Slate’s David Weigel responded to my article about the S&P downward revision of U.S. federal debt by making arguments that strengthen my point and demolish his own position.

Let’s take his so-called rebuttal head-on because Weigel’s assertion, while not a strawman (as he incorrectly termed my points), is simply wrong.

I argued that both data and common sense suggest that no amount of tax increase will prevent entitlements from bankrupting the country. (One would think the implication is clear that I was talking about tax hikes in the absence of massive entitlement cuts. After all, I was responding to Weigel’s correct assertion that “Democrats won’t give on entitlements.") Weigel responds with an IMF report which suggests that the U.S. “can restore fiscal balance by raising all taxes and cutting all transfer payments immediately and for the indefinite future by 35 percent. “

My usual response to something as preposterously hypothetical as this is “And if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle.” But rather than just discarding the IMF argument as rapidly as it deserves to be circular-filed, let’s explain why it’s so misguided.

Please read the rest of my article for the American Spectator here:
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/04/21/weigels-static-reasoning