Government is getting dumber

I have referenced David Frum's work here before. Needless to say, I am a fan. In this interview with Marketplace, Frum reminds us that politicians today -- on both sides of the aisle -- are guilty of turning back the clock on lessons we have already learned.

The whole notion of a fiscal stimulus bill in Washington these days necessarily ignores past lessons learned in the market. As Frum points out, "Fiscal stimulus almost always arrives too late, after the recovery has already begun. Worse, the usual result is a net economic nothing. The government borrows to give to consumers, who in turn use the money to reduce borrowing. Demand remains constant."

But our politicians today are not as concerned with good policy based on past learning as they are with good politics based on poll numbers in their home states.

More Frum:

A third lesson, big banks are stuck with hundreds of billions in bad real estate loans. That's also happened before, in the 1980s savings and loan crisis. Back then, everybody had to learn that the best way to unravel bad credit was fast. Yet once again we're hearing prominent politicians urging rate freezes and foreclosure moratoriums, postponing the inevitable at great cost.

We like to think that we get smarter as we get older, and that society makes intellectual progress from year to year -- not on present evidence. It would be bad enough if we did not know better. It's worse. We have unlearned what we do know.

Amen to that. Hat Tip: Kendall Harmon.