If a government seems to be doing something insane, such as cutting the funding to high technology projects that are critical long term investments in knowledge creation, you may think that they are entirely insane. But, obviously, they are doing something that is entirely sane, or at least in their logic. So what is this logic? Is it a long term view of what can be financed over the long term. And, if it is, what does that mean? Sure, its one thing to cut taxes as George Bush has had the US government doing, but this is because he is thinking of getting more taxes not less! His logic is that the economy is running slower because the tax rate is too high. Its not because he thinks that the government has too much money to spend. No! George Bush and other leaders by cutting taxes want really to increase tax revenues when people feel things are better because their tax rate is lower. Psychological tinkering with the economy!
They don't want to come out and say honestly that the government needs more money to fight in Iraq or build new weapons of mass destruction, but they do want more money from the economy and they believe that lowering tax rates on the very wealthy is one way to achieve this. It may be, but it is very short term thinking. Its dishonest because they population is not told that the real purpose of tax cuts is more government revenue, coming incidentally from the middle income brackets or lower income people.
