Deficient budget coverage
Suddenly, the media are once again obsessed with budget deficits. This always seems to happen when they cover Democrats, even though, as Joe Conason notes, 90 percent of the $11 trillion in federal debt run up in America's history can be attributed to Ronald Reagan and the two Presidents Bush -- and even though the only president to balance a budget in the last 40 years was Democrat Bill Clinton. Despite all that, the media are much more concerned about deficits when assessing Democrats' spending plans than Republicans' tax-cut proposals.
Now, in the abstract, it's helpful for the media to pay attention to federal budget deficits. Left to their own devices, most politicians would probably prefer to propose tax cuts rather than tax increases, and most -- even those who profess to dislike government spending -- seem to rather enjoy spending the money that, as a result of those tax cuts, the government isn't bringing in.
Unfortunately, the news media's approach to deficits tends to be remarkably shortsighted and simplistic. Take, for example, the tendency to analogize the federal budget to an individual's household budget. The American people have to balance their budgets, we are told, and so the government should do so as well, lest it go "bankrupt."
It's a poor analogy, for a couple of reasons. First, it doesn't make much sense to say the government shouldn't do what an individual citizen cannot -- that's a large part of the reason we have a government in the first place. Second, most people can and do run deficits. That's what credit cards, mortgages, and student loans are.
So the household budget actually could be a useful analogy, if only the media used it correctly. It demonstrates that there are good deficits and bad. If your teenage daughter wanted to borrow $50,000 to buy lottery tickets, you'd probably think that was a bad idea. A $50,000 loan to pay for college, on the other hand, might be a good investment. Both actions would create deficits -- but while one should be avoided at all costs, the other has a good chance of paying off in the long run.
In fact, in analogizing government and personal budgets, the media should understand that balancing a budget can sometimes cause more economic harm than running a deficit ever would.
Anyone who has read the 2001 book Nickel and Dimed, in which journalist Barbara Ehrenreich chronicles her attempts to get by on the wages she earned waiting tables, working in Wal-Mart, and cleaning houses, should understand this. Ehrenreich describes a perverse situation in which she and others like her must live in motel rooms because they cannot afford the up-front costs (first and last months' rent, security deposits) required to live in apartments that would actually be less expensive on an ongoing basis. As a result, they live in less comfortable, less safe housing that is often farther from work, thus increasing commuting time and costs. And they pay more than they would for an apartment. And since the motel rooms lack kitchens, they either spend more on food than they would in an apartment or eat meals with little to no nutritional value -- which can, in turn, lead to increased health-care costs and lost wages.
This is not a sustainable situation. The budgets are balanced in the short term, but provide no margin for error and don't work for long. Eventually, living in a motel becomes too expensive, so people end up living in shelters or in their cars. And remember: these are people with jobs; the situation is obviously worse for those struggling to find work. It certainly isn't the only thing keeping low-income workers from enjoying a comfortable middle-class life, but the inability to spend money now for the purposes of saving more money later is a significant part of a vicious cycle of poverty that is difficult to escape.
On an individual level, the inability to carry a short-term budget deficit can cause greater problems than the deficit would. Likewise, the fear of government deficits can actually lead to larger deficits. In 1993, Pete Peterson warned against an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system, arguing, "The issue is whether we can afford it. We can't." Since then, health-care costs have skyrocketed -- bringing spending on things like Medicare, and thus the budget deficit, along for the ride. It turns out we couldn't afford not to reform health care.
And yet Peterson and those who share his obsessive anti-deficit approach continue to see their views promoted by the media as though they were gospel. In January, CNN went so far as to broadcast a film backed by Peterson's foundation as part of a two-hour special about the need to take immediate action to reduce the deficit. At this week's presidential press conference, so many questions focused on the need for "sacrifice" and deficit reduction, journalist Matt Cooper noted: "MSM [mainstream media] is so deficit obsessed. Not that it's a small matter but they're all Pete Petersons."
It's not that, as Dick Cheney once said, "deficits don't matter." It's that not all deficits are created equal. Some deficits -- those created by, say, invading a country that didn't attack us while handing truckloads of cash to your former Halliburton cronies and others who are already fantastically wealthy -- stick future generations with the tab for budget decisions that don't really get us much in exchange. Those might reasonably be considered bad deficits. Other deficits, however, can actually save money in the long term -- or at least get us something worth having, like health care or new sources of energy. Or both.
