Today everybody and his brother in the national media is writing about how Lindsey Graham can expect attacks from the right wing of his own party for voting to confirm Elena Kagan.
But they reckoned without him getting hit by a cheap shot from the left — from the S.C. Democratic Party, specifically:
DeMint and Graham Place Partisanship Over SC
COLUMBIA-Today South Carolina Senators Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint held tight to their Republican Party principles by voting against legislation to restore unemployment benefits to workers who have been out of work for more than six months. Despite the senators’ efforts to continue a Republican filibuster of the bill, the measure passed 60-40.
South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler called Graham and DeMint’s votes shortsighted and wrong.
“It’s shameful that Senator Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint would ignore the needs of thousands of hardworking South Carolina families for the sake of partisanship. We can’t afford to play politics in a state where the unemployment rate continues to be well above the national average. Our senators should have stood with their fellow Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and done the right thing for South Carolina,” said Fowler.
Really. Not a word about his courage in voting for Kagan — nothing about the actual news that he made today. No, the Democratic Party — being a political party, and therefore incapable of mastering anything more complex than “him Republican; them all alike” — attacks him with the slur of saying he’s no less a knee-jerk ideologue than Jim DeMint.
And that’s outrageous.
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It IS outrageous! For all we know, withholding unemployment benefits from people out of work — people who paid taxes for years until they were laid off — is a core personal belief of Graham’s, and it’s only a coincidence that it matches the party line. Cut him a break, peeps.
It may be outrageous to lump Graham with wretched creatures like DeMint, but so is voting against extension of unemployment benefits. Graham isn’t a saint, just a much better senator than our other one.
Lindsey did the right thing with Kagan, but turned around and acted just like Mark Sanford refusing stimulus money for teachers and cops re: the unemployment funding.
I guess the kind of “trickle down” that applies when people don’t have money to go into stores and buy things – meaning the jobs of the people in the stores go away, too – is beyond his grasp or he just doesn’t care.
The more he is attacked by either side, the more I like him. You must be starting to rub off on me Brad.
The Republicans didn’t vote against extending unemployment benefits. They voted against extending unemployment benefits funded by more deficit spending instead of finding the money elsewhere. It’s called being fiscally responsible.
It’s like blaming the bank when you exceed your credit limit because you really, really, really wanted that new big screen TV.
At what point will you people stop spending your children and grandchildren’s future income?
Awesome, the automatic response generator still works on outrage mode.
During an economic downturn of this magnitude the fiscally responsible thing to do is spend like crazy. It may be the only hope for saving the economy along with millions of jobs. Once we get past this then we can worry about the national debt. The only exception I would make would be the wars.
@Doug Ross–We could tax those with vastly lower marginal propensities to consume, or to consume within our national economy. Bush spent Clinton’s surplus, with lavish tax cuts to the luxury classes while waging two wars, and nary a peep about the deficit from most Republicans….
@bud
We’ve had this conversation before. Why don’t you go stimulate the economy and max out your credit cards? It’s the same concept. You wouldn’t do it because of the risk involved in paying the money back.
We’ve spent like crazy for the past year and the effect has been minimal. Cash for clunkers didn’t save the auto industry. Home buyer tax credits just pulled a bunch of sales ahead of schedule. Now the market is dead again.
Didn’t George W suggest we should go out at max out our credit cards?
@Kathryn
So were Bush and the Republicans right or wrong to run up massive deficits? Who cares about who complained about it. If it was wrong under Bush (and it was), it’s multiple times worse under Obama.
It must be disappointing to have believed all the “change we can believe in” hype and then find out it’s “more of the same”.
It is a great idea, per all kinds of lauded economists to run up a deficit to forestall a depression or kickstart an economy that’s into one. That’s the broken economy Bush handed over to Obama. Bush got a thriving economy and spent it into the poorhouse.
Doug, you say, “we’ve spent like crazy for the past two years and the effect has been minimal.” I would ask, how do you know? Could it not be that we’d be much worse off without the spending? I don’t claim to be an economist and am asking honestly, but that is the question that occurs to me. Likewise, this analogy occurs to me but I don’t know if it is valid. If conditions are so bad that we are going to fall to great depths despite interventions, could it be that without stimulus efforts the plummet would have been like falling off a cliff and with stimulus funds it is more like going down with a parachute? Either way you get to the bottom but in only one of those scenarios are you
still alive to be able to climb back up at some point.
If this analogy has any merit at all, then I’d say stimulus funding has hardly been for naught, even if the results are not overtly obvious.
