Tom Daschle- Stupid or Naive?

Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, another Washington political hack who has trouble doing his taxes, as we discovered when he was nominated for a czar post in Wonderboy's administration, wrote an editorial in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal concerning a balanced budget amendment.

It's tough to say whether Daschle is stupid, or merely naive. He wrote,

"The proposed Republican amendment would limit total federal outlays to 18% of our economy- a level of spending last witnessed in 1966. There is no justification for this arbitrary cap. In fact, it would be dangerous given the enormous size and complexity of our economy today, and the demographic realities we face as our population ages."

Who is Daschle kidding? Doesn't he read the very pages in which he chose to publish his disingenuous little piece? Consider these posts, here and here, detailing several important recent tax-related editorials in the Journal, the second by real economists.

That 18% is hardly arbitrary. It's the portion of GDP that, over the long run, the federal government has collected in taxes. No matter what the rates, that's what it gets. Spending more than that over time means growing deficits. Period.

Either Daschle is naive and missed these important economic findings, or is stupid and simply ignores them.

His derisive remark about 1966 shows his true colors, though. It was LBJ's guns and butter spending in the 60's that kicked off a decade of inflation and the basis for the 1970s stagflation while he reinvigorated FDR's welfare state with The Great Society spending programs.

No wonder Daschle recoils in horror with a return to the fiscal rectitude last seen before LBJ opened the deficit spigots.

The former Senator goes on to complain that such a balanced budget amendment strips Congress of its Constitutional duty to make spending decisions, failing to acknowledge that the decisions Congress has made since 1933 is always simply "more."

That's why we need an amendment. And even then it's almost certain to contain at least one war-related loophole, which should make you cringe at how craven some future president will be, in conjunction with Congress, to excuse higher deficits.

Can't you just imagine us declaring war on Lichtenstein in order to run yet another annual budget deficit?

I'm sorry to say, I can. That's how bad the untrustworthiness of the average Congressman and Senator has become.