How many jobs were "created" or "saved"?

Recently someone said that the CBO claimed that 1.3 million jobs were created due to the stimulus. I don't believe that number for a second. It all depends on comparing how many jobs would have been created without the stimulus. We don't know that, so we can't really say whether the stimulus helped at all.

Nonetheless, I am lazy, is there anyone out there who can better explain this?

Balanced Budget

This is one idea that is a winner and one that the Democrats have co-opted from conservatives. I think it's safe to say that everyone understands that you can't spend more than what you earn. If you do, you go bankrupt. The government is no different, and we should make the same argument.

It's irresponsible and reckless to run a country on borrowed money. Our party believes in fiscal responsibility and that's why we are for a balanced budget amendment. Bottom line is this: If you have to live on a budget, so do we.
- Paid for by The New Liberal Democrats

On the practical side a balanced budget accomplishes a bunch of things.

First, it forces the country to pay for the services it demands from government which imposes an immediate cost. "immediate" is important. Who will want to repeal a handout they have gotten for years? Who will remember why their taxes are being raised five years after the fact? No one. Transparency (another huge winning argument) dictates that we try as best as possible to tie cause and effect.

While I know that higher taxes lead to lower economic growth, higher taxes also change people's minds. Especially the minds of people who pay them. The sooner taxpayers feel the bite of higher taxes, the weightier the argument to lower them (by cutting spending) becomes. You take away the false promise of liberals that more and more government services are a free lunch. You make them defend having their cake and 10% unemployment.

Finally, your political brand is strengthened. You are fiscally responsible, like the head of a household who pays the bills when they come due. People understand this and they relate to it.

A Challenge

I constantly hear refrains from liberals that they actually believe in the free market, yet whenever there is a choice between the government and the free market, they always choose government. Can some liberal out there name one thing that the free market does better than the government?

Leftists gone crazy

I like to read the New York Times for entertainment value and to try to understand the other side. But sometimes you come across things that are just despicable. Case in point: this advertisement was run on the online version of their newspaper:




What person working at the Times thought this an appropriate ad? Liberals are the most racist, hate filled people on this earth. They cannot tolerate dissent because what they believe is essentially religious dogma and one cannot argue against "divine" truth. Non-believers, i.e. conservatives are therefore evil and you know who else was evil, Nazis! Thus in their warped mind the sick comparison makes perfect sense. Unbelievable!

OOO

I have been out of the office for a while and for anyone who actually likes reading these posts, my apologies.

There is no actual point of this blog other than to entertain me and hopefully some others out there. What I find entertaining is not only commenting on the buffoonery of liberals and their insane ideas, but offering what I believe are real policy proposals that can make a difference. Any proposals I make are based on assumptions as to how we have arrived at the present situation. I assume certain facts about human nature and how people behave and I do not believe that reason or logic or even those vaunted things called facts have any sway on your typical man.

My experience has led me to conclude that people generally act in their own self interest. They care more about their own well being more than that of others. They care more about their family than about strangers. They care about feeling good about themselves, not about actually being good, but feeling good - perception is reality. Every action has a payoff; charity esteems the giver. And every action has a cost; what's given is lost. People generally act to try to maximize their personal profit.

In order to have any effect, we must take these givens about people and construct systems which incentivize man to act a certain way. Our goal is for men to live peacefully in society with as much liberty as possible and enough security to make liberty valuable. Government is the device to accomplish this goal, and it's task is difficult because conceptually liberty and security are opposed. To be free means giving up some security and to be secure means giving up some freedom.

In the end, it's a balance we seek. And I think that in the end, a balance is what's always achieved. But within that balance, life can be better or worse. I believe that embracing a free market with a modest and simple social safety net is probably the best we will ever do. Lest men be angels.