>> I don’t want to get cast in the role of defender of this stuff.
If by “this stuff” you mean “runaway federal spending”, then don’t worry. I don’t figure you’d hang out at a conservative website for over ten years if you were a big government liberal. :-)
However, you *have* gone on record in discussions with me as theorizing that the correct level of government spending (and debt) should be extrapolated from the spending and debt during the Reagan years, corrected for inflation and population growth.
I’m merely offering evidence that this may not be such a good idea — that the Reagan economy should not be the peg from which you extrapolate. And I agree that he “got” something for what he spent — something big — but after the Soviet Union capitulated, that the peg should have been reset lower. It was not.
Don’t be anxious about your position. It makes enough sense that I have given it a lot of thought. I don’t agree with you but your position is by no means ridiculous. It falls into the “reasonable minds may disagree” territory, I think.
FRegards
Yeah, understood.
I picked Reagan era only because I thought that would be in a hard core right wing comfort zone. It was almost arbitrary.
I think my overall point is more along the lines of “government spending has to grow” — because population does, than defending any levels or slopes.