What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[koalabear]

Okay okay... So you're saying that:

1) Unions scare jobs away.

2) Texas has plenty of unions and there's miraculous job growth.


You can't have it both ways. Make up your minds and stop with your disingenuous flip-flopping.

Did your Mom have any kids that lived? MORON

 

[mercury14]

Did your Mom have any kids that lived? MORON

No? I'm dead? Or something?

Is that the joke you're trying to make?

 

[mercury14]

Some research shows that in Texas there actually are plenty of unions. They just had all their power legislated away (ie they can't strike). Union membership is a mere 6% of workers and they have nothing more than token power. They can write sternly-written letters I guess.

Texas also has unusually high rates of deaths in the workplace and work-related cancer.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/oml01

 

[busybody..]

Texas also has unusually high rates of deaths in the workplace and work-related cancer.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/oml01

thats why they have low UNEMPLOYMENT

they gotta replace the UNION guys that DOE young so they collect death benefits

PARASITES

 

[busybody..]

Some research shows that in Texas there actually are plenty of unions. They just had all their power legislated away (ie they can't strike). Union membership is a mere 6% of workers and they have nothing more than token power. They can write sternly-written letters I guess.



http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/oml01

Now you know why THEY CREATE MOST OF THE NEW JOBS IN THE US

DUMMY

 

[koalabear]

No? I'm dead? Or something?

Is that the joke you're trying to make?

You are a joke, MORON.

 

[busybody..]

LA Times Report: Obama No Longer Receives Daily Oval Office Economic Briefing…


Leadership in action.

(LA Times) — As he confronts the threat of another recession and turmoil in the financial markets, President Obama is being advised by an economic team that is noticeably short on big-name players — potentially hurting his ability to find solutions and sell them to Wall Street, Congress and the American public.

“When you ask about the economic team, it’s kind of like, ‘What economic team?’” said Edward Mills, a financial policy analyst with FBR Capital Markets. “They are very thin at a very critical time.”

The administration needs all the firepower it can muster, experts said. Yet the team is missing a key messenger in selling Obama’s policies. The post of chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors — an influential position — is vacant and is likely to remain so at least into the fall.

Perhaps more telling, there no longer is a formal economic briefing in the Oval Office every morning, a gathering in which Summers, Romer, Geithner and other key advisors assessed the data and batted around ideas with Obama.

 

[RightField]

Why's he need advisors...he's got Paul Krugman. lol.

 

[lustatopia]

California's Failed Economy: Ten Reasons Why It's Time to Leave!

California is quickly going the way of Greece, Portugal, and other European Countries in economic collapse. Ten major reasons for California's rapid decline are listed below. These problems are not being adequately addressed by State or Federal government and, in many cases, they are being exacerbated.

Reason number 1, California has 12% of the United States Population, and 32% of US Welfare Cases. Supporting these welfare cases puts an extreme tax burden on the citizens of the State, while creating a large non-taxpaying political base that is more than willing to keep voting themselves additional benefits and entitlements.

Reason number 2, Highest State Income Tax Rate. The State's progressive tax rates escalate quickly to tap into middle class incomes going from 8.25% to 9.55% and then 10.55%.

Reason number 3, Highest State Sales Tax. California's 8'25% sales tax is the highest in the Nation.

Reason number 4, High Property Tax Rates. Despite the best efforts of Proposition 13, California's property tax rates are the tenth highest in the Country.

Reason number 5, Worst State to do Business. A recent survey of 500 CEOs ranked California as the worst State to do business. Business's have been leaving California at an alarming rate for many years, taking jobs and and tax revenues with them. This disturbing trend will increase California's financial difficulties, and the State legislature's propensity to continue to raise taxes and regulatory requirements on business, will only accelerate the exodus.

Reason number 6, Retirement Obligations to State Employees. California's guaranteed benefit retirement system for teachers and State workers is a ticking time bomb. A recent Stanford University study found that California's retirement obligations to it's State employees are underfunded by $500 billion. Under California law, that taxpayers are required to makeup this deficit. And you thought taxes were high now!

Reason number 7, Lowest State Bond Ranking. California's bond rating is the lowest of all 50 States. California continues to borrow money each year instead of passing a balanced budget. This has resulted in the State accruing $68 billion in general obligations bond debt. The State's poor bond rating means they will have to pay higher dividend rates to attract buyers, which will make it even more difficult for the State to repay debt and become solvent.

