In coverage of the budget negotiations in Washington, which have largely revolved around how much money will be cut from the federal budget, it’s rarely acknowledged that the standard economic assumption is that reducing government spending at a time of diminished economic activity will destroy jobs. As a rule of thumb, every $1 billion in spending cuts eliminates roughly 10,000 jobs. (The Economic Policy Institute provides a slightly more sophisticated explanation here.)
Given the the public consistently tells pollsters that job creation should be the country’s top priority–often picked over deficit reduction by wide margins–this information should be included in every article on the budget debate. Thus when the New York Times (4/8/11) says that the Obama administration has agreed to $34.5 billion in cuts, and House Speaker John Boehner is pushing for $39 billion, the paper should note that the administration’s position would cost approximately 345,000 jobs, while Boehner’s would reduce employment by about 390,000.
I suspect that the inclusion of this information would rapidly change the debate.
Now, that doesn’t mean cutting any old billion bucks would have that effect, does it?
Isn’t slicing off some serious scratch from the war chest, or nuke subsidies, qualitatively different from ripping a chunk out of something that actually benefits society?
Put in micro terms, you wouldn’t want to cut back on your essential groceries, but you could give those trips to Reno a toss.
Am I off here?
Perhaps if we cut back on war there will be endless unemployed soldiers and arms producers who would have to try to find something constructive to do with their lives. Oh dear.
“Missing Economic Context.” What I think this means is that instead of just saying spending cuts as both sides have done, do what the Rethugnuts do, put in items which they think shines a light on the issue and whether it is true or not, use it anyway, put what they say into context. As in the “job killing healthcare bill.” We should say instead of just spending cuts, add in just who is hurt by those spending cuts. Like the “throwing headstart recipients spending cut,” or “the removing of the poor people’s attorneys who represent them spending cut,” or “the giving oil and gas subsidy spending cut.” Oh, wait that last one is not a cut, it is a give away.
You get the idea, put in the context of just who is going to be hurt by these stupid cuts to address the deficit.
I have written elsewhere that if the top 1% paid just $550,000 more then that would remove the deficit and then some. The top 1%(3 million people) has 22 trillion dolllars to work with, and that about the same amount goes to 294,500,000 people. Anyone see the discrepancy and think it is fair and gives context to the hysteria over the deficit and the notion of shared sacrifice?
The deficit “problem” has been given much more credibility and interest than it deserves. Christ, it is just a matter of simple math. The top 5% has 62% of 54.6 trillion dollars, or about 33 trillion dollars, and if they paid $1 million dollars each it would remove both the accumulated debt plus the yearly deficit leaving them to be, still, millionaires and billionaires. But the Rethugnuts insist that programs their rich friends will never have to use should be taken away from those who are just desperate enough to have to use them.
Why would anyone vote for this Rethugnuttery? 59% of the elderly voted in 2010 for the Rethgunuts who want to diminish Medicare and Medicaid and SS which affects these elderly folks yet look at their votes. This is astounding, talk about voting for issues in your best interest, these folks do the exact opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I am one of the elderly, but I just do not get it, can someone explain it to me, please, really, please, I need it, I’m going stark raving loony trying to figure this thinking out.
“I just do not get it, can someone explain it to me, please, really, please, I need it,”
@raymond: “Stockholm Syndrome”
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12570
Thank you woodword it’s clearer, but still drives me crazy what they are doing.
@raymond
another scary thing…..the more the right trumpets the fact that state governments are “broke” [a lie, but a useful one], voters become more negative about government [rather than placing the blame where it belongs…on wall street and republican policies] and so more of them label themselves as “conservative.”
it’s a death spiral, feedback loop…..
Mark Karnin’s fine Buzzflash piece still doesn’t do it for me. Why do so many in the American middle class support Republican initiatives that obviously are not in their best interests, ie. the best interests of the human race? The notion that they don’t want the rich taxed because they hope to get rich themselves doesn’t explain it either. A big factor, surely, is the cowardliness of the Democrats, including their Coward-in-Chief, but the answer probably has to do with the media, which gets what’s left over from campaign contributions after the politicians tuck some away. Louis XVI probably could have avoided an extremely bloody revolution if he had had TVs spewing propaganda 24/7 in every home. So the answer seems to be that we are by and large a very ignorant and gullible society. Yet even that doesn’t explain what’s going on today. I’m also one of the elderly, and I have to agree with Raymond. Columnists on one side of the NYT commentary page say the Republicans are lying and on the other they praise Republican creeps to the skies. What I read every day in the media is so absurd I lie awake at night and wonder if I dreamed it. What is going on?
“What is going on?”
@ roger…this is what we get when we have a corporate media rather than a populist one with reporters becoming stenographers rather than muckrakers.
now it’s “shape of earth, opinions differ,” coverage rather than pointing out which side is wrong.
@roger
you might find these comment’s from washingtonmonthly.com readers useful
“Your corporations, and the media they own, dictate what you are hear and talk about. The millionaire punditry that they have hired to do their bidding is doing just that. You have a population in which 80 percent want to tax the rich in order to help your economic chaos created by the corporations and the rich.
Yet not one of your millionaire pundits talk about this ever. They talk about creating yet more destruction of the middle class and the poor to pay for the sins of the rich.
Even your Senators of both parties. Not one except Senator Sanders even talks about taxing the rich. So out of 100 Senators you have exactly one that is talking this way, and that one is never, ever, talked about by your corporate million dollar punditry. Your worst enemy is your corporate media….
another added
The disconnect between the establishment’s conventional wisdom and legitimate public needs is breathtaking because they don’t know enough people among their circle of friends who are unemployed or underemployed.
Most of the establishment needs to work the midnight shifts of the nearest all-night bowling alleys at minimum wage before they grok the possibility that hey maybe this whole “good jobs at good wages” thing is really important…
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_04/028891.php
ps
“Why do so many in the American middle class support Republican initiatives that obviously are not in their best interests…”
@ roger
don’t misunderestimate the roles guns, god, gays and race play in this