The Owls' Nest

[Bruce Bartlett is a Reagan/Bush I Republican who apparently has distanced himself from W:  

"In August 2009, Bartlett wrote a piece for the Daily Beast in which he attributed the recession of 2009 to George Bush and Republicans, whose policies he claimed resulted in an inferior record of economic performance to those of President Clinton. In the same editorial, Bartlett wrote that instead of enacting meaningful healthcare reform, President Bush pushed through a costly Medicare drug plan by personally exerting pressure on reluctant conservatives to vote for the program. Bartlett claimed that because reforming Medicare is an important part of getting health costs under control generally, Bush could have used the opportunity to develop a comprehensive health-reform plan and that "[b]y not doing so, he left his party with nothing to offer as an alternative to the Obama plan." Bartlett concluded:

Until conservatives once again hold Republicans to the same standard they hold Democrats, they will have no credibility and deserve no respect. They can start building some by admitting to themselves that Bush caused many of the problems they are protesting."

In Bartlett's latest book, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, he embraces Keynesian ideas, stating that while supply-side economics was appropriate for the 1970s and 1980s, supply side arguments do not fit contemporary conditions.

And when he calls the Republicans' Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) "mind-boggling in its insanity", my guess is he's distancing himself from the current sorry crop of Republicans too.]

Bartlett: Balanced Budget Amendment "Mind-Boggling In Its Insanity"

April 1st, 2011 at 4:18 pm

Bruce Bartlett writes:

"Today, all 47 Senate Republicans introduced a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. Full text available here. Presumably, this is the amendment that Republicans plan to demand as their price for increasing the federal debt limit. Of course, simply refusing the raise the debt limit would balance the budget overnight — the nation would default on its debt and we would be plunged into the worst fiscal crisis in history, but the budget would be balanced. I have previously explained the idiocy of right wing advocates of debt default (here and here) and the idiocy of a balanced budget amendment (here and here). However, the new Republican balanced budget proposal is especially dimwitted. Let me focus on just one provision, Section 2:

"Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific amount in excess of such 18 percent by roll call vote.

"This is really mind boggling in its insanity."

 [Hey, Bruce, it's just today's Republican Party; insanity's the norm. There are no moderates left -- the Tea Party has driven them away.]