Conservative commentators use the term "pander" to describe politicians, usually liberals, who are sensitive to women, blacks, Latinos, gays, and workers who lose their jobs to outsourcing. You might say a lot of right-wing pandering goes on when it comes to the religious right, the NRA, and the anti-abortion lobby. As we heard in the second debate, nearly everyone seems to be pandering to the coal industry.
But the mother of all special interest groups is Wall Street. And the most economically dangerous pandering this year and next is the pandering to the deficit hawks led by America's corporate elite. If you need an emetic, have a look at the website of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Or the Fix the Debt Campaign. Or any of a dozen other corporate-led front groups who are urging that America deflate its way to recovery.
Yet we barely even have a debate between the presidential candidates on the question of whether the deficit needs to be cut at all. Both agree that it does. The reality is that the deficit will come down as revenues go up when the economy goes into recovery. If it goes into recovery. But if we cut the deficit prematurely, that recovery will keep receding.
We have plenty of debate on whose budget numbers are fishy (Romney's) and on whether to bring about deficit reduction by slashing social spending to pay for even more tax cuts (Romney) or whether to have a mix of budget cuts and tax increases on the wealthy (Obama.)
The Romney budget would cut spending by about $5 trillion over a decade. The Obama budget would cut it by just under $4 trillion, about 46 percent from tax increase, and 54 from spending cuts.
Of the two positions, Obama's is both the more sensible and intellectually honest. But the Democrats are mistaken when they argue that the deficit needs to be cut any time soon. With the economy weak, we certainly don't need $2 trillion in spending cuts as Obama proposes; if anything, we need more stimulus spending.
As soon as the election is over, if Obama does win there will be a titanic struggle within the Democratic Party. Under the pressure of the so-called fiscal cliff, some Democrats around the president and in Congress will be insisting that Social Security and Medicare will need to be cut, both to appease the deficit hawks in the corporate and financial elite, and as part of a grand bargain with Republicans in Congress.
In case you missed it, the so-called fiscal cliff is a massive and automatic budget contraction set to go off January 1. It is made up of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the temporary cut in payroll taxes, plus the chickens coming home to roost from the budget non-deal that Republicans imposed on Democrats back in 2011 -- automatic budget "sequesters" in the form of $1.2 trillion in cuts divided evenly between military and domestic spending.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, all these cuts will kick the economy back into a full-blown recession. But a budget deal that cut a little less would only throw the economy off a slightly smaller cliff.
The idea that social spending cuts will somehow help the recovery is voodoo economics. Social Security is fine until 2033, according to its own actuaries, and would be fine indefinitely if the wages of ordinary workers kept pace with the economy's productivity growth.
And the premise that President Obama and the Democrats should sacrifice social outlays in order to get a grand bargain with the Republicans is also delusional. The Republicans have shown over and over again that they don't do grand bargains. They do "My way or the highway."
The current titanic political struggle ends on Election Day, Tuesday, November 6. If Obama performs in the third debate as well as he did in the second one, it will probably end with Obama winning re-election by a few percentage points and a few key states.
But then, on Wednesday, November 7, the next titanic struggle begins. It has two parts. The first part is for Democrats to keep Republicans from using the fiscal cliff to win what they didn't win in the election -- further deep cuts in Social Security, Medicare and what's left of other social investment.
Alas, the second struggle will be within the Democratic family -- to keep the Obama Administration from giving away much of what Democrats stand for, in a hapless quest for a budget bargain on Republican terms that will cheer the Wall Street elite.
After the cheering dies down, a re-elected Obama will be thinking about his legacy. If he listens to the Democratic austerity hawks, his legacy will be that of a two-term Democratic president who presided over eight years of an economic slump. He, and we, can do better than that.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His latest book is A Presidency in Peril.
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Having lived beyond their means for several decades is the culprit.
Your repeated tirades against common-sense remind me of a guy
who gets smashed in the pub, wakes up the next morning with a terrible
headache and starts screaming:
"This hangover is a terrible problem! I should have NEVER stopped drinking."
