Word: fiscal
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...chapter titled "Faux-Cons: Worse than Liberalism," Huckabee identifies what he calls the "real threat" to the Republican Party: "libertarianism masked as conservatism." He is not so much concerned with the libertarian candidate Ron Paul's Republican supporters as he is with a strain of mainstream fiscal-conservative thought that demands ideological purity, seeing any tax increase as apostasy and leaving little room for government-driven solutions to people's problems. "I don't take issue with what they believe, but the smugness with which they believe it," writes Huckabee, who raised some taxes as governor and cut deals with...
...Making the Bush income tax cuts permanent would bring in just 31¢ on the dollar. So spending increases would seem to be in order. Bush has resisted that so far--and may continue to resist. In January that won't matter anymore. Then we get to find out if fiscal stimulus really can save...
First, the most extreme economic argument against temporary fiscal stimulus--that consumers and businesses would see through it and restrict spending to prepare for the tax increases or spending cuts to come--has lost almost all its adherents. Economists no longer believe humans are that farsighted...
Second, a stimulus package--the tax rebate of 2001--was widely credited with helping end that year's downturn. The good timing was in part luck; President Bush had been pushing for a tax cut whether there was a recession or not. But it showed that fiscal stimulus could work...
There is a rich history of mischief and malice in the interregnum, particularly during the last transfer of power to take place in the middle of a fiscal firestorm. In 1932 it didn't help that the two men neither liked nor trusted each other: Herbert Hoover called Franklin Roosevelt a "chameleon on plaid," while F.D.R. preferred the image of Hoover as a "fat, timid capon." Since Inauguration Day was not until March 1933, there was an urgent need for action, but Hoover's efforts to reach out to Roosevelt in the name of bipartisan cooperation were dismissed by critics...