As Trump's Big Beautiful Bill plods along to eventual enactment, I find myself reminded - again - that the GOP talks a great fiscal responsibility game when it's out of power, but never actually walks that walk when it's in charge.
Happy Independence Day Peter! Like you, I can only hope for fiscal restraint. Unfortunately, the deregulation will likely open a gusher of growth - and tax revenue - that the next iteration will just spend instead of paying down debt. We've got to - at least - freeze spending and let growth reverse our course. Or we're doomed.
Some decades back, Canada dug herself out of a fiscal hole by limiting government spending growth to something like 1%, and letting revenue growth outpace govt growth.
I think we may be too far gone right now for such a tactic, even if we get people in the government who want to limit spending.
Happy Independence Day, and what a way to celebrate your freedom!
With the Democrat Party faltering, I saw big open door for Libertarians, however the North Carolina Libertarian Party has seemed to go full TDS, along with some of Reason's Reporters. I fear we will see more Dems elected here because rather than sell the Libertarian Party, they would rather jump on the Dem Bandwagon. Not sure what Party to go to now.
It will always be the two major parties competing. They will simply continue to alter themselves in order to corral votes. Third parties are little more than idea incubators.
And the LP is inmates running the asylum - I walked away from it years ago.
“…it will require a signal from the new GOP base that they want it.”
Exactly. Unfortunately - or fortunately, I suppose - the decades of warnings from conservatives that the country is about to go over a fiscal cliff, with Social Security going broke, have yet to come to pass. OTOH, this is good, of course. OTOH, myriad warnings about a looming disaster that never shows up invariably deadens people to those warnings.
I see no point to blaming politicians for voting as their constituents want them to. First, they are *supposed* to represent their constituents’ preferences, and second, human nature being what it is, they are unlikely to vote in a way to almost guarantee they’ll lose the next election.
The GOP ought to devise a comprehensive program to educate the populace about what will happen if we do go over that fiscal cliff, and what painful steps will be required to avoid it.
And for crying out loud, do not get current politicians to do it! Those who are retired, okay, but otherwise, get people outside of politics.
Few GOP reps live in districts so heavily Republican they can safely vote for painful reductions in spending. It’s ridiculous when the few who *are* so happily situated insist on being critical of those not so situated for voting as their districts wish.
Happy Independence Day Peter! Like you, I can only hope for fiscal restraint. Unfortunately, the deregulation will likely open a gusher of growth - and tax revenue - that the next iteration will just spend instead of paying down debt. We've got to - at least - freeze spending and let growth reverse our course. Or we're doomed.
Some decades back, Canada dug herself out of a fiscal hole by limiting government spending growth to something like 1%, and letting revenue growth outpace govt growth.
I think we may be too far gone right now for such a tactic, even if we get people in the government who want to limit spending.
Happy Independence Day, and what a way to celebrate your freedom!
With the Democrat Party faltering, I saw big open door for Libertarians, however the North Carolina Libertarian Party has seemed to go full TDS, along with some of Reason's Reporters. I fear we will see more Dems elected here because rather than sell the Libertarian Party, they would rather jump on the Dem Bandwagon. Not sure what Party to go to now.
It will always be the two major parties competing. They will simply continue to alter themselves in order to corral votes. Third parties are little more than idea incubators.
And the LP is inmates running the asylum - I walked away from it years ago.
Yeats seems to have described our time perfectly - "The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Interesting thought, and I'll have to ponder. My first reaction is that the best have intensity, but there aren't enough of them.
“…it will require a signal from the new GOP base that they want it.”
Exactly. Unfortunately - or fortunately, I suppose - the decades of warnings from conservatives that the country is about to go over a fiscal cliff, with Social Security going broke, have yet to come to pass. OTOH, this is good, of course. OTOH, myriad warnings about a looming disaster that never shows up invariably deadens people to those warnings.
I see no point to blaming politicians for voting as their constituents want them to. First, they are *supposed* to represent their constituents’ preferences, and second, human nature being what it is, they are unlikely to vote in a way to almost guarantee they’ll lose the next election.
The GOP ought to devise a comprehensive program to educate the populace about what will happen if we do go over that fiscal cliff, and what painful steps will be required to avoid it.
And for crying out loud, do not get current politicians to do it! Those who are retired, okay, but otherwise, get people outside of politics.
Few GOP reps live in districts so heavily Republican they can safely vote for painful reductions in spending. It’s ridiculous when the few who *are* so happily situated insist on being critical of those not so situated for voting as their districts wish.