It's funny that "Supply Side" continues to be seen as pejorative. This is stupid. Supply Side is the whole of economics from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes, who roundly condemned Individualism and for all intents and purposes advocated Collectivism. Benito Mussolini called his ideas "Pure Fascism". If Mussolini did not understand Fascist economics, who did?
The root question is "who spends money more intelligently and sustainably, the government, or the invidual?" Put another way, Demand Side, Keynesian economists claim that the government knows what people want more than they do. It claims the government can run up huge deficits indefinitely buying shit people don't want, that is useless outside of very short bursts of injecting money into an economy, and that this builds prosperity. It doesn't. It is just a trick to increase government power.
What's insane and ironic is that the Chinese seem to have believed him, and seem to have implemented his policies and seem to be on the verge of a huge economic crash. Real estate prices are dropping precipitously. Millions of Chinese are losing their life savings.
And to return to Reagan, after he cut taxes, Federal tax revenues increased over the baseline about two years later. Look it up. Same thing happened with the George W. Bush tax cuts.
The Congress simply outspent the increases in revenue. It's that simple. The tax cuts worked. We just had awful and irresponsible Congresses and Presidents unable to reel them in.
As far as the election, what sort of idiot can EVEN NOW defend Joe Biden in any way? He's a crook. He's a creep. His people cheated him into office. And he is pissing himself on public stages into adult diapers, before and after babbling incoherent nonsense.
Trump is intelligent; he is patriotic; and he seems to be honest. That seems the most likely explanation for why nearly the whole of our corrupt System has been attacking him since he declared his candidacy. How is this complicated for anyone who is not stupid? Answer: it isn't. He has the support of two thirds of America.
Christie, Scott, Pence, & Burgum need to pack it up and go to the house. This is probably going to come down to Haley, Ramaswamy & DeSantis. Whoever is left from those 3 will face the orange 600 pound gorilla who will promptly kick them so hard, they'll be wearing their ass for a hat.
That said, I think it would be great to see Ramaswamy join the RFK Jr team as VP and see them run as Independents, but I've probably got better odds of catching on fire. Just sayin.....
President Trump has no need to defend his record. While under constant assault by the left, the deep state, the media, and faux Republicans, he delivered the best economic policies and foreign policy since Ronald Reagan. Instead of meekly shrugging it off, like H.W.and G.W. Bush, and milquetoast candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney, he put on his boxing gloves and came out swinging. Imagine what the United States would be like today, in a second Trump term with a continuation and expansion of those policies, had not a significant number of “Republicans” decided that personality was more important than performance.
Re “that doesn’t do anything to mitigate the fear and anger of countless Americans who want to know how their country moves forward.” The answer to this is to absolutely crush the Democrat party, reverse all of the insane policies they have instituted, eliminate Federal employee unions, build our military back to maximum strength, stop allowing unelected Federal bureaucracy officials from making policy, eliminate or reduce the influence of Federal agencies, and purge the military and intelligence agency command staff. Perhaps an impossible task, but the only person mentioned in this article who might be able to accomplish some or all of this is the person who did not attend the debate.
Savodnik whines....."Voters of all political stripes, and I am one of them, dread watching the two old men—Biden is 80; Trump, 77—battle it out. They dread the polarization, the ugliness, the stale ideas, the stale language. They want to know how America transcends this impasse. "
Sorry Peter - Biden, for whom I'd wager you voted, is patently senile. Trump is not. And while I'd prefer a younger president, only Trump has called out the true reason for the polarization and the ugliness. It is the relentless, totalitarian assault on our country and its values by the globalist leftists and their stale and absurd ideas of one-world socialism and the administrative state.
Sadly, though the FP purports to be free and open minded, it’s editors-in-chief and writers still believe that some idyllic, easy-peasy, no mess political, social, and economic world is possible. The FP bias against conservatives and even moderates is striking. As has been said, “democracy” (the true kind, not the blue kind), “is hard and harder to keep”.
So, as soon as JoeB can safely walk down 8 steps and actually engage in a debate, we’ll see how clean or messy the Democratic debate is.
If you continue to implicitly support the public mental and physical degeneration of an elderly, obviously incompetent man who has been made the figurehead as POTUS, it will be time for me to cancel the FP.
As an aside, Bari, you left the NYT because of the censorship and criticism you suffered there. Think what it would be like if you were badgered daily 10x what you suffered and then, had the howling wolves of press, DA’s , and the DOJ and FBI continue to come after you when you resigned. That’s what Trump faces now. As someone who’s been wrongly accused professionally a couple of times and had to prove myself, not innocent, but not guilty, I sympathize with what he’s going thru even if some of it is self inflicted-but not illegal!
