…a slash-the-federal-entitlement-state view also just isn’t populist. Federal entitlements protect the masses against problems like unemployment, retirement insecurity, and poverty. Seeking to dismantle them is the opposite of defending mass interests against elites.
You can frame your desire to shrink these programs in terms of a desire to cut relatively regressive taxes like the payroll tax, as Carney does. But the progressivity that is lost by cutting entitlements is far greater than any that is gained by cutting regressive taxes.
via Libertarian Populism Isn’t Populist – Business Insider.
Related articles
- Libertarian populism is a fraud (salon.com)
- Is Populist Libertarianism Fraud? (economicpolicyjournal.com)
- The Contradiction At The Heart Of The Latest Movement To Save The GOP (thinkprogress.org)
- Andrew C (✓): Libertarian populism: Unpopular and impolitic | The Economist (economist.com)


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