Please explain this more. How is not addressing problems going to fix the problems? Oh, wait, you think the only problem is the budget?
To answer your first question: I'm saying that right now it's a political impossibility to fix the problems. Your choice is limited to how quickly the situation will continue to deteriorate.
To answer your second question: "economic, social, and political catastrophes" clearly refers to more than just the budget.
One things for sure, austerity solves literally nothing. It doesn’t even fix the budget. You have to spend to grow and solve problems. Otherwise, what’s the point of government?
Spoken like an MMT true believer.
Short answer: you (and like-minded economists) are gravely mistaken. While austerity isn't sufficient
ipso facto to remedy the US's economic woes, it's both integral to and necessary for reversing the three biggest issues in that sphere: exploding deficits, unfunded liabilities, and deepening wealth inequality. "Spend[ing] to grow and solve problems" is newspeak for cheap credit, quantitative easing, and neo-Keynesian policies that without fail produce more debt, greater liabilities, greater inequality, and greater systemic risk in the long run.
True, austerity is infeasible since there's no political will for it. But it is the only real solution. The world is going to find that out the hard way.
You just want, in addition to the tax cuts for billionaires, to CUT MORE social programs to balance the budget. Why not run on that and be honest with the American people? Be honest and avoid the ‘hucksterism’ of Trump and AOC. Follow your own advice.
I've been perfectly candid during this discussion.
But if you want it spelled out: The austerity required to fix the US's economic woes involves across-the-board tax hikes, with particularly severe hikes on upper income earners. It involves aggressive cuts to all social programs, a near-total withdrawal from all foreign engagements, aggressive debt reduction, a return of interest rates to at least 5%, a complete unwinding of the Fed's balance sheet since 2008, and a reinstating of Glass-Steagall. In the short- to medium-term, it will result in a stock market crash, a protracted recession, the loss of trillions of dollars in notional asset value, and the bankruptcy of numerous major banks and insurers. But ultimately the patient will survive.
Anything short of this--and stimulus in particular--is tantamount to pumping the patient full of epinephrine and morphine: he'll feel less pain and episodically appear to recover, but the underlying disease will still surely kill him.
Again, just run on the unpopular decisions you’re proposing. Decisions which solve nothing, help no one, do nothing for the economy, and make the American people more miserable than they already are.
The policies are unpopular and bound to make people miserable, but so is the decision to amputate a gangrenous limb. It's still the right decision.
I’ll make my own decisions, and I trust my political acumen more than I trust yours. Sorry.
You've bet the farm on MMT, Sen. Sanders, and Hope & Change 3.0. I don't expect anyone could change your mind at this point.
Time will prove which of us is correct. Technically I win either way, since if I'm wrong it means the neo-Keynesian bromides have actually succeeded in reversing the decline, and I can live with that.
