Trickle Around Economics in Stump County

Cletus Stumpwater and Ivan A. Spendit have been having a big argument about economics. Ivan, who is our local representative to the Gov’mit in Rich City, says it is possible to spend your way out of debt. Cletus says if you owe more than you have you are broke.
The rest of us don’t know who is right. None of us own much and nobody will lend us enough so we can see if Ivan is right. Still it is sort of like pig rasslin and politics, it is a dirty business but if you don’t care who wins it is fun to watch.
Ivan keeps quoting some guy named Andy Capp that he says was a philosopher in England. This Capp guy worked some place called the Sunday Funny Papers. Ivan quotes Capp as saying, “If you owe $20 and can’t pay it you are a bum. If you owe a million and can’t pay you are a business and if you owe billions and can’t pay you are a government.” Capp advised borrowing enough money to be a government.
Cletus argues that if you have a million dollars worth of stuff and owe a million on it you are just as broke as a hobo living under the railroad trestle, you are just living higher on the hog while you wait for the day of reckoning. And he says, “Hoboes don’t get ulcers.”
Cletus and Ivan are also arguing about trickle around economics. Cletus says President Reagan used it and it worked. Now President Yo Mama is using it and Cletus says it doesn’t work. Ivan said it didn’t work when Reagan did it but it is working now for Yo Mama.
The rest of us really don’t care about trickle around; we just wish the gov’mit would leave us enough of our own money to piddle around with.
The only people the economy doesn’t affect are Elimira Dogbox and her Yankee husband. They are still living in that old house on the remaining half-acre of the Flat Broke but Still Proud Plantation just like they had money.
Ivan thinks that the Gov’mit can borrow money and spend it fixing the roads and stuff and that it will stimulate Stump County. Cletus says roads are nice but he thinks they will have to raise our taxes to pay for them. He says they will be like toll roads except we will have to pay for them forever whether we use them or not.
Come to think about it, why do we need roads here? We can’t afford to go anywhere and nobody that is anywhere else wants to come here.