It Takes A Villager (To Get It So Wrong)

Wow. Even Bruce Bartlett - THE world-famous supply-sider - knows better than everyone's favourite "liberal" rich guy-cum-newspaper owner-cum-Villager Extraordinaire Mort Zuckerman to place the blame for our current federal deficit on Obama's spending policies.

To wit:

To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected, but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.

And, if that wasn't enough to make you question whether we really are living in a mathematical construct created by our machine overlords, this should just about do the trick:

...I conclude that a lack of spending in the economy is the central problem and the only policies that will help are those that increase spending - consumer spending, investment spending, net exports or government spending.

...I think there are grounds on which to criticize the Obama administration's anti-recession actions. But spending too much is not one of them. Indeed, based on this analysis, it is pretty obvious that spending - real spending on things like public works - has been grossly inadequate.

Which isn't to say that Obama's other policy positions are going to do anything to improve the deficit, since he's obviously disinclined to close overseas tax-loopholes (broken campaign promise #386), raise taxes on the wealthy, re-impose taxes on stock transactions, or spend money where it really needs to be spent to re-start the economy - and generate more revenue...

[Massive H/T to Barry Ritholz]