Want to get rich? Play poker with Obama-you will make a fortune! This so called deal will kill any hope of a recovery. Enjoy life in a totally self created depression, teabaggers. I wish you the joy of Grover Norquist while it lasts.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said Sunday that the debt deal will worsen the current unemployment situation and the nation’s long-run fiscal situation.
“From the perspective of a rational person — in other words a progressive — we shouldn’t be talking about spending cuts at all now,” Krugman said during a roundtable discussion on ABCNews’ This Week With Christiane Amanpour. “We have 9 percent unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment. It’s even going to hold the long-run fiscal picture because we have a situation where more and more people are becoming permanent long-term unemployed.”
Krugman’s not alone in his opinion: Last week, economic forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisors analyzed Republican and Democratic debt proposals and said either plan would significantly slow economic growth if enacted.
“We used to talk about the Japanese and lost decade,” Krugman continued. “We’ll look at them as a role model. They did better than we’re doing. this is going to go on. I have nobody I know who thinks the unemployment rate will be below 8 percent at the end of next year. With the spending cuts it might be above 9 percent at the end of next year. There is no light at the end of this tunnel. We’re having a debate in Washington, all about, ‘Gee, we’ll make the economy worse, but will we make it worse on 90 percent of the Republicans’ terms or 100 percent of Republicans’ terms?’ The answer is 100 percent.”
What is especially frustrating is knowing it does not have to be this way-the fire extinguisher on the increasing debt is within our reach, and we refuse to touch it.Just repealing the Bush tax cuts would stop deficit growth in its tracks. Well thought out spending cuts, including defense-triggered in major part by leaving Afghanistan and Iraq immediately and having a review of our global strategy with an eye to retrenchment-would probably do the rest.
Oh and while you were watching Congress kneel down to the goons in the Tea Party, the FAA has been limping along and the government has been losing 30,000,000 dollars a day in revenue.
It is madness.
