Name:   copperline - Subject:   The Tea Party platform Date:   4/28/2016 11:11:24 AM

I did present what I thought would be the Liberal counterpoints, and I’ll freely admit to my anti-Tea party bias.   However, when I read this I was struck by some of the points of potential agreement between me and the Tea Party.   That, I think, is the higher purpose of this forum… we can use it to find perhaps unexpected areas of agreement.  

Regarding Hodja’s ‘death of a nation’ comment…   I share his concerns about not doing harm to the long term prospects of the United States.   I also would not run my family finances by refusing to consider how much income I had verses all the things I want to buy.   For me, spending more than I earned was always against the rules, because I was certain that doing so would lead to financial hardship down the road.   So, I am against deficit spending in my household budget.

It is either ironic or hypocritical (depending on your point of view) for me to be less critical of deficit spending by the US government, I suppose.     The stakes are even higher in that arena, the cost of being wrong even more damaging.   I do get that.   Being a retiree who needs the stock market to remain healthy in order to complete my little journey thru life, I really do need to be cautious in the economic policies I support.

But I think the comparisons between our household budget and the national budget can only go so far.  After you take into account the differences between the two, the similarity between them breaks down in important ways.   So I will say this:   deficit spending cannot go on forever & unchecked.   It is, however, necessary to pay the bills each month even if you have to borrow to do it (be sure and recognize you have to pay it back).   And the government has the capability of using a strategy like this in completely productive & acceptable ways owing to the fact that the government has greater control of financial/economic management tools than I do.   The government also has the advantage of a longer time line than I have.       Interest rates can be set, currency exchange rates are variable, deficit spending that spurs economic growth leading to increased tax revenues can be used to pay down national debts.     Tax dollars spent on government projects inject money to communities in the form of wages, purchase of services, development of infrastructure that provides a platform for growth of private businesses, training & educating a work force that can compete in the world economy, etc.   Deficit spending, to me, can be judged as investments that will come to fruit down the road.   Using that as a guideline, there are some deficit expenses I think are likely to be unproductive & others that are absolutely necessary.

Maybe one of the differences between me and the Tea Party is that I don’t think the US is on the verge of economic collapse and I have less alarm than those conservatives that we are close to financial disaster.   I choose to worry about other disasters, some of which the Tea Party would dismiss as ridiculous.