We're going about this thing all wrong

I'm talking, of course, about the economy. It's annoyingly broken, and for some reason just refuses to fix itself.

The tea party gang would have you believe it's as simple as spending less money and reducing the deficit. However, they can't actually believe that will work. Every economist and his brother-in-law tells us that cutting government spending will just send the economy further into the toilet. Economies in the toilet, as we've seen recently, tend to result in larger deficits.

Of course, Obama and the Democrats don't have a much better plan. They're banking on stimulus that's so tepid that Republicans might even vote for it if they hold their noses. Tepid stimulus leads to, you guessed it, tepid recovery.

I have a modest proposal.

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A Deficit of Honest Discussion

No matter which party is in power, the other party thinks that the budget deficit is a vital issue. The party in power, generally, considers it a lower priority.

But, at least for the time being, the GOP has convinced enough voters the issue is critical. So now both parties are talking about how to reduce our country's deficit spending.

Of course nobody is proposing anything that will seriously make a dent at any time in the foreseeable future. Each proposal simply reflects the ideological priorities of the proposer, and suggests cutting programs they don't like.

Anybody can play that game. See how easy it is to trim the deficit by $100 billion.


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