March of the Peacocks
January 29th, 2010 by Sonny
Krugman is not happy about Obama’s non-defense discretionary spending freeze. I agree that it’s counter-productive in the midst of the biggest downturn in since WWII to talk about cutting spending when that spending is what’s standing between us and another great depression. It’s also counter-productive to adopt the rhetoric of the right’s worst demagogues. If congressional republicans were truly interested in cutting the deficit, why weren’t they squawking during the last 8 years when they, abetted by Bush, were digging this hole?
The answer, presumably, is that Mr. Obama’s advisers believed he could score some political points by doing the deficit-peacock strut. I think they were wrong, that he did himself more harm than good. Either way, however, the fact that anyone thought such a dumb policy idea was politically smart is bad news because it’s an indication of the extent to which we’re failing to come to grips with our economic and fiscal problems.
The nature of America’s troubles is easy to state. We’re in the aftermath of a severe financial crisis, which has led to mass job destruction. The only thing that’s keeping us from sliding into a second Great Depression is deficit spending. And right now we need more of that deficit spending because millions of American lives are being blighted by high unemployment, and the government should be doing everything it can to bring unemployment down.
