Those of us old enough to remember the day before yesterday will recall that Bill Clinton handed the next administration a federal budget that was, astonishingly, in surplus for the first time in living memory. The best thing we could have done to alleviate the national debt would have been to apply that unexpected windfall to paying down principal, thereby lightening the ongoing burden of debt service and locking in the gains going forward. Divestment of debt by the federal government would also have driven interest rates down, encouraging investment and creating jobs.

Instead, Bush the Younger squandered the surplus on tax cuts for the rich, proving for the umpteenth time that trickle-down economics don’t trickle. Trying to stimulate the economy from the supply side, by enriching the rich, is like pushing on a string; all they do is stash it away in their portfolios. The way to gain traction is to pull on the string from the demand side: put money in people’s hands with jobs and low-end tax breaks, and watch them spend it and drive the economy forward.

All this incessant carrying-on from the right about federal spending and the national debt is just self-serving bullshit. It’s just a ruse to justify lining the pockets of the rich while denying benefits to the poor. Try to point this out, and they accuse you of class warfare, when in fact the war is being waged in the other direction.

Sure, save money by streamlining and modernizing government operations, but the real way to improve the government’s fiscal health is to collect more at the high end of the income scale while bolstering the economic well-being of the low end.