tomllewis

Excellent, if you have the time, and patience, to listen for an hour and 18 minutes.

Via Monty Pelerin’s World

It’s easy to blame progressives for their spending spree (GWB certainly did it). But I’ve often said that it’s really the majority of the American people who are responsible. They keep electing people to Congress who will not face up to responsible action, for fear of being voted out of office. There was a time that I, and many others, believed that if we just keep cutting taxes, we would limit the out of control spending.

Andrew Ferguson’s article in The Weekly Standard Gorging The Beast makes a very reasoned case that “Tax cuts didn’t starve big government.”

He cites Milton Friedman who wrote.

I believe there is one and only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, by cutting their allowance.

But there’s a big difference, between a kid on an allowance and the federal government: The government has a credit card with no debt limit.

As long as a majority of the people who get benefits from the Government don’t feel the pain of higher taxes, there’s no cry out there to reduce money spent on “free stuff.”

So it may be that the only way to really reduce the spending is to raise taxes on the vast middle class. Then, and only then, might they start getting serious about living on less.

Here are the 2 key paragraphs:

Reagan, Friedman had counted on something that never materialized. They had assumed that as the debt piled up to finance annual budget deficits caused by free-flowing benefits, public outrage would force politicians to restrain spending without raising taxes. Yet we’ve had the deficits and the borrowing, in amounts that would have left Friedman and Reagan agog; what’s been missing is the outrage.

As compelling as Niskanen’s critique is, he was less persuasive in explaining the flip side of his findings. Why do tax increases lead to decreased spending? “Demand by current voters for federal spending,” he explained, “declines with the amount of this spending that is financed by current taxes.” When you make them pay for government benefits out of their own pockets, in other words, voters will want fewer of them. The journalist Jonathan Rauch put Niskanen’s point more pithily: “Voters will not shrink Big Government until they feel the pinch of its true cost.”

Again, we miss this man.

He has what so few people have – the ability to explain, in very simple terms, the failures of the Federal Government programs to really “help the poor.”

via Monty Pelerin’s World

This is the best explanation of what’s happening in US and global economies I have ever heard. It is painfully understandable.

via Monty Pelerin’s World

Parsing Obama’s Private Sector Jobs Record by @PoliticalMath

via The Right Scoop

Economic Collapse — Why It Won’t Be Stopped.

This describes why I’m such a short term pessimist. If Obama’s gets elected it clearly indicates that over the 50% of Americans won’t be responsible. And if Romney’s elected, he still needs to prove that he has the leadership ability to get Americans to face up to our real problems.

via Monty Pelerin’s World

via Monty Pelerin’s World

Rahm shows over and over again that he is one of the smartest Democrats in the nation. There’s little here that conservatives would disagree with.

via The Daily Caller

via Hot Air

The best person in Congress.

via Reason TV

via Monty Pelerin’s World

Best quote:

Instead of changing the Bush policies of more spending and more regulation Obama just stepped on the accelerator and is going in the same direction of bigger government.

Intellectuals and Society with Thomas Sowell: Chapter 1 of 5

Intellectuals and Society with Thomas Sowell: Chapter 2 of 5

Intellectuals and Society with Thomas Sowell: Chapter 3 of 5

Intellectuals and Society with Thomas Sowell: Chapter 4 of 5

Intellectuals and Society with Thomas Sowell: Chapter 5 of 5

via NRO.