This is one of the main issues we'll be discussing at the America's Future Now conference in D.C. this week. It still astounds me that some progressives are simply ignoring the very real economic and political arguments in favor of increasing economic stimulus, not slashing it:
With voter anger about the federal deficit intensifying in this election year, Democrats in Congress are edging away from one of their long-held articles of faith — government spending on social programs such as education and relief for the jobless.
The painful tradeoff comes to center stage this week, when the Senate tries again to pass an extension of unemployment benefits — this time a $54-billion measure that marks an abrupt retreat from a $200-billion bill that Democratic leaders had proposed before the Memorial Day recess.
The stripped-down bill is just one sign of how budget anxieties are beginning to impinge on Democrats' legislative ambitions and traditional commitments.
A White House-backed proposal to spend $23 billion to save as many as 300,000 teachers' jobs has been stymied by deficit concerns. Similarly, the House, usually a bastion of liberalism, bowed to fiscal conservatives and dropped health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.
"There is a very changed climate," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) recently told reporters, referring to anti-deficit pressures she faces within her own party.
Though polls for years have shown high levels of public concern about the deficit, rarely has it outstripped most other issues. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in mid-May found a notable increase in recent months in those who believe cutting the deficit and spending should be the government's highest priority.
Gee. You don't suppose having the media keep up a constant drumbeat of anti-deficit propaganda would have anything to do with that, do you?
According to the poll, 20% of those surveyed wanted the deficit and government spending to be the top priority, an issue second to the 35% concerned about job creation and economic growth. (In a January poll, 13% cited the deficit and government spending.)
"There's no question that people are almost as concerned about the deficit and government spending as about jobs," said Mark Mellman, a pollster who works closely with congressional Democrats. "It is not just about the actual dollars — it is a metaphor for wasted money and lack of discipline and long-term economic decline."
That's because Congress - and the administration - did such a piss-poor job explaining the difference between stimulus spending and the bank bailout.
Even Friday's report that private-sector job growth had slowed to a crawl in May is not expected to offset the Democrats' new reluctance to add to the deficit for unemployment benefits.
And you know what the really stupid thing is? The Democrats will try to act like Republicans by cutting the deficit, and it won't win them any additional votes. It never does. The kind of people who like Republican policies vote for Republicans.
Berlin was a charming place when Hitler arrived on the scene also and twelve years later it was a smoldering heap of shattered brick and glass.
I also read Kunstler:
From today's clusterfuck nation:
"It was chastening for me to bike around Berlin a week ago and realize that even nations with sturdy cities and good railroads can fall into political chaos. Berlin was a charming place when Hitler arrived on the scene and twelve years later it was a smoldering heap of shattered brick and glass."
Evet check your keyboard and look for these: "
Hasa Diga Eebowai
Franklin Roosevelt made the mistake of listening to Republicans and conservatives in other parties, and it made the Great Depression worse!
Government money spent on social services and make-work projects has a multiplier effect of nearly 1.6 on the economy. Screw the deficit. It's not real money, anyway. We have to put people back to work. It is time for another Civilian Conservation Corps!
My message to President Obama is spend baby, spend!
reinstate something like a "normal" economy based on producing things of value and paying for things when you have the capital to do it.
Congress should take away incentives for corporations to offshore jobs and give tax breaks for those who bring jobs back. Everything possible should be done to help create business to produce something instead of making it easy to buy cheap Chinese crap.
during the Reagan years. No one heard anything.
Congress should lock up executives who offshore jobs and give tax breaks for those who bring jobs back. Everything possible should be done to help create business to produce something instead of making it easy to buy cheap Chinese crap.
/fixed
You would think that it is fairly obvious where 70% of our economy being based on consumer spending, the last thing you want to do is enact policies that dampen spending. On a long term basis, we can address the national debt but we live in the here and now. Belt tightening is the absolute worst prescription for an ailing economy.
Yep.
This gets me, "According to the poll, 20% of those surveyed wanted the deficit and government spending to be the top priority, an issue second to the 35% concerned about job creation and economic growth."
That's a logical contradiction. What this means is that the public is either confused or conflicted. Private investment is NOT there in the real economy. Capitalism is increasingly reliant on the financial markets for capital accumulation. This financializaiton of the economy is decades in the making. Private productive investment though isn't there. There are not MORE jobs creating things that people want to buy, there are less. Business will not invest for many reasons, one the biggest is the downward spiral of declining aggregate demand.
What will happen if the government cuts back spending now? Overall demand will decrease further. So less demand for things people make which means more layoffs, which means even less demand...
