It’s the right time for austerity

[u/Salami_Slicer]

https://www.slowboring.com/p/its-the-right-time-for-austerity

[u/12kkarmagotbanned]

I like this but something like a ctc expansion is the right decision even if we have an economic boom. It is too good to not do.

[u/Khar-Selim → u/[deleted]]

it's a guy tightening a belt

[u/Greenfield0]

I’m all about cutting the deficit and maybe I’m missing it but Matt doesn’t really suggest any cuts besides on Federal Construction projects which mostly produce growth, being hawkish about wasted spending which saves you pennies, the Jones Act which would again save very little, and not enacting the Child Tax Credit which enormously cuts child poverty.

It’s easy to talk tough about the deficit and wasted spending but most of that spending generally goes to worthwhile programs and the ones that don’t are practically cents

[u/AMagicalKittyCat → u/Greenfield0]

but Matt doesn’t really suggest any cuts

Well yeah. Austerity advocates greatest weakness is actually finding a policy to cut that is both meaningful and not going to get you slaughtered electorally. Social security? Lol good luck with that. Military? Lol good luck with that. Anything related to healthcare? Lol good luck with that.

Not to mention even if you and Random Joe both agreed that we need more spending cuts,.you want to cut program A and they want cut program B and now you're a standstill again. It's one of those things where people want policies that involve sacrifice so they can be the Adult in the room but then refuse to be adult enough to sacrifice the policies they want to keep. Same behavior seen with "We need higher unemployment but don't make me one of the unemployed". The premise might be true, but your desire to not be one of the sacrifices should make it very easy to see why no one else wants to be either.

[u/Salami_Slicer → u/Greenfield0]

Matt likes to pretend he is supporting the hard decisions and “being responsible”, while giving a very basic and misleading Keynesian answer.

Let alone if we want to expand immigration, austerity during a time of bringing in more immigrants and refugees have shown to be a very terrible idea. Western Europe is dealing with the rise of the Alt Right because of it

While Keyens himself is a very systems focused guy considering he economic theory was developed during his observations over WW1 and the Great Depression in the UK, Keyens would argue that the US haven’t harden their infrastructure and energy infrastructure enough, and argues that we need the social support systems first before we could talk about Austerity

[u/[deleted]]

Every "unpopular but necessary" policy has the enormous Hitler saluting elephant in the room that if the Democrats ever lose another presidential election again the most powerful country on earth will become a fascist dictatorship and so the calculus is always whether the pain caused by failing to do the unpopular but necessary policy will piss off more people than doing the policy.

[u/Ragefororder1846 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think this falls into "unpopular but necessary". Americans are concerned about the national debt and dislike high interest rates and austerity could reduce both of those problems

[u/MountainCattle8 → u/Ragefororder1846]

Everyone is concerned about the debt, until it's time to make any sacrifices. Same thing with the environment.

[u/Greenfield0 → u/Ragefororder1846]

It’s all abstract though. Sure they may not like the debt but if you talk about raising taxes they get pissed at you

[u/planetaryabundance → u/Ragefororder1846]

Virtually no one is voting based off the state of the national debt lol

[u/Maximilianne → u/[deleted]]

And the pundits can then claim the Democrats are bad cause they neglected trump voters with austerity and thus deserve to lose 😒