@Kathryn
It’s simplistic to say that Bush handed over the economy to Obama. Many of the driving factors of the recession were related to government programs driven by Democrats.
@scout
We don’t know what would have happened (and we never will) had the market been allowed to correct itself. Many people believe it would have been worse for a shorter period of time. What government intervention does is just create more bubbles… a whipsaw effect of highs and lows. The housing market is still very bad and there will be many millions of people who will never recover the losses in their home values. Add to that the ripple effect that foreclosures will have. Until all that shakes out, we will have a very extended period of stops and starts. I’m of the opinion (and not alone) that it would have been better to let things crash and then allow people to make the decisions that drive recovery. We will never have the chance to see if that method would have a better effect longterm.
The economy we have now and for the next decade is the Obama economy.
I really enjoy the continued Bush blaming for the state of the economy. For the ones on this blog who actually did some research and went back to the roots of the financial collapse, apparently they choose not to comment.
The collapse was the eventual outcome of political opportunism from BOTH sides of the aisle, not just one. Bush was not the best president ever, nor is he the worst. Self-serving politicians from both sides worked together to get us where we are today.
Clinton and Gramm worked together to repeal Glass-Steagal. Both sides got exactly what each wanted. One side, deregulation. The other side, loans without collateral or a steady job. Loans granted using alimony as income. Loans granted using child welfare payments as income. Loans granted to couples who earned six figures but had bad credit, over extended, and in over their heads. Loans granted through the mail and approved with a phone call. Home loans given for $250,000 on an income of $30,000. All legal, all inspired by political greed and corruption from both sides.
Or is it just too damn difficult to even give the truth a chance instead of wearing blinders and enjoying tunnel vision?
@Bart
Amen.
I blame Bush for Iraq.
I blame Bush for running the “War on Terror” without having the guts to actually make Americans sacrifice to pay for it.
But to blame the economy on Bush is pure folly.
Clinton’s surpluses were largely a result of the Internet bubble. Bush’s deficits were a result of the spending on the war combined with the housing bubble created by both parties. It was the greed of Wall Street combined with the excesses of Main Street. People spent what they didn’t have and bankers lent what they couldn’t expect to collect…. and the Bush and Obama governments gave everybody a mulligan by using future tax revenues to bail everyone out.
The people who got screwed are the ones in the middle. As usual. The people who go to work everyday, who spend within their means, who keep enhancing their skills to remain in the job market.
“The people who got screwed are the ones in the middle. As usual. The people who go to work everyday, who spend within their means, who keep enhancing their skills to remain in the job market.”
except that plenty of those people got laid off and cannot find even remotely equivalent jobs, despite loads of skills…
Is it so difficult to understand that those getting unemployment insurance were employed until recently? They aren’t lifelong welfare cases.
@burl
Is 99 weeks a long time?
“State unemployment and labor agencies have been preparing for weeks for Congress to restore jobless payments averaging $309 a week for almost 5 million people whose 26 weeks of state benefits have run out. Those people are enrolled in a federally financed program providing up to 73 additional weeks of unemployment benefits.”
Two years seems like quite a long time to me to get yourself a new job. Two years. You can get an associates degree in a new field in that time.
Brad, everything in the press release was the truth, right?
The vote was shortsighted, right? It was wrong, right? Graham did ignore the needs of thousands of South Carolinians for the sake of partisanship, right?
It’s true that Graham stuck with the Republicans, and placed their interests over the welfare of South Carolina and the nation, right?
What’s your complaint with the Democrats issuing a press release, every word of which was the truth?
If Graham had real courage, he could have cast a vote that would have made a difference. His vote on Kagan made no difference, she was going to win anyway. It doesn’t take any particular courage to cast a meaningless vote.
And, as for his “courage” in voting to confirm a qualified nominee, Chris Rock said it pretty well:
“You know the worst thing about ******? ****** always want credit for some **** they supposed to do. A ***** will brag about some **** a normal man just does. A ***** will say some **** like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb ************! What kind of ignorant **** is that? “I ain’t never been to jail!” What do you want, a cookie?! You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having ************!
If I recall Kathryn is probably the only unemployed lawyer I know.
Doug:
“Why don’t you go stimulate the economy and max out your credit cards? It’s the same concept.”
No it isn’t. This stuff is really well understood. The problem is a shortage of demand. The U.S. treasury can borrow as much money as it wants at phenomenally low rates. It can push that money into the economy where it will be spent on goods and services, the money from whose sale will foster demand for further goods and services.
