The Washington Post's take on Cheneynomics

"It's entirely possible that there was more to it that; this was clearly not a topic that Post reporters Jo Becker and Bart Gellman were especially psyched to write about."

True dat, as they say. Compared to the level of detail and the quality of the writing in the first two parts, part 3 looks like amateur night.... They just better hope that the Pulitzer committee doesn't judge a series like this in its entirety.

"In any case, the legacy Cheney leaves behind on the economic front are persistent budget deficits (albeit, I always feel obliged to point out, much smaller deficits relative to GDP than those of the 1980s and early 1990s),"

They Keynesian in me forces to point out that you are glossing over a rather significant fact --- the deficits in the 1980s and early 1990s that you reference in your article were in the depths of recessions. The Bush/Cheney deficits are occurring despite a period of (supposed) economic growth. You are also ignoring the fact that there was an appropriate response (higher taxes) to those earlier deficits....

"....an economy that's still growing and dynamic but has clearly seen better days, and a bunch of huge, as-yet unresolved problems, from the U.S. trade relationship with China to the future funding of Social Security and especially Medicare. "

The "trade relationship" problem isn't with China, its with the rest of the world -- China just represents a nice big chunk of it. And our trade relationships wouldn't be a problem had it not been for Bush's fat cat tax cuts which gave us today's massive deficits -- and the resultant vulnerability of the dollar is a much bigger problem than "trade deficits".
And please stop treating Social Security as if its actually a big problem. Its not -- indeed, its a problem that will solve itself if we get our fiscal house in order.

It really is a shame that Becker and Gelman didn't pay more attention to this, because its thanks to Cheney that the America's stature has taken such a hit on literally every front -- including the economic front.

Secondary comment on Social Security solving itself, maybe you can follow up in a future column. I read somewhere that "if" (it's not a big if, actually) enough Baby Boomers worked just one additional year past age 65, the crisis of funding (which in any case may not really be a crisis) would simply dissolve. Is this true? If so, I can guarantee that it will happen because I don't think most boomers had retirement planning high on their list of priorities. I can't see 75M boomers retiring early or even on time.

I retired at age 70 and continued to work full time as a consultant for another 5 years, then part time for another 8. My father retired at 65 but got another job as Bridge Engineer for the State of Delaware. I remember him telling me about the raise in pay he got at age 75. What is wrong with you baby boomers working past age 65?

Darn. My Angrybear post on this had such a long title. Cheneynomics would have been the perfect title. And facile supply-side version of how the economy works. Excellent!