Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Cruz the Actual Moderate?

Holiday Season keeps all of us busy. We finally received our couch, and can I say not a moment too soon? Ever notice that there's always something else to get? After the couch and my awesome Lazy-Z boy chair found homes in our room, we noticed people might want somewhere to place a drink.

So we swung around IKEA, bought some sofa tables, and slapped those cheap pieces of crap together, too.

In the past month, I've also played around with the new telecommuting policy at work. Mmmmmhmmmm, can't complain about that one bit. I find I am actually more productive at home than work: I already know what I need to do, but I do not feel exposed, in the open, with people looking over my shoulder at home.

Much less stressful.


The ACTUAL Point
Sorry, meandering over.

I saw this article on Marginal Revolution the other day, and thought nothing of it:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/12/senators-cruz-and-lee-introduce-reciprocity-bill.html

Apparently Cruz wants to legalize imports of drugs from Canada and Europe or something. Okay, cool. A little odd, given Democrats normally advance such legislation, not Republicans, but not unusual.

But in the comments, someone noted that Senator Cruz, now leading Presidential Polls in Iowa, also suggested the Federal Reserve caused the Great Recession by keeping money too tight!

Now that's a change! If you've followed politics much these last few years, you'll know that Republicans have complained about excessive government spending, and especially printing too much money. That's the Republican position these days, more or less.

And Ted Cruz is one of those extreme Republicans.

Cruz is more conservative than every recent nominee, every other candidate who mounted a serious bid in 2012 and every plausible candidate running or potentially running in 2016. Let

 But, on this position, Cruz actually is...well...right? 

I subscribe to a Sumner-ian view of the recession, which suggests that monetary policy in the US was actually quite tight. We refused to lower rates, and in fact paid interests on reserves, which encouraged banks to sit on money. This had the effect of draining money out of the system, at just the time when the financial crisis sparked a HUGE demand for money.

Blah blah blah aggregate demand shortfall, etc.

This actually is a common view among the right-wing blogsphere. Scott Sumner isn't a Democrat, but a right-leaning libertarian-type fellow living in Wisconsin. He supported printing more money in the recession, yes, but you won't see him arguing for crazy amounts of government stimulus, higher taxes, etc.

In fact, you can see some of his more conservative economic viewpoints here, where he torpedoes some conventional liberal views about France. 

So, Cruz supporting this position ain't some kind of namby-pamby liberal, it's just pragmatic reality.

I am actually surprised to see Cruz supporting this position, and my brain feels forced to re-evaluate all sorts of priors about him and his candidacy.

Today, prior to the debate, I will review this Wonkblog article, and pay close attention to him during the debate.

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