Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, A Recipe for American Decline That No One Will Be Debating

[applegrove]

Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, A Recipe for American Decline That No One Will Be Debating

Posted by Mattea Kramer at TomDispatch.com

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175599/tomgram%3A_mattea_kramer%2C_a_recipe_for_american_decline_that_no_one_will_be_debating/

"SNIP.......................................

1. Immediate deficit reduction will wipe out any hope of economic recovery: These days, it’s fashionable for any candidate to talk about how quickly he’ll reduce the federal budget deficit, which will total around $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2012. And you’re going to hear talk about the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan and more like it on Wednesday. But the hard truth of the matter is that deep deficit reduction anytime soon will be a genuine disaster. Think of it this way: If you woke up tomorrow and learned that Washington had solved the deficit crisis and you’d lost your job, would you celebrate? Of course not. And yet, any move to immediately reduce the deficit does increase the likelihood that you will lose your job.

When the government cuts spending, it lays off workers and cancels orders for all sorts of goods and services that would generate income for companies in the private sector. Those companies, in turn, lay off workers, and the negative effects ripple through the economy. This isn’t atomic science. It’s pretty basic stuff, even if it’s evidently not suitable material for a presidential debate. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service predicted in a September report, for example, that any significant spending cuts in the near-term would contribute to an economic contraction. In other words, slashing deficits right now will send us ever deeper into the Great Recession from which, at best, we’ve scarcely emerged.

Champions of immediate deficit reduction are likely to point out that unsustainable deficits aren’t good for the economy. And that’s true -- in the long run. Washington must indeed plan for smaller deficits in the future. That will, however, be a lot easier to accomplish when the economy is healthier, since government spending declines when fewer people qualify for assistance, and tax revenues expand when the jobless go back to work. So it makes sense to fix the economy first. The necessity for near-term recovery spending paired with long-term deficit reduction gets drowned out when candidates pack punchy slogans into flashes of primetime TV.

2. Taxes are at their lowest point in more than half a century, preventing investment in and the maintenance of America’s most basic resources: Hard to believe? It’s nonetheless a fact. By now, it’s a tradition for candidates to compete on just how much further they’d lower taxes and whether they’ll lower them for everyone or just everyone but the richest of the rich. That’s a super debate to listen to, if you’re into fairy tales. It’s not as thrilling if you consider that Americans now enjoy the lightest tax burden in more than five decades, and it happens to come with a hefty price tag on an item labeled “the future.” There is no way the U.S. can maintain a world-class infrastructure -- we’re talking levees, highways, bridges, you name it -- and a public education system that used to be the envy of the world, plus many other key domestic priorities, on the taxes we’re now paying.


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[blue neen]

1. Sorry.

Anyone who compares the honorable Senator John Kerry to Romney has no credibility.

[Hestia]

3. Which means you dismissed the article out of hand - it really is a good article

Thanks for sharing.

[applegrove]

4. I believe that if an article has some important points in it, which will

move our shared understanding along, I should still post it even if it isn't totally from the Democratic point of view or even if I don't agree with everything in it. I think DU members and discern the wheat from the chaffe.

[DJ13]

2. K&R

All good points.