Is the Committee To Neuter Fiat In League With Kotlikoff?

   (Commentary posted by Roger Erickson.)





Is the CNF smart enough to co-hatch a feeble conspiracy? This particular fixation on nominal threats may be just brain-dead enough to be within their reach. :(

If you restate their words with accurate, context-relevant semantics, their entire panic is deflated:

"On Highways and VA, Congress Continues Piling up [Real Assets] and [Private Financial Savings]."

That doesn't sound so bad. Other people call that "Nation Building."

Nevertheless, Maya MacGuineas, president of the [Committee to Neuter Fiat], said the following:

"Congress has passed and the President is about to sign two bills that increase the national debt for no other reason than lawmakers seem utterly unwilling to pay the nation's bills. The highway bill pays for 60 percent of its $11 billion trust fund deposit through a budget gimmick known as pension smoothing, which temporarily reduces companies' pension obligations. It raises revenue in the first six years but costs money after that. While the Senate originally wisely rejected this gimmick, the final bill falls back on it.

Congress dawdled for months knowing that a deadline was approaching and instead of addressing the chronic highway funding shortfall, it waited until the last minute, rejected the responsible gimmick-free approach suggested in the Senate, and passed an easy fix so it could leave town.

On top of that, Congress passed a VA reform bill that would add an additional $10 billion to the national debt. Taking care of our veterans should be a top national priority, and the recently passed legislation is a tremendous improvement over the hugely expensive blank-check approach previously supported. But there is no good reason Congress could not have identified the pay-fors to make sure the legislation was fiscally responsible.

Things that are worth doing, are worth paying for. Unfortunately, Congress seems more comfortable making dumb decisions on a deadline - so they can go home and campaign - than smart decisions in a timely fashion."

Huh? 

Wouldn't it be easier & shorter to simply say that Congress is deciding what the country needs to, and appropriating the currency that allows everyone to contribute their part ... with adequate tempo and agility?

Maybe Maya ought to look up the definition of dumb, and relate it to the context she's speaking within? Can someone ask her how a democracy able to invent and create things ... also manages to invent & create the currency notation that denominates all the endless static and dynamic assets that all its citizens exchange? If necessary, break that up into small, "Dick & Jane" sentences, and give her 8 years to work through them.

Walter Shewhart is probably turning over in his grave. Not to mention Ben Franklin, Marriner Eccles & Beardsley Ruml.