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Restoring America's Fiscal Constitution

Next come accurate but meandering accounts of Keynesianism, monetarism, the thesis of "Ricardian equivalence" (that public spending detracts from the economy, regardless of how financed), political-manipulated business cycles, and the median-voter theorem. Blaming chronic fiscal imbalances...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The independent review (Oakland, Calif.) Calif.), 2018, Vol.23 (3), p.456-459
Main Author: Salsman, Richard M
Format: Review
Language:English
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Summary:Next come accurate but meandering accounts of Keynesianism, monetarism, the thesis of "Ricardian equivalence" (that public spending detracts from the economy, regardless of how financed), political-manipulated business cycles, and the median-voter theorem. Blaming chronic fiscal imbalances on political elites, they insist that fiscal rectitude would be the norm if only we had a more direct democracy, with citizens voting on fiscal policies through ballot-based referenda and plebiscites. in this respect, the authors declare themselves to be more Jeffersonian than Hamiltonian, which is fitting to the extent that they are fans of unlimited majority rule; but the public-choice school of political economy, to which they also pledge allegiance, makes clear that fiscal profligacy is the fault mainly of populist systems of democracy, not of more "elitist" constitutionally limited commercial republics. According to the authors, it seems the more that public budgets have been out of balance in recent decades, the more various budget reforms and rules have been proposed, occasionally adopted, and almost always ignored or disobeyed.
ISSN:1086-1653
2169-3420