[Auto Post]The Politics of Stupidity

[BT]

The Politics of Stupidity
                                       

 E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid? Start with taxes. In every other serious democracy, conservative political parties feel at least some obligation to match their tax policies with their spending plans. David Cameron, the new Conservative prime minister in Britain, is a leading example. Receive news alertsHe recently offered a rather brutal budget that includes severe cutbacks. I have doubts about some of them, but at least Cameron cared enough about reducing his country's deficit that alongside the cuts, he also proposed an...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/the_politics_of_stupidity_106520.html

[Universe Prince]

He recently offered a rather brutal budget that includes severe cutbacks. I have doubts about some of them, but at least Cameron cared enough about reducing his country's deficit that alongside the cuts, he also proposed an increase in the value-added tax from 17.5 percent to 20 percent. Imagine: a fiscal conservative who really (BEG ITAL)is(END ITAL) a fiscal conservative.

Remind me to care more about that when the U.S. government actually makes significant budget cuts. But first, what exactly is fiscally conservative about forcibly taking money out of the economy by raising a value added tax?

The simple truth is that the wealthy in the United States -- the people who have made almost all the income gains in recent years -- are undertaxed compared with everyone else.

Mr. Dionne seems to have confused the word 'truth' with the word 'opinion'.

On the contrary, studies showing that the stimulus created or saved up to 3 million jobs are very hard to refute.

He's joking, right? Hard to refute? Yes, if you think tearing a wet paper towel is hard.

Then there's the very structure of our government. Does any other democracy have a powerful legislative branch as undemocratic as the U.S. Senate?

When our republic was created, the population ratio between the largest and smallest state was 13-to-1. Now, it's 68-to-1. Because of the abuse of the filibuster, 41 senators representing less than 11 percent of the nation's population can, in principle, block action supported by 59 senators representing more than 89 percent of our population. And you wonder why it's so hard to get anything done in Washington?

And this is a bad thing exactly why?

I am having a hard time taking Mr. Dionne's editorial seriously. It seems rather half-baked. Which is somewhat ironic, given the man's opening question about national politics being "incorrigibly stupid".

[BT]

I agree it is a poorly reasoned column, and it shows Dionne's ignorance of the purpose of the Senate and who Senators were intended to represent.

But he does have a point about fiscal conservatism and that is you can't balance a budget unless expenditures=revenues plus reserves. Borrowing just delays the day of reckoning. Unfortunately the federal government hasn't had a reserve in quite a long time. So how is the government to increase revenues in the short term as well as the long term. What powers other than taxation, user fees and tariffs, does it have?

So then the debate turns to taxation policy and that is where Mr. Dionne and I part ways. He wants to just raise the rates for the rich. If the situation is that dire, I say do away with personal exemptions and leave dependent exemptions and the tiers the same.