[T]he superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times, once it is debunked, takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control. . . . [O]ne of the functions of old-fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that long-run civilized life requires.
I like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I think she's intelligent, a good politician, and not particularly evil. I would definitely pick her for most anything over a bottom-feeder such as Kyrsten Sinema.
But she's not a socialist. She's not even a progressive, at least not in any meaningful sense. She's a bog-standard corporatist Democratic party politician. She's not a bad person, and I think she has done and will do what she can to ameliorate the billionaires' inherent assholiness, but when push comes to shove, she'll take the billionaires' side over the people.