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When Cuts Don’t Cut ItPosted on Mar 3, 2011After slamming Democrats for not focusing on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” Republicans have decided to ignore their own winning message in favor of “cuts, cuts, cuts.” This is bad economics—and bad politics. If you don’t believe me, read a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, published Thursday, that has what should be sobering news for Republicans who keep telling us that their radical assault on the size and scope of government has the support of “the American people.” It doesn’t, according to the survey—not even philosophically. When asked whether government, in general, is trying to do too much or not doing enough, 51 percent said government should do more. That’s not exactly a mandate for slashing federal, state and municipal programs and trying to turn public employees into a caste of untouchables. For Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and other state and local GOP officials who are trying to crush public employee unions by eliminating collective bargaining rights, the poll suggests extreme caution—not that Walker is likely to pay heed. According to the survey, 77 percent of those surveyed believe that public workers should have the same bargaining rights as private-sector employees. If Walker really wants to think of himself as the next Ronald Reagan, somebody ought to tell him that Reagan once headed the Screen Actors Guild. Which is a union. Advertisement A pretty impressive 40 percent said that “the deficit and government spending” should be considered the federal government’s No. 1 or No. 2 task. But a far more impressive 56 percent said that “job creation and economic growth” should be given first or second priority. This clearly suggests that Republicans do have a significant constituency for the uncompromising stance they are taking on the budget. But they might want to use the two-week cease-fire, arranged on Wednesday, to consider that a much bigger constituency would rather see them working to boost growth and create jobs. Independent economic analysts, including some from the investment firm Goldman Sachs—hardly known for liberal or bleeding-heart tendencies—have concluded that the $61 billion in current-year budget cuts being demanded by House Republicans will shave up to two percentage points off the nation’s growth rate and cause the loss of more than half a million jobs. There are cynics—or maybe they are realists—who suspect that the GOP wouldn’t mind seeing the economy remain in the doldrums for a while, on the theory that continued high unemployment will weaken President Obama and other Democrats in the 2012 election cycle. Such machinations would be shameful and unpatriotic, of course, but also dumb. It won’t be rocket science for Democratic candidates to point to specific cuts—and remind voters of the jobs that would still exist if those cuts had not been made. Note to the GOP: Americans recognize that public-sector jobs are, in fact, jobs. In fact, according to the new poll, they hold positive views of federal, state and local workers, especially teachers. Yes, we must reduce massive deficits before they become a strangling, crushing burden. But most economists believe that now, as we struggle to emerge from a truly devastating recession, would be the worst possible time to make deep budget cuts—especially since the cuts in question, which affect only the sliver of federal spending deemed discretionary, will have negligible impact on the deficit problem. Entitlements are the real problem. According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, three-quarters of Americans would oppose significant cuts in Medicare or Social Security. If Republicans were really serious about deficit reduction, they would be trying to explain why they believe such cuts are necessary. Democrats ought to be talking about entitlements too, by the way, along with reasonable budget cuts. But the debate should take account of the undeniable fact that people actually want government services—which, unfortunately, have to be paid for. So both parties should be explaining why any reasonable deficit-reduction program will include tax increases. “Cuts, cuts, cuts” isn’t a plan. Right now, it’s just a bad slogan. New and Improved CommentsWe are launching a major overhaul of our comments section. In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread. Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts. Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with. Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page. |
By call me roy, March 8, 2011 at 9:44 am Link to this comment
I was so lucky this morning, I saw Peter King on Morning Joe this morning make the “Pravda America” headquarters socialist’s look like a bunch of pudknockers. After Peter mopped the floor with their Che t-shirts, Eugene Robinson looked like a lost little puppy, I guess Eugene meet his match?
Report thisBy photoshock, March 7, 2011 at 11:46 am Link to this comment
There is no real deficit reduction on the table. The
Report thisreal reduction is in the ‘public sector’ jobs such as
teachers, firefighters and police officers. These are
essential jobs for this country. These people perform
their jobs as a public service, many have not seen
raises for between 3-5 years and are looking at their
benefits decreasing at a steady rate. All the while
the elitist Wall Street Thugs have at taxpayer
expense received bonuses of upwards of $500 million
US. How is this possible? Are the Wall Street Thugs
producing anything but wasteful spending and cutting
the jobs market?
