The World’s Five Oldest College Sophomores

In this post I’m going to be a perpetrator of something I complained about in a post last week. I’m going to agree with something that somebody else wrote as though I disagreed with it, possibly in a disagreeable manner. Consistency is the hobgoblin of the petty mind.

It’s been my experience in life that the way you can tell a highly experienced, competent, authoritative person, an expert, from a beginner is not in his or her ability to set goals or even in the ability to identify the problems with a goal but in the ability to break an objective up into smaller parts, figure out how to execute the individual components in an effective manner, and achieve the goal. I’m coming to believe that the problem with our public sphere is that we have far too many college sophomores and not nearly nearly highly experienced, competent, authoritative individuals.

This morning in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, five silverbacks of the Republican establishment, George P. Shultz, Michael J. Boskin, JOhn F. Cogan, Alan Meltzer, and John B. Taylor offer their principles for an economic revival. The op-ed is, alas, behind the Journal’s paywall. These are the principles they advocate:

  • Take tax increases off the table.
  • Balance the federal budget by reducing spending.
  • Modify Social Security and health-care entitlements to reduce their explosive future growth.
  • Enact a moratorium on all new regulations for the next three years, with an exception for national security and public safety.
  • Monetary policy should be less discretionary and more rule-like.

They offer good explanations for why each of these is desireable and in all honesty I’m in broad agreement with these as principles. It’s the practice that I’ve found elusive and that I think is at the root of our problems. There is genuine disagreement between and within the political parties on these issues and, far from showing signs that the differences are being resolved, the differences look more fractious than ever.

Here’s my question: how? It reminds me of the old story of the Maine farmer who, when asked for directions by some lost travellers, after mulling the situation over for a bit responded, “You cahn’t get the-ah from he-ah”. If we could figure how to do any of those any of those things (let alone muster a consensus for doing them), we wouldn’t be in the pickle that we’re in now.

Mind you, these are grown-ups in the Republican Party. They are nobody’s idea of yahoos, no-nothings, or partisan firebrands. But is that all they’ve got? A college bull session could come up with the like.

23 comments… add one
  • Might I suggest that there is no way to implement those suggestions in a way that is politically feasible?

    Be honest Dave, do you really believe that good government is even possible? I’ve given up. Here’s why.

    Lets take one of the items you’ve listed: Enact a moratorium on all new regulations for the next three years, with an exception for national security and public safety. Seems not totally unreasonable, but here is the problem as soon as any candidate does it their opponent will dredge up sob stories about poor Granny Smith or nearly destitute Aunt Maybelle or down on his luck Grandpa Jones. A regulation here or there could have made a great deal of change for these poor people. These people will be paraded before television cameras like freaks at a sideshow carnival (there is always one at every State of the Union Address by the way).

    So the incumbent, fearing that is chances of re-election are slipping away, will propose over turning that moratorium so that he can help poor little Johnny get into the movie theater or to school or whatever. This would happen with just about any of the policies you’ve listed.

    At the same time all the benefits are distributed. That is, suppose the moratorium works and unemployment goes down. How are we going to be able to spot this? Opponents of this view will argue that unemployment would have dropped anyways. The statistical evidence, if there is any, will be hard to find and the arguments rather esoteric for the average Joe to understand. And you wont have the all so important sideshow freak who was eating cat food, but now is eating ground beef to parade around while campaigning and even if you found one the link between the moratorium and this person getting a job will be tenuous at bets.

    Revise Social Security and Medicare translates into [insert political party] wants to take away your benefits you’ve worked your whole life earning. Take tax increases off the table and you are in the pocket of the ultra-wealthy and want to put the burden of balancing the budget on the backs of the lower income categories. This last one dovetails beautifully with the proposal to cut spending.

    Politicians do not get elected promising austerity and future growth. They get elected by promising goodies and freebies right now, and if they could have a time machine they’d promise the goodies and freebies yesterday or even earlier.

    And watch, now that you’ve mentioned cutting Social Security I’ll predict that somebody will show up saying the following:

    “Social security is fine, it can be fixed with a few tweaks, leave it alone. Why do you want to fix Medicare via Social Security? Blah, blah, blah….”

    We had the “grown ups” in the Democratic Party work hard on health care reform. Early on the sounds were good. Bending the cost curve down. Unsustainable trends. In the end we got an abortion of a bill that extends and further entrenches the very system that is broken.

