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The Cato institute is not a conservative think tank, as in "conservatives vs liberals or republicans vs democrats". They are a libertarian think tank, and have

The Cato institute is not a conservative think tank, as in "conservatives vs liberals or republicans vs democrats". They are a libertarian think tank, and have been very critical of the Bush administration for exactly the same reasons that you mention plus others. (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3750 http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3750) If the article is technically correct though, that's all that matters. Let's use facts expressed in numbers to make decisions and leave emotional concepts like "hypocrisy" to artists.

altcognito 15y ago
Yeah, but it's completely wrong: "If we are really worried about a hike in interest rates, what about the hike we can expect if we fail to get federal borrowing under control?" Interest rates are as low as they've ever been. In fact, the only "threat" of our rates for borrowing going up have not been for borrowing more, but quite the opposite. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/feel-the-pressure/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/feel-the-pressur... "The real fiscal Armageddon that this country faces comes not from a delay in raising the debt ceiling, but from out-of-control federal spending and government debt." Except that this "out of control" federal spending has been rising at the same rate as a % of GDP essentially since 1950.(minus a blip in 1992) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.ht... It's fair to say we have both a spending and a revenue problem. This page shows how revenue has been dipping pretty dramatically the last couple of years: http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/ http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-f...

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The Cato institute is not a conservative think tank, as in "conservatives vs liberals or republicans vs democrats". They are a libertarian think tank, and have

by spottiness 15y ago

altcognito 15y ago
Yeah, but it's completely wrong: "If we are really worried about a hike in interest rates, what about the hike we can expect if we fail to get federal borrowing under control?" Interest rates are as low as they've ever been. In fact, the only "threat" of our rates for borrowing going up have not been for borrowing more, but quite the opposite. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/feel-the-pressure/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/feel-the-pressur... "The real fiscal Armageddon that this country faces comes not from a delay in raising the debt ceiling, but from out-of-control federal spending and government debt." Except that this "out of control" federal spending has been rising at the same rate as a % of GDP essentially since 1950.(minus a blip in 1992) http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.ht... It's fair to say we have both a spending and a revenue problem. This page shows how revenue has been dipping pretty dramatically the last couple of years: http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/ http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-f...