Republican economics: give money to rich people and everything will work out

By Richard K. Barry

Isn't it about time that every working man and woman in America realized that the Republican Party doesn't give a crap about you or your ability to have a job and support your family?

In a recent interview, CNBC host Jim Cramer made the mistake of assuming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) would support extending unemployment benefits "given the chaotic situation." Perhaps not all that surprisingly, Cantor replied:

Jim, the most important thing we can do for somebody who's unemployed is to see if we can get them a job. I mean, that's what needs to be the focus. For too long in Washington now we've been worried about pumping up the stimulus moneys and pumping up unemployment benefits and to a certain extent you have states for which you can get unemployment for almost two years and I think these people on unemployment benefits would rather have a job. So that's where our focus needs to be.

The interesting thing for me is that in the same sentence where Cantor says you can get unemployment insurance for almost two years in some states he also says people on unemployment benefits would "rather have a job." What he really means is that supposedly lazy Americans who want to collect government checks for up to two years need to be cut off so they will be forced to get a job.

What Republican bullshit. Working men and women are just too lazy, in Cantor-world, to get themselves off the government dole.

But not only is this view wrong and obnoxious, it's also bad economics. Republicans want to put more money into the hands of their rich friends through tax cuts, or at least not increasing taxes, which they argue will act to create jobs. They don't care that this just doesn't work and hasn't worked as a way to create jobs, they are ideologically wedded to it. They argue that all we need to do is give money to rich people and they, "the job creators," will make sure there's a job for anyone who wants to work.

In fact, the only thing it ensures, and has ensured, is that the rich will get richer and poor will get poorer.

By definition, to be a Republican means that everything the government does is wrong and everything the private sector does is right, even when that is demonstrably untrue.

As Paul Krugman writes:

When the economy is booming, and lack of sufficient willing workers is limiting growth, generous unemployment benefits may keep employment lower than it would be otherwise. But as you may have noticed, right now the economy isn't booming - again, there are five unemployed workers for every job opening. Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work - but they can't take jobs that aren't there.

As Krugman continues, extending unemployment benefits would help.

One main reason there aren't enough jobs right now is weak consumer demand. Helping the unemployed by putting money in the pockets of people who badly need it, helps support consumer spending. That's why the Congressional Budget Office rates aid to the unemployed as a highly cost-effective form of economic stimulus. And unlike, say, large infrastructure projects, aid to the unemployed creates jobs quickly.

A program like unemployment insurance, which not only helps Americans survive, but is also good for the health of the economy, is of limited interest to Republicans simply because it is not exclusively a private sector solution.

It doesn't matter that unemployment benefits stimulate the economy and job growth, that they have been proven to work. Republicans hold such ideologically narrow views on the role of government that they would rather Americans starve than that we use available and effective policy tools to put the country back to work and the economy on the path to recovery.

The Republican campaign slogan for 2012 should be: "Give Money to Rich People and They'll Make Sure We Are All Taken Care Of." Do you think that would sell?

As I said, any working man or women in American who supports these clowns needs to give their head a good shake.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The debt ceiling deal -- who won and who lost?

By Richard K. Barry 

Two people I tend to consult to get a read on current economic policy struggles in Washington are Paul Krugman and Robert Reich. Not that anyone is ever right about everything, and maybe it's simply true that these two support my understanding of the world and I find that they usually make sense.

Whatever the case, they provided some pretty depressing commentary today on the deal Obama struck to raise the debt ceiling.

Here's Reich:

Anyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics or politics.

The deal does not raise taxes on America's wealthy and most fortunate -- who are now taking home a larger share of total wealth, and whose tax rates are already lower than they have been in eighty years. Yet it puts the nation's most important safety nets and public investments on the chopping block.

It also hobbles the capacity of the government to respond to the jobs and growth crisis. Added to the cuts already underway by state and local governments, the deal's spending cuts increase the odds of a double-dip recession. And the deal strengthens the hand of the political right. 

