The Latest Voodoo Economic Nostrum: Stick It To The Geezers!

Last week, thos blog featured former Colorado governor Richard Lame (D-CO) advocating "give backs" by Colorado public employment retirees so that the retirement fund wouldn't go belly-up in Colorful. Today, an econ prof at the New School for Social Research offers an alternative explanation of deficits. Voodoo economic theories were nonsense in the era of St. Dutch and voodoo economic nostrums are a dog that that won't hunt in the 21st century, either. To paraphrase the wacko Teabagger at an earlier "Town Meeting": Keep Your Dumbo Hands Off My Teachers' Pension, Social Security, And Medicare. If this is (fair & balanced) geezer rage, so be it.

PS: Click on images below to enlarge them.

[x Cronk Review]
Care About The Deficit?
By Teresa Ghilarducci

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becoming budget bush called cancer comes commission courage current cuts debt decimated deficit earnings elderly english fears federal financial going graph growing leaders mediterraneans military offered orange political precious president pretty programs reduction security senator serious shows smaller social sounds sources spending stimulus sun tax think threats war wealth year

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On a daily basis, political leaders stoke fears about the growing U.S. federal budget deficit. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, warns that “the United States will “essentially be where Greece is in about seven years.” Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) says that the growth of the federal deficit “...puts our kids and grandkids at great risk.”

And Democrat Erskine Bowles, former Chief of Staff to President Clinton and the chair of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, calls growing debt and deficits a “cancer” that must be stopped.

Pretty serious stuff, huh? You would then think that, with a “cancer” eating away at the nation’s vitals, threats to our adorable grandchildren, and the prospect of becoming a bunch of irresponsible Mediterraneans, lazing about in the sun and retiring early (wait—that last one sounds pretty good), there would be a serious look at where the debt and deficit actually comes from and what could be done to slow or reverse it.

We need political courage to get the budget in control. But, the only pseudo-courage being offered is cuts in social programs, including entitlement programs for the elderly—Social Security and Medicare. There is precious little serious talk about raising taxes or cutting military spending. An editorial called “The Phoney War over U.S. deficits” in the conservative English financial newspaper, the Financial Times, called out the hypocrisy of complaining about unemployment benefits when the Bush tax cuts remain a fundamental and structural cause of the deficits.

There is no courage or honesty in blaming the stimulus programs, TARP, or Social Security for the deficit and debt. Consider where the deficit comes from. Look at the report from the Center for Budget Priorities.

Figure 1 shows how much smaller the deficit would have been starting last year, 2009. The graph shows the largest sources of the current deficit colored in orange, yellow, and blue. Without the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, spending on the wars, and the current downturn (that decimated earnings and wealth and therefore tax revenues on income and wealth) the deficit would be much smaller.

If you are going to solve the the deficit, go to its sources (as shown in the Center for Budget Priorities Report — Figure 2).

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[Teresa Ghilarducci is Professor of Economics and holds the Bernard L. and Irene Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Analysis and teaches economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research. Her books include When I'm Sixty Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them. Ghilarducci received both an A.B. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California-Berkeley.]

Copyright © 2010 The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves by Neil Sapper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at sapper.blogspot.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.

Copyright © 2010 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves