John Kendrick at the Washington Examiner: "How to fix the budget without raising taxes or cutting spending."
posted by Helen at 11:24 AM
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
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2 Comments:
Ridiculous. At least within the context of the current crisis. Even in a larger context it's not nearly as simple as the author outlines.
This is basically a pitch for massive privatization of a large portion of the federal government. If we take his essay simply as a list of candidates for a long term privatization strategy I think it's a very interesting idea.
Taken at it's face it is completely unworkable for solving the debt ceiling issue. Selling $3 trillion in assets stacks some very large issues. Foremost, where is this $3 trillion going to come from? It should be obvious that much of what can be sold would be untenable to sell internationally. That limits buyers. Secondly, selling the mass assets (land, gold, whatever) is going to saturate the market. You might get your estimated value on the first 10% but every sale after that is going to drive the price into the ground. Not to mention the destabilizing effect on related assets in the existing market.
All in all, an interesting idea that deserves exploration. As a strategy for crisis management? Not so much.
OK, we sell $3 trillion worth of Federal assets and continue to all live like kings for a few more years. Then the money is gone and we are right back to our current state - needing to cut spending and raise taxes. Selling the national jewelry can only delay what needs to be done.
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