By William K. Black
June 11, 2018 Kansas City, MO
Ben Bernanke recently gave a speech predicting that President Trump’s deficits will cause the economy to “go off a cliff in 2020.” Many Democratic Party politicians, of course, will rush to embrace the criticism and prove that they are the true party of fiscal responsibility. They can then get back to pushing for increased taxation and cuts to the safety net “to save it” from collapse – and feeling virtuous. These Democrats will glory in their supposed virtue and gravitas as they oppose ‘excessive’ stimulus, cut the safety net to ‘save it,’ oh-so-judiciously cut funding for social programs, and push for higher taxes. They know this is bad politics, but that adds to their faith that the more bitter the medicine the greater the curative properties. Faith-based federal deficit phobia, however, is terrible economics and terrible politics.
