As I said, horrific acts are committed in the name of assorted virtues on a daily basis, so there should be no special onus to a proper definition of efficiency. There is danger in every political posture, whether it entails redefining efficiency or taking a different approach.
> . . .
>Yes these are excellent pragmatic points. But by the time we get to a
budget surplus so much damage will already have been done by the entitlement
destroyers busily replacing the New Deal with a business deal.>>
We're already got budget surpluses. We're there. We don't have to wait. Unfortunately, politicians in both parties are in the process of redefining deficits so that we will "have" them again.
<<Why go that far? Being in debt is not a bad thing - hasn't the country been in debt since its inception? The debt itself was not at a precarious level under Reagan (at $2.7 trillion) relative to the GDP, and it is even less so today. There is a difference between going into debt for good reasons and for bad ones. The case can be made for running up the debt when it benefits all of society.>>
You're preaching to the choir here. I try to make that case every day. But right now there's an easier case, since we're in surplus. If we can't manage to spend the surplus, there's no way we will dare to use deficits to finance new spending.
Cheers,
Max