pudge's Journal: DeLong Can't Handle Disagreement

On Brad DeLong's site, he wrote a piece that, at the end, claimed as fact that you could not honestly evaluate Bush's policies sees a deficit cut in half.

I responded, entirely accurately:

"No more claims that an honest forecast of what George W. Bush's policies are sees the deficit cut in half by the end of this decade. It doesn't."

So, you've been to the future then?

How does it "raise the level of the debate" when you assert as fact something that is not?

He deleted my response, inserting "[troll]" in its place.

What a [tool].

update 1 p.m. PT

Heh, [tool] deleted my next post too. Someone responded to me -- before the first post was deleted -- and I responded:

sm, I know he used forecast. And he said an honest forecast does not say that budgets will be cut in half. He's being dishonest. He could say "I think such a forecast is not reasonable," but to say no such forecast can exist is dishonest. Clearly.

And to add to this dishonesty, he deleted my post calling him on it.

And then he did it again!

Jeez. He must have extreme confidence problems. I almost feel bad for him.

Deficit cut in half?

[sulli]

The problem as I see it is not Bush's forecasts - most presidents' forecasts are inacurate more than a year or two out. I just think cutting the deficit in half in any more than one year is irresponsible.

Just balance the damn budget! Clinton, with the help of the Bush 41 tax increases, did. Bush 43 should too.

Re:Deficit cut in half?

[pudge]

I am behind you -- and DeLong -- on cutting the deficit. Of course, when Bush proposes cuts, he gets slammed for that, too. Democrats are trying to have it both ways, which just marginalizes them all the more.

Oh sure, we could increase taxes on the wealthy, but that is where I would part company with you, I imagine. I think it is pretty clear that this would hurt the economy, just as I think it is pretty clear that cutting rates helped it.

Also, Clinton had a huge tech boom to fuel his deficit eliminati

Re:Deficit cut in half?

[cascadefx]

Here's an idea.

When my wife and I balance the our budget, the first thing we DON'T do is quit one of our jobs. That's effectively what a tax cut does. It removes some income.

Instead, we take the money that we are taking in and decide to spend within that amount. If we go over, we are defecit spending... going into debt. We can't do that.

A balanced budget agreement from us is key. We will not spend beyond what we make. Part of that is also learning to live below that amount. Rainy day funds are key

Re:Deficit cut in half?

[pudge]

When my wife and I balance the our budget, the first thing we DON'T do is quit one of our jobs. That's effectively what a tax cut does. It removes some income.

No, that is not effectively what a tax cut does. Your analogy presumes this money belongs to the government, that they are removing THEIR money. It is OUR money. And what's more, the less money they take from us, the more money that can be used to create more wealth, and more taxes (such as we saw with the greatly increased revenues last year, li

Re:Deficit cut in half?

[Otter]

My objection (not having been to the future) is that Bush's spin always focuses on large medium-term cuts in the deficit to gloss over short-term deficit increases. I don't have a problem with waiting a few years, but it makes me uneasy when we start out by going in the wrong direction.

Convenient to forecast past next election

[Ra5pu7in]

By forecasting cuts in the deficit farther out than the next few years, Bush can have his cake and eat it, too. Basically it pushes the politically unpopular cuts off onto the next administration, which will then use hindsight to blame Bush for raising the deficit and project that the deficit will take several years to get back under control.

Re:Convenient to forecast past next election

[pudge]

That strategy is doomed to failure if the next President is a right-wing Republican, which Bush and the GOP are clearly hoping for, unless that President has some history for disagreeing with Congress' current spending practices etc.

That is, Mitt Romney could do that, but Bill Frist couldn't.

Re:Convenient to forecast past next election

[jdavidb]

I have hated that every President seems to do this. Both Clinton and Bush (I support Bush) have made five year forecasts for four year terms. Unreasonable. I presume previous Presidents did the same.

So at the moment I'll accept it as par for the course, but I'm looking for a Presidential candidate who will make a campaign promise to not do that, someday.

Deleting posts in forums

[jdavidb]

Slashdot was the first forum I participated in, and it has really set the standard for me. I just can't abide by deleting posts (without extreme cause) and all that junk.

We're running a small church forum and I recently discovered we've got competition. But on our site, you're allowed to say pretty much anything you want. We threw a guy off for cussing, among other things, but the post where he said it is still there. I figure adults can take responsibility for what they've said and go back and modify

noise/signal control

[gomel]

Brad's blog is his home and
you have been throwing on his
lawn, what he thinks is trash.

He has been writing on the non-reduction
of deficits *for years*. And then, you came
along to bitch-slap him.

You are a computer programmer and
Brad is an economist. You would
mod down anyone who said you
can't code.

He does not have the time to
respond to every of the 82 comments
that his article gets.

The only thing he can do to noise
polluters is to clean up after them.

His blog does not have a modding
down function, like say .

Re:noise/signal control

[pudge]

Your argument is illogical. I made a perfectly valid point, as anyone could see. It was not noise, but your argument begs the question by assuming it is. He did not have to respond to it, as many others are there to respond.

As to what I am versus what he is, that's irrelevant, since I was not making an economic point, but a logical one.

Re:noise/signal control

[gomel]

I'll respond only because you have taken this whole issue very personal and seem to think that you are the victim. Reconsider that.

> Your argument is illogical.
> I made a perfectly valid point, as anyone could see.

I'm afraid that you did not make a valid point. I didn't see one. You have:
(1) used a rhetorical question *to ridicule* Brad.
(2) implied that he is lying.
That's heavy trolling in my book.

Furthermore, in your update you called him dishonest.

> It was not noise, but your argument begs t

Re:noise/signal control

[pudge]

You did not address my point.