In their obsessive focus on the deficit, reporters should keep that in mind. And they should remember that if history is any guide, "Can we afford to listen to Pete Peterson?" may be a more important question than "Can we afford to reform health care?"
Gops are just no good with economic issues or national security, but at least they can always run on their environmental and civil rights records.
What environmental and civil rights record? They are against the rights of gays to marry and women to protect their health and life with an abortion. They are also against any environmental regualations because they cut into corporate profits. Of course, that is an extremely shortsighted view seeing as how no corporation (or human, for that matter) will survive climate change.
How seldom does anyone in the MSM report the fact that, historically, the economy -- and the stock market -- perform better under Democratic leadership in the White House than under Republican leadership. Maybe such facts do not fit in with all of rhetoric labelling Democrats as "anti-captialist?" Is that the reason -- ideology? Or is it simply ignorance?
why not all three and hit a trifecta
this piece is filled with so much leftwing baloney, it's amazing. it's nothing more than a poor excuse for government spending with money we don't even have. Even though Boehlert tries to splice and dice how some deficits are bad, while others are good. First he disses the household analogy, then uses it. Then hauls the old liberal line about how tax cuts reduce revenue, when in fact they spur economic growth increasing the tax base, so that is misinformation big time. and I love this whopper "Left to their own devices, most politicians would probably prefer to propose tax cuts rather than tax increases". who are you kidding, liberals live to raise taxes and take people's money, they hate tax cuts, but nice try. so when a Republican was in office, the deficits don't matter mantra was resoundly aimed at by liberals at being fiscally irresponsible, which it absolutely was, and is. but now that the Democrats are in charge and we as a country are nearly broke, and the taxpayer is tapped out, Boehlert tries to rationalize and talk up deficits to get liberals hands around more money, whether we have it or not, to spend and spend. this is one hysterical piece.
my apologies to Mr. Boehlert, this is Foser's folly.
No it's YOURS.
Have you ever seen a republican congress and WH cut overall spedning? Unless you're about ninety years old, and can remember Herbert Hoover, you HAVEN'T. (And, uh, how did that work out?)
Lowering taxes does NOT increase revenues. Don't the last eight years PROOVE That? Don't the ieght prior to that demonstrate that higher taxes are not the deth knell of economic growth? There are many factors that effect the ecomony, and taxes are but one small part of a complex puzzle. SO IS GOVERNMENT SPENDING. Increasing spending helps every bit as much as lowering taxes. (More if the spending gives someone a job who would otherwise be unemployed, and the tax cut go to someone who will not spend it.) And before you go one about how "they'll invest it and THAT will create jobs..." NO. IT. WON'T. At best they will tkae 90% of there tax cut and BUY STOCK. And 99% of stock is bought from the previous shareholder, not the companies. So that's baloney sausage. What's more REDUCING SPENDING hurts MORE that raising taxes. And at the end of the day the market will fidn a new equilibrium anyway.
Under your method (supply-side) Prices are lower, the rich are richer, and 98% of American is under-employed and squeezing their nickels until they say "seven cents."
Under MY METHOD (And John M. Keynes') Prices are higher, and while the rich are stil rich, people can make enough money to buy the goods they need, and EVERYONE (INCLUDING, buy not JUST, the RICH) benefit, have a better lifestyle and have some money lefto ver to save.
Your ecenomic philosphy is bankrupt. It's been destroying this country for nigh 30 years, and it's about time you neo-con's face up to that.
He basically said the household analogy the media is using is bogus because a lot of households have debt. He corrected the media's faulty logic.
It's not a liberal line; it's reality. The Reagan and Bush presidencies account for much of the debt we have now. We have nothing to show for it but an ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and a narrowing gap between us and the rest of the world.
We have a lot of responsibilities and we have to take care of them. We take from the people who can afford it.
There is good debt and bad debt. Republicans tend to use our money on things that don't benefit society. On the other hand, Democrats use the money to enhance society. All the spending Obama is doing now will pay off in the long run.
good debt is fine if it's paid off, paying interest on debt is not good. as I said, we are broke, you can keep thinking you can take more and more from those "who can afford it" to pay for our responsibilities, but that is naive and unrealistic, for a host of reasons, not to mention counterproductive in actually generating revenue to pay off this debt. It is not sustainable, and the reason for Bush's debt is way too much spending, not low taxes. you either support a debt ridden govt, or you don't. to only support it when your agenda is being pushed is being a hypocrite. And incredibly irresponsible.