The aversion to deficits is a religious fervor, it isn’t based on rational analysis.
And it isn’t even real, anyway. One good way to cut the deficit, which would have no depressive economic effects, would be to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on the highest incomes, and increase taxes more on those incomes. Very high incomes are mostly not spent, or invested in genuine productive activity; they are instead devoted to wasteful financial manipulation. Raking that money off to pay for health care, teachers, infrastructure, things like that, would immensely benefit America. But the deficit “hawks” won’t hear of that, thus proving that they don’t actually care about deficits.
“The U.S. treasury can borrow as much money as it wants at phenomenally low rates.”
Who is the U.S. borrowing from? And at what level does the total amount of interest paid become a problem? By your theory, we should increase the debt to infinity and the U.S. economy would grow accordingly. You’re dealing in theory while the reality says something completely different.
@Doug–Okay, exactly when during the 99 weeks was the middle-aged middle manager supposed to figure out that s/he needed to retool? Relocate?
When was Brad supposed to give up and go to Tech to become a dental assistant? I mean, wasn’t it Bill C. who pointed out that Lowe’s was hiring. I know if I were an employer hiring entry level positions, I’d love to get the former editorial page editor of the Capital City newspaper. Yessiree!
People with a lot invested in their careers and a corresponding, but not overly lavish lifestyle, keep hoping that the Gospel of Doug will come to pass–get a good education, work hard, live clean, and you will be rewarded with steady employment reasonably related to your field of expertise.
1. The Fowler statement was not about saying that Graham and DeMint were wrong. It had nothing to do with looking out for unemployed South Carolinians. It was about attacking them for being partisan. That’s the way it’s played. Partisan Democrats attack partisan Republicans for being partisan and vice versa. It’s annoying.
2. The Republicans may say that they are voting against the extension of unemployment benefits because the money needs to come from somewhere else and not add to the deficit. They may even be right that the money should come from somewhere else. But how can anyone believe them that that is their motive for saying “no”? When they were in power, the deficit took a backseat to every one of their objectives. And in this case, in this recession, what is more urgent, extending unemployment benefits or shaving $34 billion off the deficit?
3. While I disagree with Doug that the concept of stimulus is as simplistic as an individual maxing out his/her credit cards, I’ll agree that the homebuyer credit and Cash for Clunkers were silly. How about stimulus for something that will last: infrastructure.
4. I always laugh about those who talk about the “Obama economy” or the “Bush economy” or whoever’s economy. It’s like we’re supposed to believe that one branch of government has complete control over a complex economy in a country of 300 million people which also interacts with other economies across the globe. We’re supposed to believe that everything that happened — good or bad — to the economy from 2001-2008 was a direct result of the actions of G. Bush and everything since is the result of Obama’s actions.
5. An aversion to deficits is not religious fervor. In Congress, it’s a political weapon. Neither side really cares except when they get to say “Look, look! The other side is running up the deficit with their big spending on misguided efforts!” To be a “deficit hawk” is to be out of power. Though it strikes me as silly to say there will be no depressive economic effects to letting the Bush tax cuts expire, I think the time has come. We have to pay for the government we have. Ignoring the bill doesn’t make it go away.
@Kathryn
And when the 99 weeks are done, then what? Another 99? 99 weeks is a LONG time if you are out of work to come up with a new plan. I’ve never been out of work in the 33 years I’ve been in the workforce… but there have been multiple times where I made decisions to learn new skills rather than let the industry pass me by where I could be laid off. Everyone has that same opportunity. Sometimes it involves sacrificing your time. Sometimes it means moving to a new location. Sometimes it means taking a lower salary for the chance to earn more later on.
And it appears that Brad landed pretty well on his feet, doesn’t it? How did he do that? Working hard, using his talents in a different way, being creative, networking. I’m not even sure he got a single unemployment check.
That’s a perfectly fine model to follow.
The reality is that the majority of people who get laid off are either unskilled or are skilled in areas where the market says they are not needed. Many of the textile workers in South Carolina had to find something else to do, right? Or should the government just prop up industries even though the market isn’t there any more?
And let’s not forget this is NOT about extending benefits. It’s about paying for those benefits using additional deficit spending. That approach is a cowardly copout.