    Isn’t it god damned time to just admit it: government it just doesn’t work at the level we’ve taken it too. Its part of growing up…giving up one’s little beliefs in fairy tales, dragons, and magic? That pretty much describes the current belief in government getting things done….its like magic.

  • Andy Link

    The problem is the realm of the politically possible is incredibly small right now. Highly experienced, competent, authoritative individuals can’t turn the politically impossible into the possible.

  • Jeff Medcalf Link

    I think that the “politically possible” idea is kind of a red herring. What is politically possible is what someone can do. It’s certainly an uphill slog against entrenched interests, but that’s not the same thing as saying it’s undoable. That’s one of the things that I like about the Tea Party movement: regardless of anything else, it’s shaking up the cozy arrangements that have benefitted the politically connected at the expense of the rest of us for 50 years or more.

    But no, in a practical sense, it won’t happen absent something like a political revolution, on the scale of the Civil Rights movement.

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    I actually think the problem stems in large part from a corrosive cynicism about government. This derision, this contempt, this “government is the problem” attitude results unsurprisingly in a government that doesn’t work because whether it works well or poorly it gets the same beating.

    I’m sitting at Logan waiting to change planes coming home from the UK and France. Once again I’m struck by the fact that citizens of countries with far less income than we enjoy seem in so many ways to have better lives. Certainly their governments work better in all the ways that matter.

    Arguably the best news-gathering organization on earth is taxpayer-supported. I’m referring of course to the BBC. The UK has better roads, better airports, better trains. They even have better taxis. Is the UK less regulated than we are? Hardly.

    The French have all those same advantages, and add in a health care system that costs a fraction of ours while delivering equally good results.

    Why? Why can Germany and France and even the UK have competent government and we can’t?

    I have an answer for you: Republicans. Republicans since the 80’s have told us that government is always, always, always the problem. And now we expect competent government? From whom? From the people who deny the possibility of competent government? Isn’t that like expecting miracles from atheists?

    The truth is for most of our history our government has done a damned good job. We’ve had one Constitution for better than two centuries. We kept our system of government going straight through a Civil War. Our government has never defaulted, we’ve had no coups, our troops have never come out of their barracks.

    Despite what is by most metrics a damned impressive government record in this country, we have one political party that has made its mission denigrating and attacking and undermining a vital and necessary institution. What do you expect from an institution that is damned no matter what it does? Where’s the up-side in good government when the population has been trained like seals to bark derisively at the very concept of capable government?

    What do the French and the Germans and the Brits have that we don’t? A belief that government can work. That it should be expected to work. That they have a right to demand that it work.

    What don’t they have? A political party addicted to attacking the very notion of competence and responsibility in government. In short: they don’t have Republicans

  • Why can Germany and France and even the UK have competent government and we can’t?

    Why do the children of German and French cabinet ministers read The Republic in Greek and the children of our cabinet officers don’t? Britain, France, and Germany all have an upper class.

    Consensus is also enormously easier to achieve in Britain, France, and Germany. By comparison with us their populations are large extended families. Not only is the United States more diverse than any country in the EU it’s more diverse than the entire EU.

    I also don’t think that Britain, France, and Germany have the pervasive adulation and pursuit of wealth that we do in the United States. I attribute that to our Calvinist roots. That pursuit corrupts our government, too, not just corporations and banks.

    The United States is a different country than Britain, France, or Germany and we have different expectations of government than the British, French, or Germans do. It may be that our low expectations are the result, as you suggest, of Republican propaganda. Or it may be the fruit of experience.

  • Be honest Dave, do you really believe that good government is even possible?

    I don’t think that perfect government is possible. That’s what would be needed for something like Roosevelt’s NRA to work.

    I think that better government is possible. I don’t think that either of our two political parties are much interested in better government.

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    I think that’s too easy, Dave.

    The populations of the UK, France and even Germany are far more diverse than they used to be. In fact, it’s amazing that countries with so little history of cultural diversity can now still achieve consensus. We’re old hands at it. If anyone should be able to pull it off, it should be us. We’re not the ones suddenly facing a shift from a single nationality to a pluralistic society.

    Walk down a London street and if you covered your ears so as to avoid hearing the accent you’d swear it was New York. White, black, middle-eastern, Indian, Pakistani, Asian. I spoke at a sort of magnet school in a prosperous London suburb and I doubt 10% of the kids were white.

    I do think we are more overtly obsessed with wealth. Too bad then we’re doing such a lousy job of making it.