Same thing here on a different scale--the housing bubble was a deregulated scam--a gambling casino whose losses were covered at the expense of all else.
But then we need claw backs.
I know that is politically tough,
but if we keep printing new money
instead of demanding responsibility
(for instance Obama could have wiped out
shareholders and bondholders before recapitalizing the banks)
we will never fix things, we'll be just continuously
kicking the can down the road,
till gas is $10 - and maybe then people will wake up.
I propose we get rid of Obama and Romey and declare you king so you can save us from our stupid selfs!!
www.theledgeradioshow.com
Consumer spending drives this economy, without it we have recession. Investment in a business that adds value to goods or services, will generate jobs. Consumer demand is what will causes a company to expand, not reduced tax rates. If I can't sell what I make, there is not tax incentive out there to get me to expand. Investment in a business that generates wealth, does not add jobs. Wall Street, except for IPOs, generates wealth and zero, none, nada, added value. We need to stop providing financial aid to Wall Street (capital gains and carried interest) and use that few extra billions toward our deficit and debt. A balanced approach of revenue and cuts will allow for consumer spending and as we grow, the added revenue must then go to lowering the deficit and debt.
There is no fast fix and 4 years is not very much time when it comes to the current situation. Some of the Clinton growth was actually the result of some of the Reagan policies. Things just don't happen that quickly.
Trickle-down or Trickle-UP? The trickle-up math comes from corporate investments in technology to automate repetitive tasks and increase productivity without more people, and from outsourcing and converting full-time jobs to part-time, further cutting wages & benefits, and avoiding collective bargaining. The result is the widening income, wealth & opportunity gaps, as wealth is redistributed upwards.
Trickle-up is based on a known secret of business success – extending the value of your own efforts to more customers and markets, and paying employees less than the business value they individually contribute. If, for example, you have 10 employees and pay them half of what they each contribute, then you as a Manager get credit for 5 times more work done. If you employ 100, then you as a Director get 50 times more work done. And if 1,000, then you as a VP get 500 times more work done. Now if you can outsource or automate that work, you may get even more work done with less resource. That’s the ruling class.
But now a barber can only cut one head of hair at a time no matter how good he is, and a lawn boy can only cut one lawn at a time. A teacher can teach 10-20 students but lacks upward mobility to teach more. The working class adds considerably more value than they get credit for, and the credit (and profit income) flows upward.
http://pshakkottai.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/cumulative-deficit-vs-household-net-worth/
we certainly won't be getting any legislation written by Bernie Sanders. Obama, like Clinton, is
the good cop who will make a deal that the bad cop couldn't without screams from the victim (US).
Now he promises Colorado voters defense jobs through increasing the military budget. Not only is this pandering and hypocritical, it isn't even accurate. Most of the money that goes to defense contracts goes to the high cost of the weapons produced and profit for the company, Labor costs are minimal compared to the other costs of defense production.
If he is going to promise jobs through government spending it would be more cost efficient to use it to help state and local governments hire more teachers, firefighters, and police. Dollars spent on public sector jobs create more jobs than than dollars spent on defense.
Of course the hypocrisy of this kind of pandering is that Romney's says that we shouldn't depend on the government to create jobs
In other words, Americans were doing their patriotic duty by spending every meager penny they earned, by double-mortgaging their homes when those pennies ran out, and by maxing out their credit cards. Then. in ever greater numbers, they lost their jobs, lost their homes, declared bankruptcy. Those lucky enough to have escaped those horrors refocused on paying off debt.
Someone or something has to step in to partially fill the gap until consumers in sufficient numbers can get back on their feet, and that something is government. THAT'S WHAT IT'S THERE FOR -- to step in on your behalf when you can't hold up your end of the economy.
But try telling that to ordinary voter who's been brainwashed into believing that government -- by, of, and for the people -- is too big and should be shrunk and "drowned in a bathtub." Talk about masochism!
As for the "fiscal cliff," it's there for the lemmings, both Democrat and Republican.
What is Mitt's revised definition of a Qualified Loan?
Will he allow predatory lending for small business loans?