What Kind of Idiot Turns Down Safe Free Money?

I called my credit union the other day to find out if mortgage rates had dropped since I last refinanced. They hadn't, but if they had, I would have jumped to refinance again. In this economy, you'd have to be stupid to turn down a safe opportunity to save money.

You probably already know where I'm going with this.

Brian Beutler at TPM:

Here in the United States, Republican lawmakers are busy blocking plans to spend money on jobs and infrastructure improvement, while both parties work in earnest to find ways of cutting $1.2 trillion or more from the budget over the next 10 years.

They’re doing this at a time when demand for America’s debt is so high that investors will essentially pay the U.S. to borrow.

You read that right. Here are the numbers. They may appear hard to parse, but it’s pretty straightforward: when you adjust for inflation, the interest creditors get for parking their money here is negative. That’s not a deal you’d accept from your bank, but it’s the deal we’re getting now.

So why are we letting bridges and roads deteriorate? Why aren’t we installing new high-speed rail lines everywhere it makes sense to install them? Why aren’t we paying people to do the things the vast majority of Americans support doing? Why, in other words, aren’t we going on a borrowing frenzy?

The biggest and most obvious reason is that our government is riven by ideology and politics. Republicans say they want smaller government, to cut government programs, and that means less spending — whether financed by debt or by raising taxes. They also have a strong political incentive against helping President Obama and the Democrats boost the economy.

Which is to say, we should be doing this, but we’re not.

Federal government borrowing right now does not just not add to the deficit; federal borrowing at negative interest actually reduces the deficit.

So any repug, DINO Blue Dog or random moron who opposes the federal government borrowing five or ten trillion dollars to create jobs right now is out to destroy the economy.

Don't let them get away with claiming anything else.