Reject Deficit Hysteria

Deficit hysteria is just a pretext for ideological and class warfare by "bipartisan" means. Let's not dignify it with our participation. - Editors of The Nation

Any budget discussion that invokes "the deficit" distracts from the immediate need to relieve unemployment and create jobs through massive infrastructure spending.

Even a "progressive" budget plan falls into this trap:

The Century Foundation, Demos and the Economic Policy Institute have released a liberal counterpoint budget plan, as a response to the plan put forward by Erskine Bowles and Alan “The Greediest Generation” Simpson on deficit reduction. The counterpoint is fundamentally different in that it demands increased employment levels before spending reductions kick in.

Steven Benen sees such deficit-acknowledging, even in progressive terms, as giving away the store.

IF THEY CAN'T BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM.... I tend to think these deficit commissions and panels are asking the wrong question at the wrong time -- when it comes to the economy, the focus should be on creating jobs and boosting growth, not tackling the deficit.

I suspect most center-left observers agree with this, but the larger discussion appears to have slipped away. The establishment wants this to be a top priority, so it is. The left has a choice: keep trying to move the conversation away from deficit reduction, or move the conversation about deficit reduction in a more constructive direction.

Digby:

... it should be noted that the idea that we need to talk about deficits at all is fairly ridiculous since we are in the middle of an economic slump so terrible that even thinking about anything but getting people back to work is just a distraction. Joshua Hollad makes that point well in this piece on Alternet today.

But the political reality is that the president made the calculation from the beginning of his term that he was going to make some sort of "Grand Bargain" with the Republicans and it has finally come down to this. It's impossible to know whether or not he knew that by enabling deficit talk he was playing into an existing pernicious theme that the deficit boogeyman was responsible for the anemic economy, but it did. And here we are.

It's important that people continue to keep perspective on this, but thanks to the president's insistence on putting this issue on the menu early on, the political dynamic at the moment is such that liberals have to prove that their policies to create security and prosperity will fit this silly frame. And they do --- basically create jobs, tax the wealthy at the rates they paid ten years ago and control health care costs et voila. The numbers add up.

Once you do that then we can get down to the real argument which is over whether the government should tax the wealthy and do more to create jobs. They are obscuring that argument with the deficit obsession for a very good reason --- they don't think they can win it. And why would they?

It's all about scaring people into accepting Social Security cuts that will destroy the middle class once and for all.

From Down with Tyranny:

About a week ago Dave Johnson of Campaign for America's Future applied the theory of "The Shock Doctrine" to the push to gut Social Security. He decries the move towards proposals meant to cut middle class tax breaks and programs so that the richest Americans can continue to concentrate the nation's wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer families. "This is full-on Shock Doctrine, wait for an emergency like the terrible recession so people are in shock and want solutions, and then change everything so fast they can’t respond while telling them how this is good for them." And on Friday Johnson followed up with a proposal of his own that is meant to cut the deficit without hurting the people who Obama and the American government are supposed to represent-- the 99% of us who are not fabulously wealthy and who we don't expect to see ignored, especially not by a Democratic administration.

Johnson's 8-point proposal seems like a lot more serious and effective-- not to mention fair-- than the toxic nonsense coming out of the Catfood Commission or the Rivlin Commission.

Read Johnson's tax-the-rich plan here. It's not bad, for a plan that falls into the deficit-hysteria trap.

But let's keep it simple. Shock Doctrine can work both ways, you fuckers.

I say 9.8 percent unemployment, no jobs despite record corporate profits and an income inequality gap that would embarass a third-world kleptocracy calls for desperate measures.

We must have a 95 percent tax on all income over $1 million, coupled with single-payer health care, a minimum wage of $15 per hour, a $3 trillion jobs-only stimulus, and permanent extension of unemployment benefits until the unemployment rate is under 5 percent.

Everybody who objects is a greedy parasite who never worked a real job or had to scramble to pay rent.