Perhaps if wealthy corporations and individuals actually paid their taxes and didn't stash money in tax-free havens, there would be less debate about tax rates...
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/conason-offshore-tax-havens-bailed-out-companies-costing-economy
We've been broke for thirty years and that hasn't stopped us. And how do you expect us to take care of our responsibilities without taxing people?
I'm not going to support spending by any party if there isn't a clear benefit to society. Republicans tend to spend our money willy-nilly and I don't support that.
did I say we shouldn't tax people? that straw argument is asinine.
Then you agree me.
Then you agree with me.
I agree that we need taxes, obviously. We most likely disagree to what degree and how burdensome they should be on us.
They're not burdensome enough. We've been running a deficit for decades excluding a short period in the late nineties.
We are broke because of the folly of the most recent President Bush and if he hadn't made such a mess of the budget deficit, we could afford to fund this economic crisis.
We have to have the stimulus bill. We are broke, but we have to spend this money.
"... and the reason for Bush's debt is way too much spending, not low taxes."
No. The single biggest contributor to the Bush deficits was his irresponsible tax cuts for the very wealthy.
Shorter jamesB:
Now that Democrats are in charge, I'll admit that spending was out of control during the Bush years. But I laugh heartily at the suggestion that there's any difference between investing in no-bid contracts and murdering Iraqis and investing in health care, energy, and education.
Would that be "in a nut shell..." or "in a nuts hell"?
Either way, a frighteningly accurate synopsis.
so when bush was in office you wouldn't admit that his spending was out of control.....
very nice that you stand up for your principles
well if there is no bidding in the conttracts then whoever is recieving the contracts can charge whatever they want.
and as for murdering iraqis.......well didn't a firm called blackwater do just that? having recieved a no bid contract for their services from W. and Dick?
given other threads ill assume you were being witty and again apologize. not to james but to you
I disagree with your tax cut philosphy. They do stimulate the economy, but you get less than a dollar back in revenue than you spend in cutting the tax in the first place, making the action pointless, unless you are cutting massive amounts of taxes (reagan style I guess, even though that ended up creating the culture that caused the crisis with de-regulation). Besides what you may beleive, nobody lives to raise taxes. You may think that the taxpayer is tapped out, but the tax code is much more punishing to the low-income worker than the upper-income. In fact, if you are really rich you don't have a job, you own things that make you money, which means you don't pay as much in taxes as a person who works for a living. If the government wants to get rich then it needs to act like a business. This means investing in things that will make it more money in the long run. Hence, the deficits. We are trying to invest in the lower-income workers so they can stimulate the corporations and everyone will end up paying more in taxes. This will help the economy grow and reduce the deficits in the long run. Unfortunately, there is still the entightelment problem. I'd be fine with cutting them completely, but I have a feeling that millions of people depend on those entightlements to live (which means they used poor financial planning). In a year we'll see how our investments did. The difference between Bush's deficits and these deficits is that these will eventually pay us back instead of getting us deeper in the hole.
when in fact they spur economic growth increasing the tax base,
Guess what, Jimmy? A while back I asked for a pay cut at my job and now I check my bank account, I actually have more money. It's really amazing!!
THE MEDIA ARE A LITTLE TO LATE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!! THEY WERE LATE ON THE WAR AND PEOPLE DIED BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED THE LIES PEOPLE LIKE REPUBLICANS AND FOX NEWS WAS TELLING AND NOW THEY ARE LATE ABOUT THE DEFICIENT BECAUSE AGAIN THEY BELIEVED REPUBLICANS LIES!!!!!
Joe Scarbourough is by far the worst person in the media when talking about deficits. He doesn't understand anything that he's told and continually asks "HOW DOES SPENDING MORE MONEY SAVE MONEY? HMMM? HMMMMM? /slurp starbucks shake"
Foser here illustrates some of the foundation behind the Fundamental Theorem of Liberalism: a rich person is still rich after taxes.
Being rich saves money more than anything else ever can. You get higher yield investments, you don't have to pay interest on anything, and you don't need a bunch of insurance (which is a negative-sum game).