You’ve got 3 years of data on Bidenomics, the border, crime, etc. Throw out your, and the MSM howling at Trump mania, and look at the actual records of the two administrations. There is absolutely no comparison. At least, you should be willing to admit that those policies were very good for the country and objectively wrote about how bringing those policies back would begin to assuage the tensions that people feel about the present status of America.
Just my $0.02 but I’m just a small town redneck retired surgeon, not a famed national journalist, who’s story and independence I greatly respect but who’s blinders I question.
Trump is the nominee and these candidates are all vying for one of two things. They either want a job in the administration or they want to be the standard bearer for the republican establishment that is dying off.
NOTHING, not a conviction, not a great debate performance, NOTHING is gonna change that. And as counterintuitive as it may be to the elites and the media, each new indictment, each attempt by democrat prosecutors or democrat judges to hit him, just makes him stronger. They fail to understand that by going after MAGA supporters either literally with the FBI and police or figuratively by calling them racists etc, have tied him to them, they have put them in a boat with him and they sink or swim together. And, the overwhelming amount of effort that has gone into getting him with the legal system has caused a lot of marginal supporters to commit to him and it has made a lot of Americans that really really dislike the precedent of one party using the legal system to go after their opponent at least consider him as a rejection of that precedent.
You toss in the fact that the democrats have alienated a large swath of the country with woke policies. Toss in the fact that Black and Latino voters are questioning the values of the democrats and increasingly see that the democrats do next to nothing for them, and you have either more of them voting republican or staying home.
Then toss in how disliked Biden is, his age, the border, inflation that resulted from his spending (admittedly with help from the Fed) and you have a situation where Trump could very easily win next fall. If I had to put a number on it I would give Trump a 60% chance of winning next fall.
Now imagine Trump, a lame duck from day one, with nothing to constrain him. If he wins, it will break the democrats. They will have thrown everything they have at him. They will have thrown everything at him that they are convinced would have broken any other candidate many times over and yet still they lost? There will be finger pointing among the donors, the DNC, between the progressive and centrist wings. It will break the democrats and it will put a stake in the heart of the old school republicans.
It is NOT Biden's age. It is his increasingly apparent diminished capacity only exacerbated by the stress of the job. Newt Gingrich is the same age and Seymore Hersh is even older, yet both men are sharp as a tack. Even Nancy Pelosi at 83 is much more coherent. To us and all the world, it is elder abuse. I have never been a fan of plagiarist Joe Biden, but even I am feeling ashamed and extremely empathetic toward the man and the manner in which he is being dragged around the country like a corpse and propped up like a marionette on the world stage.
At least the Republicans are debating and without Trump it's probably better. If as I hope, both Trump and Biden drop out, then at least they are better positioned. The Dems have Slow Joe who hides and eats ice cream and Cackles who actually makes people skin crawl when she says anything with the Wicked Witch laugh. No one else besides maybe Mr. Hair Gel who has destroyed CA.
Hell the Dems won't even think of any debates to allow others in the party to gain exposure and offer something besides the current Clown Show. They truly believe in one party rule controlled by the top.
Plus, I for one think Fox has done a great job of hosting the debates and it does expose issues to people. The current news process in America sure doesn't. Plus, unlike CNN, it seems they don't give out the questions in advance to who they like. Right Donna?
So hot mess, nope, a process of elimination, yes. It definitely sets up the next candidate should Trump fall. The Dems will not have that, but then, when you see and hear who is next, you get a little ill anyway.
Oh, Heavens above! I am SO bored with this whole show! In my memory it started with the "Obama and the seven dwarves" debate way back in 2007/2008, and it has only gotten worse.
At this very early election moment, it is hard to penetrate the hard-headed wall of Trump support. Despite the efforts of an interesting and diverse group of people, no amount of debate seems to penetrate the stubborn haze of Trump support. Trump supporters know all of his trademark shortcomings (egomania, paper thin skin, childish sarcasm, tenuous business ethics,etc.) and they simply don't care. They are beyond sick of being treated as simple-minded morons by the opinionated, arrogant and self-righteous left and have invested their whole stake in their champion; the one man who cannot be bullied, contained or stopped; the relentless warrior who will unflinchingly flip the bird to anyone who gets in their way... It's exactly that overbearing temperament that inspires his supporters who yearn for that "Great America" where patriotism is cherished, hard work is rewarded and opportunity is availed to anyone with the drive and tenacity to pursue it. They not only like Trump's governing policies, ideas and commitments, they absolutely love the fearless persona that is at the core of America's soul - a wealthy version of Archie Bunker if you will - with unflappable confidence. With each passing day, a minority of Republicans ponders the merits of a nice group of candidates, while the majority claps and cheers as their warrior continues to fight injustice in the Colosseum. His armor shows tarnish and there are still battles unresolved, but the patronage has proven beyond doubt that their support lies with Trump. No amount of argument between well-intentioned people not named Trump will make a difference.
