Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

Bruce Bartlett Apparently Just Graduated From the Joe Romm School of Blogging

So Jeff Hummel has long argued that it would be a good thing if the US Treasury defaulted on its bonds. Bruce Bartlett wrote a response in which he strongly implied that anyone who thinks such a thing is a nutjob, though he worded it very carefully so he could plausibly deny it (as David R. Henderson caught too).

So Hummel links to the post and says, “For someone who used to be a libertarian, he [Bartlett] is awfully contemptuous of those opposed to increasing the federal debt limit.”

Deciding that irony and good humor are for suckers, Bartlett lets fire with this:

Historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel accuses me of being “awfully contemptuous of those opposed to increasing the federal debt limit.” He is right. I am contemptuous of those who know so little about the federal budget that they actually believe the debt limit is an effective tool for controlling growth of the federal debt.
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Opposing a debt limit increase is simply an example of political posturing at its worst—Dan Shaviro calls it “almost criminally negligent.” It allows members of Congress who voted for massive tax cuts and new spending programs that they knew would increase the deficit to pretend that they are fiscally responsible by voting against a debt limit increase once every year or so. And the offenders belong equally to both parties. Among them was then Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who voted against a debt limit increase back in 2006. Don Marron calls the vote to raise the debt limit a tax on the majority party.

And it allows bloggers who imagine themselves to be Horatio at the Bridge, fighting against the evils of government debt, to sound as if they are proposing something meaningful to reduce deficits without naming specific spending cuts or tax increases that would reduce the deficit or finding the political support to get them enacted. Such people are too pure and too principled to bother with the political process. They prefer to lob ideological grenades on obscure web sites and pat themselves on the back for their courage while ripping those that care enough about the deficit to suggest that raising revenues might just possibly be part of the solution.

You might also want to follow the links to see how Bartlett called Murray Rothbard a “conservative.”

I am sure there is a template for libertarian punditry that I can’t even fully grasp because I’m within it. Fair enough.

There is also a template for “thoughtful” social democratic analysis. Krugman, DeLong, and above all Joe Romm are masters of it. Anyone who disagrees with you is evil and stupid, and you get to define what is politically feasible and use that criterion to blow up anybody you disagree with as being unrealistic and in the fringe.

People keep lamenting poor Bruce Bartlett for getting canned because he dared to criticize the president. Really? A guy lobbing bombs like the above, and you think it was really just a matter of intellectual disagreement?