If we have riots in the street like Greece just did, and we will, we should place the blame on Ronald Reagan. This became very clear to me while I read this, uh, screed, attacking the usual (liberal) suspects...the unions, the welfare cheats, the lazy et al.

Wake up America! How many million unionists are we expected to carry on our public payrolls? How long can we keep government employees on defined-benefit pension plans while the rest of us scramble to fund our 401(k)s ? How many more people are we going to drop from the income tax rolls as we lean on a smaller and smaller slice of citizens to carry an ever greater percentage of the load, leaving the rest free to vote for tax increases? How large a swath of our population can we pretend to keep supplied with newly manufactured economic rights like free healthcare as Social Security and Medicare careen toward insolvency? How much more do we think we can borrow from the Chinese to fund day-to-day government operations? How long do we think we can afford to police the world?

Yeah, yeah, heard it all before. Many, many times.

Only it's utterly wrong. Well, that's not completely true. Rather, it's utterly pointless.

Because it's all Ronald Reagan's fault. Not unionists or gluttonous bureaucrats.

I've tried to explain this to you before, numerous times. I'll try to make myself as clear as I can:

If an American earned $100,000 a year, he/she would spend that $100,000. Well, some would spend a bit less, some actually more. This would continue forever and ever and ever. Thing is, it also works *exactly* the same even if you don't actually *earn* that $100,000. Thus, if someone gave you $100,000 you would spend it all, pretty much. And they come back next year and the year after with that $100,000 check, you'd do the same. Forever and ever.

It's why Reaganomics has had such a devastatingly negative impact on America. Simply put, most people think Reaganomics is about reducing the scope of government.

Wrong!

Reaganomics is about reducing the *burden* of government. And in the aggregate, this burden is measured by how much you pay in taxes. Thus, tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts has basically become our primary governing philosophy, at all levels of government, since the beginning of President Reagan. In other words, it's not about spending, it's about paying! (In fact, boys and girls, no one really wants government spending cut. Not ever. I mean, some want other's spending cut, sure, but not their own. So you can see how this essentially means no spending cuts.)

Solved for X yet? We pay less. We are taxed less. Such a bargain! This means we can get trillions in government benefits and services -- for less than trillions in cost! And everytime we cut taxes just a bit more, we make government spending an even better deal. Every time!

And Americans love a good bargain.

This is why government has grown steadily, and debt has grown steadily, and government spending has grown steadily since Ronald Reagan. Because by continuously cutting taxes, we make government spending a better deal. It out-WalMart's WalMart.

And every single American who's contributed their pennies, nickels and dimes and gotten something in return is convinced they have *paid* their fair share; they have 'earned' their entitlements and benefits. So of course they will riot exactly like the Greeks when government says they are going to take away *their* benefits.

You really want to prevent Greek-like riots on American streets? You really want to reduce government, not just your cost burden for it? Do you actually want spending reduced -- across the board? Then it's very simple: you demand all Americans pay for the full 100% cost of government. Be the anti-Reagan. Not until we have to pay the full cost will we. I mean, it's not like you leave extra money at WalMart, right?

Your choice, America.

Type in "Reaganomics" or "supply side" in this site and you will discover that for a year now I've tried to let you know that these are frauds; these are egregious forms of wealth redistribution.

These NEVER WORK. Never. I don't mean never will again, I mean NEVER. They claim to increase tax revenues, an extremely spurious, easy-to-dispute claim. And they ALWAYS -- as in EVERY SINGLE TIME -- result in more spending. No surprise that in the 30 years of Reaganomics we've gone deeper and deeper into debt.

As I've been saying...and, well, before the 2009 debut of this site.

Now look what we have this week in the NATIONAL REVIEW -- for those of you who do not know, that is the William F. Buckely "conservative" magazine:

Despite all those pro-growth tax cuts, our deficits continue to grow faster than our economy. That’s been especially true during the Great Recession, but even during periods of strong economic growth, there has been nothing to indicate that our economy is going to grow so fast that it will surmount our deficits and debt without serious spending restraint. This should be a shrieking klaxon of alarm for conservatives still falling for happy talk about pro-growth tax cuts and strategic Laffer Curve optimizing.

You want to know what our policies should be? You need to know how business is reshaping?

Just continue to visit back here everyday (oh, and, when it applies, click on an ad or two, thank you).

In my Sunday night redeye to home post ("Fuck you this is Obama's America: healthcare legislation and Duke Atriedes edition") I detailed, once again, why Reaganomics can never work and how it had made the vast majority of Americans worse off and a minority of Americans much much better off. I discussed how the new healthcare legislation was part of a larger, very painful struggle of restoring wealth equality, or, at least, putting the brakes on the 30-year growth of the inequality gap.

