"Perlstein said that, if she read his books with the attentiveness she claimed, she would not have risked our pensions and mortgages with a naïve belief that tax cuts would stimulate economic growth and raise revenue for the Treasury. Far from paying for themselves, Reagan’s income and capital gains tax cuts in the early 1980s sent public debt from 26 per cent GDP in 1980 to 41 per cent GDP by 1988."
This suggests quite the opposite to me. Truss has said repeatedly and clearly that she wants to shrink government.
If she has read Perlstein's books, and also Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine[1], she is merely applying what she has read.
No one should be surprised either now, or soon when the Bristish PM says that "debt has to be cut, so we are privatising the NHS and cutting pensions".
"And so it has proved again and again. Reagan’s tax cuts, George W. Bush’s tax cuts, Donald Trump’s tax cuts all failed to deliver." Polls also show drops in popularity. What exactly do you think she got right?
Giving money to the people who will pay for her next election campaign.
> In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget. ‘The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums
Even if they get kicked out as a result, that just gives them some economic chaos to complain about from opposition. They kicked off this latest decade of austerity because Labour paid nurses too much and so caused a global recession.
Preparing the ground to massively cut the size of the state. "Small enough to drown in a bathtub" has been the goal of her ilk for generations.
I thought I had clearly said this.
(There is a great blind spot in the thinking. Military defence, public order, the court system for arbitration between billionaires, essential infrastructure like national roads, and more besides: all of these must be state functions. Truss and her co-religionists haven't heard the maxim, "be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.")
I don't follow you at the end of your comment. Shrinking the spending budget doesn't necessarily imply cutting on defense & all other services they deem essential.
Every single time. My favorite is Variation B of this where aging rock star demands that politician not play their old song at rallies - the song they no longer even own the rights to. Instead of turtles all the way down, it's virtue signaling all the way down.
They're not stating an opinion. An opinion would be "Politician X sucks". Instead they pretend that Politician X has no right to play the song and they demand it to stop, knowing full well that isn't how their music licensing works. At that point, it's clearly performative.
That's correct - as long as she can't shrink the government and reduce spending.
From my experience, governments rarely get something done, so it's unlikely she will have enough political power to cut the government down.
I'm not following the UK news, but it sounds to me like she cut down taxes to create an emergency situation and force the political apparatus to cut down on spending or face record high debt.
Hats off if it works: if it doesn't, I think western governments are doomed to grow larger and larger until their host country collapses, productive people flee somewhere else and who's left will rebuild a smaller government from the ashes starting the cycle again.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 58.1 ms ] threadThis suggests quite the opposite to me. Truss has said repeatedly and clearly that she wants to shrink government.
If she has read Perlstein's books, and also Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine[1], she is merely applying what she has read.
No one should be surprised either now, or soon when the Bristish PM says that "debt has to be cut, so we are privatising the NHS and cutting pensions".
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine
> In the 1970s, Irving Kristol, the editor of Public Interest, was explicit that politics must trump economics. The political advantage tax cuts would provide to the Republicans was so historically imperative they should be blasted through whatever the effect on the budget. ‘The neo-Conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums
Even if they get kicked out as a result, that just gives them some economic chaos to complain about from opposition. They kicked off this latest decade of austerity because Labour paid nurses too much and so caused a global recession.
I thought I had clearly said this.
(There is a great blind spot in the thinking. Military defence, public order, the court system for arbitration between billionaires, essential infrastructure like national roads, and more besides: all of these must be state functions. Truss and her co-religionists haven't heard the maxim, "be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.")
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/liz-truss-spe...
1) important person X says their favorite Y is Z.
2) creator of Z has different politics than X so they do an interview saying person X is stupid and doesn't understand Z.
3) the cycle moves on 5 minutes later.
From my experience, governments rarely get something done, so it's unlikely she will have enough political power to cut the government down.
I'm not following the UK news, but it sounds to me like she cut down taxes to create an emergency situation and force the political apparatus to cut down on spending or face record high debt.
Hats off if it works: if it doesn't, I think western governments are doomed to grow larger and larger until their host country collapses, productive people flee somewhere else and who's left will rebuild a smaller government from the ashes starting the cycle again.
Oh, you live in the US, ahh, I can see how 'in your experience' may give you a totally bonkers view of the world, nevermind