Does this mean no gold-plated diapers for your Centurions this quarter? :(

"Why is it the "party of fiscal responsibility" and "party of limited government" seems to have no interest at all in saving a trillion dollars over ten years? And letting that money stay in the pockets of citizens, where they claim they'd like it to stay?"

The reason why the GOP doesn't get any more contributions from me. They're acting like tax and spend Democrats. I don't support Democrats.

Just because they're borrowing instead of taxing, that's the same to me.

If the Republicans ever start cutting spending, I'll get back on their side. For now, Hillary is no worse than Bush.

You did notice the four-year low unemployment rate of 4.9%, didn't you? In paragraph ten?

You can make a lot of claims about cutting pork, but stimulating the economy is not one of them. In fact, some congressdorks are already using the stimulus-for-Katrina argument to justify their pork.

I know everyone's been worrying about me... yesterday, it was 106.

Today it's 66.

yeeeeeeeesssssssssss

I know everyone's been worrying about me

Dave who?

Uh, how's cutting spending boost the economy?

It's not cutting spending. It's cutting government spending.

Dollars left in citizens' pockets will be spent (mostly), and in a more economically-useful fashion than anything these pigs at the trough have dreamed up.

Clinton (and the Republican Congress) balanced the budget. The economy zoomed to new heights.

Fiscal irresponsibility and overborrowing by the government is not conducive to a steadily growing economy.

I'm sure there's something to Keynesian counter-cyclical spending, but Bush spends when we need a boost and spends when we don't and spends in a downturn and spends in an upturn.

Basically, he just spends.

Even Keynes didn't say "Always just spend a shitload of money." I think his theory was more like "spend during a recession, then cut back during flush times, so the budget is only temporarily unbalanced."

I just don't buy the pro-borrowing economists who say that the deficit means nothing-- NOTHING!-- and in fact is a very good thing. If that's true, why not spend a couple of trillion more this year (borrowed, of course) just to be on the safe side?

But given the fact that we're currently in a deficit situation, cutting spending doesn't put more money in the pockets of taxpayers. It does in fact just cut down on business activity.

However, I think at this time we can afford to be more fiscally responsible. If it gets Alan Greenspan off our backs for even a few minutes, it'll have more of a positive effect on the economy than any amount of Keynesian stimulus.

That's cutting taxes, Ace.

Spending cuts now wouldn't translate into more tax cuts, just less deficit. Thus less being spent overall. There's a point where the deficit spending flips over and becomes an economic anchor, but I don't think we're anywhere near that.

You joke, but in their black little hearts there are those in DC who believe just that. They won't be around to pay it off, they tell themselves we'll grow our way out of it (and they have history on their side there) and interest rates tell then there's tremendous appetite for our debt.

It never occurs to them that spending is just an inherently bad thing, which I think it is.

Still, until interest rates rise from today's low real rates, the market is telling them to go ahead and spend by borrowing. And while gub'mint spending is notoriously bad spending for stimulus, unless they start taxing to support it it will be stimulative to some extent.

But given the fact that we're currently in a deficit situation, cutting spending doesn't put more money in the pockets of taxpayers. It does in fact just cut down on business activity.

It would increase the pool of capital that can be borrowed for truly productive entreprenuerial business ventures, no?

If the government is borrowing so much money, that's all money that's NOT being borrowed by people who can actually create jobs and new wealth.

Again, if porkbarrel spending is such an economic boom, why not just double the budget and do that much more of it?

If these "economic development projects" are so vital, and will so boost local economies, why do the local economies not fund them themselves? Why do they only fund them with a hefty federal subsidy?

Do you want a pony? Probably not; they're expensive. But a pony would be nice to have.

If the government offered me a pony, offering to pick up 90% of the cost and upkeep, I might say, "Yes, I can always use a pretty pony."

Porkbarrel spending is basically spending money on stuff people don't really want. If they really wanted it-- if it were truly vital -- they'd spend their own money.

The fact that these projects are only funded by OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY should be a sort of tipoff that they're decidedly of a secondary, teritiary, or even quarternary (????) priority.

I'm not saying deficits in general mean nothing (though I think the current level does, in fact, mean zip). But remember, long-term deficit control is a function of one thing: entitlement reform. The rest is a drop in the bucket.

Bush, if you noticed, had been prioritizing that before this last round of political bullshit.

If you believe that the government knows best how to use dollars to grow the economy, and that individual citizens and businesses and the market as a whole knows less about this than the government... well, I don't know. I'll just say that that's not exactly fiscal-conservative orthodoxy.

I know everyone's been worrying about me... yesterday, it was 106.

That was God's wrath for you not acknowledging me as the Ace O Spades Queen of Trivia.

If you believe that the government knows best how to use dollars to grow the economy, and that individual citizens and businesses and the market as a whole knows less about this than the government

The interest rate pressure argument you make kicks in eventually, but not so much at current levels.

You're talking about crowding out, for which as a bond dealer I can tell you no evidence exists. Just look at real interest rates, which in this case is the 10 year yield of about 4 1/4% less inflation (around 3%). So it costs us about 1% to fund all these ponies. You have to think we'll get more stimulus than that out of it.