    I also think we’re more easily mesmerized by our own mythology, the whole notion that we are unique, exceptional, the greatest, etc… Obviously the Brits, French and God knows the Germans have had recent and graphic lessons in the limits of their own bullshit. But I think most Americans are still in love with a mythology that bears less and less relationship to reality. We break our arms patting ourselves on the back, congratulating ourselves right into decline, all while carrying on the ahistorical notion that we did it all without government, a nation of small freeholders and pioneers.

    Thus we get Tea Partiers on Social Security whining about government “interfering” with their Medicare and wanting government off their backs so they can get on with the job of ruggedly and individualistically working at government handmaiden jobs.

  • Walk down a London street and if you covered your ears so as to avoid hearing the accent you’d swear it was New York.

    Go to a small town in the Midlands and you’ll see something quite different. They’ll know you’re not from there just by looking at you. And, of course, when you open your mouth. Oddly, in small towns in Cornwall they thought I was from around there.

    Their systems are 60 years old, in Germany 120. I wonder if they’d come up with the systems they have now under present circumstances.

  • Michael,

    The last Republican Administration was not anywhere nearly as hostile to “government” as you are suggesting, so I don’t think your explanation fits at all.

    I also think we’re more easily mesmerized by our own mythology, the whole notion that we are unique, exceptional, the greatest, etc…

    You seem to be working under the exact opposite view, that not are we not exceptional, but that we are worse. I think it is probably more the case that on the whole when it comes to government we are no better or no worse.

    And the implication that if we go the route of having the same regulations as the UK we’ll have the same roads, trains and airports is a bit dubious. Maybe they have them despite more regulations. Maybe it has to do with being a smaller country (i.e. trains are more feasible). Maybe it is something else.

    And I see your view Micheal as a variant on the wise ruler fallacy of elective government. If only we had the right guy…a wise leader….why everything would be better! Our very system of selecting a leader assures we will never get that person save maybe as a fluke.

    Dave,

    I don’t think that perfect government is possible. That’s what would be needed for something like Roosevelt’s NRA to work.

    I didn’t say perfect, I said good. I’m well aware of that notion of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

    For example, when Obama talked about bending the health care cost curve down and that we need to move towards a sustainable growth trend in health care I thought, “Yes, he’s grasped the problem!” But then like any other politician we’ve had in the last 40 years Obama became obsessed with getting anything out there even if it meant not only not dealing with bending the cost curve down and moving towards a sustainable trend, but if anything the legislation he endorsed has made the situation worse by further extending and entrenching the very system that everyone agrees is horribly broken.

    Right now we are a fiscal train ride to a very unpleasant place. We could very well be heading for a fiscal crisis like we’ve seen in Argentina, Ireland and most recently Greece. But given that any politician or party that tries to come up with a solid plan to deal with it will also be leaving themselves wide open to attack.

    To really deal with the problem you need to look at those things listed in Dave’s post. All of them. We are looking at have a debt to
    GDP ratio close to or even exceeding 200% of GDP. Use just a bit of common sense what will happen to any politician that suggests we really need to look at reducing our scheduled expenditures for Medicare and Social Security?

  • steve Link

    “And I see your view Micheal as a variant on the wise ruler fallacy of elective government. If only we had the right guy…a wise leader….why everything would be better! Our very system of selecting a leader assures we will never get that person save maybe as a fluke.”

    And your idea is to give up?

    I guess I should point out that we have had major deregulation. Folks forget we sued to have just a handful of beer companies. One telephone company. Airline prices were set for all airlines. Trucking rates were set for all. It can be done again if it was done before.

    Let me add Canada as an example also. They made major spending cuts, started by their liberal government. The also have a large, geographically country.

    I, not surprisingly I concede, think that Michael is correct in laying a lot of the blame at the feet of the Republican party. Republicans have retained power by convincing people that all you need to do is cut taxes. Cutting taxes will fix the debt. Starve the beast. We need to have honest debate. Either tax and spend or cut taxes and cut spending. That is the only way it works. Dems may have competency issues and other problems, but they are at least willing to, generally, pay for what they implement.

    “But then like any other politician we’ve had in the last 40 years Obama became obsessed with getting anything out there even if it meant not only not dealing with bending the cost curve down and moving towards a sustainable trend, but if anything the legislation he endorsed has made the situation worse by further extending and entrenching the very system that everyone agrees is horribly broken.”

