KLAVAN: Ocasio-Cortez Peddles Economics For ‘Stupid People’

On Monday’s episode of “The Andrew Klavan Show,” the host explains how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other freshmen Democrats are using “economics for stupid people” in order to explain how they want to pay for their massive spending plans. Transcript and video below.

The first thing people ask is, “How are you gonna pay for this?” and Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, she explains where the money is going to come from:

AOC: The first thing that we need to do is kind of break the mistaken idea that taxes pay for a hundred percent of government expenditure, it’s just not how government expenditure works. We can recoup costs but oftentimes you look at, for example, the GOP tax cut which I think was an irresponsible use of government expenditure, but government projects are often financed by a combination of taxes, deficit spending and other kinds of investments. You know bonds and so on…

Interviewer: Well I get that but deficit spending is borrowing money that has to be paid back eventually through taxes.

AOC: Yeah and I think that is always the crux of it, so when we decide to go into the realm of deficit spending we have to do so responsibly. We ask is this an investment or is this actually gonna pay for itself?

Interviewer: So you’re saying borrow the money, make the investment, the economy will grow, you’ll pay off the debt.

AOC: Absolutely because we’re creating jobs.

Economics for stupid people right there. The government makes no money, the government creates no jobs, there are government jobs but they always cost more than normal jobs – they’re actually taking jobs away, they’re always a net loss in jobs. Why? Because in order to create the jobs you got to collect the taxes, you got to move the taxes. Each dollar is being decimated by going through the government process. If I hire somebody, it’s like you give me money because I’m selling you soap, then I use the money that I got in the profit I got for soap to hire somebody, it’s just a clean deal and I create jobs. The government never creates jobs, the government takes people’s money, which would be used for creating jobs and makes fewer jobs. That’s how that works.

The idea that deficit spending is “not” taxes is just wonderful. You know even at knucklehead row, the op-ed page of the New York Times, even on knucklehead row there was an op-ed that was mostly knuckle-headed but actually said something important. This is by Steven Rattner, who served as councilor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, this is not some crazed right-winger speaking the truth — I hate when they do that — this is a guy who was willing to lie, most of this op-ed is just slanted, but here it’s called “your grandchildren are already in debt” and here is how it goes:

Medicare for all, the Green New Deal, free college tuition, with each new entrant into the Democratic presidential sweepstakes comes a fresh cascade of ambitious social programs to entice and excite would-be supporters. The list of pay-fors, to use a bit of Washington jargon, grows more slowly. They’ll pay for this how again? Tax the rich, tax the rich or take cover behind a convenient bit of progressive dogma “don’t worry about the fiscal impact because America’s rising budget deficits and debt levels don’t much matter.” That’s a scary drift of thought, and it should set off alarm bells for all Americans. Vast increases in debt will ultimately compromise Washington’s ability to maintain its current array of spending programs, let alone add new ones and threaten our standard of living.

This is from an Obama guy who then goes on in the rest of the piece to blame the Republicans for all the deficit spending, which actually has an aspect of fairness to it. They’ve all done it, everybody’s done it, but at least somebody at the New York Times — which is basically now just an anti-Trump hate rag — is speaking out against this kind of nonsense.

Listen to more of “The Andrew Klavan Show” on iTunes here.