God Bless You, David Stockman!

Want to hear someone way smarter than I am say exactly the same things I've been saying for years?

“Bring it on,” Stockman told me Thursday morning from his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut—some 40 hours before the midnight Friday deadline that, absent an agreement between President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner, will result in furloughs, federal dysfunction and untold harm to the fragile economy. “I think the Republicans need to stand rigidly firm and shut the government down for a few days. The Obama White House is weak. If the Republicans hold the line, Obama will fold faster than a lawn chair. And the Republicans will get their $60 billion in reductions.”

Stockman described the impending showdown as a “wakeup call”—the political equivalent of getting whacked in the head by a two-by-four containing a rusty nail.

“And then,” Stockman added in a tone of lethal glee, “they’re going to be calling their own bluff. Because at that point the problem will remain 98 percent as large as it was the morning before.”

In all seriousness, do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. His views on the Paul Ryan budget alone are priceless.

If you're lazy, look at this




And if you're inclined to study this in more depth, but are allergic to reading, here's something else. For reasons that I've already explaine in some detail, I disagree with Stockman about TARP, but there is no one out there who's even trying to tell the truth about deficits and debt.





Just please don't tell me about the Reagan tax cuts, okay? Mr. Stockman wrote the Reagan tax cuts!

I'd also recommend my friend, Skippy-san's piece. There' stuff there that I disagree with, but it's a helluva lot more thoughtful than anything you'll see in most of the blogosphere.