No need to thank me. This is what I am here for.

So what do I see at the top of the home page of today's New York Times? Pretty much exactly what I said. Why do you continue to not simply accept what I say!

From a Mr David Leonhardt:

For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.

Over most of that period, government policy and market forces have been moving in the same direction, both increasing inequality. The pretax incomes of the wealthy have soared since the late 1970s, while their tax rates have fallen more than rates for the middle class and poor.

Oh, and let me remind you of the power of the Kwisatz Haderach for those who've not read Frank Herbert's Dune:

He has: "organic mental powers (that can) bridge space and time."

Regular readers know how I feel about Reaganomics. At its best, it's a con. At its worst, well, here we are, tens of trillions in debt with tens of trillions more in unfunded obligations, millions can't afford houses, college, healthcare etc etc etc.

Obviously, I'm not a fan.

Now, I can understand why some people would be. Because, it seems so wonderful. In theory. It's like Celsius. Of course! Zero is freezing. 100 is boiling! Makes so much sense! But, actually, in practice, it sucks.

For the newbies who don't wish to scroll down or search the site, breaks down like this. Reaganomics never works, has NEVER worked and can NEVER work. And its exceedingly simple why: because it reduces the pain of government spending. THe less painful government spending, the more of it there is. Always. Forever. Every time. Without fail.

Remember, no one will ever turn down $1.00 for 80 cents.

For those people that truly want to decrease the size of the government and truly want to cut government spending there is only one solution: make us -- now -- feel the full pain of that spending. If we spend a trillion, we pay a trillion. If we earmark 2 trillion, we pay 2 trillion. I know you don't like it. I know it limits some programs. But it is the ONLY way to reduce spending.

And then son of a bitch I get a link to a guy who is EMPLOYED to write stuff and here's what he says (and, yes, I have readers from his area but no I have no idea if he personally has read my blog):

Republican idea, however, is largely discredited by what we know about tax pain and tax rates: Starve the Beast (the idea that cutting taxes will force the government to shrink). As Bill Niskanen argues here [PDF], GOP tax cuts seem only to have fueled the growth of government by luring the American people into believing that government can give us a lot of services for a little money — when, in fact, we’re just borrowing up to our eyeballs. The best way to make people want smaller government may be to let them pay for it and to let them know they’re paying for it.

Listen to me, boys and girls. We are in an age of the transformation of everything. Yes, everything. I'll get you to the other side, safely. But you will have to abandon most of what your parents taught you.

While I was in that foreign land 'Can - a - da' for the Olympics, I was struck by how awful the Celsius system is. Canadians will never admit this, of course, not because they want to defend the French, who created the thing, but because it's different than we have here in the US and, bless their hearts, anything that is American cannot be discussed with anything close to an open mind with our good friends to the north.

Still, it's stupid.

Worse, it seems absolutely rational, absolutely superior.

It's only stupid when put into practice. I mean, 28 degrees should not be a negative! And boiling water is really just too freaking hot to be set (yes, arbitrarily) at 100.

This is exactly what I think of Reaganomics. It makes so much sense. It's all zero is the freezing point of water, 100 degrees is the boiling point. Or, in this case, we can LOWER taxes and INCREASE revenues while LIMITING the scope of government and INCENTIVIZING business. Of course, as I've shown, it breaks down, utterly, in reality. Because, as mentioned many times before, what it actually does is allow all of us to PRETEND that we can get $1 of government spending for only, say, 68 cents. Forever. Because it GUARANTEES that we don't EVER have to feel the full pain of our spending.

So we spend and spend and spend some more.

And tell ourselves, in good time and bad, that -- no! -- we must reduce taxes, we must cut taxes, we must limit taxes!

So we'll have more money to spend.

Remember, if I offered you $1 dollar for only 68 cents, you would take that deal. Every time. Forever. Until I'm absolutely bankrupt. That's what Reagaonmics *enables* even if it was never the intent.

We gave this the old college try, though, for sure. And look where we are. Working harder -- if we can get a job. Neck deep in debt, us and the government. Two job family, a minimum. Education, heath care, retirement, good schools, nice home, all getting more and more out of reach with each passing day.

Ever wonder where all that money went? Or where it all came from? Probably best if you don't think about it since it's never coming back.

Let's not be like our dear Canadian brethren. Let's not hold on to something that teases us, year after year after year, with the notion that it is superior when, deep down, we all know it's not. Let's send it to the dustbin of history, along with celsius. Who gives a shit what the Canadians think.