Once again these comments will fill up with deficit hawks. They should therefore push for massive tax increases on the rich, which works logically as well as empirically.
and therein lies the fundamental flaws of liberalism. It isn't about rich people still being rich after taxes, nobody is going to argue that if you raise someone's taxes who makes 20 million a year it will have a major impact on their lifestyle, it won't. the point is about responsibility and accountability. why should the govt get one more red cent when it's proven over and over how much they waste? how much they overspend? a very small percentage of rich people, as you put it, already pay 50% of the taxes in this country, and you want a massive tax increase to redistribute their money to people who haven't earned it, that is what your proposal would do. and you wonder why it will never fly in this country, how long do you think people will actually be motivated to earn more if they have a massive tax increase on them, would you? No. so your entire argument is counterproductive and ends up garnering less revenue for the govt than low taxes. but liberals will never acknowledge that because along with their insatiable appetite to rob rich people and give it away to someone else is their eutopia for mediocrity and laziness, where the playing field is leveled for everyone regardless.
Liberalism doesn't support wasting tax dollars.
The tax increase on people making over $250,000 is not massive. It moves them from like 36% to 39%. It's really a small increase.
Your entire argument is specious.
"it's proven over and over how much they waste" -- according to the entirety of republican arguments in the last presidential election, the government wastes about 1% of its money. Why else are we fiddling with $100 million earmarks in a budget of trillions?
"you wonder why it will never fly in this country" -- it DID fly, in the 50s and 60s, when a single wage earner could support a whole family.
"your entire argument ends up garnering less revenue for the govt than low taxes" -- proven false by the revenue gains from Clinton's tax hike and the relative revenue loss from Bush's tax cuts.
"how long do you think people will actually be motivated to earn more if they have a massive tax increase on them" -- for as long as 10 million is a larger number than 5 million.
The entirety of your life's mental activity has been performed in a vacuum. Introduce your thoughts to the world and iron out the substantial disagreements.
Well, they use the vast majority of resources in this country and they also retain most of our nation's wealth.
A lot of those people earned that money but they were robbed by the advent of Reaganomics. Reagan destroyed the labor movement which has led to declining wages for everyone except a certain group of people.
"a very small percentage of rich people, as you put it, already pay 50% of the taxes in this country, and you want a massive tax increase to redistribute their money to people who haven't earned it, that is what your proposal would do."
Again, that's disparity. If the wealth is concentrated into an increasingly small section of society, then the percentage of their burden is going to go up. How ridiculous is it to support policies that make the rich richer and then whine that they're paying such a large percentage of the tax burden?
nobody is going to argue that if you raise someone's taxes who makes 20 million a year it will have a major impact on their lifestyle, it won't.
You really should have stopped there, gone to Starbucks and order nie cup of Iced STFU. The rest of your post was nonsense, betrayed by THIS STATEMENT.
ANd I have news for you: Nobody EARNS $20M a year. People who WORK FOR A LIVING get padi $#!+ but the $20M a year people, who do no work. You egt rich by getting OTHER PEOPLE to do the work for you. So cry me a frickin' river. Boo-frinkin'-hoo for the rich folks. (BTW - Are you able to run faster without the weight or a soul or a conscience holding you back?)
"... why should the govt get one more red cent when it's proven over and over how much they waste?"
Have you not been paying attention? President Obama (get used to it!) has said repeatedly that -- unlike the previous administration -- he is going to vigorously fight waste, fraud and abuse in the federal budget and in military expenditures especially, where such abuse was allowed to run rampant in the previous eight years.
On some of your other points, shouldn't workers get the pensions they have earned? They often don't, you know. Reagan had to raise taxes because, surprise, tax cuts do not raise revenues. They don't even increase private investment. And the Bush tax cuts actually transfered money to the rich, as have all of the high interest rates which are paid mostly by the poor.
It's absolutely true, and should be as obvious as the forest that's obscuring the trees: it's not the fact that we borrow, or even how much we borrow, but what we're borrowing for.
And as Mr. Foser points out, the question of what we're borrowing for, is like trump: and the facts that we borrow and how much we are borrowing, are just the off-suits.
My personal favorite media reference this week, regarding deficit spending, was when ed henry of CNN asked the President:
"...Do you worry, though, that your daughters, not to mention the next president, will be inheriting an even bigger fiscal mess if the spending goes out of control?"
The guy can't just imply the President doesn't know what he's doing, or even just claim (stupidly) that President Obama is letting the next President down, but he had to sneak in an insulting implication that President Obama is a bad and irresponsible father to his children too.
Real Genius.