First, Doug: I received either three or four weekly unemployment checks (basically because everyone from my wife to the outplacement experts I would talk to would say yes, file for your unemployment while you’re job-hunting; it’s foolish not to). I was eligible for a lot more than that, but it was just such a hassle for such a small return that I quite honestly wasn’t very conscientious about it. I would have had to go off and on and off and on, and through all sorts of bureaucratic hoops, and it was just such a tiny amount of money. No way I could live on it. A month’s worth, if not taxed, would barely pay my mortgage, and then how would I eat? Well I could go out and make some additional money for groceries, right? No, I couldn’t.
That’s because every dime you go out and earn is deducted from the amount of your unemployment check. Therefore there is zero incentive to go make a few bucks, unless you make enough to cancel out the unemployment check altogether. Which you pretty much have to do anyway if you want to get the bills paid. And that was always my aim. I mean, a single freelance job that took me three or four hours work would way more than cancel out an unemployment check. Trouble is, there WERE weeks in which I didn’t get paid. And I did file for unemployment on three or four of those, but not for the majority of them. That’s because my attention and my energies were focused on making some actual money rather than dealing with that bureaucracy.
Basically, it’s a little hard for me to believe in the mythical slacker who is content to let the unemployment checks roll in rather than taking the little bit of trouble necessary to make more money than that. I suppose a person could get it down to a science to where it’s easy, but come on — the return is just so pathetic.
Of your colleagues who have left The State, what percentage would you say are still seeking employment?
Oh, I don’t know — one or two of them. The thing about it is, they’re often the best and most talented. Basically, we’re in an economy that looks at someone like that — or a senior executive like me — and says, Wow, that’s somebody we’d like to have on board, but we can’t take a leap like that right now — whereas less-experienced, or less well-known, people might get hired. Probably because prospective employers have a less fixed idea of who they are, and are therefore better able to imagine molding them to fit within their organization. It’s a weird dynamic, and a little hard to explain. With me, it tended to come back as me being “overqualified.”
But while most have employment of some sort, I can say with confidence that most of them are now clearly UNDERemployed — in part-time positions or things that are far below their skill levels, because that’s all they could find.
Brad, for some people $309/week is not bad money. I’m sure some minimum wage guy would love to have that while sitting on his tush.
On the other hand I’m sure there are many more folks who simply cannot find any real work. With unemployment running at 10% and higher there are way more applicants than jobs. The arithmetic ensure there are people who want to work but can’t.
Brad’s story really is a good example of how to plan for the contingency of a lost job and to persevere until a new opportunity presents itself. Maybe Brad could do some motivational speeches on the subject.
I’m not sure that most people are as well versed in how to deal with tough times as Brad. Many folks just don’t have the capability of planning for hard times. They may not be lazy or even stupid but are just not savy about financial matters.
And let’s inject some facts into the unemployment issue. Full employment is considered to be when the unemployment rate is 5%. With an umemployment rate around 11% in SC, we’re talking about 6 people out of 100 willing and able workers finding a job. I go frequently to the jobs page on The State (not for myself) and see hundreds of jobs added weekly. There are jobs out there. There may be people who are overqualified for those jobs but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be filled. The jobs may not be ideal. They may require taking a pay cut. But if you want to work, you can.
“By your theory, we should increase the debt to infinity and the U.S. economy would grow accordingly.”
That’s like sitting outside in subzero weather. Somebody suggests building a fire. You say why. They say it’ll produce warmth and make for a general improvement in health and comfort. You say, “by your theory, we should increase the temperature to a million degrees and our health and comfort would increase accordingly.”
There’s slack in the economy; the government can borrow as much as it wants at phenomenally low interest rates without crowding out any productive investment. I would say it can borrow and spend until all the slack is taken up. The problem is a lack of demand. Not excessively high taxes on unproductive financial manipulation, not uncertainty as to what regulations are going to be implemented or how much profits are to be taxed. Lack of demand. If there’s no demand, business won’t produce; it doesn’t matter how low their taxes are.
“You’re dealing in theory while the reality says something completely different.”
No, the reality, which can actually be measured, is that the federal government isn’t borrowing anywhere near too much, and you can tell this is true because the market says so. The yield on a 10-year treasury is 2.90%; the yield on a 1-year treasury is .27%. That’s the reality. It’s your theory that says something completely different, and that’s because your theory is wrong.
NOTE TO MICHAEL P.: I tried to answer your question, but the e-mail address you give doesn’t work.
Imagine that…
So basically, if you’d really like an answer, you can provide a real e-mail address. The [email protected] address doesn’t work.