Still, spending is bad for all sorts of reasons. You just can't say stimulus is one of them

The interest rate pressure argument you make kicks in eventually, but not so much at current levels.

Any hope that spending will remain at current levels?

Last time I checked, Bush had spent more than Clinton did... and spent more every single year.

This year will be a bonanza year for spending.

I'm not an economist and I'm admittedly out of my depth talking to you guys. But it seems to me that you're conceding it can hurt, eventually. When does "eventually" come? I see absolutely no signs of this pork smorgestbord coming to an end anytime soon.

Quite the opposite.

And on entitlements-- Medicare is an even bigger problem than SS, and as Dan Bartlett at NRO points out, Bush has incresed the unfunded liability of that program from $50 billion to $68 billion.

When, exactly, do we begin to apply the brakes?

Nevermind about cutting. When do merely arrest the growth of spending?

Anytime soon?

And, btw, Bush's solution to SS, while admirable in many ways, involved even MORE deficit spending.

It was a great plan. A great plan that required a trillion in transition costs.

A good idea... but any chance it could be paid for by offsets, by cutting government spending in less vital areas?

Apparently not.

That was God's wrath for you not acknowledging me as the Ace O Spades Queen of Trivia.

It was?

His ways are mysterious indeed.

Ok, just to keep this happy weather thing going, I bow to your trivia prowess, O Ace O Spades Queen of Trivia.

It's a matter of priorities and political capital. Bush decided (rightly so) that it's a much more efficient expenditure of political capital to push through one change that revolutionizes the spending equation than to squash little expenditures one at a time, each generating an outcry somewhere somehow. He further decided (also, I think, rightly) that he could only fix one of the two giant fiscal black holes. He picked SS instead of Medicare.

Problem is, even if it's more efficient it's still a large threshold expenditure of political capital to get something big like SS reform through. And the press has pretty much ensured that he won't hit that level this term (or, at least, this year). So what now? Switch to the hacking and slashing strategy? I don't think Bush works that way. If the political cost of cutting spending goes down -- and this Porkbusters campaign is a way of trying to accomplish that -- he may sign on, but otherwise I think he'll continue to wait for the next big chance. In 2007.

The Medicare drug thing is pretty bad by itself, but if you look at it as the cost of taking even more expensive (and life-destroying) options like Hillarycare off the table, it makes good sense.

Mind you, I think Republican leaders in the House should be following a more anti-spending calculus. (In the Senate, frankly, the Court is way more important.) But Blount has been the guy most receptive to this stuff, and his elevation to temporary leader seems to me a good sign.

On this you're obviously correct--there is a limit. It's just that we've never approached it. It appears there's limitless volume the market can accept of our debt at reasonable rates. It's confounding really, because we should be seeing at least a little concern about inflation. Katrina came along just in time to put the old kibosh on that, I guess.

The SS deficit you refer to is simply monetizing one that already exists and theoretically is priced into today's bond rates. We owe it whether we owe it to C-douche's bugaboo China or to ourselves as retirees. Supposedly buyers of our debt know we owe the money and assume we'll figure a way to finesse it, like fucking anybody who saved for their retirement so we can once again pay off the layabouts and compulsive shoppers.

If the political cost of cutting spending goes down -- and this Porkbusters campaign is a way of trying to accomplish that -- he may sign on, but otherwise I think he'll continue to wait for the next big chance. In 2007.

Ahem. I'll just say I voted for Clinton (shudder) because of his promise to reform Social Security.

I stopped believing he would sometime around 96.

I remember one pro-Clinton online correspondent, also pining for SS reform, swearing to me that 1999 would be the year he would finally get around to reforming SS.

I thought he was foolish to believe such a thing. Turns out I was, as usual, right.

In 2007, Bush will be at the nadir of his political power.

And THAT will be the time he stands up to Congressional Republicans?

Ha! So funny I forgot to laugh. Except for that first "Ha!," of course.

(As Stewie said.)

In 2007, Bush will be at the nadir of his political power.

If you really think Bush isn't serious about SS reform, you've lost it.

I was talking about what I took as your claim that in 2007, Bush would "get serious" about cutting growth.

And whether we pick up seats or not, after the midterm of a President's last term, he is no longer really the head of the party and does not have the power he once had, whether the party does well or not. Party power moves towards more permanent figures (like senior congressmen with safe seats) and towards the next batch of would-be presidents.

Indeed, I would imagine that if the party does well they'll have even less need of him.

Entitlement programs are choking the GDP of countries in Western Europe. They will do the same thing here unless we do something politically unpopular.

And except for an occasional lone voice in the House, I don't hear any Republicans talking about it at all.

Ace, I don't think Bush will ever spend much capital in trying to cut discretionary spending. But he will continue to pursue his form of slowing/reversing government growth, and that's Social Security reform. Because, frankly, this other stuff is just a sideshow.

Incumbent parties didn't won midterms either -- till 2002. Bush's terms aren't analyzable in an easy look-at-history fashion.