Phony Giuliani

GIULIANI HANGS UP ON PHONIES

My mind is pretty much set against Giuliani as being anything other than an opportunist politician. I believe that he handled the 9/11 crisis well from a political perspective (as opposed to say Nagin and the governor of New Orleans in their political handling of Katrina). But as far as what he did in actual work on the ground as mayor, historians will have to sort that out since I've heard both positive and negative. A friend also reminded me that he was basically despised prior to 9/11 although I think Dinkins and Koch were not all that popular at times either. New Yorkers, after all, love to complain even more than the average American.

Here is my favorite quote from the brief article:

"If I had chased all of these frivolous issues, I never would have turned around the deficit in New York City. I never would have reduced crime . . . welfare . . . and I wouldn't have been able to handle Sept. 11," he said.

Besides his usually schtick of riding the corpses of the victims of 9/11, he is doing something that every politician who was fortunate enough to serve in the 90s has done - taken credit for something they had nothing to do with. I stand by my theory that every politician in the US got a free ride in the 90s because of the economy doing so well. Is it just coincidence that the national, state, and local governments all ran surpluses in the 90s? Did we suddenly elect perfect and brilliant leaders who knew how to make things happen? No. They all got lucky because for whatever reason (to be explored later) the US economy boomed in the 90s. Philadelphia eliminated its deficit, Pennsylvania eliminated its deficit, New York City eliminated its deficit, the national government eliminated its deficit, every local school district ran a surplus in the region except a handful. County government didn't need to raise taxes in the 90s.

Now Rendell is in the governor's mansion and we are running a huge deficit. Where is his magic? The batch of politicians from the 90s have all moved up the ladder but the magic seems to be gone. Why? Because they all got lucky. None of them will ever admit this publicly because the public will believe them when they say that they turned around the governments they lead. The truth is that spending, as always, kept increasing, but that tax revenue increased faster than they could spend it. Now that the economy has gone back to its normal pace, we are back to deficits.

As for Giuliani reducing crime and welfare, these are just as much results of an improving economy as turning around deficits and he knows it. But we will eat up anything we hear if it is said with a smile. Giuliani is not by far the only one guilty of this lie, but he is certainly one of the most prominent liars right now.

I'm now convinced that basic practical economics should be a part of every high school curriculum just so students can learn a little bit more about the way the real world works. By that I mean an explanation of government spending, revenue, the consequences of FIAT money, the role of Federal Reserve, and the use of the Dollar as a currency peg for other currencies. That is just as if not more important that basic civics lessons about how government is supposed to work. Especially in the day and age when most "legislation" is actually passed in the form of an executive order. Who cares about the details of the legislative process? The more important thing is what factors influence how the government makes its decisions and passes laws.