In concluding a segment of MSNBC’s “Good Morning Joe” concerning the looming national debt disaster, Joe Scarborough opined that the ‘grand compromise’ that Congress needs to reach is two years of fiscal stimulus followed by budgetary constraints that would significantly but gradually reduce the annual budget deficit.
Yes Joe, you get what the Watchdog, Paul Krugman and others have been preaching since 2008. It has been the failure to continue a stimulus program that has left the nation mired in deep recession and making small progress towards recovery. Only through stimulus can we get people back to work which will reduce government costs for social programs and generate huge leaps in revenue, hearkening back to the surpluses of the latter Clinton years.
There is an Economic term for such an approach: It is called Keynesian!
It is impossible to both overcome recession and reduce the fiscal deficit at the same time. Only fools or knaves suggest this can be done.
Stimulus needs to be followed by tax increases, single payer health care linked to a value added tax, reduction of excessive defense spending, avoidance of senseless wars, drug policy reform, improvement of our education systems at all level through greater use of the Internet, and trimming of counterproductive aspects of social programs.
Now will the rest of the conservatives face up to the obvious that you cannot move in opposite directions at the same time?
