Fiscal 'Conservative' Sen. Ben Nelson Calls for Deficit Spending, But...

...might just be too stupid to realize it. A reader sent me a story guaranteed to piss me off. And it worked! Senator Ben Nelson, in all his intellectual glory:

In lieu of a "war tax" to pay for a troop increase in Afghanistan, Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson (NE) is proposing war bonds.

"We didn't have a war tax in the second World War," Nelson said, and instead the government sold Americans bonds."People invested in their country, in that fashion [and] made a lot of sense back then. I don't know why it might not make sense today, certainly in lieu of jumping to tax."

A sitting senator can't be this stupid, can he?

War bonds are like any other government security: you give the government some money, and after a specified period of time, the government pays back the bond, plus some interest payments made throughout the life of the bond.

If this sounds kinda like a standard T-bill, that's because it's the same fucking thing. That is, this is nothing more than regular old deficit spending. Can we finally realize that fiscal 'conservatism' is no more intellectually coherent than intelligent design creationism?

Please?

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Democrats can't muster up decent candidates these days so the Party of God provided Ben Nelson to help 'em out.

By Matt Platte (not verified) on 02 Dec 2009 #permalink

Can he bring back S & H green stamps too? How about a DeSoto or two also. I can't wait to see a 'woody' station wagon.

By NewEnglandBob (not verified) on 02 Dec 2009 #permalink

How about Studebakers, best trucks ever built!!

By muttpupdad (not verified) on 03 Dec 2009 #permalink

Yes we had a war tax in WWII, that was when rates went to 91% at 200k. The tax rates in 1939 were 66% at 200,000 raising to
79% at 5,000,000. In 1944 the maximum effective rate was 90% at 200,000. So I think I would call that a tax increase.