    What else was politically feasible?

    Steve

  • PD Shaw Link

    To be somewhat fair to the anti-obituary in the WSJ . ..

    (I say anti-obituary because I could have sworn one of those cool cats was dead, so there may have been other purposes at work here)

    . . . the op-ed spent a considerable amount of time describing the state of our budgetary imbalances and the implications. In the dead-tree version at least, it was accompanied by a scary hockey-stick graph that made it appear that federal spending was unsustainable. I think it might be a similar graph to the one Verdon links to at OTB today.

    So, yeah, the end of the op-ed reads like a health care article that concludes we need to exercise more and eat less, without practical solutions to achieve better results with what should already be practical knowledge. But here are my questions:

    Is the budget imbalance unsustainable?
    If so, do the people understand that the budget is unsustainable?
    And do the people understand what type of policies would need to be implemented to correct the budget imbalances?

  • I suspect that cynicism about government comes from decades of watching bad governance, rather than the other way around.

  • Andy Link

    Jeff,

    I think that the “politically possible” idea is kind of a red herring. What is politically possible is what someone can do.

    I don’t think that’s quite right. We don’t live in a technocracy. Good ideas with no political support won’t be implemented. The problem, therefore, is not that we don’t have enough competent people, the problem is that implementation faces significant political opposition. The ability of even a group of competent individuals to convince the opposition to support a particular measure is also quite limited. At least that’s my reading of political history over the last couple of decades.

    Take something like a merger of the SEC and CFTC. Just about everyone agrees they should be merged. But they aren’t and won’t get merged because it would upset too many Congressional rice bowls (ie. the power that comes from committee oversight). Change is equally, if not more, difficult on a host of issues.

    Michael,

    The suggestion that one party is mostly to blame for our nation’s current predicament suggests that everything would be rosy if only we had the wisdom to consistently elect the other party. Somehow I doubt that is even remotely the case, but if you want to attempt to demonstrate causation, then go right ahead.

    As for Europe, I lived in Europe for a time (including the UK) and they are simply different countries with different problems, different cultures and different people. You can’t really take a solution from one country and expect it to work in the same way in another country. These ideas don’t exist in glass bottles, but are part of a system and changing one part will change another. And that’s all leaving aside the realities of what’s politically possible. Sure it would be nice, in many respects, to have the French health care system, but do you really expect health care workers to accept the steep pay cuts necessary? My guess is no…

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    My point is very simple. It is ludicrous to state as an article of faith that government is never the solution and always the problem — core GOP dogma — and then do one’s best to justify that belief by incessant attacks on the very notion of a capable government, by policies explicitly designed to damage and diminish government, and then expect government to perform well when needed.

    We’ve had 30 plus years of one party denying even the metaphysical possibility of a capable government.

    And now we need a capable government. Now we need precisely what the GOP denies as an article of faith. It is, as I said, atheists calling on God.

    Understand: this has not been GOP criticism of government’s competence, it’s been a relentless, pandering and self-defeating denial of the very idea of capable government.

    It’s a smug, stupid, short-sighted ideology that ends up indemnifying bad government by expecting and even welcoming bad government.

    Imagine it being applied in other areas. Imagine that half the population vociferously denied even the possibility that medicine might solve health problems. Or imagine that half the population denied that the military was capable of performing its duties and actively impeded it wherever possible. Imagine that same “they are the problem” mentality applied to the fire department.

    Again, I’m not talking about criticism aimed at getting improvements. Because that’s not what GOP ideology calls for. The GOP doesn’t want a better fire department, they want no fire department, they want to deny the usefulness of a fire department.

    When you deny the very possibility of competent government you offer government a blanket excuse. It’s no different really than telling your kids you expect them to be losers who will never accomplish anything — and then berating them for being losers.

    We get the government we deserve. It’s not “them” it’s “us.” It’s “us” for buying into a sophomoric, irresponsible, faux-sophisticated cynicism promulgated by the Republican Party.

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    As for the argument that we can’t do cross-national comparisons: bull. Of course we can, and we do it all the time when it suits the needs of our self-congratulatory mythology. We’re the most powerful country, the richest, the best, the most creative, on and on. When we like the results.

    When we don’t like the results we suddenly discover that American Exceptionalism means that we must never be compared to anyone, or expect ourselves to perform up to anyone else’s standards. We use “uniqueness” as a cover for failure.

