“White turkey chili”: That’s what President Obama served Mitt Romney for lunch. Every chef’s a pundit these days. … P.S.: Was this really an intentional (ungracious, gloating, etc.) slap? I’m a paranoid–but it is the sort of thing the hard core politicos I’ve known would find funny. …
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If cutting revenues, as John Carney argues, really doesn’t “starve the beast” and reduce government spending, we might as well have the revenues, no? … P.S.: You might think this is simply one way Republicans learn to rationalize an inevitable Obama-era tax increase. But the theory–that “tax cuts make government seem cheap” so ” the people’s representatives vote to give us more of it”–isn’t completely implausible. … P.P.S.: For the left, of course, this new theory (like the idea that increasing health care coverage will control costs) has appealing Lafferesque aspects: Dems can get the tax hikes on the rich that they want for non-revenue, redistributionist reasons, without having to concede that those revenues might enable government bloat. Indeed, they’ll inhibit it! Win-win! … But does the “makes government seem cheap” theory** hold when government still seems cheap to the non-rich who aren’t paying the higher taxes? …
**–Carney attributes the theory to William Nisakanen of the Cato Institute.
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“What would Lincoln do about the fiscal cliff?” Joe Klein actually wrote that. … Isn’t it clear? He’d means-test entitlements and mandate E-verify for new hires.
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