They think that if spending is decreased (with nothing said of spending on war) the financial markets will be pleased. So we'll create a good investment climate by increasing the cost of doing domestic business, with lower wages to entice financial capital to return.
The Democrats' economic policies are right of center when it comes down to it, it's junk economics and it fails without exception. There aren't any social movements though to push them, and unions are dying slowly. So, what pushed the Democrats to the left in the past is not there. We didn't get social security or other programs because of some benevolent liberal in government, FDR was pushed by organized working people. The elites were scared, and enacted legislation so there wasn't a revolution. Until something like that emerges nothing will change.
If you want to be reassured about the importance of deficit spending at this time in history you would do well to read Paul Krugman's blog everyday. Sometimes it is a bit dry but you will come away a lot more informed about the economy than reading Sarah Palin's Facebook page.
Govt can print money for everything else - from foreign wars, to "aid" to Israel, to bailing out the Big Banks.
Govt can dam well print money to stimulate OUR economy.
We've got crumbling infrastructure that needs replacement, for instance.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
The progressive/liberal faction would do the party and more importantly the country a favor by doing everything they can to inform and explain to the public. We have not seen this and it seems that the elected ones and the informed ones just expect middle America to understand this. Where is the explanations to this necessary spending and how it works and show timetables etc because it is very scary for uniformed or ignorant people to see these huge deficits.
Obama creates a youth job corps and sends all the kids down to clean up the Gulf.
You should have seen the responses to that. "Hey man, I ain't going down there to clean that sh_t up!"
I'm going to be somebody man!!!"
our pathological dependency on cars?
I quit driving over 15 years ago.
When I lived in the city I took rail to work and backpacked my groceries.
Now I live 16 miles from town, in the midst of a forest.
UPS, US Mail and locals I've contracted deliver what I need.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
These days both a husband and wife need a car to scramble and race around trying to get stuff. Doesn't help the dollar is worth about 5 cents with inflation these days. But scrambling around like mad people makes you feel like your getting ahead!
And this (needing a car) was dictated by the 1954 Interstate Highways Act.
Cars and airplanes.
They destroyed the passenger rail system and put next to nothing into mass transit.
And now (almost) all American cities and suburbs are designed in such a way that a car is a necessity of life.
Worse, this model has become what the rest of the world aspires to.
It did not need to be this way, nor does it need to continue to be this way.
There's an OBVIOUS need for a radical change in our transportation infrastructure, and it's an OBVIOUS place to invest Big Bucks and CREATE employment - just like the Interstate Highway Act did over 50 years ago.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
.. just ask any Republican!
(oops .. I forgot .. that only applies when Republicans are in power)
Bring Down The Deficit NOW!
(there .. that's better .. are all the Republicans happy now?)
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
The biggest worry is the elections in November. All Democrats are scared to death of losing their seat. If they vote for more deficit spending the Republicans exploit it. If they don't vote for more deficit spending the economy will suffer. It is all too often a conundrum do do the correct thing.
All your living expenses paid for by taxpayers then the big gravy comes from the Corporations.
What a life.
The country is flushing down the toilet.
We started preparing for the worst the day Bush was installed in office. Smart move.
oh boy here it goes. Big Mistake.
I started preparing in the mid-70s when I read Limits To Growth.
I resolved to get as far away as possible from the industrial based insanity we call "Western Civilization" by the year 2000.
I just barely made it.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Hopefully the warm and fuzzy feeings that the common man has about deficit reductions will keep him warm and comfy in the winter of his unemployment.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
I have given up on the limp-dick Democrats. They are hopelessly devoted to their corporate masters.
The patherically weak, wimpy, appeasing Obama administration was the last straw for me.
Whether it's unilaterally dumping both the single-payer option and the public option or coddling Wall Street and the banksters with a pathetic, phony financial reform bill or flip-flopping on off-shore drilling they, and their Senate Democratic allies, can't seem to fuck their supporters over enough.
And they did all that to to curry favor with a GOP that openly despises them. What a bunch of spineless fucking pussies.
Fuck them and their one-sided bipartisinship.
I voted for Dems cuz I thought it would slow down the GOP agenda. That turned out, it seems, to be a terrible mistake.
The GOP should have remained in power to own the hell they will reign upon us.
I doubt we'll even Vote from here on out whats the point D.C. is totally corrupt beyond hope.
The Dems aren't really trying to curry favor with the GOP, though it may look that way.
What they're really doing is trying to co-opt all the corporate sponsorship that historically backed the Republican Party.
It's all part of the come-back strategy launched by the self-appointed Democratic Leadership Council in the 1980s.
The Southern Dems gradually became Republicans after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
Reagan's "Southern Strategy" completed the transition in 1980.
