Of Deficits And That Mechanical Swan March 25, 2019March 24, 2019 From New York Magazine: Trump Nominates Famous Idiot Stephen Moore to Fed Board. From government statistics: U.S. Posts Largest Monthly Deficit In History As Corporate Tax Receipts Plunge. Please note: the corporate tax rate was slashed in 2017 by a Republican Senate and Republican House, signed into law by a Republican President. Democrats have long been ridiculed as the “tax and spend” party. But there’s a lot government needs to do and Democrats think it makes sense not only to do it — but to pay for it. Republicans are the “borrow and spend” party. They spend, too — they just don’t pay for it. Some might call that fiscally irresponsible. Or even immoral. Reagan/Bush41 inherited a National Debt under $1 trillion — and quadrupled it. Clinton raised taxes on the best-off and by the end of his second term was able to hand Bush 43 a balanced budget with the prospect of “surpluses as far as the eye could see.” Bush 43 slashed taxes on the best-off even further than Reagan had and handed Obama the largest deficit in history. Obama raised taxes on the best-off and, by the end of his second term, was able to hand Trump and the Republicans a National Debt once again shrinking relative to the economy as a whole. Trump and the Republicans have exploded the deficit once again. If you’re “socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” consider this: you lean Democrat on both fronts. Erich Almasy: “The swan story you attributed to the late, great Hermione Gingold (what a wonderful baritone giggle she had) is an oft-told opera story starring Leo Slezak, an Austrian tenor who performed in the 20’s and 30’s. As told to me by my father (a Viennese opera lover) and by Leo’s granddaughter, ‘Papa told her about a Lohengrin performance. It was just before his first entrance. He was ready to step into the boat, which, drawn by a swan, was to take him on-stage. Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: What time’s the next swan?‘” Jonathan Cartby: “That story about the swan is an old one indeed. I have seen it quite a number of times, first around 1969, generally in the following context. In Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, the hero departs, as he came, on, or with, a mechanical swan. In one production, the stagehands mistimed the swan so that it crossed the stage before the tenor could get there. He then said, more or less to the audience, Wann faehrt der naechste Schwann ab? I can’t imagine someone writing a play in which people are hauled off by a swan after Wagner’s opera was written (around 1850) — it would have looked like a burlesque.”