On the future of Progressives

Can rational Progressives and Conservatives at least agree that it is long past time to clean up the government books? Much public debate is wasted arguing the data rather than next steps. Private business can not afford that inaccuracy; neither in the long run can governments.

You can not manage what you can not measure. In the real world, Fannie and Freddie would go away for that reason alone. I struggle to understand how the world of bureaucrats and lawyers can place anything, even political policy, above this simple tenet.

What little remains of rational political and economic debate often centers around ideology.

But surely the greatest Progressive and socialist weakness is actually one of practicality; the state inevitably bankrupts itself.

Sure, part of the issue is that taxes are inherently a Ponzi scheme rather than driven by investment. But the larger issue is that centralized programs generate dependency rather than actualization.

Yes, Hayek has it right. I would say cognitive psychology does as well.

But it is Mancur Olson (The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities) and Joseph Tainter (The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology) that finally stick the fork in Leftist argument. It turns out ideas have to live in the real world with us fly-over rubes.