Reason number 8, Highest Paid State Prison Guards. California's 42,000 prison guards are the best paid in the Nation. With added over-time, it is not difficult to make over $100,000 a year, with some making $200,000 a year. The California Prison Guard Union, Teacher Union, and State Civil Service Unions own the State legislature and will ensure their members are well paid irregardless of the State's economic realities and uncertainties. Despite providing excellent pay and benefits for State employees, California has failed to provide enough facilities to house it's inmate population. This has led to court ordered releases of criminals that directly threaten public safety.

Reason number 9, The Idiot Bullet Train. Despite the State begin on the verge of default and complete fiscal collapse, California voters approved an initiative to fund a $10 billion, 800 mile, Bullet train to run from Northern to Southern California. If this fool's errand can ever get past the Environmental Impact Study, cost overruns are projected to push this project over the $90 billion mark. The smart money says, the State bond funds will be spent on study after endless study, but this turkey just won't fly.

Reason number 10, Medical Marijuana. California's medical marijuana law enables anyone with a desire to get a “prescription” to legally buy and use marijuana. For years, this drug has been touted as relatively harmless. Unfortunately, evidence does not bear this out. Marijuana use creates significant physical, mental, and social problems. Pot contains more than 400 harmful chemicals giving smokers have higher rates of lung cancer and emphysema. A recent study in England showed that cannabis users have more than double the average rate of paranoia and psychosis. The combination of these mental and physical issues creates additional strain on families, medical support systems and social support systems. None of these California can afford.

Nevertheless, large doses of medical marijuana may be required for those poor souls who can't devise an exit strategy off this sinking ship. The current and future avalanche of debt encompassing this State has stagnated the economy and robbed the middle class of much of their wealth. As of May 2011, the housing market continues to drop in most areas throughout the State, robbing homeowners of what equity the may have left and leaving them without the means to extricate themselves from this failed California dream.

http://diminyatz.hubpages.com/hub/Californias_Failed_Economy

 

[lustatopia]

The above is what Mercury is running away from. California is a failed state. Why? Because it has been implementing the exact same liberal economic illiteracy for over a decade that Obama is forcing on the whole economy.

Mercury really, really, really doesn't want the topic here to become an evidence-based comparison between the Californian welfare state, big union liberal economic policies and Texas with it's small government, low taxes, right-to-work fiscal conservative economic policies.

But let's see how Texan versus Californian style economic policy mean in real life...

 

[lustatopia]

SIZE="5"]California Dreamin'—of Jobs in Texas[/SIZE]

Hounded by taxes and regulations, employers in the once-Golden State are moving East.

It wasn't your usual legislative hearing. A group of largely Republican California lawmakers and Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom traveled here last week to hear from businesses that have left their state to set up shop in Texas.

"We came to learn why they would pick up their roots and move in order to grow their businesses," says GOP Assemblyman Dan Logue, who organized the trip. "Why does Chief Executive magazine rate California the worst state for job and business growth and Texas the best state?"

The contrast is undeniable. Texas has added 165,000 jobs during the last three years while California has lost 1.2 million. California's jobless rate is 12% compared to 8% in Texas.

Hours after the legislators met with Mr. Perry, another business, Fujitsu Frontech, announced that it is abandoning California. "It's the 70th business to leave this year," says California business relocation expert Joe Vranich. "That's an average of 4.7 per week, up from 3.9 a week last year." The Lone Star State was the top destination, with 14 of the 70 moving there.

Read on....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704570704576275051374356340.html?mod=googlenews_wsj[/QUOTE]

 

[lustatopia]

Texas has no natural advantage over sunny California, except that their economic system is entirely based upon fiscal conservative small government. Quite the opposite of California's Obama-style liberalism.

Texas' growing economy in a time of global recession is an experimental evidence of what we should expect if we apply the same fiscally conservative economic policies on a national scale.

Likewise, California's tragically failing economy is just a preview of what we can expect if we continue on with Obama's big deficits, more taxes, more regulation, endless expansion of government and entitlements.

We can choose the path we want our national economy to move down, based on the example of these two economic experiments at the state level...

What's it going to be for you, Mercury?

 

[RightField]

Texas has no natural advantage over sunny California, except that their economic system is entirely based upon fiscal conservative small government. Quite the opposite of California's Obama-style liberalism.

Texas' growing economy in a time of global recession is an experimental evidence of what we should expect if we apply the same fiscally conservative economic policies on a national scale.