30 year mortgage rates just hit an all-time low today. That’s hardly a sign of runaway interest rates or inflation. The sad state of our economy is mostly the result of very slow demand for just about everything. Folks are just not spending. The wealthiest of folks are neither spending nor investing in plant and equipment to produce more. Consumers are wary of long-term spending on big ticket items. State and local governments are restricted by balanced budget laws. The Fed cannot lower interest rates any more to stimulate borrowing. There is only one tool remaining in the tool box, spending at the Federal level. But the spending should be on stuff that will put people to work like infrastructure improvements.
@Rob
So then why isn’t the government doing what you say if it’s such a simple solution? How much more debt do you think the government should add? Another trillion? Two trillion?
Doesn’t it require that the money be spent on something useful?
I was in Yellowstone Park last week and saw a couple road signs where ARRA funds were being used to rebuild roads. Roads inside a national park. Roads that probably were suitable for the next couple years. Is that the type of spending that we need to recover?
Maybe if you’re right about borrowing money, it should just be handed out in the form of checks to everybody to spend. Cut out the whole process of creating more government jobs.
@bud–Unemployment is scaled–minimum wage jobs don’t get the maximum.
@Doug Ross- Employers don’t like to hire the overqualified–they don’t believe they will stick around when the going gets better, or they just don’t like to feel inferior–I don’t know.
I’m glad you’ve never been unemployed. Good for you. Unfortunately, everyone does not have your skill set. I was briefly unemployed involuntarily and it was hell on wheels–I was my sole support and had not been working log enough to have built up much of a cash cushion. I did manage to land in a much better job, on paper, anyway, because I had extensive contacts in the community, but in law, reinventing yourself as a different flavor gets harder as you get older and more experience in an area is expected of you. Even as a 6 year veteran, I had to do a lot of “faking it til I made it” which is not a great posture to be in at all.
Just to point out the obvious. The “infrastructure projects” everyone is always touting as a way to inject life into the economy is one of the more infamous myths of our time.
First of all, companies capable of building the roads, bridges, etc. to upgrade our infrastructure are already in business and not doing any real hiring. That is unless holding a sign telling cars to stop or go is a long-term employment option.
The type of construction where the stimulus signs are erected, another $20 million plus wasted on advertising for the administration, is not conducive to adding anything significant numbers to the employment figures. The materials used are limited, not like building a house, office building, or other major structures that actually puts people back to work. Ever stop and take an inventory of what goes into building one house and the ripple effect it has on the entire economic system? Asphalt, concrete, forms, rebar, and pipe do not add nearly as much to the economic pipeline as building one house or office building does.
Of course, if you are unemployed, holding a traffic sign is a welcome job indeed. I know at one time in my life, I would have gladly taken the job.
We need mature adults in charge who actually understand business and what the demands are to make it grow instead of academic exercises in wishful thinking and an economic plan based on experience gained as a community organizer. So far, the career public service personnel running the country have no concept of what produces real income that pays their above average salaries and benefits. Spend more and more uncollected tax money until there is no more and then, keep printing until the ink runs out.
Of course, putting money into building homes and office buildings has the problem that it would add more inventory to the large overhang we already have right now, which would prolong the depressed prices we are currently seeing.
I would think that other infrastructure projects are a better choice right now. (And having spent a number of summers in Yellowstone, I’ll tell you that they do a lot of construction every year on the roads there, even without the stimulus, as the harsh winters and heavy traffic are very tough on their roads).
Many, many of the unemployed in the country are people who have built professional careers and have specialized skills that are helpful in an economy that’s humming. They are not the guys standing around in groups on the corner hoping for a day of yard work. The more who are ejected out of the economy, never to return, the harder it is to get the economy back up to speed.
Of course, if they’re hedge-fund managers, yard work would be more productive.
And there’s nothing wrong with infrastructure improvements. The country needs them.
There are only a dozen or so railroad bridges across the Mississippi and most are more than a century old. (Don’t tell the terrorists, these ought to be the most-guarded structures in America!)
Doug, the reason the government didn’t do an adequate stimulus is due to the fiction that it takes 60 Senate votes to pass anything, so the stimulus was held hostage to 40 Senators who represent about 13% of Americans. Many of these Americans are utterly without any understanding of economics, and so they believe patently absurd things, such as that running federal deficits in a recession is like a family maxing out its credit cards. And, of course, many of them also believe the stupidest slogan there is, which is that “in a recession, American families have to tighten their belts, so the federal government should tighten its belt too.”