These ‘people’ are doing nothing for the economy
other than raising the average income. Their salaries
are paid for off the backs of working class men and
women who produce results. These leeches and slugs
are giving nothing back to the working class.
We are now facing the loss of so many public sector
jobs, that we, the working class will have to start
teaching our children, policing our streets and
putting out our fires, at the cost of billions of
dollars in revenue. We are going to see, if this
agenda moves forward, the lessening of public
services, deaths due to starvation, deaths due to
basic medical care and rioting in our streets, which
will be violent and deadly to those who are
protesting and those who are the targets.
Revolution is coming if we do not stop this facile
and immoral withdrawal of public services. We are
facing the worst economic crisis in the history of
the US and the government is now run by people who
would, starve and kill those who are not their own.
Republicrats are the most heartless and cruel of the
political class. Sadly, this is what the founding
fathers fought against, a wealthy political class of
oligarchs who envisioned an economy based on their
needs and desires. We have not much further to go and
we will see revolution.
By Leefeller, March 7, 2011 at 11:42 am Link to this comment
The Tea Baggers are mad as hell and won’t take it anymore. Need to take advantage of it. Those Unions are the problem, I don’t have a Union, so no one should have a Union. Why should anyone have a cushy job like those Teachers or those firemen and what about the police?
Get rid of the Unions, they support half the problem,..... those fricking democrats’ Why in hell do you think we have the two party system for? I know they invented partisanships for a reason, though I do not know who they is, but they are doing a great job!
Walker is the guy, .....he thunk up the whole bust the Union thing by himself, ........ boy, he probably sees president before his name, did they dangled a carrot in front of his nose?
President Walker, has such a nice ring to it, even rings louder then president Reagan! Break those Unions and those teacher thugs President Walker, all the way from Milwaukee! Keep those half the people against the other half, makes everything just ...right! Keep those eyes focused on the ball..
Kick them while they are down, .I love those cannibal feeds!
“No factor of production is more cannibalized than that of labor, because it is human labor more than any other factor that creates value.”
by Marian Kester Coombs
Report thisBy SEEK TRUTH, March 7, 2011 at 9:30 am Link to this comment
Rob,
How do you suggest private sector jobs be created?
Private sector money will be invested wherever the highest return can be made. Where do you think highest return will be realized? Is it any country where wages are less than $2 per hour, and environmental laws are not yet written? Is this the USA after the Rich/Repubdomcrats get their way?
Provide some realistic solutions to this problem. I certainly don’t have any and am willing to evaluate any reasonable solution.
Report thisBy rob, March 6, 2011 at 1:50 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
what recoverery bobz the economy is getting worse not better and soon its going to get a lot worse. we need to be out of mid-east using our own natural resources. it is evidentley clear now that obama wants to destroy the middle class. if there is a correlation between gov’t spending equaling more jobs the economy would be roaring. gov’t doesnt create private sector jobs and that is what is needed. liberals are morons and their math sucks this will not even be printed
Report thisBy M L, March 6, 2011 at 10:28 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
We need to cut military spending by liquidating the 737 military bases around the world, stop the waste fraud and abuse of no bid military contracts and stop all military projects having no association with national security ( most of them).
Report thisWe need a surtax and repeal of tax cut extensions for the wealthy.
We need to close the tax loopholes for corporations.
A jobs bill will put people back to work and jump start the economy.
We’re not mad at Al Queda. We’re mad at Al “cracka” The old white men who lied us into these senseless and unnecessary wars.
By RHONDA, March 6, 2011 at 4:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Cuts to the discretionary budget won’t touch the deficit, but do hurt the most vulnerable, especially children.
BUT STOP BLAMING ENTITLEMENTS, unless you also include entitlements to the very wealthy via tax cuts, huge corporations who pay little or no taxes, foreign aid to countries who just use it to buy our jets, and especially foreign wars to keep the “defense industry” gargantuan.