Likewise, California's tragically failing economy is just a preview of what we can expect if we continue on with Obama's big deficits, more taxes, more regulation, endless expansion of government and entitlements.

We can choose the path we want our national economy to move down, based on the example of these two economic experiments at the state level...

What's it going to be for you, Mercury?

He'll give you a "fact" that says something like "there are 1.2 Million square feet of sidewalks in California and that proves that California is a more business-friendly state." (or something equally non-sensical).

 

[mercury14]

The above is what Mercury is running away from. California is a failed state. Why? Because it has been implementing the exact same liberal economic illiteracy for over a decade that Obama is forcing on the whole economy.

Mercury really, really, really doesn't want the topic here to become an evidence-based comparison between the Californian welfare state, big union liberal economic policies and Texas with it's small government, low taxes, right-to-work fiscal conservative economic policies.

But let's see how Texan versus Californian style economic policy mean in real life...

Yeah I guess this is true if you:

1) Make sure you don't consider that Texas has a lot of shit jobs and masses of working poor, horrible education, and horrible health care.

2) Make sure you don't consider that California's economy is much larger than that of Texas. Why? Texas has oil jobs and oil wealth. And they're still smaller than Cali.
What if Cali had as much oil as Texas?


You have to consider a range of factors when you compare. Yes Texas has lower unemployment but what are the down sides of their policy? Instead you want to cherry pick and pretend Texas has no problems... when it has some truly immense ones.

 

[mercury14]

Texas has no natural advantage over sunny California...

Lying again? Is this just like when you said Texas is hiring teachers when They just cut $5.1 billion and were laying off 100,000 of them?

No natural advantage, huh?

Texas is sitting on 8 billion barrels of oil and has a massively profitable industry because of it. They're therefore home to Exxon, Marathon, Conoco Phillips, Tesoro, and Valero all because of their natural advantage. Halliburton, Dresser, and Schlumberger are all there too.

Please explain how having 8,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the state doesn't count as a natural advantage.

 

[lustatopia]

Lying again? Is this just like when you said Texas is hiring teachers when They just cut $5.1 billion and were laying off 100,000 of them?

No natural advantage, huh?

Texas is sitting on 8 billion barrels of oil and has a massively profitable industry because of it. They're therefore home to Exxon, Marathon, Conoco Phillips, Tesoro, and Valero all because of their natural advantage. Halliburton, Dresser, and Schlumberger are all there too.

Please explain how having 8,000,000,000 barrels of oil in the state doesn't count as a natural advantage.

ROTFL. OooooKay. I guess the fact that California has billions of barrels of oil and massive natural gas reserves don't count. BECAUSE LIBERALS WON'T LET ANYONE DRILL FOR IT.

Beside, according to you, Californians are so much smarter then Texans. You think they could THINK themselves out the economic pickle they're in?

Fact is, this is the debate you do NOT want to have because we have empirical evidence from two entirely different economic systems. Californian Liberal econ 101 versus Texas small government econ 101.

Must be the oil money....

 

[lustatopia]

Read and weep.

http://www.strategiceconomicresearch.org/AboutUs/CA_Scorecard.pdf

You know what the really sad thing is about you is, Richard?

You don't give a fuck that the EPIC FAIL economic DOGMA you blindly believe in is destroying the California we all loved. Or that it will also destroy the whole country if not stopped.

Something other than good will makes you tick. Something sick and delusion. I don't know what it is. Ego? Hate? Sexually abused as a child? Are you dependent on food stamps so it's just greed issue? Whatever it is it has rendered you incapable of absorbing new evidence and adapting to emerging reality.

 

[mercury14]

Read and weep.

http://www.strategiceconomicresearch.org/AboutUs/CA_Scorecard.pdf

You know what the really sad thing is about you is, Richard?

You don't give a fuck that the EPIC FAIL economic DOGMA you blindly believe in is destroying the California we all loved. Or that it will also destroy the whole country if not stopped.

Something other than good will makes you tick. Something sick and delusion. I don't know what it is. Ego? Hate? Sexually abused as a child? Are you dependent on food stamps so it's just greed issue? Whatever it is it has rendered you incapable of absorbing new evidence and adapting to emerging reality.

Your link is... a 10 year-old conservative opinion piece. This is why you're such an idiot, Amicus. You fail miserably at handling evidence.

By the way, how much longer do we have to wait for you to provide evidence that kindergarten psychologically devastates kids and their parents? Remember when you tried to link some off-topic article from the Canadian Encylopedia of Music to back your point?

