal government plays a key role in subsidizing consumption of the service that Reynolds is paid to provide. I’d be curious to know whether Reynolds has called for an end to federal student loans, or expressed any discomfort about working for an institution that is so dependent on federal support.
I’d be curious to know whether Reynolds has called for an end to federal student loans
He wrote a book on the subject.
or expressed any discomfort about working for an institution that is so dependent on federal support.
I’m sure he would prefer that it were not the case. I’m also sure that he wouldn’t object to steps on its part to reduce such dependence.
What’s next ladies? Going to tell everyone who doesn’t like big government not to drive on roads or go to the doctor? What a second, how did going to the doctor get sucked into a debate about big government?
As Rand pointed out, and others have done repeatedly over the years, a dislike of the Democrat’s use of big government doesn’t mean people are anarchists (a militant Democrat activist group) or that they don’t want roads.
Step up your game.
Well, he was criticizing the federal government, not the Tennessee state government, so once again you and Douchnozzle have no point.
Professor Reynolds should be careful with his words.
If he wanted to understood, he should smartly say “The Federal Government: Who needs it” as opposed to “Government: Who needs it”.
By broadly and vaguely stating his initial argument, he is opening himself up
to ridicule. Of course, Glenn gets a lot of ridicule.
Op-ed writers don’t write their own headline. You moron.
Of course, if a hundredth as many people read you as read Glenn, you’d get a thousand times more ridicule.
Rand
Do you know that op-ed writers in USA Today, don’t get to write their own headlines?
The Tennessee state government isn’t shut down. For that matter, neither is a lot of the federal government. Now, I’m wiling to discuss whether state governments should own and operate universities but that’s a separate and distinct topic from the current mess with the federal government.
All of this drama wouldn’t be happening is Congress (both House and Senate) was actually doing its job of writing and passing the appropriate budget and appropriations legislation. They used to do that every year but have not for quite a few years now. It’d be even better if they weren’t spending almost a trillion dollars more than they were collecting in revenue each year.
I’m not nearly as smart as Dr. Reynolds, but like him, I’m simultaneously an employee of a state university as well as an outspoken advocate of smaller government.
I took a 75% pay cut from my private-industry job to work in a non-tenure position at Georgia Tech since I decided that — as a public institution — this was the best platform to focus my efforts to change the local innovation ecosystem and maximize the ability of entrepreneurs to create and build great technology companies in Georgia. If I were a pure Ayn Randian, I would have stayed in the private sector making a LOT more money. As a “small-L libertarian,” I think there’s a valid role for the public sector as a neutral connector between many constituencies, public and private. And I want to spend part of my career doing it.
I can’t speak for Prof. Reynolds, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had similar motivations.
Steve, you don’t have to apologize, or explain. All of this illogic is just ad hominem attacks because they don’t have an actual response to what Professor Reynolds has to say.
It’s an ad hominem attack to point out the irony of somebody in a tenured government position attacking government?
Here’s an attack on the substance of Reynold’s argument:
1) The deficit has fallen under every year that Obama has had control of it. This excludes 2009, since that budget was written by Bush (including the TARP bailout) and passed by Republicans (Boehner and Paul Ryan both voted for TARP, and Medicare Part D, and two wars funded on a tax cut.)
2) The Bush administration spent 8 years cutting regulations, yet all we got for that was a financial crash. Ditto the Republicans 1920-1929. The idea that cutting regulations will yield economic growth is unproven at best.
3) Reynolds does not address the revenue side of the equation. We had a boom economy during the Clinton years under a marginally higher tax rate – a tax rate that also generated a budget surplus.
DN was calling Reynolds a hypocrite, not “pointing out irony”. His illogical argument is akin to the oft used one leveled at Ayn Rand: “she accepted Social Security benefits and argued against SS, so she’s a hypocrite!” In both instances the argument is a non-sequitur.
To rebut your other points:
1) A deficit doesnt carry over, it is tied to a particular budget year. It is the amount of new debt added to the federal debt in a given year. Every year there is a deficit is another instance in which our government has demonstrated its gross incompetence in the simple act of balancing its cash flows. “The deficit has fallen…” statement is both a misrepresentation of concepts and a pathically low bar by which to judge government performance.
2) did the federal register of laws get smaller every year of GWB’s presidency?? That is what you would need to demonstrate to prove your premise. I guess you are at least somewhat consistent in your ill-logic, “cutting regulation” appears to be similar to “falling deficits” in your mind. They both keep growing, but they are growing less fast! Devastating Cuts and Great success respectively I’m sure.