This guy ed henry's name is now linked in my mind with that particular insulting reference, anytime the stupid name ed henry should bother my ears.
The national debt is currently at approximately 11 trillion dollars. Last year the interest payment on the national debt was approximately 451 billion dollars.
Current projections are for the deficits to average nearly 1 trillion dollars per year for the next 10 years which will bring us to around a 20 trillion dollar national debt by 2020. The interest payment on that alone will be nearly 1 trillion dollars per year. Come on people...
I completely agree with those who praised Clinton for running a government that ended with a surplus as that was the responsible and economically sound thing to do. Bush squandered it to the tune of 4.9 trillion in deficits over 8 years.
This article is not addressing a lot of issues that will occur because of the ballooning national debt. Why would we want to put ourselves in a position to have to spend a trillion dollars per year just on interest payments? (And that's assuming a low interest rate which isn't always going to be the case.) That's a trillion dollars per year that won't be available for actual government programs that might help out some people that need it.
That's a trillion dollars per year that won't be available for actual government programs that might help out some people that need it.
So... we're able to help those people out more, by not giving them the money they need, or making the investments necesseary for economic growth that will generate the revenue so that we can give them what they need?
There's a great article that you should read about that: http://mediamatters.org/columns/200903270033?f=h_column
Bruce is right, the deficit is a serious problem and the interest on it is a major drain. Which is why I'm sure he's supporting massive tax increases on the rich to bring the deficit down.
I support the current stimulus plan to help turn the economy around, followed by a combination of responsible tax increases and government spending cuts to bring the deficit under control. I believe we have to do both, not one or the other.
Trillion dollar deficits every year for a decade doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
What government spending would you cut?
Winner winner. Obama has cold feet when it comes to tax increases on the rich and slashing defense, but hopefully he'll figure it out in a couple years.
Just don't cut stuff that millions of poor people need.
respectfully bruce there is one thing i must point out. your figure is a touch small because of the fact that Bush never put the wars on the books, he put them in later on and made his budgets look smaller and the deficit would be raised when reality set in.
plus if we were not fighting in two wars we wouldn't be having this problem with deficit spending
My understanding is that Bush's on the books deficit was 2.9 trullion and his total deficit including the wars was 4.9 trillion.
i will from here on out continually say the following until the neo con/right wing nutbab smear machine is silenced forever
Michelle Bachmann has struck again and is calling for armed revolution!
as distasteful as it is, and as much as it seems to me this is inciting treason. it also seems she has no broken any laws....yet. amazingly enough she has not been called out to retract herself, which any reasonable person would do so immediatly. and perhaps resign while she is at it.
so to all the right wing nut bags out there. your positions are not defensible and you have no claim to stake that youknow what your doing, or that your trying to save this country from collapse.
come on use your loudness to get this woman to remove herself permenantly
If there IS anyone in the congress who hates America and hates freedom it is Michelle Bachmann
This is becoming a theme of the Terrorist Right. Bachman, Hannity, Rush and Verminsta Savage all have eluded to "some sort" of revolution. Starting with this Tea Party stuff and connecting it to the Boston Tea Party gives the nuts on the right a warm and fuzzy feeling about revolting.
Today is Earth Hour Day or something and Rush is again turning ON his lights and expects his sheep to do the same. As mentioned in another post, he did the same thing in California during the Democratic National Convention to use as much energy when Clinton was going to speak so a "blackout" would occur. At the time, CA was having rolling blackouts courtesy of ENRON. If the nuts had listened to Rush the Terrorist, hospitals could have lost power, people at home living off venitlators could have died and we won't mention traffic lights and riots due to a black out.
I've asked this question, if Abdul bin AbdulAziz would suggest the same thing while being interviewed on radio, what would Americans think? They would want him thrown into GITMO without any investigation or just executed.. And if Abdul would say it was just a joke, what would Homeland Security do??
Rush is a closet terrorist hoping that something bad happens so the egomanic can be proven right for the third time in his life. I ask for Homeland Security and the Federal Government to investigate this terrorist utilizing the FEDERAL airwaves for trying to incite a riot which could have grave results. ( I will continue to ask this through MMFA and letters to HSA until someone picks this up in the Media).
