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Dear Simon, Hi and thanks for this thoughtful note, which surely keeps the conversation going. First of all, sorry this is in great haste, as I have two pieces to get out today, plus a fair bit of (thank goodness) political risk business to get done. Saying this, I wanted to write, if only broadly. A) As always, particularly for data scientists (who try to take the politics out of this) it all depends on what you count. Some on the right believe tax cuts help the economy by giving money back to companies and individuals who spend it more productively than the government. Some on the left don't count this for one dollar, and think it only adds to the deficit. That is a political, and subjective, not an objective output. This is why I prefer history! 2) I think philosophically I agree with Senator Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia. The ideational problem with the wish list bill is that it would philosophically re-make the US and another Eurepan-style, 'entitled' society, with sclerotic growth, as government simply doesn't allocate funds in every case as well as individuals do. Surely the European model is not one we should be copying, given growth rates over the past generation. 3) Yes, while there are surely good programs in the wish list bill (for my sins I've read it in detail, too) it is the lumping together of every progressive initiative created over a generation--some good, some bad--that is the problem. They are not differentiated in policy terms in any way; it is rather an emotional effort to get 'everything' at the expense of getting only the good. Trust me, Republicans will overturn such bills based on such an approach as soon as they find themselves in the majority. To heal the breach, we need to separate the wheat from the chaff, and have moderates of both sides champion what is good in the bill, and do it together. As I said in the podcast, the political culture of the country is founded on large segments of both parties supporting (or at least not trying to overturn) major pieces of legislation. That is precisely why they have proved enduring. This requires not an all or nothing approach, a winner take all view, but instead the frustrating ability to compromise, to ensure this endurance. All this is why I favour the infrastructure bill and oppose the wish list bill. Thanks for making me think, and onto the next!

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Hi John - many commentators including yourself say the D's $3.5 spending bill is too much but, according to this data scientist, when adjusting for economic conditions it's R's who increase the deficit more than D's.

https://towardsdatascience.com/which-party-adds-more-to-deficits-a6422c6b00d7

In view of recent events:

- the taxpayer footing the bill for the financial crisis while profits and bonuses earned prior to the crisis were, ironically, pocketed by those that caused the crisis.

- the Trump tax cuts that barely did anything for the average tax payer but benefitted the rentier class hugely, all the while blowing out the deficit. Made worse by the fact that good economic policy dictates that a deficit should be paid down in good times (which they were pre-covid) in order to have cash in the bank for the bad times when they arrive i.e. covid.

So shouldn't the D's be allowed some leeway to enact their policies or is it a case, again, of the D's having to be fiscally responsible while the R's do what they like?

I had a look through the spending bill and can make the argument that $3.5m is excessive, however there are some great ideas in there that, assuming they have their intended effect, would go a long way to reducing some of the bitterness between the haves and the have nots that is clearly a factor in the angry funk America finds itself in right now.

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Intellectually candid and honest analysis - This should be replayed for our poltical leaders and frankly the entire country to hear. It is substantive objective.

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