3) If we had the same government revenue today as we had during the peak of the Clinton years (assuming it would even be sustainable) would we still have a deficit?
Oh, by the way, the word you should be looking for to describe Glenn Reynolds isn’t “hypocrite” or “ironic”, it is “principled”. The concept seems to be beyond your ken though, so let me explain.
It is principled to forthrightly argue against systems you know to be unjust, even if you benefit in some way from those systems (there is never a net benefit from injustice). I did and do the same thing, argue for a rescission of government to its proper functions, both during my service in the military and now while I am a federal contractor (a stop-worked one at that), with a taxpayer funded salary the whole time, directly or not. Principles are not affected by circumstance (eg how I get paid), but they do effect how we react to and prepare for circumstance.
Democrats prevented all attempts to reform lending prior to the crash. They said such attempts were racist and other nonsense. Today, they advocate for the same policies that led to crash.
Does it matter if deficits fell if the first four were North of $1.5t a year? Considering the way Democrats freaked the f out over spending during the Bush years, perhaps some mild criticism is in order for the man who spent more in four years than Bush did in eight?
Oh and you can thank Republicans for falling deficits. It certainly wasn’t the work of Obama and Democrats.
Ah, not so, DN-Guy. There are two ways to deal with such a problem. One, “Pull out the arrow”, in this case, quit, and work in the quasi-private sector (No sector being actually private in this age of totalitarian government), or push it through, aka, the Cloward-Piven strategy. Flood the system until it collapses. The creators of the “strategy” are very Left wing, and think that collapsing the Welfare State will cause the American Public to finally demand a Communist, Totalitarian state, but having seen how the public has reacted to the current “shutdown”, with the police having to stop one fellow from maintaining our sacred monuments at gunpoint, I think it will bring back a restoration of a Constitutionally limited government, after a very harsh learning curve.
Unless this country makes a remarkable and unprecedented detour off the Road to Serfdom, the Hive will gets its way. At that point, we’ll all be directly or indirectly employed by the State. Until Cloward-Piven kicks in, of course.
It was said above that:
“The Bush administration spent 8 years cutting regulations, yet all we got for that was a financial crash.”
I would like to see some evidence supporting that assertion. I do not recall an diminution in the size or scope of government, nor any reduction in the size of the Code of Federal Regulation, nor any reduction in the size of the U.S. Code during the Bush administration.
REASON did a pretty thorough demolition job on that particular part of the party-line, pennypincher. I wish I had the link.
There are a couple approaches that might be considered.
Jim,
Larry didn’t even have to strain any brain cells to come up with those, oh dentless one.
It is principled to forthrightly argue against systems you know to be unjust, even if you benefit in some way from those systems
Well said Ryan. Will any of those criticizing acknowledge this point?
Note, ken, that none of them actually tried very hard to refute what Reynolds wrote. In Gerrib’s case it’s probably because he couldn’t think of a way to work in the Argument from Pity, and without that, he’s pretty much got nothing.
Obviously Jim, dcguy, Admiral Gerrib and Godzilla need it. They can’t legally pick your pockets without it.
The saddest part is even with a weakened economy a government spending freeze without any reduction in the size of our government pays down the debt and they can’t even do that. This has got to be the very definition of out of control. Losing trust in government is one thing. If we ever lose trust in the value of money it’s game over. Only a few isolated farms might survive that.
a government spending freeze without any reduction in the size of our government pays down the debt
No, not even close. This year’s revenue won’t come close to equalling last year’s spending.
This year’s revenue won’t come close to equaling last year’s spending.
You said a mouthful there. Jim, did I say anything about freezing revenues? Also, raising revenue does not mean increasing tax rates.
At least freeze but better reduce spending. I’m using the definition of reduce that common folks understand. Not the lying weasels redefinition of cuts to mean increasing less.
raising revenue does not mean increasing tax rates
How would you get from $2.9T to $3.7T of revenue in one year without raising rates?
At least freeze but better reduce spending
How much? What would you cut?
There are a couple approaches that might be considered.
1. Cut some of the spending. I know, that’s heresy to a Democrat but it actually is possible.
2. Grow the economy. You don’t grow the economy by raising tax rates or adding ever more burdens to businesses. That’s also heresy to Democrats but it has been proven to work more than once.
Raising tax rates almost never come close to generating the predicted levels of additional revenue. In quite a few cases, raising tax rates actually results in reduced revenues. People change their behavior in response to economic incentives or disincentives. Democrats seem to foolishly believe that if you just keep raising the tax rates, people will go on as before meekly paying ever higher taxes. It doesn’t work that way in the real world.
