Governor Walker says the deadline to refinance Wisconsin's debt it today. The word 'refinance' suggests we will seek a lower interest rate and save money. But if you listen to Walker, he never actually says that. He says it will help him avoid having to lay off workers which is possible. But the truth about the money itself is that he's borrowing allocated tax funds for the May debt payment to balance his current budget. That borrowing will result in another 14-25M in interest owed by the State turning 165M into nearly 200M. The argument can be made that that losing jobs is worse for the economy than acquiring some additional debt. But that argument rings hollow when you consider the impact of Walker's and the Republican's budgets on the economy as a whole.
Beware those who treat fiscal responsibility as an ENDS instead of a MEANS. Cutting spending by the by government during a recession when the general public and private enterprise is skittish about THEIR spending SLOWS the economy and can cost jobs. This is because in a slow economy, the government is one of the major players spending in the economy since citizens and businesses are not.
The dangerous nature of current war on spending isn't liberal rhetoric, this is Goldman Sachs warning the national Republican budgetary plans will lower the nation's GDP by 2%. That's a lot. A whole lot. Balancing the budget needs to be HOW we move forward, not what we sacrifice everything to achieve.
It's notable that Republicans are not refuting that their economic policies will slow the economy. John Boehner's striking 'so be it' remark about the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs made it clear that a target number is more important than reducing unemployment. Setting aside liberal assumptions that this is about making Obama look bad in 2012 by deliberately slowing the current economic recovery, what other goal is served by balancing the budget at all costs? I genuinely don't understand. The national government has run at high deficit for decades particularly through Reagan's administration without shutting down or falling apart, so where is the sudden, immediate urgency to close down deficit during a time when investing in infrastructure is cheaper than it ever will be and the need for investment in economic growth of any kind is profound?
What it comes down to is that the national narrative seems to have been polluted once again with an unquestioned assumption that balancing the budget is what our nation's woes are all about. But be clear, a balanced budget has no value to anyone by itself. It is part of a structural, sustainable METHOD of running a government, but it is still just a means what helps the government do what it's supposed to do: Provide education, infrastructure, and social services.
So massive cuts to education, infrastructure, and social services to achieve a balanced budget seem to be as ass backwards an idea as you could possibly conceive of in bad economy. Balancing the budget should be a goal you would tackle once the economy was moving forward smoothly and could start to finance such things by virtue of a larger tax base of successfully employed citizens. From a conservative stance, increasing the tax base is THE best way to avoid raising the tax RATE. But that's not what they're doing. They're doing the exact opposite.
Fiscal responsibility was a major campaign issue in 2010 because it was paired with job loss. Americans never cared PURELY about the budget. They saw runaway government spending at the national level as a symptom of the jobs situation and a serious pitfall down the road. But somewhere along the line, a subtle shift has happened to drop the jobs thing from our political dialogue and focus purely on government spending as if it has any intrinsic merit - so much so, that Republican governors and national leaders are willing to admit taking steps that will reduce job growth or reverse it in what amounts to a holy grail crusade to balance the budget.
So have Republicans simply lost sight of the ball? Ronald Reagan understood that ultimately fixing the horrid economy left to him by Jimmy Carter required government spending, and spent more borrowed money in his eight years as president than all previous presidents combined. That spending is what created the boom of the 80's.
I can't help but feel that the tea party rhetoric has soaked a little too deeply into the Republican mindset and has clouded even their own goals which previously were never about being super-accountants, but rather to find a way to open the doors and raise the roofs on private enterprise.
Beware those who treat fiscal responsibility as an ENDS instead of a MEANS. Cutting spending by the by government during a recession when the general public and private enterprise is skittish about THEIR spending SLOWS the economy and can cost jobs. This is because in a slow economy, the government is one of the major players spending in the economy since citizens and businesses are not.
The dangerous nature of current war on spending isn't liberal rhetoric, this is Goldman Sachs warning the national Republican budgetary plans will lower the nation's GDP by 2%. That's a lot. A whole lot. Balancing the budget needs to be HOW we move forward, not what we sacrifice everything to achieve.
It's notable that Republicans are not refuting that their economic policies will slow the economy. John Boehner's striking 'so be it' remark about the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs made it clear that a target number is more important than reducing unemployment. Setting aside liberal assumptions that this is about making Obama look bad in 2012 by deliberately slowing the current economic recovery, what other goal is served by balancing the budget at all costs? I genuinely don't understand. The national government has run at high deficit for decades particularly through Reagan's administration without shutting down or falling apart, so where is the sudden, immediate urgency to close down deficit during a time when investing in infrastructure is cheaper than it ever will be and the need for investment in economic growth of any kind is profound?
What it comes down to is that the national narrative seems to have been polluted once again with an unquestioned assumption that balancing the budget is what our nation's woes are all about. But be clear, a balanced budget has no value to anyone by itself. It is part of a structural, sustainable METHOD of running a government, but it is still just a means what helps the government do what it's supposed to do: Provide education, infrastructure, and social services.
So massive cuts to education, infrastructure, and social services to achieve a balanced budget seem to be as ass backwards an idea as you could possibly conceive of in bad economy. Balancing the budget should be a goal you would tackle once the economy was moving forward smoothly and could start to finance such things by virtue of a larger tax base of successfully employed citizens. From a conservative stance, increasing the tax base is THE best way to avoid raising the tax RATE. But that's not what they're doing. They're doing the exact opposite.
Fiscal responsibility was a major campaign issue in 2010 because it was paired with job loss. Americans never cared PURELY about the budget. They saw runaway government spending at the national level as a symptom of the jobs situation and a serious pitfall down the road. But somewhere along the line, a subtle shift has happened to drop the jobs thing from our political dialogue and focus purely on government spending as if it has any intrinsic merit - so much so, that Republican governors and national leaders are willing to admit taking steps that will reduce job growth or reverse it in what amounts to a holy grail crusade to balance the budget.
So have Republicans simply lost sight of the ball? Ronald Reagan understood that ultimately fixing the horrid economy left to him by Jimmy Carter required government spending, and spent more borrowed money in his eight years as president than all previous presidents combined. That spending is what created the boom of the 80's.
I can't help but feel that the tea party rhetoric has soaked a little too deeply into the Republican mindset and has clouded even their own goals which previously were never about being super-accountants, but rather to find a way to open the doors and raise the roofs on private enterprise.
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