Bill Scher of the Campaign for America’s Future has some strong media criticism on AlterNet (10/23/08), focusing on an L.A. Times piece by Stephen Braun (10/23/08) that claims, as the headline says, “Obama and McCain in Denial About Deficits, Economists Say.”
“The article repeatedly assumes budget deficits as unequivocally bad,” Scher notes, even though “many economists support deficit spending in response to economic recessions.” This deficit spending can take the form of new programs, tax cuts or a combination of the two—exactly the kind of “ambitious tax and spending plans” that Braun insists “the nation’s economic crisis will take a heavy toll on.”
The idea that the only respectable response to an economic slowdown is an austerity program has been dubbed “neo-Hooverism“—and it’s remarkably popular in the punditocracy.
