You can only read it and weep. Start weeping at the words “common-sense conditions,” a sure sign in Republican-speak that the writer is about to say something recognizable by any educated person as utter nonsense. (Palin has, of course, perfected the use of this phrase.) They are touting their signing of the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Pledge,” which leads me to think (among other things) that Republicans need to stop signing away their brain cells like this. All these pledges are dreadful ideas.

I’d like to quote here a great reader comment by “Joe Leaphorn”, rather than the painful article itself. It’s a bit of a stretch but certainly more interesting than the Republican governors.

“There are a few statements which immediately discredit the utterer. The first is that the Eskimos have 14 different words for snow. The second is that the Federal governments spending should be like that of a family: you don’t spend what you don’t have. Both statements are wrong and the latter is foolish, as well.

Thomas Jefferson who, himself, favored a balanced budget amendment, nonetheless borrowed money for the Louisiana Purchase. The fact is that the Federal government has three advantages that no family has.

First, most of its spending is discretionary (though some spending can only be altered by changes in the law). The second is that the government always has the means to raise revenues (wouldn’t it be nice if we call could be guaranteed of that?). Finally. the government has the ability to change its debt though the valuation/devaluation of its currency (wouldn’t I like to do that with my house?).

In 2003 nearly 90% of economists surveyed believed that the government should be concerned with a balanced budget only over a “business cycle” and not on a yearly basis. Why, because most understand what many on the right do not, which is downward economic times, the government needs to spend in order to keep the economy from slowing.

Some Republicans like to point to “the war” as being the reason that the US got out of the Great Depression. Nonsense! (If that were true, why haven’t two wars in the Middle East improved our lot?). The Second World War (and the resulting GI bills that followed), were nothing more than a massive infusion of tax dollars into the industrial economy and post-war education and housing. Where was the beloved “private sector” except feeding at the public trough?

The economic facts are hard to refute (except by so-called “conservative economists” as though economics were not an empirical science; does anyone know of “conservative physics” or “conservative chemistry” where objects behave differently than their “liberal” counterparts?)

Throughout US history, private investment has ALWAYS and ONLY followed public investment. Why? Because public investment is needed to build the infrastructure necessary to support innovation and production (or, at least, in the case of telephony and railroads, to allow businessed to become a monopoly or seize property via eminent domain).

Who built the roadways, navigational waterways and the airports and air traffic control systems by which we move goods and people? WE DID! With PUBLIC dollars flowing to PRIVATE industry. When, in the course of our history, was the situation reversed? Who built our greatest industries? WE DID with the tax dollars that funded our production in WWII. What happened when the “private sector” took control?

Look at the steel industry! Look at WalMarts largest supplier! Look at the number of jobs moved offshore by so-called “job creators”.

WE are the job creators. We by the investments that we make through our tax dollars.

And THAT is a simple fact!

washingtonpost.com