From then on the Dems have been playing catchup. Their principle strategy has been to take away corporate sponsorship from the Republicans.
Clinton passed NAFTA, pissing off the Republicans who drafted it.
Clinton repealed Glass-Steagle.
Obama's doing the same, with Rahm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton at his side.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
If I see one more poll asking Americans about things they know nothing about and then presenting their ignorant propaganda driven answers as some kind of political truth. . . I am going to fucking scream.
And often the polls don't even support the agenda anyway - they just cherry-pick the results to bolster their case as they did in this case.
"American media always presents the 'two sides' of every issue: what the informed people know, and what the ignorant believe."
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
If you've got the time go to the top of the thread and teach Evet about the use of quotation marks.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
We voted for Democrats to be DEMOCRATS! Help somebody ! Stop the bleeding!
The single underlying factor in the devastating misery of all our tragedy's is Conservatism.
To name a few catastrophes Conservatism is to blame for ... wrongful ongoing war in Iraq (hey, anybody heard of where all the Iraqi oils going???), collapse of the world economy (devastating unemployment), Mining and Oil spill disasters, etc. etc. etc.
Just a matter of our reps having the courage to re-examine spending priorities and increasing taxes on the rich and ending corporate welfare and loopholes.
In other words, we're screwed.
Bill Clinton was able to win by running to the center and trying to be the Republican-lite party. It "worked" partly by the force of his charisma and partly by Ross Perot splitting the Republican vote. Democrats have been repeating this formula since and it's not working.
News flash for the Democrat leadership: The center doesn't vote.
50% of potential voters stay home during the election and these tend to be the apathetic and the moderates. This is why the Rep strategy of run to the right and fire up the base works so well. The Dems are chasing after a mythical center voting block that doesn't exist and demoralizing their own base in the process.
Actually a very good assessment.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
In 2004 election:
28% of eligible voters voted for Bush
27% of eligible voters voted for Kerry
45% of eligible voters did not vote
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
They will if they feel their pocket book is being threatened.
The problem is we're faced with really only two choices, paying more upfront from dwindling paychecks for the services we need, or paying more in taxes for the government to pay for those services.
Meanwhile the CEO of BP feels oh so sad...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The rapacious capitalist economy is based on cheap energy, waste and the concealment of debt.
We have passed peak oil, cheap energy is behind us, the peak on the other two items is coming.
There will be no recovery for the common weal. The oligarchs are stocking their life boats and will survive without us. At least that is their plan.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Sadly, they don't understand the nature of their dependency on the rest of us.
and Escape from L.A.,N.Y. and a few other movie scenarios come to mind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFDgSKbapzY
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
"Limits To Growth" (1972) concluded there were two possible scenarios for the 21st century:
1) Drastically reduce population growth and industrial output, and the world population would stabilize at about 9-10 billion people.
or
2) Continue the unsustainable population growth and industrial output, resulting in a massive die-off in mid-century after which world population would stabilize around 3-4 billion (roughly what the world population was in 1970).
Obviously the Oligarchs have chosen scenario #2.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
the world population is stabilizing. Not through conscious effort, although more available and better birth control is helping. But mainly, I believe, is that a lot of people feel they can not afford more than one or two children. Even Italy, the bastion of Catholicism, is averaging less than one child per family.
China's population is stabilizing. By 2040 or 2050 it should actually begin to decline, just like Japan and most of Western Europe is now.
US population is not stabilizing. By 2040 or 2050 the US population will grow by as much as the Chinese, but unlike the Chinese will continue to grow.
India's population is skyrocketing and will continue to do so.
But overall, you are correct. World population is projected to stabilize somewhere in the 10-11 billion range midcentury.
But big problems remain.
For one, food and water supplies are both threatened, with no real solutions in sight.
For two, unfettered industrial growth is unsustainable and has not been brought under control.
Combined there will likely be massive dieoffs in the human population.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
On this site are awesome, sadly most dems are wimps. The overton window would be solidly progressive if dems would collectively grow a pair.
As a mentioned above, Krugman is a must read to know what we should be doing about the economy and to help a person stay focused on the gold ring as opposed to getting caught up in the uninformed or rather the intentionally misinformed crapola distributed by the right wing who are out to destroy the economy and create a country of indentured servants.
In Krugman's June 6 lecture titled "Lost Decade here We Come" we find:
So stay focused people and don't let the oligarchs lead you astray.
Yes, the soaring national debt is important, it is just not the most important thing right now. Right now, the most important thing is to get jobless Americans back to work and living wages for those whose wages have stagnated or even lowered. This will increase the tax base, increase spending by consumers, and reduce the need for government social services. Then we can reduce the debt with a once again healthy economy.
simple, straightforward, and correct
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
it won't get them any votes. It's not like the deficit isn't a concern.