Republicans need to decide who gets to be the ONE alternative to Trump and clear the field no later than immediately after the Iowa caucus. Dems will go with whoever the Party/media tell them too. Republicans will very clearly choose whoever the hell they want, party preferences be damned, as evidenced by Trump, so if the Rep Party is going to get them to actually vote for someone else they need to finally propose a real person with a real message and have the time to let his/her messages resonate. They decide last minute to prop up one corpse of a candidate like Dems did with Biden vs Bernie, and not a single Trump voter will be swayed (which is to their credit).
Behold the inevitable false equivalency and begged question in one paragraoh:
"Voters of all political stripes, and I am one of them, dread watching the two old men—Biden is 80; Trump, 77—battle it out. They dread the polarization, the ugliness, the stale ideas, the stale language. They want to know how America transcends this impasse. "
Yes, there are unquestionably at least two persons of any identifiable stripe who agree with this statement. If one steps very far off the island (Manhattan, that is) one might be astonished to learn that a large number do not. A person who cannot see a clear difference between a person clearly having entered dementia and one ho equally clearly is not is doing the backstroke in a certain Egyptian river. Many man of us think that a bit of polarization is long overdue -- "hot mess" doesn't begin to describe the disaster the go-along-to-get-along has wrought. Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, sir; the underlying begged question is, from whence comes any rational analysis that shows, by any OBJECTIVE measure, we Are better off now than we were during the Trump administration?
It's funny that "Supply Side" continues to be seen as pejorative. This is stupid. Supply Side is the whole of economics from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes, who roundly condemned Individualism and for all intents and purposes advocated Collectivism. Benito Mussolini called his ideas "Pure Fascism". If Mussolini did not understand Fascist economics, who did?
The root question is "who spends money more intelligently and sustainably, the government, or the invidual?" Put another way, Demand Side, Keynesian economists claim that the government knows what people want more than they do. It claims the government can run up huge deficits indefinitely buying shit people don't want, that is useless outside of very short bursts of injecting money into an economy, and that this builds prosperity. It doesn't. It is just a trick to increase government power.
What's insane and ironic is that the Chinese seem to have believed him, and seem to have implemented his policies and seem to be on the verge of a huge economic crash. Real estate prices are dropping precipitously. Millions of Chinese are losing their life savings.
And to return to Reagan, after he cut taxes, Federal tax revenues increased over the baseline about two years later. Look it up. Same thing happened with the George W. Bush tax cuts.
The Congress simply outspent the increases in revenue. It's that simple. The tax cuts worked. We just had awful and irresponsible Congresses and Presidents unable to reel them in.
As far as the election, what sort of idiot can EVEN NOW defend Joe Biden in any way? He's a crook. He's a creep. His people cheated him into office. And he is pissing himself on public stages into adult diapers, before and after babbling incoherent nonsense.
Trump is intelligent; he is patriotic; and he seems to be honest. That seems the most likely explanation for why nearly the whole of our corrupt System has been attacking him since he declared his candidacy. How is this complicated for anyone who is not stupid? Answer: it isn't. He has the support of two thirds of America.
Rather than these glitzy staged food fights, let’s have Joe Rogan spend one hour with each candidate. Same questions.
Nobody can save us from ourselves. We’ll get the leadership we deserve.
Christie, Scott, Pence, & Burgum need to pack it up and go to the house. This is probably going to come down to Haley, Ramaswamy & DeSantis. Whoever is left from those 3 will face the orange 600 pound gorilla who will promptly kick them so hard, they'll be wearing their ass for a hat.
That said, I think it would be great to see Ramaswamy join the RFK Jr team as VP and see them run as Independents, but I've probably got better odds of catching on fire. Just sayin.....
