Going to great lengths to discredit

As a result of the Great Depression and the thinking of John Maynard Keynes (I've heard the last name rhymes with "brains") business slowdowns (also called recessions) since WWII have been pretty mild compared to the routinely horrific collapses in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The idea Keynes pushed is that government should stimulate the economy in bad times, running a deficit if necessary, and cut back on spending in boom times, paying off the debts with surpluses. Pretty good policy, though we weren't so good with the surplus part (though Bill Clinton managed it during his boom).

The GOP is definitely not following that policy, both refusing the stimulus and giving the Clinton surpluses to the rich. So, of course, they are working hard to discredit Keynes.

At one time Keynes wrote:

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.

Translation: economists are of no use if all they can do is say, "Yup, that was a bad recession, but we're now out of it." They should use their tools to make it not be so bad.

But the GOP is seizing on that second sentence, purposely ignoring the rest. Because we'll all be dead, those liberals want to pillage the economy. It won't be their problem.

The discrediting jabs have also jumped up a level with the claim, "Keynes was a childless homosexual." No wonder he came up with such a depressing line that "In the long run we are all dead." Only a hedonistic homosexual could be so selfish.

For the record, Keynes was married. To a woman.