No, I'm Not Being Ironic. I Genuinely Do Not Understand

Mark Kleiman writes that my Bush budget proposal headline, "I Really Cannot Understand Why Anyone Would Do This," is "no doubt ironic. Brad understands perfectly well why somone would do this"--that is, set the U.S. government on a course toward national bankruptcy by creating a huge disparity a generation from now between the finances and the commitments of the U.S. government. To plan on quintupling the debt of the United States in 2050--raising it to 250% of GDP--is truly extraordinary. (...)

Mark Kleiman is wrong. I truly don't understand why anyone would do this. I understand why, once the administration has decided to do this, someone like Mickey Kaus would choose to run interference for them--for him policies are not real, but just a game, epater le liberaloisie and all that--plus running interference for Mitch Daniels and company gets him points he can spend on getting future interesting news leaks from Republican hacks.

But everybody who goes into politics for real--who runs for the Congress, or takes a senior job in the Executive Branch--is a patriot. There are other careers one can enter with a much hihger probability of success that promise more in the way of fame, wealth, and the absence of boredom. Only a deep love-of-country can make someone become an Assistant Secretary of HHS or a Director of OIRA or a Representative from the area around Knoxville.

Nobody enters politics seeking to make their country poorer, weaker, and more miserable. Only patriots enter American politics. And trying to mold America's mid-twenty-first century politics into a pattern like that of present-day Argentina is not a patriotic thing to do.
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  thanks to Tapped