 

[lustatopia]

Your link is... a 10 year-old conservative opinion piece. This is why you're such an idiot, Amicus. You fail miserably at handling evidence.

By the way, how much longer do we have to wait for you to provide evidence that kindergarten psychologically devastates kids and their parents? Remember when you tried to link some off-topic article from the Canadian Encylopedia of Music to back your point?

http://econstudentlog.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/liberal_brain.jpg

 

[mercury14]

ROTFL. OooooKay. I guess the fact that California has billions of barrels of oil and massive natural gas reserves don't count. BECAUSE LIBERALS WON'T LET ANYONE DRILL FOR IT.

Beside, according to you, Californians are so much smarter then Texans. You think they could THINK themselves out the economic pickle they're in?

Fact is, this is the debate you do NOT want to have because we have empirical evidence from two entirely different economic systems. Californian Liberal econ 101 versus Texas small government econ 101.

Must be the oil money....

No the fact is if you take the size of Texas' economy and multiply it by 150%, you finally break even with California. Silicon valley? How could that have possibly happened in Cali?

Cali does have oil. A fraction of Texas' oil and they don't have the luxury of having much of it on land. Texas' gulf basin (a single land field) has more oil than the entire state of Cali... And as far as natural gas, they have far less. Even if California suddenly opened up drilling everywhere tomorrow, they'd have only a fraction of the industry Texas has.

 

[lustatopia]

It must be something in the water!

Q: What's wrong with California?
A: Liberal economic illiteracy.

You just don't get it. It's not about who has more oil. Who is smarter. Who has the most movie stars or which state has the bigger swinging dick economy. All you have done for days now is run, run, run away from the facts.

You are in denial.

It's about facing up to the music. The irrefutable evidence is that the liberal economic policies that you so blindly champion have literally destroyed the biggest state economy in the country! And now, under Obama, the same liberal economic philosophy is killing the national economy.

Why can't you see that? Why don't care? Why aren't you interested in doing something to fix it?

Why can't you look at economic models that work and adopt at some insight into how real economic progress for all people is made?

The liberal economic model has failed.

"You can't build in California, you can't manage in California and you have to pay a big tax," Mr. Puzder told the legislators. "In Texas, it's the opposite—which is why we're building 300 new stores there this year."

Other states are even snatching away parts of California's entertainment industry. The Milken Institute, based in Santa Monica, Calif., reports that 36,000 entertainment jobs have left the state since 1997. The new film "Battle: Los Angeles," which is set in California, was filmed in Louisiana.

"The red tape is ridiculous," says Mark Tolley, the managing partner of B. Knightly Homes, which relocated to Austin from Long Beach in 2005. "Regulators see developers as wearing a black hat and the environmental laws have run amok."

"I'm a pro-jobs Democrat," Mr. Newsom told me. "My party needs to get back into the business of jobs." Mr. Newsom says he's developing an economic development plan to present to Gov. Jerry Brown, who he says "gets it" on the need for business-friendly policies. Mr. Newsom told me that what impressed him most about Mr. Perry and the Texas legislators was their singular focus on job creation.

California, by contrast, seems to constantly lose focus. Several Democrats who agreed to go on the Texas trip were pressured by public-employee unions to drop out—and many did. And just as Texas business leaders were testifying about how the state's tort reforms had improved job creation, word came of California's latest priority: On April 14, the state senate passed a bill mandating that all public school children learn the history of disabled and gay Americans.

One speaker from California shook his head in wonder: "You can have the most liberated lifestyle on the planet, but if you can't afford to put gas in your car or a roof over your head it's somewhat limited."

The most dramatic reform California could make would be to change its boom-and-bust tax system so it doesn't depend on a small number of wealthy residents who can flee the state. The idea would be to broaden the income tax base and lower the state's high rates. It works today in seven states ranging from Colorado to Massachusetts. Of course, the Lone Star State has no state income or capital gains tax at all.

"Texas' economy is far less volatile due to its having neither a progressive income tax system nor a large tax burden," concludes "Rich States, Poor States," a study by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Less volatility also allows Texas to keep expenditures in check. While it shares with California the challenge of a huge budget deficit this year, it's expected to close it without raising taxes. Texas's overall spending burden remains below what it was in 1987—a remarkable feat.