Do I need to point out that Medicare wouldn’t be so out of whack if health care were nonprofit?
Report thisBy drbhelthi, March 5, 2011 at 2:31 pm Link to this comment
The themes of budget cuts, improved services and “listening to the people” are excellent distractions, while lawlessness at all levels of government, engendered by the GHWBushSr entourage, is further amplified by the Mr. Obama entourage.
The question of entitlements can be readily settled, once a U.S.Constitution-based decision is made, clarifying laws already on the books. Twenty million, illegal immigrants are not Americans, nor are their offspring, illegally born in the U.S.A.. Nor is it legal or appropriate for the USGovernment to order state governments to ignore Federal law that clearly establishes a legal immigrant. Nor is it wise when a macho movie-star from Austria is elected by naïve Americans to a governorship, on the basis of movie screen popularity. Which actors then try to extend their good fortune to all “foreign underprivileged” who manage to sneak into the U.S.A. by hook and crook. Not comprehending that poor immigrants can´t marry into well-established, rich American families.
The world continues to suffer from the bad-acting of an Austrian who took up residence in Bavaria. A marvelous orator, he first seduced Bavarians with his acting, then the entirety of Germany. Information indicates that his following, or “society,” moved his show from Berlin to D.C., Ft. Bliss, Texas, and Huntsville, Alabama, at the end of WWII. The “Hitler society” has now overtaken the U.S.A., too much of South America, and is decimating Moslems in the Near East, to the pleasure of Israeli Zionists. Which Israelis are decimating Palestinians, with the aid of the USGov. Which USGov is being further decimated by the “Hitler society,” with the aid of the Israeli MOSSAD.
Entitlements are one problem of many. However, scarcely the main problem. The main problem is the machine that the “Hitler society” put in place with the first iteration of Operation Paper Clip, 1945, and the reorganization of important sections of the OSS into the C.I.A.. When the charter of the CIA was established with the “Black Budget”, to which the CONGRESS of the U.S.A. does not have access, the first major transgression of the U.S. Constitution was accomplished. The GHWBushSr entourage has advanced the NAZI, or “Hitler society” agenda, with support of the C.I.A., more recently the Israeli MOSSAD, who allegedly set the charges in the Twin Towers & 3rd bldg.
Regardless of who was “voted” into the uspresidency in 2008, the “Hitler society” demagoguery has moved the military/industrial puppetry in the direction it wanted. The support of the Israeli/Zionist “Federal Reserve” has assisted. Whether a half-Negro from Kenya, without a formal birth certificate, or a white-skin from Panama had been elected, the direction would not have altered. Either would have been at the mercy of the “Hitler Society” (NAZI) machine that has governed the USA since prior to GHWBushSr becoming secretive C.I.A. chairman of the board. Significant deviations from “their” agenda would predictably bring about a repeat of the JFKSr murder and the attempt on Ronald Reagan. Both of whom thought they were supposed to make U.S.President decisions.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, March 4, 2011 at 10:28 pm Link to this comment
Anybody notice that all these “budget cutters” never want to cut programs in THEIR Congressional district, but always in someone else’s?
I think there should be a House rule that any Congress critter proposing a budget cut has to propose one that cuts funding to HIS district. Then it will be “Ronald Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”
Report thisBy RayLan, March 4, 2011 at 4:50 pm Link to this comment
By now we (meaning the brain-functional) should know the full arsenal of the right - bascially their one weapon - to divert attention from critical issues with red herrings and fearmongering on some hot-button albeit loosely related topic.
There is always a missing link - (maybe genetic?) in their logic - which for some baffling reason (undecipherable by the multi-synaptic), none of the Repug constituents ever seem to notice.
Latching on to the deficit and then sometimes calling it the National Debt - (a completely different problem) allows them to attack their favorite whipping boy - the government and advance their unfliching self-centered mission to undermine all social service nets.
