Michael Budde / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, blames the lackluster recovery from the 2008 recession on Republican policies at the local, state and federal levels.

The Guardian reports:

The EPI report blames the lackluster pace of recovery on Republican-led budget cuts in 2011 following the row over the US debt ceiling, the unwillingness of local officials to spend money when Republicans in Congress were advocating cuts in spending, and the refusal to expand Medicaid in 19 states.

The report comes as the Republican party once again calls for the reining in of government spending and reductions in the deficit.

“Given the degree of damage inflicted by the Great Recession and the restricted ability of monetary policy to aid recovery, historically expansionary fiscal policy was required to return the US economy to full health,” writes Josh Bivens, research and policy director at EPI.

“But this government spending not only failed to rise fast enough to spur a rapid recovery, it outright contracted, and this policy choice fully explains why the economy is only partially recovered from the Great Recession a full seven years after its official end.”

Continue reading.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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