Welcome

I am a former journalist who has been following the political scene in the this country for decades. Like many others today, I am frustrated by the vapidness of much of our political debate and much of the news coverage of politics and policy. In this blog, I will comment and raise questions about the issues of the day, our politicians' responses to them and the media's coverage.

I have a particular interest in economic issues (but no particular expertise in economics). Candidates of both parties constantly address economic issues, but rarely in honest or productive ways. Republicans are generally worse than Democrats, mostly because of their obsessive belief in the magical power of tax cuts at all times, under all circumstances, especially for the rich. Republicans claim to be for expanding opportunity, and they might be sincere in this belief, but their policies tend to do more for those who have made it than for those struggling to make it.

I heard a good example of this kind of trickle-down economics on the satellite radio today during a broadcast of a town hall with Sen. Ted Cruz. A student citing Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal to make public colleges and universities tuition-free asked Cruz what he would do to make higher education more affordable and help young people with college loans.

Cruz first pointed out that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Fair enough. But then he went full disingenuous, suggesting that the only way cover the cost of free tuition would be to raise taxes on small business, which would result in fewer jobs being available to new graduates, making it harder for them to repay their loans.

Unless I missed it, Cruz offered the student nothing that would directly address the cost of higher education or the burden of student loans. Instead, he called for the conservatives' all-purpose remedy of lower taxes and less regulation of business. This is a new application of trickle-down, which is classicly applied to tax policy. The basic concept is directly helping business and the rich, with the promise that the people with the problem in question will benefit in time.

Of course, the problems with Cruz's response are that raising taxes on small business isn't the only way to pay higher education costs, and that the student in question could be bankrupt before Cruz's remedy is enacted and has the desired effect, if it ever does.

A basic rule of evaluating politicians' promises: If his or her answer to your problem is something that helps someone else more than it helps you, that politician doesn't think you have a problem that government should be solving.