Of course all of that is a burning straw man - not only did the economy NOT tank because of the deficit - but the deficit was substantially increased by the very bail out that rescued the financial market. Not only will reducing government spending NOT grow the market, it will shrink it.
Report thisThe economy just isn’t robust enough to stand on its own - and the demand from public consumption is still vital. Short term growth must precede long term cost cutting, its essential pre-requisite.
By bonito, March 4, 2011 at 4:36 pm Link to this comment
What Jobs, Jobs, Jobs? No matter what cuts are made
in the budget there will be no jobs that will pay
enough to be sufficient to maintain a family. For
much too long the citizens of these United States
lived off what they perceived to be an equity in
their homes. Took out loans against them, paid the
payments with a credit card, bought enough STUFF to
make many Chinese rich, stood by and said nothing
while the Republicans made it easy for the Corps. to
ship most good paying jobs overseas, and now are
looking around to see how they can cut the wages of
the public workers to make up the deficit.
Good luck with that, you are looking in the wrong
Report thisplace, that is not where the money is. just maybe you
should cast an eye towards the rich and greedy, yes I
know that would be Class Warfare, but then maybe now
is the time for some kind of warfare, we tried
licking the boots of our masters for 30 years with
little or no results, now is the time to end our
Trillion dollar wars, cut the so called Defense
Budget, stop spending Billions of dollars a year to
support the Jewish State of Israel, and to begin to
take care of our own.
By SEEK TRUTH, March 4, 2011 at 2:40 pm Link to this comment
When talking about budget cuts, why isn’t reduction in war expenditures number 1 on the list of places to save money and resources? I can’t even guess how many poor peple could be moved from the welfare and food-stamp line to the middle-class by a 50 percent reduction in military expense.
Stop the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and close all the bases around the world. Just who do we think we are protecting? Or who or what do you think we are controlling with those bases?
Lt’s start every budget cut with the Military Industrial Complex.We don’t need more ships and planes. We don’t need to fear any country, as none have half the fire-power of the US. All the US has to do is keep their nose out of other countries business.
Report thisBy BobZ, March 4, 2011 at 12:51 pm Link to this comment
A further breakout of these poll numbers would indicate that “Tea Partiers” are
Report thisprimarily concerned with deficit reduction while progressives are heavily in favor
of economic recovery/job creation. In many cases, as Mr. Robinson suggests, the
priorities are mutually exclusive. And a robust economic recovery would doom any
Republican running for president, especially the anemic candidates currently on
the horizon. As most economists would tell you, and even many Republicans, an
economic recovery can reduce the deficit whereas the opposite is seldom if ever
true. Obama’s advisors must surely know this and should be pushing back hard at
any deficit reducing policies that interfere with his economic recovery. He should
take his case to the country if Republican’s continue this charade of focusing on
deficit reductions.
By Leefeller, March 4, 2011 at 11:57 am Link to this comment
Hey!..... Good one ITW!
“To paraphrase Ronald Reagan:
Report thisRecession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Depression is when you lose your job.
Recovery is when Scott Walker loses HIS job.”
By morongobill, March 4, 2011 at 11:38 am Link to this comment
Repeal the fatcat tax cuts and bring the troops home,
shutting down most of the overseas bases in the
process.
Why do the dumbocrats like Robinson insist on
beginning the negotiations by playing their hole card
1st, talking about entitlements?
Why the hell is Obummer in such a hurry to dismantle
the FDR legacy?
What a bunch of assholes, every damned one of them.
I voted for the jerk so I take my share of the blame.
Report thisBy adam, March 4, 2011 at 11:32 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
A $3,750,000,000,000 budget (not counting State budgets) is not good economic policy, Eugene. Period.
I suggest you check out the Austrian School of Economics before you are eating crow with your pitiful economic insights.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, March 4, 2011 at 9:10 am Link to this comment
The attack on government workers’ jobs is clearly focused on the wrong target. Scott Walker has been the government payroll most of his adult life.
To paraphrase Ronald Reagan:
Report thisRecession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Depression is when you lose your job.
Recovery is when Scott Walker loses HIS job.