On Tuesday the the Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with the Club for Growth, held a conference on the stimulus bill. Here's what one of the speakers, CATO Economist Arnold Kling, had to say about the Democrats' economic plans:
"I think about the stimulus as an economist but I feel it as a father. Barack Obama is destroying my daughter's future. It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs. That’s how I feel, now back to how I think."
Pretty strong stuff.
Now watch as a blogger called Patriot's Quill totally pwns the guy:
First, he makes the entirely sensible point:
Now, my first reaction was to sneer at the NRO blogger who, after 8 years of tax cut induced deficits that managed to double the national debt, has suddenly experienced a Damascene conversion and now believes that deficits are, indeed bad. I was going to post a note to that effect on this blog, but point out that as far as this fellow Arnold Kling is concerned, I just don't know enough about him to say whether or not he too is a convenient convert to the religion of balanced budgets.
Then, he does some of that journalism stuff: he goes to arnoldkling.com and reads what this tool has written in the past. And he comes up with the following, written in December, 2000 and titled "Some Keynes for Bush" (emphasis mine):
....there is a case for thinking in terms of turning the Federal Budget in the direction of a deficit. How should this be done?
One approach that would be congenial to Bush would be a large tax cut. Unfortunately, much of the tax cut that was part of his campaign was "back-loaded," with the larger cuts occurring farther into the future. If anything, we probably need a more front-loaded tax cut.
In addition, some of the tax cuts most popular with Republicans may not be very stimulative, because they are likely to be saved rather than spent. For example, eliminating the "death tax" is unlikely to unleash much spending. I cannot imagine that the marginal propensity to consume out of inheritances over $700,000 (smaller inheritances are tax-free today) is very high.
Another approach to running a deficit would be to increase Federal spending. However, the notion that the first Republican President-plus-Congress since 1952 would go on a spending spree is difficult to contemplate.
An alternative would be to give large grants to state governments--what used to be called general revenue sharing. For example, the Federal government might give each state $1,000 for every person living in that state. This would amount to a $280 billion program.
One impact of a recession is to reduce state revenues. Because they are obliged to balance their budgets, this leads them to reduce spending. The result is to reinforce the downturn. However, with revenue sharing, the states would have less need to cut back.
In conclusion, I believe that a large, temporary revenue-sharing program would be a good approach for fighting a recession. This form of fiscal stimulus would quickly find its way into the economy. Unfortunately, I suspect that there is little chance of any Keynes getting through to Bush.
Kling himself was the first commenter on Patriot Quill's blog:
I have changed my views some since the year 2000. But I remain a bit of a Keynesian. I just don't think that Obama's policies are Keynesian. They are not what economists would come up with if asked to design a stimulus.
To which another commenter responded:
I think Mr. Kling means, "I have changed my views since January 20, 2009."
And while his economic waffling is enough on its own, I have to quote another commenter who made this point about the rhetoric involved:
Perhaps he also means is that the skin color of the potential Keynesian has changed markedly. Why else would "some" change of opinion turn into a denunciation of a "gang of thugs" set to ravish one's daughter?
h/t to Andrew Sullivan for this item.
Update Some sock puppet commenter on Patriot's Quill's blog has come to Kling's (partial) defense, saying there's no basis for accusing Kling of racism. (No attempt to defend the crappy economics.) To which another commenter has replied:
no seriously, if you remove a mention of a person's race, but place that person within an old, well-worn racist trope concerning the allegedly violent and sexually predatory nature of that's persons race, there's no basis for accusations of racism. its totally ok! especially when an "economist" randomly analogizes a policy proposal to the rape of his daughter. isn't that the first thing any respectable economist would analogize to with respect to an economic policy that he falsely claims to dislike and distrust?