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if Matt Miller represents "the center", i'm glad the representative of "the left" wasn't there.

higher taces may eventually be necessary, but the fantasy that they won't slow growth is ridiculous.

How can cutting taxed during a recession help the economy but raising them during good economic times not hurt?'
Read some Keynes (kiddin - he's hard). Just get hold a good basic economics textbook & read the macro section. U will discover that most modern economists (yes, EVEN many conservative ones) now accept the basic Keynsian notion that governments can use fiscal policy (i.e taxation & spending to create deficits or surpluses) to counterract recessionary economic forces (decrease taxes to increase the deficit) as well as over-heated, expansionary economic forces (increase taxes to create surpluses - which both pay off debt accumulated in prior recessionary times & slow economic activity).

GREAT DEPRESSION II MESSAGE

Spend, spend for all you're worth--
Save the economy of the earth.

Save, save, that's the best bet--
Pennies saved reduce the debt.

If the right hand smacks the left,
Tie both down and and jump in the cleft.

Without a sound K-12 education, no education above that level is even possible. And as you must know, higher education in America, (college, graduate, professional schools) are very heavily subsidized by government (federal, state & local) expenditure - which accounts for some of the government debt you are rightly concerned about. To the extent that some government expenditures can actually be understood as 'investment' in public infrastructure (bridges, roads, airports, port facilities transport & communications facilities), knowledge creation (science & technology support) & human capital enhancement (health & education spending), it is approprite & economically sensible to fund that expenditure by public debt. When that is taken into account, the current federal national debt roughly equal to 45-55% of current GDP is sustainable & not demonstrably worse than the national debts of other comparable modern developed economies.

dead idea: 'Taxes hurt the economy'. Yet another distorted notion - masking the more fundamental (sometimes justified) critique of statism which suggests that (properly regulated!) markets allocate resources more efficiently & optimally than does government - GENERALLY (which is not the same as ALWAYS - i.e. where markets fail for economic reasons, government may be the answer). So taxes (meaning: government) should be kept to the minimum necessary to permit the maximum possible flourishing of individual enterprise, innovation, invention & creativity in free markets, thus creating the bounty of wealth which government should tax moderately to do the things that markets fail to do.

The only education I’ve gotten that was supported wholly by my elders, as you put it, was K-12. Now you’re telling me on top of the amount I’m paying for the bachelor and master degrees that allow for the income I have, I owe someone else for the education that only prepares you to say “want fries with that”? I believe in Social Security, but all the boomers have done is squander their own money and create a huge national debt for their children and their children’s children.

dead idea?: Money follows merit - it DOES. If that admittedly vague idea means that income & wealth accrues more to better educated, smarter, harder working people than to less-educated, dumber, slothful folk, then it's truth is so obvious as to hardly need defending! In fact, Mr. Miller himself, in his own confused & garbled way very much believes that this is true which explainns why he is in such a tizzy (as well we all SHOULD be) about the inadequacy of our current underfunded, poorly managged education system.

Here's a bad idea that Matt Miller should consider giving up:

That any one individual should receive better health care than any other.

By suggesting that we use a voucher system to allow the working class and poor to purchase "basic Chevrolet" plans, Mr. Miller gives away his bias toward the above 'tyrannical' idea. We all understand that health care equality is a difficult end to achieve, requiring some sophisticated political manoeuvrings, but until we acknowledge that one person's wealth should not determine whether he or she receives life saving health care, we cannot approach a humane solution.

If taxes do not hurt the economy they why is Obama cuting taxes to stimulate the economy?

How can cutting taxed during a recession help the economy but raising them during good economic times not hurt?

Supporting his argument by pointing out that McCain's people accepted that they would have to rise taxes to cover Social Security is not conceding that it does not hurt the economy it just accepting that you have to suffer the pain.

Isn’t the idea one should subsidize consumer purchase power in a so called “free market” a fool’s errand of sorts? How is competition fostered when the suppliers of a service (the health care industry, in this case) knows its above-true-market prices will be artificially sustained by the government? The idea that free markets will create competition and benefit the consumer is the really dead idea.

Young people should pay for the retirement of seniors becuase those seniors paid & PAY for their education, without which they would likely doomed to a life of miserable poverty. In fact the best way to 'save' social security is to dramatically improve the education of the young today, so that 20-30 years hence they will be that much more productive thereby making their (the young) own material lives that much better while making it easier for them to support the natural responsibility of their elders who sacrificed current consumption in part to provide the means to educate them.