    Yes, we’re a bigger country than France or the Netherlands. That really isn’t an explanation for why our infrastructure is disintegrating, our schools are failing, our health care system costs twice as much as anyone else’s, our economy is weak and our politics is run from Goldman, Sachs.

  • That really isn’t an explanation for why our infrastructure is disintegrating, our schools are failing, our health care system costs twice as much as anyone else’s, our economy is weak and our politics is run from Goldman, Sachs.

    However, it’s not that we’re not spending on those things, Michael. We spend a multiple on education, healthcare, and infrastructure what any other OECD country does whether you count it per capita or overall. We spend three time per capita what the next biggest spender spends on healthcare and two-thirds of that is government spending.

    How does that spring from Republicans’ rejection of the possibility of better government? I think it springs more from a generalized inclination independent of political party to look out for #1. The median physicians’ income is three times here what it is in most OECD countries (interestingly, GPs are much closer in wage; markets work!). Our elementary school teachers make 30% more than French elementary school teachers.

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    How does that spring from Republicans’ rejection of the possibility of better government? I think it springs more from a generalized inclination independent of political party to look out for #1.

    I would never deny cultural factors. But those very tendencies are fed and watered and justified by GOP ideology. Look at the sneering over “community organizer,” as though the very notion is ridiculous. The only valid motive for the GOP is me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, and everything else is ridiculed.

    The GOP has preached that in effect greed is good. It uses its power to reward and protect greed with tax cuts for the rich. “It’s not the government’s money, it’s your money.” And the endless repetition of propaganda points equating social services with class warfare.

    Yes, there’s something in the American psyche that is tapped into by the GOP. But even in the GOP this hasn’t always been the case. I recall GOP politicians standing up for what they thought was right, not just feeding this juvenile “I am a rock, I am an island” attitude.

    Politicians are supposed to lead, to solve problems. I think Mr. Obama has genuinely tried. The GOP’s contribution? Absolute rejection. Why? Because the very concept of competent government able to solve actual problems is anathema to them. They actively oppose competent government, then use the results to justify their position and do further damage.

    How do we govern when one of the two major parties denies the essential usefulness of the enterprise?

  • Andy Link

    Michael,

    You’re attacking strawmen here.

    First of all there’s a big difference between mainstream Republican ideology which is skeptical of centralized federal government solutions and your characterization that Republicans don’t want a fire department or other essential services or, indeed, any government at all. As noted above, even that isn’t accurate because the GoP is perfectly willing to use the levers of federal power to promote its own agenda. The more libertarian-leaning Republicans want to stop the expansion of the Federal government and roll back some of its powers and authority. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard or read anyone suggest that government serves no purpose or espouse what sounds to me like an anarchist’s mantra.

    And besides, that faction of the Republican party has abjectly failed. You’re blaming all these problems on people who have not been successful in limiting the size and role of the federal government which is why there’s a Tea Party movement today.

    To me, the question of centralization is an important one. I think it’s fair to say that centralization under Federal government purview comes with advantages and disadvantages – whether a particular responsibility belongs at the federal level is something reasonable people can disagree about. Like Dave, I’m in the camp that likes the principle of subsidiarity.

    Secondly, I never said one can’t compare countries. What I said was one can’t take one country’s solution to a problem and expect it to work the same in another country. As far as the US vs Europe is concerned, our political system is fundamentally different because we have states that are much more than mere provinces, a larger and more diverse population, etc. etc. etc.. There are a host of differences which affect major policy prescriptions. This same principle is at work in our efforts to democratize Iraq and Afghanistan. While some people naively believe we can import a European medical care system, others naively believe we can export our democratic model of governance.

    Ultimately, this all comes down to the governed and not what constitutes the best technocratic solution. For all your hostility to the GoP you might want to consider that they have a constituency of Americans and their needs and desires are just as legitimate as yours. So, might I suggest that bitching about the GoP is tilting at windmills. You can either accept that and deal with political opponents through compromise or try to persuade them to your point of view. Blaming them for all the nation’s ills doesn’t accomplish either of those things and is, I would argue, part of the problem.

  • Drew Link

    “I have an answer for you: Republicans.”

    Thanks for the comic relief, Michael.

  • Steve,

    And your idea is to give up?

    In a sense yes, give up on thinking that if we just have the right guy who comes up with the right policy we’ll see things improve dramatically. Stop handing more and more power to government and stop expecting it to solve all these problems.