I think the figure Krugman suggested for the original stimulus was about $1.5 trillion.
No, the money shouldn’t be just handed out in the form of checks; there’s plenty that can be done and plenty of people to do it. We could, for example, work on a high speed rail network for intermediate-distance travel, we could build commuter rail in suitable cities, we could start turning the roofs of houses and other buildings white. There are projects built by the WPA that still benefit us today.
And of course I’m right about borrowing money. As I’ve demonstrated, the reality, as demonstrated by the market reaction, is that the borrowing is fine. Your objection is based on the fact that it conflicts with your theory, which is wrong, and is based on a total lack of understanding of economics.
@Rob
If it was as simple as you claim it is (which it is not), the Democrats would be able to make the case. They can’t. You can’t. You can talk theory all you want.
If a trillion didn’t fix the economy, saying 1.5 trillion would is pure speculation. You oughta get your head out of a textbook and deal with reality. Economics isn’t physics.
The point was not that infrastructure projects were not needed, the point was that these projects do not produce jobs in any significant numbers related to the cost and ROI of tax dollars. Especially for the immediate future.
Besides, infrastructure projects have almost always been a function of government, local, state, and federal. So, why boast about something you are responsible for already? They still need tax dollars to complete, whether they are done during a recession or not.
When government money is spent on new schools or actual structures, the money is circulated through-out the economy in a much wider circle than paving a road or building a bridge.
Maybe Homeland Security should show up on Burl’s doorsteps with a warrant for aiding and abetting terrorists by publically exposing and calling attention to more vulnerable points in America.
@Doug, keep on trying to convince skeptics that you are right on the deficit issue and spending during a deep recession. Having been through a few difficult times myself, the last thing I wanted to do was add to credit card debt and further obligate my future income.
If the proponents of spend, spend, spend, will max all of their cards out to help the economy get back on its feet like they propose the government should do, and provide proof of having done so, I will do the same thing.
After all, with the new regulations enacted concerning credit card debt, according to a family member who is experiencing a difficult time, if you owe a lot on your credit card and don’t make payments for 180 days, in very simplistic terms, the debt will be written off and about the only penalty is a bad credit rating. You may have to put up with a few collection calls but even then, if you write a letter about contact, they have to obey the newly enacted rules of engagement.
Last point. It seems as if our incompetent administration never learns. GM now owns a company that will provide loans to people with bad credit. By the way, isn’t the government own the majority stock holder in GM? So, by way of the government owning GM, and GM buying a company specializing in loans to people with bad credit, aren’t we, the taxpayers, on the hook once again for practices Wall Street and the banking industry was taken to the woodshed for? If the government owns controlling interest in GM, wouldn’t the government be the one to tell GM no, you can’t do that? The practice of making bad loans is one of the reasons we are in such a bind right now.
Just wondering.
Sorry, “own” shouln’t be in the sentence after government in the last paragraph.
“If it was as simple as you claim it is (which it is not), the Democrats would be able to make the case.”
That’s just absurd. You aren’t even trying to dispute my argument (because you can’t). Instead, you are bringing up irrelevant non sequiturs. How does the failure to achieve a supermajority for a policy mean the policy isn’t the right one?
“You oughta get your head out of a textbook and deal with reality. Economics isn’t physics.”
As I’ve pointed out, you’re the one who has a dispute with reality. The reality is that the federal government is not borrowing too much money, and this is seen by the reaction of the market. Your theory is false, and you keep making specious arguments in order to avoid letting go of it. Your ideas about government debt are all totally wrong, but you are willing to ignore reality to avoid giving up your ideas.
I don’t know what your saying that “economics isn’t physics” is even supposed to mean. Are you saying results don’t matter? That your theory is right even though reality conflicts with it?
You claim that the level of government debt is too high. If that were true, interest rates on U.S. government debt would increase as buyers of debt lost confidence in it. The reality is that buyers of U.S. government debt have plenty of confidence in it, as witnessed by the fact that interest rates on U.S. government debt are at record or near record lows.
That’s reality. Reality proves that your theory is wrong. You have to ask yourself why it’s so important for you to cling to a theory that’s wrong.
@Rob Evans
Please tell me when you and Krugman predicted the recession. If your theories are so airtight, they should have been ahead of the market crash, the housing bubble, the job losses, etc. I don’t recall Krugman coming down from the the ivory tower to announce the coming crash – do you?
Again, you can talk theory all you want. Nobody in power agrees with you. If it was a no-brainer as you try to present it, it would be done.