Everything in life is free

By Dave Anderson:

Everything in life is free, and evidence is irrelevant.  That is what I infer from Harold Ford's justifiably mocked Op-Ed in the New York Times as he laid out his budget deficit peacock feathers quite clearly:

First, cut taxes for businesses � big and small � and find innovative ways to get Americans back to work. We can start by giving any companies that are less than five years old an exemption from payroll taxes for six months; extending the current capital gains and dividend tax rates through 2012; giving permanent tax credits for businesses that invest in research and development; and reducing the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent....

Finally, we need to address budget deficits now rather than waiting for some ideal future economic situation. It�s a good sign that the Obama administration is following the advice of Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Evan Bayh of Indiana and other Democratic fiscal pragmatists who embrace the idea of a bipartisan commission to recommend spending cuts to rein in deficit growth. But we must be sure that the administration and Congress heed the commission�s advice

I'm not going to go and hatchet the economics behind this thinking,Mark Thoma did a much job at it then I could, I want to highlight the lack of coherent thought and use a quasi-rational choice model on the political process. 

Harold Ford is a politician and a reasonably successful one.  He has some ability (definately not perfect, but I'll assume a decent ability) to read the public mood and to figure out what will get people to vote for him.  I am assuming that this op-ed is part of his messaging strategy to either get votes, or more importantly, to attract elite support and signifiers that he can later transform into votes. 

If those assumptions are true, then he is arguing that everything in life is free, and no hard choices ever need to be made.  Tax cuts and balanced budgets have been the conservative, and Republican line for my entire life.  That line has never been met, but it is a constant line.  It is a constant line because it works; it offers short term cash in the form of tax cuts and the promise of virtue of balancing the budget through magic tricks. No pain or hard choices need to be made; or if a choice needs to be made, the choice is clear, it is always time to cut social safety net spending for the undeserving poor. 

This something for nothing ideology is the Reagan Revolution and the looting of the nation by its elite and it is what I had hoped super majorities of Democrats would begin to change; whoops, I was wrong.