Democracy should never be the wool over your skeptical eyes, preventing any analysis of consequences. Democracy, in its purist form, has bad consequences; that’s why the rule of law embodied in constitutions is needed to limit what the people can decide.

Should the people decide to elect Adolf Hitler would you approve of his every policy simply because the means were just and the people wanted it? The people are more often wrong than right, that’s the experience of legislation as recent as the health care bill (which a majority supported then didn’t) and as general as speech codes and assembly restrictions.

Why we shouldn’t confer economic policy decisions is best demonstrated by FDR and Hoover’s policies of stimulus in which the GD was prolonged, not shortened, as a consequence. The people wanted their own poverty and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t read their constitution which would’ve allowed for a faster/more thorough recovery.

I only brought up FDR as an example of a popularly-accepted Keynesian with whom Hassett agrees; but I guess it made your day, so you’re welcome.

A constitutional republic is the antithesis of pragmatism.

I’m a very pragmatic European socialist. I don’t give a damn about labels. If someone prefers to call his policy Non-Keynesian so be it.

I have no idea why libertarians obsess about this FDR stuff and want to rewrite history. He was re-elected and captured 46 of 48 states. Maybe his policies don’t suit you but eventually they suited his electorate. That’s democracy. Get over it.

Besides, it’s kind of unfair to expect any libertarian to defend the antics of Kevin Hassett. Where have I heard that name? It seems like he gave me some bad investment advice?

If $100 billion is the plan I would propose the administration don’t listen to us Keynesians and instead implements the latest proposal of some super-conservative economist like AEI’s Kevin Hassett: ‘Find the Unemployed and Hire Them’