President Trump has no need to defend his record. While under constant assault by the left, the deep state, the media, and faux Republicans, he delivered the best economic policies and foreign policy since Ronald Reagan. Instead of meekly shrugging it off, like H.W.and G.W. Bush, and milquetoast candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney, he put on his boxing gloves and came out swinging. Imagine what the United States would be like today, in a second Trump term with a continuation and expansion of those policies, had not a significant number of “Republicans” decided that personality was more important than performance.
Re “that doesn’t do anything to mitigate the fear and anger of countless Americans who want to know how their country moves forward.” The answer to this is to absolutely crush the Democrat party, reverse all of the insane policies they have instituted, eliminate Federal employee unions, build our military back to maximum strength, stop allowing unelected Federal bureaucracy officials from making policy, eliminate or reduce the influence of Federal agencies, and purge the military and intelligence agency command staff. Perhaps an impossible task, but the only person mentioned in this article who might be able to accomplish some or all of this is the person who did not attend the debate.
Savodnik whines....."Voters of all political stripes, and I am one of them, dread watching the two old men—Biden is 80; Trump, 77—battle it out. They dread the polarization, the ugliness, the stale ideas, the stale language. They want to know how America transcends this impasse. "
Sorry Peter - Biden, for whom I'd wager you voted, is patently senile. Trump is not. And while I'd prefer a younger president, only Trump has called out the true reason for the polarization and the ugliness. It is the relentless, totalitarian assault on our country and its values by the globalist leftists and their stale and absurd ideas of one-world socialism and the administrative state.
Sadly, though the FP purports to be free and open minded, it’s editors-in-chief and writers still believe that some idyllic, easy-peasy, no mess political, social, and economic world is possible. The FP bias against conservatives and even moderates is striking. As has been said, “democracy” (the true kind, not the blue kind), “is hard and harder to keep”.
So, as soon as JoeB can safely walk down 8 steps and actually engage in a debate, we’ll see how clean or messy the Democratic debate is.
If you continue to implicitly support the public mental and physical degeneration of an elderly, obviously incompetent man who has been made the figurehead as POTUS, it will be time for me to cancel the FP.
As an aside, Bari, you left the NYT because of the censorship and criticism you suffered there. Think what it would be like if you were badgered daily 10x what you suffered and then, had the howling wolves of press, DA’s , and the DOJ and FBI continue to come after you when you resigned. That’s what Trump faces now. As someone who’s been wrongly accused professionally a couple of times and had to prove myself, not innocent, but not guilty, I sympathize with what he’s going thru even if some of it is self inflicted-but not illegal!
You’ve got 3 years of data on Bidenomics, the border, crime, etc. Throw out your, and the MSM howling at Trump mania, and look at the actual records of the two administrations. There is absolutely no comparison. At least, you should be willing to admit that those policies were very good for the country and objectively wrote about how bringing those policies back would begin to assuage the tensions that people feel about the present status of America.
Just my $0.02 but I’m just a small town redneck retired surgeon, not a famed national journalist, who’s story and independence I greatly respect but who’s blinders I question.
Bottom line?
Trump is the nominee and these candidates are all vying for one of two things. They either want a job in the administration or they want to be the standard bearer for the republican establishment that is dying off.
NOTHING, not a conviction, not a great debate performance, NOTHING is gonna change that. And as counterintuitive as it may be to the elites and the media, each new indictment, each attempt by democrat prosecutors or democrat judges to hit him, just makes him stronger. They fail to understand that by going after MAGA supporters either literally with the FBI and police or figuratively by calling them racists etc, have tied him to them, they have put them in a boat with him and they sink or swim together. And, the overwhelming amount of effort that has gone into getting him with the legal system has caused a lot of marginal supporters to commit to him and it has made a lot of Americans that really really dislike the precedent of one party using the legal system to go after their opponent at least consider him as a rejection of that precedent.
You toss in the fact that the democrats have alienated a large swath of the country with woke policies. Toss in the fact that Black and Latino voters are questioning the values of the democrats and increasingly see that the democrats do next to nothing for them, and you have either more of them voting republican or staying home.
Then toss in how disliked Biden is, his age, the border, inflation that resulted from his spending (admittedly with help from the Fed) and you have a situation where Trump could very easily win next fall. If I had to put a number on it I would give Trump a 60% chance of winning next fall.
Now imagine Trump, a lame duck from day one, with nothing to constrain him. If he wins, it will break the democrats. They will have thrown everything they have at him. They will have thrown everything at him that they are convinced would have broken any other candidate many times over and yet still they lost? There will be finger pointing among the donors, the DNC, between the progressive and centrist wings. It will break the democrats and it will put a stake in the heart of the old school republicans.