I don't understand why Matt Miller is against a single payer health care system when Medicare works so well. Why don't we just put everyone on Medicare and have both employers and employees pay into it and give all Americans, employed or not, the same healthcare rights?

My big question for Mr. Miller is:

How to convince lawmakers to assume these positions?

Despite the almost collapse of capitalism, we still seemed to be enamored by the possibilities that if we play the game some of us will win and retire early, own our own business or become rich and the cost of playing the game is the extremes where the middle class is falling into the erosive pit of poverty.

And btw, we do not spend the most on health care, we spend the most on health insurance and so few of these dollars are ending up int he actual industry.

I love LRC... I propose that when Arianna Huffington is out, Brian subs in...

....That would be great...

Thank you Matt Miller. I've tried to make these arguments at the local level for years. Speaking of an idea that gets no traction...

Left, Right and Center is well worth a listen, just wish wnyc didn't bury it on AM 820 early Sunday morning. BTW- anybody know where I can get a recording of that version of the opening song?

The United States prospered in the years after World War II *IN* *SPITE* *OF* the level of taxation. Remember that the rest of the world at that time lay in ruins. The United States was the only show in town. Mickey Mouse could have managed a successful American economy.

Had tax rates been reasonable at that time, our prosperity today would be far advanced.

What makes The State believe that it knows how to spend my money better than I do?

Taxes cripple.

I hadn't realized Matt Miller had become such an honored pundit until this morning when I heard him on the show. I went to Columbia Law School with Matt in early 1980s. You should ask him to sing -- he was a featured player (and director?) of our law school show and has quite an excellent voice. Hey Matt!

Having lived and worked on both sides of the Pond, I have grown convinced that this is not solely an "American" problem.
The main reason for the possibility of a bleak future for our offsprings is that the vast majority of what we call the Western Civilisation is no longer HUNGRY ENOUGH.

100% education funding at the national level would be nice. Tax human capital-intensive corporations. Hire the same quality teacher in every school. Still have complete local control over hiring and other decisions, but just give each school equal chance of attracting good teachers, and having quality classes and after school programs.

Sorry Matt - but chances are much better that our children will live better than we do. All of the forces of growth of knowledge, science, technology which basically account for the enormous increase the material standards of living for much of the developed world are not only STILL at work, but are actually accelerating AND spreading to less developed parts of the world, thereby INCREASING the general level of material well-being over the the entire globe!!! Only someone ignorant of the sources of our past successes can be have so distorted & pessimistic a view of our future prospects.

Why should we pay for boomers' retirement. Shouldn't they have saved instead of doing LSD?

National standards are good because college admission is getting creative (but ends up favoring rich kids).

If I had kids, I would not be very interested in whether they will earn more money than I do. That's always been the ugly underside of the American dream. Far more relevant, surely, is whether my kids will be smarter and/or more ethical than I am. I'm inclined at the moment to an equally bleak conclusion...

European nations figured most, even all, of Mr. Miller's so-called insights about 50 years ago. The real issue is that Americans have to dump the dogma they have worshiped by for decades.

As far as I'm concerned, Arianna Huffington is a breath of fresh air compared to Sheer and Blankly. Sheer will say the same things over and over again and takes offence very easily. Blankly is just dense. Huffington's remarks are often well-considered and articulate, even with her Zsa-Zsa Gabor accent. My partner and I won't even listen to LR&C if she's not on.

MC,

I totally agree. Huffington is the weak link. She shows up one in every four shows and plugs her Web site non-stop. Huffington is in a different league then the rest of Left, Right and Center. I don't agree with Robert Sheer a lot of the time, but he is smart as a whip. I can't recall ever hearing Huffington saying anything of interest.

The recent discussion on the Chicago Senator mess was really good. Blankly and Sheer agreed and showed that true common ground and ethics can be a non-partisan or bi-partisan endeavor.

I have to chime in with Peter of post #1. I appreciate the independence of all three. Arianna I find irritating -- just parrots the Democratic party line. Who mad her an expert?

Please thank Matt Miller for being part of one of the best political podcasts available. I love to hear Robert Sheer and Tony Blankly find common ground and disagree. I also like how Matt Miller is clearly a Democrat but doesn't have a problem with supporting Republican ideas when he sees fit. Lastly, Tony Blankly may be the most thoughtful Republican voice on air right now - I am glad he is such a consistent part of Left, Right and Center.