CBO Report Confirms U.S. Deficit Back to Normal Level

[Jefferson23]

Robert Pollin: Deficit hawks were wrong about America's normal level, Congress should pass a financial transaction tax and not more cuts to social spending -

April 22, 14

Transcript and video at link:

Bio

Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He is the founding co-Director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the US and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the US. His latest book is Back to Full Employment. Other books include: A Measure of Fairness: the Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States, and Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity.

snip* DESVARIEUX: But, Bob, those in the other side, they're going to say the deficits were stabilized partially by cuts to social spending. So how do you reconcile that? They're going to argue that austerity worked.

POLLIN: That's right. No. Here's what happened. The fiscal deficits went down basically for four reasons.


in full: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11763

[Make7]

1. That's actually bad news. More government spending in a weak economy is a good thing. ( n/t )