4 ms·

This is a GOP strategy called "starve the beast", and Paul Krugman has been writing about it for years: http://www.google.com/search?q=starve+the+beast+krugman

by lr 16y ago

This is a GOP strategy called "starve the beast", and Paul Krugman has been writing about it for years: http://www.google.com/search?q=starve+the+beast+krugman http://www.google.com/search?q=starve+the+beast+krugman

CWuestefeld 16y ago
This same thing is also an extreme Liberal strategy. Sorry, I can't remember the name to look it up. The theory is that you can so overload the government that it simply can't stand up anymore (like the USSR I suppose). It crumbles, and that gives you the opportunity to erect a new one in its place, doing away with all those things that stand in your way, like Constitutional restrictions on the government. UPDATE: the name is "Cloward-Piven" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#The_strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#... ), see my follow-up below.
- itsgoats 16y ago
  Except there's no mainstream, tea-party-a-like leftists loudly advocating that strategy in the US.
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    ... Which doesn't change a thing about it. I finally found a reference, it's called the Cloward-Piven strategy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#The_strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#... >>Cloward and Piven’s article is focused on forcing the Democratic Party, which in 1966 controlled the presidency and both houses of the United States Congress, to take federal action to help the poor. They argued that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare "would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments" that would "deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the white working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be constrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas."
  - infinite8s 16y ago
    I think by Liberal he meant to say Libertarian
    - CWuestefeld 16y ago
      No, I meant "Liberal". Read the article at the link.
illumin8 16y ago
Ah yes, I never understood why on earth anyone would elect someone to public office that hates government so much they would try to destroy it... It would be like hiring a developer that hates code so much he would delete it from your repository to reduce kloc counts.
- celoyd 16y ago
  Your analogy is actually a pretty charitable reading. HN often discusses how the best coders are sometimes the ones who produce less code. Some principled fiscal conservatives don’t hate government, they have waste, and electing them to reduce the institution they’re part of is not absurd. For what it’s worth, I think starve-the-beast is empirically a bad strategy. But it’s not a logical fallacy, as people sometimes seem to think.
  - ubernostrum 16y ago
    Some principled fiscal conservatives don’t hate government, they have waste, and electing them to reduce the institution they’re part of is not absurd. Unfortunately, principles do not win elections. The ones who actually win are the ones who want to deregulate business and regulate morals.
jacoblyles 16y ago
There's a Krugman interview where he advocates higher handouts that he knows the government can't pay for with current revenues, which he believes will force the government to raise taxes in the future. So there is a left wing version of playing chicken with the budget as well, but it doesn't have a catchy phrase to describe it. Maybe "Binge the Beast"?

by lr 16y ago

CWuestefeld 16y ago

This same thing is also an extreme Liberal strategy. Sorry, I can't remember the name to look it up. The theory is that you can so overload the government that it simply can't stand up anymore (like the USSR I suppose). It crumbles, and that gives you the opportunity to erect a new one in its place, doing away with all those things that stand in your way, like Constitutional restrictions on the government. UPDATE: the name is "Cloward-Piven" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#The_strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#... ), see my follow-up below.

itsgoats 16y ago
Except there's no mainstream, tea-party-a-like leftists loudly advocating that strategy in the US.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  ... Which doesn't change a thing about it. I finally found a reference, it's called the Cloward-Piven strategy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#The_strategy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy#... >>Cloward and Piven’s article is focused on forcing the Democratic Party, which in 1966 controlled the presidency and both houses of the United States Congress, to take federal action to help the poor. They argued that full enrollment of those eligible for welfare "would produce bureaucratic disruption in welfare agencies and fiscal disruption in local and state governments" that would "deepen existing divisions among elements in the big-city Democratic coalition: the remaining white middle class, the white working-class ethnic groups and the growing minority poor. To avoid a further weakening of that historic coalition, a national Democratic administration would be constrained to advance a federal solution to poverty that would override local welfare failures, local class and racial conflicts and local revenue dilemmas."
- infinite8s 16y ago
  I think by Liberal he meant to say Libertarian
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    No, I meant "Liberal". Read the article at the link.

illumin8 16y ago

Ah yes, I never understood why on earth anyone would elect someone to public office that hates government so much they would try to destroy it... It would be like hiring a developer that hates code so much he would delete it from your repository to reduce kloc counts.

celoyd 16y ago
Your analogy is actually a pretty charitable reading. HN often discusses how the best coders are sometimes the ones who produce less code. Some principled fiscal conservatives don’t hate government, they have waste, and electing them to reduce the institution they’re part of is not absurd. For what it’s worth, I think starve-the-beast is empirically a bad strategy. But it’s not a logical fallacy, as people sometimes seem to think.
- ubernostrum 16y ago
  Some principled fiscal conservatives don’t hate government, they have waste, and electing them to reduce the institution they’re part of is not absurd. Unfortunately, principles do not win elections. The ones who actually win are the ones who want to deregulate business and regulate morals.

jacoblyles 16y ago

There's a Krugman interview where he advocates higher handouts that he knows the government can't pay for with current revenues, which he believes will force the government to raise taxes in the future. So there is a left wing version of playing chicken with the budget as well, but it doesn't have a catchy phrase to describe it. Maybe "Binge the Beast"?