Alan Simpson’s Legacy

The report makes several pretty concrete predictions about what will happen if the U.S. doesn't dramatically reduce its deficit, and not a single one of them ever came to pass. Interest on U.S. government debt didn't hit $1 trillion in 2020. We didn't have a "debt crisis."

— Zachary D. Carter (@zachdcarter) February 3, 2023

The man who seemed to think Scrooge was a bleeding heart liberal; before his fateful Christmas Eve. By Simpson’s reasoning the Covid bailout funds should have wrecked the world economy. Instead, they saved it.

But the most astonishing thing is just how confident the writers are that they've identified the most serious problem facing the American public. The entire report is constantly admonishing *everyone* for failing to do what *everyone* knows is just critically essential.

— Zachary D. Carter (@zachdcarter) February 3, 2023

That was the Senator’s favorite schtick: anyone who disagreed with him was just an idiot failing to understand what was so simple and so essential to life as we know it.

This was all just flat-out wrong, and it dominated economic thought in Washington D.C. for years. We lost a decade of economic growth to this madness, and damaged democracy itself around the world. What a waste.

— Zachary D. Carter (@zachdcarter) February 3, 2023

In order to save democracy, we have to destroy the people who support it!

Simpson didn’t start talking that way in 2010; it just culminated then. Like Paul Ehrlich before him, Simpson was sure the benighted fools who weren’t driven to follow his advice would see the collapse of civilization in their lifetimes. And like Ehrlich, Simpson was no prophet. Just another guy with an idee fixe he was sure explained everything.

It didn’t, of course.