You go!

From one white guy to another: You go, girl!

There is a Republican named Richard Tarrant running for Vermont's open Senate seat, and his big campaigning point (at least until the party chooses its candidate) is that he's fiscally responsible, campaigning against what he calls "Borrow-and-spend" Republicans.

This has long been an issue of mine, the Democratic party being tarred with the line "tax-and-spend", while the problem part of that wasn't the taxing, it was the spending, and Republicans did just as much of that as Democrats did.

Like taxes or not, "tax and spend" is a heck of a lot more responsible fiscal policy than "don't tax and STILL spend", at least until some shred of evidence shows up to lend credence to the Republican reliance on variations on the Laffer curve and supply side economics.

The fact is, in order to be the party of fiscal responsibility, either party has to reign in spending to match income, regardless of what their theories project SHOULD be the income resulting form policies.

A salaried worker bringing in $50,000/year can suppose that if 40 hours/week brings in $50k, then 80 hrs/wk should bring in $100k. He can then start putting in 40 hours of overtime each week, but at the end of the year, he'd better not have spent $100k because being salaried, his theory on compensation won't hold true.

The last time we had a balanced budget was under a Democratic President. He had a Republican Congress, but the minute that Congress got a Republican President, deficit spending shot through the roof.

I think it's great that Tarrant, along with Senator John McCain and Representative Mike Pence want to bring back the strength of the Republican party, the part of the collective conscience that keeps us grounded and responsible.

An article on the subject can be found on Bloomberg.com.

Liam.

P.S. In my view, the Laffer curve is a theoretical construct, graphically displaying a true but not easily quantifiable concept. The idea that there is some level of taxation which optimizes government income is probably true. Trying to decide what that level actually is can really only be done experimentally, and repeated tax cuts have shown that we were not past the peak of the Laffer curve. Thus, using it to justify more tax cuts shows a profound lack of understanding of economics.