I agree that a moribund economy is a greater concern but this is pre-election jockeying after all and when have you ever heard of politicians being afraid to actually spend before an election.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
and Beltway crowd who want to please their corporate benefactors.
project because they are concerned with winning votes, which they assume they have a lock on because the alternative is so awful (as they endlessly remind us), or because they're trying to appease Republicans. They are doing so to please their corporate benefactors, just like they did with healthcare 'reform', financial 'reform', etc. When it comes to Obama and the DLC crowd, follow the money.
i think dean baker asked the most pertinent question when it comes to these guys: "Why should we listen to deficit hawks?"
the "smart" guys on the right, the market fundies, the drown-govt folks, have driven our economy over the cliff, and they expect people to heed their advice? wow, big balls dangling.
the hand-wringing over the deficit by most on the right is less about addressing govt spending and more about attacking the existence of govt social programs.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifam...
And when the economy totters again like it did in '37, who'll they blame?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
I was watching Iron Man II yesterday, and they said something that struck a chord for me, but I can't remember the exact quote.
It was around the time Tony Stark was trying to work out the formula for a new element to put in his chest.
But energy IS a domestic security issue. Yet we haven't been addressing it that way. Even though it's an old idea on this site, we need a Manhattan Project for Alternative energy.
Screw the oil companies; that would be like if our forefathers stayed with fueling their campfires with buffalo chips...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
is scheming behind the scenes with to reduce the deficit! Cutting back on the defense dept which is over 50% of the budget? Raising the historically low top tax rate, which at 39% or so puts waaayyyy below Republicans Eisenhower's top tax rate of 90% and Nixon's 70%. Nooooo...that would displease the oligarchy.
Bypassing the democratically elected Democratic Congress, he's formed a 'bipartisan' Deficit Commission stacked with rightwingers and Blue Dogs. Gee, I wonder whose 'entitlements' are up for the chopping block and why the Administration/associated groups keep trying to spin that Americans are anxious about the deficit.
I know you posted an excellent article about this a few weeks ago. Keep up the good work.
When Ronald Reagan ran for President, one of is political planks was the balancing of the budget and reducing the National Debt,but abandoned that promise.
Toward the end of his first term, he and his staff, the "Kitchen Cabinet", and others knew they needed to cut spending, increase taxes or do a combination of both. Reagan did none of that, but went on a massive borrowing spree that increased the National Debt 186%.
Bush Sr. continued that massive borrowing.
President Clinton responding to the radical extremist republican talking points about the deficit began trimming the budget and was able to pay down on the National Debt twice due to budget surpluses.
After covert president cheney and puppet bush took over the massive borrowing increased.
Just go to:www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html, and see who the real big spenders are.
The radical extremist republicans do not want the Democrats and President Obama to succeed by stimulating the economy, and that is why they are making a big issue of the National Debt-the debt they created more than the Democrats.
The Democrats and President need to stop listening to the Fascist repuvlican talking points and doing their bidding which will cut off their own political legs.
Taxes should be increased by the interest amount paid on the National Debt, restore those tax cuts that the rich and very rich benefited from, and close the tax loopholes that the rich and very rich, and corporations have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKeoOnSvXn4
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
"That's because Congress - and the administration - did such a piss-poor job explaining the difference between stimulus spending and the bank bailout." Don't forget the DNC's message failure.
I want Howard Dean back.
this current administration is making the Bush Administration look like over achievers.
The Connection between Austerity and Privilege
and referenced within is Digby on Global Neo-Hooverism.
This mess is no accident, and neither is this BS bipartisan (and global) deficit fearmongering.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Here's an idea, Nancy, how about raise taxes on the scoundrels and theives who have benefitted the most during the last 30 years of Reaganomics. After all, you can't keep making the argument that keeping taxes low on the rich is doing anything to increase employment and the GDP. How bout you make that argument to your conservadems instead of caving to them. Grover Norquist set out to do exactly what our legislators are doing, and that is get conservatives in office and increase the debt so much that this day would come; that so-called "austerity" measures would be inevitable. But our leaders don't have to accept this, they can simply say the people who can afford it and who have benefitted disproportionately in the last 30 years must sacrifice now so the people who have been hurt the last 30 years don't have to pay anymore.Why don't we end those damned wars in the midle east, the most wasteful spending we have right now. But no, our democrats have no balls!
The Dims are such spineless slimy bastards. N omore votes for them, no matter what the consequences. If they realize they can't count on our vote if they don't stand up, then maybe some day they will change.
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