When Right blocks Spending & Left blocks Tax Cuts

["John Gelles" <johng@xxxxxxxxxx>]

        A friend of mine, Brightman Underwood by name,
        (heir to the great typewriter fortune -- now invested
        in oil, real estate, diversified equities and cash, ) sent
        me Bob Bartley's WSJ column of August 27, 2001,
        "Debating Cockamamie Economics". Bartley asks:
        "Where have the Keynesians gone?"  Evidently he
        would recall them if any are found.

        "Cockamamie" economics is what all in the know call
        the claims made by professional economists, politicians,
        and pundits with whom we disagree.

        The national debt has been plunging. It was over 100%
        of GDP in 1945 -- it is headed down toward 6% in the
        next decade.  A string of deficit years now would be a
        cheap price to pay for economic growth -- if we can
        arrange the swap.

        Bartley says, debt repayment will be the default event
        if Republicans can block Democratic spending and
        Democrats can block Republican tax cuts.

                    And there will only be hell to pay for it, if
        economic growth is stymied this way.

        So what is his bottom line advice to the readers of
        the WSJ:

                Ask President Bush to say, "During a recession
                you don't raise taxes dummy, you cut them and
                worry later about the federal debt."

        Brightman Underwood is telling all who will listen,
        "Cut taxes, raise spending (for essentials we need now).
        If you don't and I suspect the worst, I'm outa here
        and into CD's -- if I can afford the taxes."

                And, by the by, how about killing the capital
        gains tax -- to let equities find a true bottom?

            John Gelles