Looks like when JFK was killed, he took a bit of the soul of the Democrat party with him. Now, they celebrate communism and high taxes.
Funny, just before JFK was killed he was accused of being a Communist.
“In February 1962, Walker entered the race but finished last among six candidates in a Democratic primary election that was won in a runoff election by John B. Connally, Jr., the choice of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. ”
It is interesting how wikipedia calls him right wing when he was a Democrat. It also reports that Walker was an intended target of Oswald. And it also reports that, “He was temporarily held in a mental institution on orders from President Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. RFK demanded that Walker receive a 90-day psychiatric examination.[14]
However, the Attorney General’s decision was promptly challenged by famous psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, who insisted that psychiatry must never become a tool of political rivalry.”
Maybe Democrats haven’t changed that much.
Not sure what you are trying to get at. Walker was a Democrat fighting against segregation in the South. He also held anti-communist views, which today’s Democrat party certainly don’t endorse.
So, I guess you agree with me?
“Walker was a Democrat fighting against segregation in the South. ”
Should read fighting FOR segregation in the South.
” If we ever lose trust in the value of money it’s game over. ”
Quantitative Easing by the federal reserve, out of control deficit spending, open contempt by the regime for property rights, you might be justified in thinking they want us to lose faith in the dollar so they can get their revolution and finally do away with the last vestiges of the old US.
Who needs the federal government to be so large? Why, all the otherwise unemployable people who draw paychecks from it, that’s who! While there are pockets of actual competency within the government, they make up a small percentage of the federal workforce. In fact, the word “workforce” applied to the federal government is an oxymoron on the magnitude of “civil war” or “political science.”
Where else but government would most of them go? There are few private sector jobs for regulation writers, bureaucrats, and associated ner-do-wells that make Wally from the Dilbert cartoons look like an over-achiever. It’d cost society far less to just retire them early, close their offices, tear down the buildings and salt the ground to prevent anything to ever grow there again. However, doing that wouldn’t generate the kind of campaign contributions to the Democrat party that they’re accustomed to. The Democrats might actually have to become the party of the working people as opposed to the party of government. That will not do.
Who needs the federal government to be so large?
Indeed. We need a government, but we don’t need a massive federal one. While the federal follies are occurring during the shutdown. Literally hundreds of governments across the US continue to function just fine. No one is worried about lack of police or fire protection. Roads are still being repaired. Trash is still being picked up. Parks and zoos are open all over the place. We don’t need a massive federal government at all.
What if the rightful functions of small government can be more effectively provided by a free market?
Surely, then, even a small government would not be needed.
Related:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360721/our-hobbesian-left-kevin-d-williamson#!
Note the birdbrained denunciation of “anarchy” from Moby Matula’s guy, Harry Reid.
Personally, I’ve always found useful Nock’s distinction between “government” (that is, those institutions society creates to protect itself from aggressive force) and “State” (that is, what “government” becomes when its proper and circumscribed role is expanded to become, in the words of Voltaire, “a device to forcibly extract money from one pocket in order to put it into another pocket”). In his excellent new book THE TYRANNY OF CLICHES, Jonah Goldberg discusses how the Left–around the time it decided to re-package State-socialism under the more friendly-sounding, warm-and-fuzzy label “liberalism”–became enamored of the mystical/Hegelian concept of Der Staat, which is what “liberals” worship today.
In that sense, in terms of The State (as opposed to night-watchman government) , I AM an anarchist.
Given Professor Reynolds is employed by the University of Tennessee, it appears, Glenn
needs Government.
And where does the government get its means of existence? The answer is by forcibly taking from the productiveness of the private sector. Without the private sector, the government ceases to exist.
So, the government owes its existence to the private sector, and yet the politicians and the government employees and the Democrats think it is the other way around.
What this means is that with a smaller tax burden, through having fewer social programs or whatever, the private sector would live on just fine. It is the government sector that can’t live without taking more and more of what it largely has not earned. Police and military and courts are “earned”. However, social programs are generally just taking from one pocket and putting in another, and in general not helping along the way either. Just making a slightly more comfortable serfdom. Some breadcrumbs taken from others in exchange for votes.
If Glenn believed what he says about the Government, he’d quit the UT, and teach
at a private school.
Douchenozzle is certainly doubling down on the illogic tonight.
Why is it illogical to suggest that somebody who loves small government might want to get a private sector job instead of a government one? Especially if the person in question seems to spend more of his time blogging than actually working at the government job.
