Politics is about trust, and about ideas.  I believe that ideas trump all else.  What we believe to be true is the overarching determinant of how we behave, and how we vote.

For this reason, politics is a battle over ideas.  What is true?  What is “right”?

Economics is not an exact science.  We cannot put a nation in a test tube and apply experiments.  We have to infer from existing data and derive the truth as best we can.  Adam Smith told us about the “invisible hand”, and revealed commonsense truth based on what he saw around him.  John Maynard Keynes had a different idea.  He postulated that the “invisible hand” needed help, and that help had to come from government.  He gave us “multipliers” and “counter-cyclical” actions.  The result is anything but obvious.

This article at WSJ.com explains how and why Mr. Keynes has turned economics on its head.

Economics is the science of how resources are deployed, and people behave.  If you pay for something you get more of it.  If you tax it, you get less of it.  The politics of wishful thinking and counter-intuitive nonsense must end if we are to regain our economic strength.