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Robert Reich

Hey, let’s stop obsessing about deficits

The best way to generate jobs and growth is for the government to spend more, not less. And for taxes to stay low — or become even lower — on the middle class.

(Higher taxes on the rich won’t slow the economy because the rich will keep spending anyway. After all, being rich means spending whatever you want to spend. By the same token, higher taxes won’t reduce their incentive to save and invest because they’re already doing as much saving and investing as they want. Remember: they’re taking home a near record share of the nation’s total income and have a record share of total wealth.)

Why don’t our politicians and media get this? Because an entire deficit-cutting political industry has grown up in recent years — starting with Ross Perot’s third-party in the 1992 election, extending through Peter Peterson’s Institute and other think-tanks funded by Wall Street and big business, embracing the eat-your-spinach deficit hawk crowd in the Democratic Party, and culminating in the Simpson-Bowles Commission that President Obama created in order to appease the hawks but which only legitimized them further.

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Static analysis über alles!

What happens when the interest on the debt exceeds revenue, moron?

Rebar on November 19, 2012 at 8:10 PM

Europe.

rob verdi on November 19, 2012 at 8:11 PM

So rich people will continue to spend, save, and invest the same amount of money even if more money is taken from them in taxes?

I’m no Oxford-educated economist but how is that even mathematically possible? If you take more of their money they will necessarily have less left over to spend, invest, or save.

Fezzik on November 19, 2012 at 8:15 PM

Wiemar Republic.

tom daschle concerned on November 19, 2012 at 8:15 PM

(Higher taxes on the rich won’t slow the economy because the rich will keep spending anyway. After all, being rich means spending whatever you want to spend. By the same token, higher taxes won’t reduce their incentive to save and invest because they’re already doing as much saving and investing as they want. Remember: they’re taking home a near record share of the nation’s total income and have a record share of total wealth.)

He cannot possibly really believe this, can he?

Obama is defining rich (i.e. the people he wants to raise taxes on) as making $250,000 per year or more. Is Reich seriously contending that a family or a small business making $250,000 a year is at the level of “spending whatever you want to spend?”

The left continues to try and make it seem as though the people we’re talking about are the Bill Gates and Warren Buffets of the world. But the truth is that those are a tiny, tiny sliver of the American “rich.” Most of the American rich are the small business owners, to whom a tax increase makes a big difference and who cannot simply spend whatever they want.

Shump on November 19, 2012 at 8:17 PM

(Higher taxes on the rich won’t slow the economy because the rich will keep spending anyway. After all, being rich means spending whatever you want to spend. By the same token, higher taxes won’t reduce their incentive to save and invest because they’re already doing as much saving and investing as they want. Remember: they’re taking home a near record share of the nation’s total income and have a record share of total wealth.)

Apparently not only was he short changed on height, logic and reason seem to be lacking as well.

As a side note who the eff appointed these liberal jackwagons to decide what is fair and act as car jackers whenever they feel like it?

arnold ziffel on November 19, 2012 at 8:23 PM

Shut up dwarf. Get back in your box.

Mimzey on November 19, 2012 at 8:27 PM

Hey, let’s stop obsessing about deficits … until there’s a Republican in the White House, then we’ll label him/her unpatriotic for increasing the deficit.

heretic on November 19, 2012 at 8:29 PM

Riechsssssssssssssssssss, sha.

Seriously, hasn’t keynes been discredited enough? I give. them credits for one thing only, they never give up. Despite all empirical data, unicorns are real in thier world.

wolly4321 on November 19, 2012 at 8:32 PM

If the GOP manages to get some spending cuts in exchange for higher tax rates on the “rich” the media will blame the next recession on the GOP’s spending cuts, not Obama’s tax hike.

Mark1971 on November 19, 2012 at 8:32 PM

Shut up dwarf. Get back in your box.

Mimzey on November 19, 2012 at 8:27 PM

And…..

Let. It. Burn.

JPeterman on November 19, 2012 at 8:34 PM

What we need is unions working on highway infrastructure, and maybe gubmint motors building a car for the people.

They could call it “peoples car”,,, or is that already taken?

wolly4321 on November 19, 2012 at 8:37 PM

Google: Modern Monetary Theory. Scare stuff. In their world, money does grow on trees.

RavingLunatic on November 19, 2012 at 8:38 PM

Spend your way out of debt!

WisCon on November 19, 2012 at 8:46 PM

Riechsssssssssssssssssss, sha.
Seriously, hasn’t keynes been discredited enough? I give. them credits for one thing only, they never give up. Despite all empirical data, unicorns are real in thier world.
wolly4321 on November 19, 2012 at 8:32 PM

No no no it just hasn’t been implemented properly! /

Fezzik on November 19, 2012 at 8:56 PM

But….