When Jerry Brown ran for president in 1992, he understood the distorting nature of the tax code and proposed a flat tax with deductions only for rent, mortgage interest and charitable contributions. He called it "a silver bullet" for the economy. Mr. Brown has since abandoned that idea, grousing recently to a state legislator that "the flat tax cost me the New York Democratic primary."

But if California continues its economic decline, something Texas-sized in its ambitions may be called for— whether it's a moratorium on new business regulations or a restructuring of the state's dysfunctional unemployment compensation or litigation. Nothing less is likely to stem the outflow of businesses and jobs from the Golden State.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704570704576275051374356340.html?mod=googlenews_ws

 

[busybody..]

For O'Fendy and Lost In LoserVille

Always remember, the REAL problem is BUSYBODY!

Please ignore all the other minor stuff...M'Kay?​

CNN Remains Entrenched in Jim Crow Era


Anyone who doubts that the liberal media goes out of its way to create and exacerbate racial tension must have missed this clip of CNN’s repugnant Don Lemon asking Herman Cain if he really thinks any white people will vote for him:

This after Barack Hussein Obama was elected president with few if any qualifications other than his skin color. No matter what we do, we will always be racists according to the liberal media. Bullies will never abandon a weapon so long as they can use it to bend others to their will.

 

[busybody..]

Your link is... a 10 year-old conservative opinion piece. This is why you're such an idiot, Amicus. You fail miserably at handling evidence.

Tee Hee

POON accusing others of POONERY

Hey Lost in Loservilee

POON smacked your FAT WHITE ASS real good

I thought you were gonna get him​

 

[busybody..]

..Consumers Lose Confidence, as Do Once-Hopeful Economists
..By Aaron Task
.PostsWebsiteRSS .By Aaron Task | Daily Ticker – Fri, Aug 12, 2011 1:23 PM EDT


What a difference a month — and a brewing financial crisis — makes.

In early July, Moody's economist Mark Zandi told The Daily Ticker the U.S. economy was poised to "reaccelerate," predicting GDP growth close to 3% growth in the third quarter and approaching 4% in the fourth.

On Friday, Zandi lowered his forecast for U.S. GDP to 2% in the second half and just over 3% in 2012.

I don't mean to pick on Zandi, who is far from alone in slashing estimates: Economist surveyed by The WSJ now forecast 2011 growth of 1.6%, down from 2.6% in July; 13% say the economy is already in recession while 29% see a downturn in 2012, up from just 17% last month. Zandi too has raised the odds of a new recession to 33% from 25% only 10 days ago, CNN reports.

"We no longer expect a bounce in GDP growth during the second half of the year," writes IHS Global's chief U.S. Economist Nigel Gault, who on Friday lowered his 2011 GDP outlook to 1.6% from 2.5%, and 2012 forecast to 1.9% from 2.6%.

Gault cites a number of factors for declaring that "temporary shocks" is no longer a credible explanation for soft growth during the first half of 2011, including:

•"Historical revisions to GDP," which showed growth tailing off to just 1.6% over the past four quarters.

•Confidence in U.S. policymaking hitting new lows, a trend reflected in Friday's dismal consumer confidence data. "The artificial debt-ceiling crisis took the country to the brink of default," he writes. "And the resolution produced just more discretionary spending cuts, not progress on entitlements and revenues, which are the long-term keys to the problem."

•Europe's sovereign debt crisis spreading beyond the so-called periphery while "European policymakers have been consistently one or two steps behind the markets in their reaction."

Just about every economist has drawn the same conclusion as Gault, mainly for the same reasons. This week's grim June trade deficit figures — at $53.1 billion, the highest since October 2008 — was another blow for optimists, as exports tumbled 2.3% and imports fell by 0.8% even as crude prices were still rising.

Economics: Now, With Even More Uncertainty!

But have some sympathy for these purveyors of the dismal science. This week also brought better-than-expected results on July retail sales while weekly jobless claims fell below 400,000 for the first time since early April. "Many of the most relevant coincident and lagging indicators continue to indicate growth — sluggish, unsatisfying growth, but growth nonetheless," as Dan Gross writes.

The tricky issue here is that the slashing of growth projections is both a function of, and contributor to, the recent upheaval in the financial markets. Although he doesn't foresee a double-dip, "financial markets create their own dynamics," Warren Buffett told Bloomberg TV last weekend.

If it's really the economy (stupid), recent drama in the financial markets can be attributed to the sharp downward revisions to growth estimates, which hit earnings forecasts which, in turn, prompt a reevaluation of the whole "stocks are cheap" valuation case for those using forward P/E ratios, as Henry and I discuss in the accompanying video.