And from Krugman in a piece entitled "The President Surrenders":

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.

The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.

The bottom line is that there are two ways to win in politics. The first is to actually win the election and implement your policies. The second is to lose the election but, somehow, through power politics, political extortion, or appeal to aspects of the winners ideological predisposition that he may share with you, get the winner to do what you would have done had you won.

However it happened, does anyone doubt that, at least this week, the Republicans are controlling the terms of the debate in Washington and that it will be difficult to imagine how Democrats reassert control?

The "deal" means that we will continue to talk about what and how much to cut, which will benefit the richest among us, instead of what and where to invest, which would benefit the vast majority of us, especially those in need of gainful employment.

Not the finest day for America, as far as I can tell.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Let us again speak of the limits of civility in political discourse

By R.K. Barry

Yesterday Paul Krugman wrote about the hurt feelings the Republican leadership claimed upon listening to President Obama's speech on the economy last week. They seemed not to like, as Krugman points out, Obama's assertion that the Paul Ryan plan is cruel nonsense and should be exposed as such.

It was richly ironic to be reading about Republican hurt feelings on a day when right-wingers across the country were gathering to listen to the likes of Donald Trump, Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin, who have drawn serious attention to themselves by calling our president all manner of nasty names like "socialist, "the guy who wants to off grandma," and the "worst president ever," etc., etc.

In that context, having Republicans claim insult was a little odd.

Don't get me wrong. Civility has its place but not, perhaps, so much in the current context in which, as Krugman writes, "the two parties have both utterly different goals and utterly different views about how the world works."

Krugman continues:

It’s not nice to say this (but the truth is rarely nice): whatever they may say, Republicans are not concerned, above all, about the deficit. In fact, it’s not clear that they care about the deficit at all; they’re trying to use deficit concerns to push through their goal of dismantling the Great Society and if possible the New Deal; they have stated explicitly that they want to reduce taxes on high incomes to pre-New-Deal levels. And it’s an article of faith on their part that low taxes have magical effects on the economy.

Obama and Democrats generally tend to believe that major social programs are worth protecting, having extended them with health care reform. They tend to accept the fact, and the research to support it, that tax cuts for the wealthy are not the cure-all for what ails us.

So, the battle lines seem to be drawn. If civility means that we sit around politely chatting while Republicans tell lies about their true intentions, I want no part of it. While I hope we would all reject violence, I see no downside to taking to the streets to scream at the top of our lungs if necessary that we will not calmly debate the contours of a new economic regime that sees the rich get richer and the rest of us fight over the scraps.

Civility is all too often code language for passivity - and passivity always works in the interest of those who already have the power.

When it has been necessary to stand up for justice, fairness and equality, Americans have frequently found the strength to do so, whether for civil rights, women's right, gay rights or to oppose the war in Vietnam. In each instance, those who were being challenged could be heard bemoaning the lack of civility shown by protestors. You could always count on that.

The reshaping of our society proposed by Republican lawmakers and activists certainly requires the kind of push-back we saw in these earlier movements. If it doesn't happen in a way that is civil enough for them, I don't really care.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

The Wisconsin Front

"Gov. Scott Walker ('s)...attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected. "

                                         Paul Krugman in a NT Times column

Workplace

     A wake up call for the unemployed from Paul Krugman:

"We’re in the age of 'extra', and everyone has to figure out what extra they can add to their work to justify being paid more than a computer, a Chinese worker or a day laborer."

                                                         Paul Krugman, in a New York Times column





     Ouch. But likely true for many professionals.So what do you bring to the table?

     Alabama's unemployment rate is improving, The Montgomery Advertiser suggests it's because Alabamians who had given up looking for work are back searching because of the upward turn in the economy. But those returning workers may find the demands of the jobs they apply for will require more.

     Productivity has improved during the Great Recession as companies found they could maintain almost the same output even with the layoffs that lowered costs..