Dumbest Quote by a Nobel Prize Winner Ever

I read Paul Krugman's (that chronic curmudgeonly malcontent), evaluation of the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform today. You know, the bi-partisan (wink-wink) commission that has illlustrious thinkers on it like Jan "collectivize America" Schakowsky and Alan Simpson, who I thought had passed away some years ago. Of course, while the rest of us are worried that what this commission has in mind is to reduce our military to the size of Guatemala's and to cut out the home interest mortgage deduction (I'd love to see the econometric models they used to demonstrate the effect on the economy and tax revenues on that one), Krugman's main complaint, as usual is that this commission benefits the rich and erodes the social safety net. Really? By reducing corporate tax rates and making our economy more competitive? By raising eligibility for social socurity to 69 and make people more self-reliant until then? The horror of it all.

But my favorite line in his op-ed is his complaint that, "why is a commission charged with finding every possible route to a balanced budget setting an upper (but not lower) limit on revenue?" This reveals his fundamental misunderstanding of government and its nature. Why would you set a lower limit on revenue? Since when did government shrink voluntarily? Unless vigilantly pushed back, government wants to grow and grow. That's what it does, and it has done so in spades since team Obama took over. It never shrinks without yeoman effort. As I mentioned in my previous blog, for example, home ownership is now more affordable than it has been in decades. Have we seen one governmental department that is devoted to "affordable housing" at any national, state, or local level disbanded? Not a chance. Those happy little bureaucrats in their little departments continue to trot merrily along, funding intact, as if the housing bubble never happened.

The notion of setting a lower limit on revenues is superfluous. We're not on the brink of becoming like Greece because we have spent too little as a percentage of GDP, nor has that ever been a problem. Only a hard cap will prevent us from a welfare state that threatens to swallow enough of GDP to destroy any incentive to work hard, save, and take risks. A lower threshold is a bit of a sick joke.

I'll start taking this commission a little more seriously when it is chaired by Chris Christie.