As a wild week comes to a close, the market seems to be betting the worst has been "priced in," even as economists -- from optimists like Zandi to skeptics like Nouriel Roubini - are ratcheting up their forecasts for another recession.

Ahead of the market's rally on Thursday and Friday (but before the big swoon Wednesday afternoon), BTIG's Dan Greenhaus told The Daily Ticker stocks were a good buy, provided we're not heading for another recession.

Of course, that's a very big "if" -- one seemingly haunted by more uncertainty with each passing day.

Aaron Task is the host of The Daily Ticker. You can follow him on Twitter at @atask or email him at altask@yahoo.com

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Via James Taranto, a rather startling admission buried in a piece by TNR’s Jonathan Chait. After listening to NPR’s Diane Rehm, reading news analysis from The New York Times and a column by the NYT’s Tom Friedman, Chait concludes that “our political discourse is consumed by magical thinking” about the Great Recession and the debt bomb:

Conservative pundits, while usually slanting their account in highly partisan and often misleading terms, do a fairly good job of grasping and explaining the fact that the two parties fundamentally disagree on the causes of and solutions to the economic crisis and the long-term deficit. In this sense, a Rush Limbaugh listener may well be better informed about the causes of the impasse than listener of NPR or other mainstream organs. The former will have in his mind a wildly slanted version of the basic political landscape, while the latter’s head will be filled with magical thinking.

That is progress for Chait, who wrote on April 14, 2010:

f you believe the mainstream media is an organ of the progressive movement and the functional liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, then yes, liberals do have epistemic closure. I think that,whatever you think about the liberal bias charge, the mainstream media is far more receptive to news and viewpoints that challenge liberalism than conservative outlets are to news and viewpoints that challenge conservatism.

Chait was demonstrably wrong then, but I salute Chait on his epiphany and hope he continues to examine the Magical Thinking of Liberals.

Given that his new piece is currently the most viewed at TNR, and he is more likely to be read by the establishment pundit class, I will suggest he could look at the tendency of his former colleagues in epistemic closure, e.g. Andrew Sullivan, Ezra Klein, James Fallows, etc., to gush over wildly misleading charts about the debt problem that are chock full of magical thinking. He recently defended one of those charts, but in light of his current enlightenment, I appeal to his better nature. I ask him to ask himself whether charts about the debt which exclude entitlement spending, aside from the Bush-era Medicare drug benefit, are really helpful in creating the engaged discussion Chait apparently seeks. Indeed, on the Medicare drug benefit, as Chait concedes Bush probably endorsed it to outflank the Dems, he might also concede that the bill passed was estimated to cost $407 billion, while the plan pushed by House Democratic leadership was estimated to cost $800 billion to $900 billion over 10 years.

Similarly, Chait is forced to recognize our current income tax rates (a bane of the left when it comes to the debt) were passed by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by Pres. Obama. Chait nevertheless argues that Obama would not have cut tax rates, but once established, they would have required “immense political capital” to overturn. Perhaps the newly-enlightened Chait will recognize the flaws in this argument.

First, the Bush-era tax cuts were set to expire in 2010. The Democrats could have done nothing and they would have disappeared. No “overturning” was necessary.

Second, if Chait were to universally recognize his own argument, he would be forced to consider all pre-Bush entitlement policy, e.g., Medicare and Social Security, as part of the debt problem historically, not to mention going forward, as their mythical trust funds are depleted. Indeed, if we judged presidents by their preferred policies, rather than actual policy dictated by the political constraints of the moment, it would be fair to argue that Ronald Reagan would have reduced non-defense discretionary spending greatly, and that entitlement spending might have taken a far different trajectory under both Reagan and G.W. Bush (who would have greatly reformed Social Security).

Third, one need not stretch Chait’s own concession about the Medicare drug benefit (including the overwhelming margin of its passage) very much to suggest some collective responsibility for that part of the debt.

At a minimum, Chait ought to consider that charts which fail to recognize non-Bush entitlement spending as a main source of our medium-term debt bomb and which allocate all responsibility for our current tax rates to the Bush administration do not even recognize the debate about such things. Chait was at least willing to engage Megan McArdle on them (however flawed his engagement was). Many of Chait’s colleagues at establishment organs remain stuck in the magical thinking on the left he now seems to reject. Perhaps it will not take him 16 months to inform his readership of this.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2011/08/13/the-magical-thinking-of-liberals/