A Bit of a Political Rant...

Okay, you have been warned...you can tune out or strap yourself in for the ride. This is going to be sort of stream of consciousness and I'll see where it goes.

First, I like Obama overall. Not a surprise to anyone, but figured I should get that out of the way. He is smart and likeable and I agree with him on a lot of issues (more than I would have with McCain) and I hope his administration does well. He has a lot of challenges ahead to say the least.

Okay, now to my biggest problem with him: huge deficits adding to the national debt. Yes, he inherited a bit of a budget problem. I was hoping he would address that after the stimulus package got passed. He did...a little...promising to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. The problem is that baseline he is using is this year's $1.2 trillion deficit, a yikes number! I was hoping for a minimum of cutting it by 2/3 which would barely get us back to the previous record. Democrats seem to be pummeling Repubicans for their huge debts and saying we can do it too. While Republicans might deserve a lump or two for the last eight year, that is NOT a license for Democrats to take it to the next level! I never believed the rhetoric during the Bush administration that deficits don't matter and I don't believe it now either.

This is one issue I have been consistent on for a long time. I joined the Concord Coalition during the first Bush administration and was villified by Republicans, then cheered since Clinton was in office, then a villan again as Bush was in office, so I guess I am going to be a hero again for taking this stand.

So why don't I join the Republicans more strongly on this one? Remember, I like Obama. The politicial rhetoric coming from many on the right is aimed more at destroying Obama than stopping the policies they disagree with, especially if you look in the blogosphere or listen to talk radio (if you have trouble finding what I am talking about, just let me know and I will be happy to point you to some sites). It's hard to hitch my wagon to that crazy train.

One of the lines constantly used is that we can't spend our way to prosperity. I don't buy that we can tax cut our way to prosperity either which is the only political alternative. Cutting taxes do not always result in increased government revenue. This is not what Laffer said. He proposed that there was a tax rate that would result in maximum governement revenu...if you cut below this (or raise above it) you will get less. I can see the point in this. It is an optimization problem which should be familiar to anyone who has taken Calculus (although a very difficult optimization problem!) I say, show me this combination of taxes, convince me you are right, and I will join you in calling for Congress to enact that tomorrow. Problem is, no one has ever shown me that.

The problem with thetwo party system is that it can lead to a false dichotomy...boiling a lot of options down to two choices and pretending they are the only options. The problem is that you may have limited yourself to two bad choices by doing this which is what I am seeing with our current political situation.

We really need an honest debate about the size and scope of government in this country and what we are willing to pay for. I fear that our political system is not even set up for an honest debate (remember, everything is being boiled down to two options...not a good starting point). Financially, we have long counted the social security surpluses to make the deficit look smaller and the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (as well as Katrina) were all emergency appropriations, hiding their true cost from the annual deficit figures.

I really don't have a great idea how to break this stalemate. I have a lot more I could write, but will leave it here for now and do another rant later.