Thursday, July 14, 2011

From Austrian to Keynesian in 5 Easy D.C. Steps

BTW, Bruce Bartlett, the guy who argued that the Constitution allows the President to unilaterally increase the debt ceiling, has an interesting career path.

A friend, who has followed Bartlett's career, emails me to inform:
Bruce Bartlett worked for Ron Pual in his first term as an ardent Austrian (and the author of a not-bad work on Pearl Harbor revisionism). Then he moved to Kemp as an ardent supplysider; then he was an official in the Bush I Treasury; then he worked for NCPA, a libertarian neocon outfit, and was very close to Cato; now he is a plain leftist and open Keynesian.
at 5:36:00 PM

4 comments:

  1. Bob RoddisJuly 14, 2011 at 6:47 PM

    Bartlett sure seemed to love gold back in the May 1980 issue of Libertarian Review:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_roddis/4161210353/in/set-72157600951970959/

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  2. Jule HerbertJuly 14, 2011 at 6:53 PM

    I have followed Bartlett for 37 or so years. I don't believe he ever had an Austrian period. And he started at Treasury under Reagan.

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  3. HansJuly 14, 2011 at 7:45 PM

    Hmm, could this be something similar to Greenspan? I seem to remember hearing Rand saying something about him being maybe mostly a "social climber" ....

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  4. AnonymousJuly 14, 2011 at 9:15 PM

    Power corrupts, and proximity is tempting. I don't doubt Bartlett once believed in libertarian ideals, but the temptation to "go along to get along" is powerful. Now he has the ear of the prez, so it worked for him. Too bad it cost him his soul.

    That makes Dr Paul's decades of "speaking truth to power" all the more amazing and worthy of praise.

    ReplyDelete

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