It is NOT Biden's age. It is his increasingly apparent diminished capacity only exacerbated by the stress of the job. Newt Gingrich is the same age and Seymore Hersh is even older, yet both men are sharp as a tack. Even Nancy Pelosi at 83 is much more coherent. To us and all the world, it is elder abuse. I have never been a fan of plagiarist Joe Biden, but even I am feeling ashamed and extremely empathetic toward the man and the manner in which he is being dragged around the country like a corpse and propped up like a marionette on the world stage.
At least the Republicans are debating and without Trump it's probably better. If as I hope, both Trump and Biden drop out, then at least they are better positioned. The Dems have Slow Joe who hides and eats ice cream and Cackles who actually makes people skin crawl when she says anything with the Wicked Witch laugh. No one else besides maybe Mr. Hair Gel who has destroyed CA.
Hell the Dems won't even think of any debates to allow others in the party to gain exposure and offer something besides the current Clown Show. They truly believe in one party rule controlled by the top.
Plus, I for one think Fox has done a great job of hosting the debates and it does expose issues to people. The current news process in America sure doesn't. Plus, unlike CNN, it seems they don't give out the questions in advance to who they like. Right Donna?
So hot mess, nope, a process of elimination, yes. It definitely sets up the next candidate should Trump fall. The Dems will not have that, but then, when you see and hear who is next, you get a little ill anyway.
Oh, Heavens above! I am SO bored with this whole show! In my memory it started with the "Obama and the seven dwarves" debate way back in 2007/2008, and it has only gotten worse.
At this very early election moment, it is hard to penetrate the hard-headed wall of Trump support. Despite the efforts of an interesting and diverse group of people, no amount of debate seems to penetrate the stubborn haze of Trump support. Trump supporters know all of his trademark shortcomings (egomania, paper thin skin, childish sarcasm, tenuous business ethics,etc.) and they simply don't care. They are beyond sick of being treated as simple-minded morons by the opinionated, arrogant and self-righteous left and have invested their whole stake in their champion; the one man who cannot be bullied, contained or stopped; the relentless warrior who will unflinchingly flip the bird to anyone who gets in their way... It's exactly that overbearing temperament that inspires his supporters who yearn for that "Great America" where patriotism is cherished, hard work is rewarded and opportunity is availed to anyone with the drive and tenacity to pursue it. They not only like Trump's governing policies, ideas and commitments, they absolutely love the fearless persona that is at the core of America's soul - a wealthy version of Archie Bunker if you will - with unflappable confidence. With each passing day, a minority of Republicans ponders the merits of a nice group of candidates, while the majority claps and cheers as their warrior continues to fight injustice in the Colosseum. His armor shows tarnish and there are still battles unresolved, but the patronage has proven beyond doubt that their support lies with Trump. No amount of argument between well-intentioned people not named Trump will make a difference.
The shoutfest is tiresome. Just cut their mikes when their time is up.
Republicans need to decide who gets to be the ONE alternative to Trump and clear the field no later than immediately after the Iowa caucus. Dems will go with whoever the Party/media tell them too. Republicans will very clearly choose whoever the hell they want, party preferences be damned, as evidenced by Trump, so if the Rep Party is going to get them to actually vote for someone else they need to finally propose a real person with a real message and have the time to let his/her messages resonate. They decide last minute to prop up one corpse of a candidate like Dems did with Biden vs Bernie, and not a single Trump voter will be swayed (which is to their credit).
"Has anybody seen a vice president in that group? I don’t think so.” Actually, Trump, your vice president is in that group.
"Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber." Haley should feel dumber. Vivek is the smartest person in most rooms.
Behold the inevitable false equivalency and begged question in one paragraoh:
"Voters of all political stripes, and I am one of them, dread watching the two old men—Biden is 80; Trump, 77—battle it out. They dread the polarization, the ugliness, the stale ideas, the stale language. They want to know how America transcends this impasse. "
Yes, there are unquestionably at least two persons of any identifiable stripe who agree with this statement. If one steps very far off the island (Manhattan, that is) one might be astonished to learn that a large number do not. A person who cannot see a clear difference between a person clearly having entered dementia and one ho equally clearly is not is doing the backstroke in a certain Egyptian river. Many man of us think that a bit of polarization is long overdue -- "hot mess" doesn't begin to describe the disaster the go-along-to-get-along has wrought. Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, sir; the underlying begged question is, from whence comes any rational analysis that shows, by any OBJECTIVE measure, we Are better off now than we were during the Trump administration?