For one thing, because Glenn doesn’t have a government job. For another thing, because “small government” doesn’t mean “no government,” despite Harry Reid’s asininity? For yet another, because Glenn’s piece was primarily about the Federal government?
Reynolds is employed by the University of Tennessee, which is a government entity of the state of Tennessee. He is an employee of the state of Tennessee, thus, by definition, a government employee.
The University of Tennessee is a land-grant university, and received initial funding from the Federal government under the Morrill Act, and set up agricultural extensions under the Hatch Act. It sure looks like big government to me.
Yes, he’s a federal government employee, and yet he hadn’t been furloughed. Right. Guess he must be “essential.”
We know you’d like to live in a totalitarian world in which the federal government having the slightest tentacle into anything in which you’re involved makes you a ward of the state, and that anyone who points out the flaws of Leviathan is an anarchist should go off and live in the woods, but Glen doesn’t share your views, and is much better at both facts and logic. That may be one reason that he’s a hell of a lot more influential than you and Douchnozzle.
Rand, please at least pretend to read what was written. Nobody said Reynolds was a Federal Government employee. But he for damn sure is a government employee (state government) and the portion of the state government he works for was created and draws significant funding from the Federal government.
It’s not quite as illogical as people yelling “keep government out of my medicare” but there is a certain irony in a man who can’t be fired (due to tenure) from a government job making a side career out of criticizing government.
If the University of Tennessee Law School is typical, most of the students are using federal student loans to help pay their way (annual cost for UTK law: $39k for Tennessee residents, $58k otherwise). The federal government plays a key role in subsidizing consumption of the service that Reynolds is paid to provide. I’d be curious to know whether Reynolds has called for an end to federal student loans, or expressed any discomfort about working for an institution that is so dependent on federal support.
I’d be curious to know whether Reynolds has called for an end to federal student loans
He wrote a book on the subject.
or expressed any discomfort about working for an institution that is so dependent on federal support.
I’m sure he would prefer that it were not the case. I’m also sure that he wouldn’t object to steps on its part to reduce such dependence.
What’s next ladies? Going to tell everyone who doesn’t like big government not to drive on roads or go to the doctor? What a second, how did going to the doctor get sucked into a debate about big government?
As Rand pointed out, and others have done repeatedly over the years, a dislike of the Democrat’s use of big government doesn’t mean people are anarchists (a militant Democrat activist group) or that they don’t want roads.
Step up your game.
Well, he was criticizing the federal government, not the Tennessee state government, so once again you and Douchnozzle have no point.
Professor Reynolds should be careful with his words.
If he wanted to understood, he should smartly say “The Federal Government: Who needs it” as opposed to “Government: Who needs it”.
By broadly and vaguely stating his initial argument, he is opening himself up
to ridicule. Of course, Glenn gets a lot of ridicule.
Op-ed writers don’t write their own headline. You moron.
Of course, if a hundredth as many people read you as read Glenn, you’d get a thousand times more ridicule.
Rand
Do you know that op-ed writers in USA Today, don’t get to write their own headlines?
The Tennessee state government isn’t shut down. For that matter, neither is a lot of the federal government. Now, I’m wiling to discuss whether state governments should own and operate universities but that’s a separate and distinct topic from the current mess with the federal government.
All of this drama wouldn’t be happening is Congress (both House and Senate) was actually doing its job of writing and passing the appropriate budget and appropriations legislation. They used to do that every year but have not for quite a few years now. It’d be even better if they weren’t spending almost a trillion dollars more than they were collecting in revenue each year.
I’m not nearly as smart as Dr. Reynolds, but like him, I’m simultaneously an employee of a state university as well as an outspoken advocate of smaller government.
I took a 75% pay cut from my private-industry job to work in a non-tenure position at Georgia Tech since I decided that — as a public institution — this was the best platform to focus my efforts to change the local innovation ecosystem and maximize the ability of entrepreneurs to create and build great technology companies in Georgia. If I were a pure Ayn Randian, I would have stayed in the private sector making a LOT more money. As a “small-L libertarian,” I think there’s a valid role for the public sector as a neutral connector between many constituencies, public and private. And I want to spend part of my career doing it.
I can’t speak for Prof. Reynolds, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had similar motivations.
Steve, you don’t have to apologize, or explain. All of this illogic is just ad hominem attacks because they don’t have an actual response to what Professor Reynolds has to say.
It’s an ad hominem attack to point out the irony of somebody in a tenured government position attacking government?