    I, not surprisingly I concede, think that Michael is correct in laying a lot of the blame at the feet of the Republican party. Republicans have retained power by convincing people that all you need to do is cut taxes. Cutting taxes will fix the debt. Starve the beast. We need to have honest debate.

    Bullshit! An honest debate would entail serious discussion of dealing with our problems of Medicare and more broadly health care. Nobody wants to have that discussion, certainly not politicians. Certainly not those who are enjoying the benefits or close to obtaining them.

    Dems may have competency issues and other problems, but they are at least willing to, generally, pay for what they implement.

    I’m stunned. Have you looked at the various budget projections that assume a more realistic growth path vs. the fantasy paths the Democrats have enacted as law? Can you please at least return to our solar system before posting again?

    What else was politically feasible?

    Torpedoed your own post. I love it.

    My point is very simple. It is ludicrous to state as an article of faith that government is never the solution and always the problem — core GOP dogma — and then do one’s best to justify that belief by incessant attacks on the very notion of a capable government, by policies explicitly designed to damage and diminish government, and then expect government to perform well when needed.

    Government could be a solution to things like:

    public goods (roads, national defense, etc.)
    externalities (pollution, education, legal system, etc.)
    information problems (CPI, unemployment numbers, etc.)

    However, we’ve expanded the role of government well beyond these areas.

    So you’ve set up a straw man.

    We’ve had 30 plus years of one party denying even the metaphysical possibility of a capable government.

    No we have not. This is simply not true or at best is a dramatic over simplification.

    As for the argument that we can’t do cross-national comparisons: bull. Of course we can, and we do it all the time when it suits the needs of our self-congratulatory mythology.

    Right, but you need to adjust for cultural, institutional, and other factors. It is like the comparisons of life expectancy and then trying to argue health care systems based on that metric alone when the connection to the health care system is dubious at best.

    “I have an answer for you: Republicans.”

    Thanks for the comic relief, Michael.

    Pretty much, talk about reductionist nonsense….partisan reductionist nonsense at that. Lets all vote Democrat and it will be milk and honey from here to eternity…what a load.

  • steve Link

    “I’m stunned. Have you looked at the various budget projections that assume a more realistic growth path vs. the fantasy paths the Democrats have enacted as law? Can you please at least return to our solar system before posting again?”

    Yes I have. New taxes were added to help pay for the ACA. Left of center economists think it will more than pay for itself. Right of center do not. Regardless, some effort was made to pay for it. See Medicare Part D for a party comparison.

    ““Social security is fine, it can be fixed with a few tweaks, leave it alone. Why do you want to fix Medicare via Social Security? Blah, blah, blah….”

    “Bullshit! An honest debate would entail serious discussion of dealing with our problems of Medicare and more broadly health care. Nobody wants to have that discussion, certainly not politicians. Certainly not those who are enjoying the benefits or close to obtaining them.”

    Since I am the guy pushing Medicare all of the time I am glad you agree. The debate then is do we increase taxes to pay for Medicare, or do we reduce our spending on the program or some combination of the two. Do we cut something else to maintain Medicare? Now that Republicans have positioned themselves as the protectors of Medicare, what are the chances this happens?

    I have been reading the right of center health care policy blogs. They are defending Medicare Advantage. They oppose any submitted plan to control Medicare costs. There are people on the left like Frakt pushing for competitive bidding for Medicare. Nothing from the right.

    Steve

  • Michael Reynolds Link

    Okay, once more: the policy of the most recent GOP administration is not the issue, the rhetoric and ideology is. If you deny the possibility of competent government it is absurd to expect competent government.

    Partisan? No. On another day I’ll be happy to detail the idiocy of Democrats. But if the question is: why can’t we have competent government, the answer is because we don’t ask for or expect or demand competent government.

    If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you deny the possibility, then you help to ensure the impossibility.

    None of you have begun to address that argument.

  • Yes I have.

    I don’t believe you. The chief actuary of medicare is saying the official projections are BS. The CBO is saying the “current law” projections for the debt are BS. The more reasonable projections show steep rises in both Medicare and debt. You can continue to live in your fantasy land, but that is all it is.

    Partisan? No. On another day I’ll be happy to detail the idiocy of Democrats. But if the question is: why can’t we have competent government, the answer is because we don’t ask for or expect or demand competent government.

    Naive nonsense. We don’t demand it because Democracy isn’t something about finding the best solution, but finding the most popular solution…the politically feasible solution.

Leave a Comment