I really liked this article and found the authors thinking refreshing. South Carolina has an unemployment rate of over 10% is laying off teachers in an already crowded and backward school system and their governor wants to play politics and act like people don't need immediate relief. The same goes for Jindahl in LA. They take the philosophy that these people are superflous and a drag on society,what did Santelli call them..."losers",so let them suffer and die off, this will be the result of their inaction. We always seem to have enough money for tax-cuts for the rich and for businesses but this crisis wasn't caused because Taxes were to high,why would further tax-cuts to the rich be the answer? Yet when we talk of returning the upper rate back to 39.6% from the 36.4% that is being called by the wingnuts as an end to capitalism, and a marshalling in of "Socialism."?!?!?! Why because 95% of the people will see tax-cuts,those hardest hit by this wall-street caused depression will see some relief with increased unemployment benefits,those burdened with the lack of healthcare insurance will have that load lightened, those facing lay-offs because of policies they had no control over may have their jobs saved and infrastructure funding will create jobs. How terrible!?!?! I like the way Bruce repeats his Republican talking points,but ignores the reality that not 1 conservative Republican President in the last 30yrs actually balanced a budget! If their philosophy was sooo correct then why when put to use did it create the highest deficits in history. Reagan-Bush ! and Bush ll, like the article said it was Clinton that balanced the budget. The top tax rate under Reagan was 60% and not one conservative would call Reagan a "socialist!" I think the conservatives are bunch of hyprocrites with a philosophy that doesn't work in reality , yet they keep trotting it out each and everytime,after they have destroyed the economy. Remember we couldn't spend for healthcare in the 80's and 90's,yet under Republican presidents they spent and ran up record deficits. Yes they S-P-E-N-T, they just didn't spend it on the people. Try "Star wars", B1 bombers,super carriers, war in Iraq, Halliburton(moved to Dubai)and all their corporate friends, deficits didn't matter then, only when attention is given to people are deficits "bad." And the thing is the stimulus is toooo small yet their against even minimal relief for the slaves that make "THEM" rich. Their class hatred is real, and make no mistake about it that is just what it is.
I just read a very interesting article by Joe Conason titled "Dick Cheney was right--deficits don't matter" here is the link : http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/03/27/deficits/index.html?source=newsletter
Conason should be embarrassed. Cheney's idiotic remark was made in the context of "Deficits don't matter because Republicans still got elected". That's all he cared about.
Deficits add to the interest due on the national debt which take up an increasingly large percentage of the yearly budget. I can't believe Conason even wrote that article.
Well I like to remain civil but I think your being grossly unfair in your critque of the article. Maybe it's because you don't want to acknowledge is other points about Conservatives and their hyprocrisy of talking about balanced budgets but never creating one. Mr. Conason never said that deficits don't matter :"...
But was Cheney wrong when he airily dismissed the importance of deficits? In the full quotation, as first recounted by Paul O'Neill, Bush's fired Treasury Secretary, he said, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter. We won the [Congressional] midterms [in November 2002]. This is our due." What he evidently meant -- aside from claiming the spoils -- was that the effects of deficit spending tend to be less dire than predicted. And that insight deserves to be considered if only because all the partisan barking over the projected deficits in the Obama budget is so hysterical -- as if nothing could be worse than more federal spending..." Thats a far different picture than the analysis you gave of his article. I gathered from the above that he was saying that there are far worse things than the deficit 90% of which was created by Ronald Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, and G. "Dubya" Bush. Again i take from his article which you so grossly misrepresented:".... But in fact the United States has recovered from considerably deeper indebtedness than that now on the horizon. Besides, as history warns, there are things much worse than deficits and debt. One such thing was the Great Depression, prolonged when Franklin Roosevelt decided to curb the deficits that had revived the economy, and ended only when he raised spending even higher in wartime. Another was worldwide fascist domination, a threat defeated by expanding America's public debt to unprecedented levels during World War II. No sane person cared then that public debt had risen well above gross domestic product..." How did you ignore those points? Do you disagree with them? And how did you miss this:"...
Those scary charts and graphs often deployed to illustrate our parlous state of indebtedness rarely date back as far as the Forties and Fifties -- and the reason is simple. The massive deficits incurred during the war didn't matter, as Cheney might say, because the wartime national investments in industry, technology and science undergirded a postwar boom that lasted for nearly three decades, creating the largest and most prosperous middle class in human history." Is Conason rewritting history, if so where? But here is his point which you seemed to ignore or just skip over :"...
