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Saturday, January 16, 2021

Is this "Democracy" in action? Is this how government should act? In an ideal world, or even in this problematic "Make it great again" world? If accountability is abandoned, what can we hold representatives to? Best guess? Does that sit well with you? With the people as the sovereign? They take contributions to get elected, and then it is what can they do if they don't like how we operate - which some accept, others dislike. Is this the best government money can buy?

Parse that last headline sentence any way it fits facts in your mind.

A Dec 22, 2020, CNN opinion item by Jeffrey Sachs. About how taxpayer money gets handled - both houses of Congress, a different party majority in each. 

About whether there is due regard for where the money came from, or will come from when it is deficit spending - of funny money. 

Sachs wrote:

The late Illinois Sen. Everett Dirksen famously quipped, "A billion here, a billion there, and soon enough you're talking real money." Now, we toss around the trillions.
The new round of Covid-19 relief is estimated to cost around $900 billion. We don't really know the bottom line, as there has not yet been a budget "score" by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But we do know Congress is agreeing to spend a vast sum, in this case roughly 4.4% of GDP (or over a quarter of the federal tax revenues for the year), without waiting for a nonpartisan estimate of the likely costs.

Even more problematic? Congressional leaders have not sought or welcomed an open national deliberation about best uses of the stimulus funds.

There should have been an effort through online congressional hearings to gauge the public's priorities regarding different kinds of outlays: help for the hungry and unemployed, support for health workers, additional funding for testing and tracing systems, financial backstopping for small businesses, and assistance to state and local governments which need to pay to keep teachers, firemen and policemen on the front lines.

In fact, the public has never been formally informed about options and tradeoffs, and their sentiments have not been asked. The American people never heard the testimony of mayors, teachers, health professionals and other first responders, nor did we, as citizens, have the opportunity to engage with specific budget options as might have been canvassed through opinion surveys.

The same was true in March, when congressional leaders in the US Senate suddenly unveiled the terms of the first stimulus bill. An even vaster sum, around $1.7 trillion, or roughly 8.3% of GDP, was allotted without so much as a single congressional hearing or an opportunity for the public to deliberate. The combination of the stimulus spending and decline in tax revenues will push federal debt held by the public above 100% of GDP by 2021, the highest indebtedness since the end of World War II.

One might think that the rush to spending without the time to think was due to the unprecedented Covid-19 emergency, but in both March and now, Congress could surely have held hearings preceding both bills. There have been months of discussion about the second round of spending, in particular, but there has been no serious explanation to the public about the budgetary options and no readiness to engage through hearings with key stakeholders.

Yes, politicians voiced their opinions, but they didn't listen to the public's opinions in any systematic manner. That's what congressional hearings, at the very least, could have allowed for.

No doubt Trump's chaotic eruptions throughout the year have added greatly to the difficulties of a rational deliberation. Even this week, desperate aides were working feverishly to stop Trump from disrupting the current negotiations. But the crisis of fiscal policymaking runs deeper than Trump's presidency.

Sachs wrote more. So, again, the link

Am I supposed to bless all this and then be horrified when a small number of citizens were enabled to enter the Capitol and break a few windows, take selfies, and turn over chairs? One sin worse than the other? Which?