Schmidt Wrote:Carlitos Wrote:Almost the entire Democratic economic intellectual establishment is in favor of new deficit spending for infrastructure. A virtual who's who of policy wonks, including Clintonites Larry Summers and Paul Krugman, are adamant in their proposals. There is virtually no one in the economic liberal establishment against it.
Yet, Hillary insists that she will pay for new spending with a variety of tax increases on the wealthy and broader tax reforms. She concedes that the deficit is a problem per se, and requires tax increases that the wealthy will reject and campaign against, so when the tax revenue side of reforms doesn't materialize, neither does the new spending.
Meanwhile, the financial news media is overwrought with articles and editorials calling for new infrastructure deficit spending to boost aggregate demand, and all kinds of major corporations and businesses have voiced their opinion in favor.
This progressive path is what the American people want and it is a bipartisan political winner.
Today I read this article in the Washington Post: "Why Hillary Clinton should stop worrying and learn to love the deficit."
Democrats thinking about the future need to read this.
By claiming to be the "fiscally responsible ones" instead of calling out Republicans for their Deficit Terrorist bullshit and hypocrisy, Democrats vastly limit themselves to that nonsense, and instead of letting Republicans take a walk off a plank by being the ones to propose vastly unpopular spending cuts, Democrats join them and provide political cover. This is a politically destructive cycle, which traps Democrats in "tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend" type criticism from the right, while selling out the interests of the Democratic constituency.
We need to elect quality Democrats who are committed to fighting Republican nonsense, not compromising with them or adopting it. Combining Deficit Terrorists ideological restraints to progressive spending proposals is a recipe for disaster.
Hillary's Deficit Terrorism Must Stop.
Carlitos -- Okay, let's say Hillary Clinton was to come out and say that all this "God Bless the United States of America" stuff we hear from President Obama at the end of every speech is just bullshit --- she's going to drop that from her speeches. What would happen? She would be blasted by just about every Christian in America. It perhaps would make Donald Trump the favorite for the Presidency although that is a big hurdle in itself. However, Dutch would say, "way to go girl."
Likewise when it comes to the deficit, if she were to come out and say "deficits don't matter" Republicans would be comparing her to the Weimar Republic.
A picture is worth a thousand votes, and Hillary's campaign for the presidency would soon be dead in the water.
Having said that I absolutely agree with the MMT view on deficits. But you and I and few hundred other people do not have the power to overcome populists beliefs so ingrained into the American psyche. It's the same with the TPP. Once the populist rhetoric became entrenched, Hillary Clinton was forced to retract her prior stance, at least for the public consumption. Populist myths are so hard to change because it requires changing people brains. Ignorance rules. As I said before, I think that 99 percent of the population equates federal budgets with household budgets. I don't have any sources to prove that point. I just feel it.
For any politician to come out of the closet and propose spending without revenue additions, it will spell defeat.
Sorry, that's the way politics works in America. It doesn't matter what you believe. It what that masses believe...whether it's deficits or your religious beliefs....like Godless liberals.
Schmidt, Hillary should never say the "deficit doesn't matter." It does matter; just not the way we think. That's what the MMT'ers say.
The public equates the federal government with a household budget because that's what the so-called elites say, that's what the politicians say, and that's what they have drilled into the heads of the public over the last 40 years. Then the elites poll the public and say that's what voters want. So you have this "infinite regression."
"For any politician to come out of the closet and propose spending without revenue additions, it will spell defeat." Republicans do this all the time. Meanwhile, since Democrats started down the Deficit Terrorist path Democrats have lost political power.
Hillary Clinton is not going to lose to Donald Trump over government deficits.