The average annual growth rate remained close to four percent for that entire period -- and over time the combination of constant growth and smaller deficits reduced the ratio of debt to a fraction of its postwar dimension. What mattered more than the size of the deficits was whether they were spent on things that enabled consistent growth." What about the last sentence in the paragraph;" What mattered more than the size of the deficits was whether they were spent on things that enabled consistent GROWTH(my emphasis)..." I didn't read anywhere in the article where he said deficts don't matter, infact he highlighted some of the problems:"...
Not all of the warnings about deficit spending are false. Wasteful federal spending can eventually lead to inflation; excessive deficits can cause interest rates to rise, although that doesn't always occur. But as Clinton proved in confronting the huge legacy of debt left over from the Reagan era, it is possible to raise taxes and slow spending without damage to the broader economy..." But President Obama obviously feels there are more pressing problems than the size of the deficit, like a worldwide depression with all the resultant death and destruction and destabilization. Mr. Conanson quite to the contrary of your characterization that deficits don't matter is saying that they do matter but those who are calliong for spending freezes and further tax-cuts for the rich and corporations are missing the point and are being hyprocritical. I'll finish with his words:"...
As for the Republicans, it is difficult to listen to their doomsaying predictions without laughing. They want us to worry about the evils of deficit spending when they obviously don't worry about that at all. Just yesterday, the House Republican leadership distributed what they called an alternative budget. Missing from that thin sheaf of papers was any attempt to estimate what their plan would cost and how much it would increase the deficit. Their ironic ignorance of history was illustrated by their single concrete proposal. They insist that we must cut the maximum tax rate from 36 percent to 25 percent – or the same as the top rate in 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression." What say you now?
What I don't like is people and Parties that want to have it both ways. Republicans are definitely hypocritical when it comes to the deficit. They talk about fiscal resonsibility and balanced budgets and don't do anything to make it happen. At least the Presidents haven't. I will give the Republican controlled congress shared credit in helping balance the budget between 1994-2000 in working with President Clinton.
Democrats love to point out how it has been Republicans all along that have run the National debt up to 11 trillion dollars, whereas they have governed responsibly. However, now that they control all three branches and we are facing a 7-9 trillion dollar shortfall over the next decade, suddenly the defense of this type of spending comes out of the woodwork. Now it becomes "responsible" to run up the deficit. It's way too political. Democrats will praise Clinton for balancing the budget and also praise Obama for doubling (nearly, possibly) the Federal debt because "we have to do it". What you are saying in that case is that no matter what Democrats propose you will support it because you will accept the logic behind their actions.
I will agree that running large deficits can solve some current problems but it creates other ones. Democrats should continue to embrace their parties prior fiscal responsibility and not rationalize away adding trillions more to the Federal debt.
Sorry you don't like people like me, but since you've dropped the facade of civility I'll get right to it. What you wrote was pure hogwash. It is not a talking point to highlight the hyprocrisy of the Republicans (I think YOUR bias was showing trying to seperate the republican presidents from their party??)and the running up of the debt. Infact it is their irresponsible spending that has brought us to this point. That is why we must spend in a responsible way to get the economy back on track. GUESS WHAT it raises the deficit ,because we have to. What are you offering? I heard you say you were for the stimulus! To defend the spending Obama is doint to fix this economy is not saying I support whatever Democrats say, thats pure BULL and you can't point to anything I wrote that said that, what you can point to is a defense of THIS spending and thats because I see it as necessary as per my previous post. I fail to see how spending to get out of deep recession caused by the previous administration is a rationalization for increasing the debt and a move away from fiscal responsibility, that just non-sense, you must see the difference? Obama didn't create this mess, and all those now calling for fiscal responsibility who said nothing and watched and cheered on the robbing of the public coffeurs under Reagan,Bush I and Bush II are hyprocrites. I remember each time a republican ran up the deficit(they ran it up so they could handcuff the government in how much they could spend for social programs)they howlled how we had to cut spending(spending for social programs) while military spending skyrocketed even though we spend 10x more than the whole world on our military. Yet, we must be "fiscally" responsible when it comes to providing health insurance to children.? It seems that those who scream about the deficit while ignoring the suffering created by the robbing that took place these last eight years are being callous and insensitive ,since defict reduction has only been something they never found important while they were in charge.Spending to create a retooled society is thinking long range. You spend now to guarantee growth later. A person who spends or borrows for college, in hopes of a better job is spending for the future. Thats the way I see it! I think Obama needs to spend more for the people , it's been way to long.