Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, May 22, 2015

This REALLY Matters

All of the GOP Governors kurrently krowding into the Klown Kar to run for President have huge budget shortfalls.

This should come as a surprise to no one who has a rudimentary understanding of addition and subtraction.  If you slash taxes as much as they have been doing, you are going to have to make that up somehow.  You will either have to essential end the existence of some public goods, raise more revenues or run a deficit.  Since it is illegal in some states to run a deficit and Republicans cannot under any circumstances raise taxes because it would make the Baby Reagan Jesus cry, the result are draconian cuts to programs.

This should be the most important story of the 2016 primary and general election season.  This is a real-world application of the policies that a Republican President - working with a Republican Congress - would put into place.  Marco Rubio wants to cut taxes in a way that is frankly insane and innumerate.

How the winner of the Presidential election would actually govern is what an election "season" should be about.  Here we have really important data points - and you can throw in places like Kansas, too - to demonstrate what GOP fiscal policy looks like.  In some ways, having a Clinton lead the Democratic ticket is a great opportunity in this regards, because after Clinton raised taxes, the economy took off.  Obama has raised taxes and the economy is growing again.

But in the states where they have pursued the logic of Grover Norquist's pledge, they are staring at fiscal disasters.

It's not that hard, but I have zero faith that our news media will make this clear.

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