A fascinating short account of what a “government shutdown” means, courtesy of the BBC, wraps up in an odd way: “If the U.S. government shuts down after 8 April, it will mostly be because Republicans believe that the government is too costly and inefficient.”
Really?
It’s not because Congress can’t balance budgets? It’s not because last year’s Democratic-controlled Congress couldn’t even cook up an unbalanced budget, instead relying on a series of makeshift “continuing resolutions”?
Why blame Republicans’ general view of government services, and not the political process described at the beginning of the report?
Well, the BBC’s Katie Connolly was stretching the truth so to get to a series of “ironies.” Government shutdowns are expensive, she writes. Inefficient.
Sure, sure. But if the government does indeed shut down because of a budget impasse, I don’t see that the “irony” of a shutdown accrues as blame only to Republicans.
Indeed, it seems a bit like flailing around, looking for usual suspects — not real culprits.
But if you want a reach. . . .
Politicians often pay homage to John Maynard Keynes to excuse their spending far over revenue. Stimulus and all that. Keynesianism: Politicians love it, because they love to over-spend.
But Keynes also said that governments should run at surplus during good times. Somehow the Rs and Ds in Washington never bring that up.
So blame the Ks.
The Keynesians allowed the misuse of their master’s nostrums, which put us where we are today.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.