Here’s an attack on the substance of Reynold’s argument:
1) The deficit has fallen under every year that Obama has had control of it. This excludes 2009, since that budget was written by Bush (including the TARP bailout) and passed by Republicans (Boehner and Paul Ryan both voted for TARP, and Medicare Part D, and two wars funded on a tax cut.)
2) The Bush administration spent 8 years cutting regulations, yet all we got for that was a financial crash. Ditto the Republicans 1920-1929. The idea that cutting regulations will yield economic growth is unproven at best.
3) Reynolds does not address the revenue side of the equation. We had a boom economy during the Clinton years under a marginally higher tax rate – a tax rate that also generated a budget surplus.
DN was calling Reynolds a hypocrite, not “pointing out irony”. His illogical argument is akin to the oft used one leveled at Ayn Rand: “she accepted Social Security benefits and argued against SS, so she’s a hypocrite!” In both instances the argument is a non-sequitur.
To rebut your other points:
1) A deficit doesnt carry over, it is tied to a particular budget year. It is the amount of new debt added to the federal debt in a given year. Every year there is a deficit is another instance in which our government has demonstrated its gross incompetence in the simple act of balancing its cash flows. “The deficit has fallen…” statement is both a misrepresentation of concepts and a pathically low bar by which to judge government performance.
2) did the federal register of laws get smaller every year of GWB’s presidency?? That is what you would need to demonstrate to prove your premise. I guess you are at least somewhat consistent in your ill-logic, “cutting regulation” appears to be similar to “falling deficits” in your mind. They both keep growing, but they are growing less fast! Devastating Cuts and Great success respectively I’m sure.
3) If we had the same government revenue today as we had during the peak of the Clinton years (assuming it would even be sustainable) would we still have a deficit?
Oh, by the way, the word you should be looking for to describe Glenn Reynolds isn’t “hypocrite” or “ironic”, it is “principled”. The concept seems to be beyond your ken though, so let me explain.
It is principled to forthrightly argue against systems you know to be unjust, even if you benefit in some way from those systems (there is never a net benefit from injustice). I did and do the same thing, argue for a rescission of government to its proper functions, both during my service in the military and now while I am a federal contractor (a stop-worked one at that), with a taxpayer funded salary the whole time, directly or not. Principles are not affected by circumstance (eg how I get paid), but they do effect how we react to and prepare for circumstance.
Democrats prevented all attempts to reform lending prior to the crash. They said such attempts were racist and other nonsense. Today, they advocate for the same policies that led to crash.
Does it matter if deficits fell if the first four were North of $1.5t a year? Considering the way Democrats freaked the f out over spending during the Bush years, perhaps some mild criticism is in order for the man who spent more in four years than Bush did in eight?
Oh and you can thank Republicans for falling deficits. It certainly wasn’t the work of Obama and Democrats.
Ah, not so, DN-Guy. There are two ways to deal with such a problem. One, “Pull out the arrow”, in this case, quit, and work in the quasi-private sector (No sector being actually private in this age of totalitarian government), or push it through, aka, the Cloward-Piven strategy. Flood the system until it collapses. The creators of the “strategy” are very Left wing, and think that collapsing the Welfare State will cause the American Public to finally demand a Communist, Totalitarian state, but having seen how the public has reacted to the current “shutdown”, with the police having to stop one fellow from maintaining our sacred monuments at gunpoint, I think it will bring back a restoration of a Constitutionally limited government, after a very harsh learning curve.
Unless this country makes a remarkable and unprecedented detour off the Road to Serfdom, the Hive will gets its way. At that point, we’ll all be directly or indirectly employed by the State. Until Cloward-Piven kicks in, of course.
It was said above that:
“The Bush administration spent 8 years cutting regulations, yet all we got for that was a financial crash.”
I would like to see some evidence supporting that assertion. I do not recall an diminution in the size or scope of government, nor any reduction in the size of the Code of Federal Regulation, nor any reduction in the size of the U.S. Code during the Bush administration.
REASON did a pretty thorough demolition job on that particular part of the party-line, pennypincher. I wish I had the link.
There are a couple approaches that might be considered.
Jim,
Larry didn’t even have to strain any brain cells to come up with those, oh dentless one.
It is principled to forthrightly argue against systems you know to be unjust, even if you benefit in some way from those systems
Well said Ryan. Will any of those criticizing acknowledge this point?
Note, ken, that none of them actually tried very hard to refute what Reynolds wrote. In Gerrib’s case it’s probably because he couldn’t think of a way to work in the Argument from Pity, and without that, he’s pretty much got nothing.