In his Sunday column, “Welcome to the austerity years”, Gil Smart opines: “Obama’s Keynesian approach kicked the can down the road, hoping things improved. Austerity, on the other hand, voluntarily accepts crisis now in an attempt to avoid an even bigger one down the road.”
WATCHDOG: In better times, the Watchdog would offer to pay Smart’s tuition for a summer course in Elementary Economics at Penn or Harvard. Out of exasperation, he may yet do so!
Obama did not kick the can down the road. He kept the country from plummeting into depression. What is needed is a second Recovery Act to put people back to work and return the USA (and much of the world) to prosperity. Once back to normal, a combination of enhanced tax revenues and desirable cut back in spending will enable us to reduce National Debt to a comfortable ratio to annual Gross National Product.
It does not follow that accepting crisis now will avoid even bigger crisis down the road. Austerity will lead to more severe recession and possible depression. Expect five years of bad times if the Republicans have their way.
Bill Adams also wrote a fairly good article until he also gets his economics all wrong .
By the way, how many are aware that the avoidable Iraq War has cost the USA three trillion dollars, not to mention the tragic loss of lives and injuries? The Recovery Act of about $800 billion maintained state services, put dollars into the pockets of the middle class, spurred infrastructure repair and construction, and will bring future dividends in the form of education and economic revitalization due to research and development. What did we get for the three trillion dollars spent on Iraq but graves and amputees?
How soon people forget. assuming they ever understood.
The combination of a declining rate of industrial growth and extensive military commitments are causing the United States empire to collapse. Our worldwide dominance is decreasing. China is increasing. It is time for us to accept a new world order and recognize that throughout history, no nation can remain on top forever. It is possible to accept our diminishing status gracefully. Our first step should be a massive troop withdrawal from Korea, Japan, Germany, Iraq and Afghanistan.
With the purposefully (or ignorantly) misplaced, “mad as hell”, Tea Party ascendancy, together with the partisan channeled anger of conservatives and disappointed liberals, the Republican Party has succeeded in advancing its cause. If I thought for a moment that their success would be good for ordinary folks (70% of us) I would be the first in line to joyfully shake their hands.
Commenting on this past election, Gil Smart on Sunday likens politics to a “sport” where one side wins and another loses. No biggie. In that same kind of spirit, a very experienced staff person in Joe Pitts Washington office recently told me that everything in politics was a matter of opinion. So, . . . politics is all about “sport” and “opinion”, just a game, without serious consequences?
What if the Tea Party, Joe Pitts, and lots more of the self proclaimed ordinary, common sense, people are wrong? What if voluntary austerity now turns out to be the very cause of a bigger, more painful, and even deadly, crisis “down the road”? Politics may be a game but it is a serious one and facts do matter whether or not serious consideration is given to them in our political “opinions”.
Facts matter in politics because outcomes matter, results matter, wars matter, depressions matters, foreclosures matter, joblessness matters, and the overall good health of our society matters. It is easy, given a certain comfort level, still enjoyed by most of us, to say “bring it on” because bringing it on, for the immediate future, means bringing it on for those less fortunate. Bring on the pain . . for others . .not me. This is Americanism? Shame on us!
But beyond that, the economic theory of “austerity now” does not work, and most of those chanting “Bring it on” are themselves at risk . . . “down the road” and perhaps a very short road. The responsibility for our political opinions is not just to ourselves, our friends and our “lifestyle associates” but to that larger society, that USA, that we say, almost every hour, we care so much about.
For the austerity now advocates I would ask the following:
1. How does your economic prescription, for personal and governmental austerity, actually bring better times down the road? How so? How does it work? And if it will bring better times “down the road”, how far down the road? Do you give yourselves two years or less? And how do you define the austerity? Is the pain of the austerity shared equally? Will any attempt made to share the burden equally? Millions lose jobs and homes in the austerity thus far, but what does Wall Street sacrifice as their share of the current austerity? What share for corporate executives? For Politicians? For people fortunate enough to have good secure jobs or other dependable income?
2. If we cut personal and governmental spending, make permanent the tax cuts for even the most wealthy, cut extension of unemployment insurance, increase the working age for SS, privatize SS, cut medicare, cut medicaid, eliminate aid to education, etc etc. How many jobs to you get within 18 months of January 1, 2011?
3. If individuals and corporations, now sitting on billions of extra cash, are not now (and have not been) investing that cash in new plants and equipment and hiring, how is the extension of tax cuts going to entice them to do so? And if they do, how is the resultant increased supply of goods going to create the demand for them from the unemployed, the dispossessed, and the existing homeowners with lost billions in equity due to the decline in home prices?
4. So how is this “austerity now” going to get us to economic revitalization? Does capitalism really work by some sort of magic? Or, did God invent the “invisible hand” of the free market by some sort of natural law that corrects everything, all by itself, if only human beings would leave it alone? And if this latter be an article of faith for us, at whose altar do we really worship?
It seems to me that as we head down this road of “austerity now”, the advocates have an extremely serious obligation to the country, to show, by detailed factual arguments, how it is going to produce the jobs we need and the economic revitalization that will restore our nation’s health. Simplistic slogans, ideological faith statements, free market cliches, are automatic dis-qualifiers. We need economic competence, seriousness, intelligence, experience, and certainly wisdom. If these are not your strong points, there is no shame in listening and trying to discern what is best for our country. If anyone, Republican or Democrat makes their decisions on the basis of what is best for their party in 2012 they ought to be imprisoned.
Very thoughtful questions. What a shame we can’t (easily) change our election laws to outlaw media ads and REQUIRE ALL candidates to answer, in depth, in writing, with references, questions provided by all sides.
Use the billions of saved ad dollars to ensure these Q/A papers are distributed and/or otherwise made available to all citizens. MIs-truths and half-truths, lies, induendo, and just plain fantasy, delivered in repetitive 30 second sound bites is NOT free-speech, its brain-washing. No complex information can be delivered in 30 seconds and election issues are, by nature, complex issues.