Wait, We Tried Austerity? And It Failed?
On Twitter, Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel offers what appears to be a response to this morning's net-new-jobs goose egg by posing the following question: "How many jobs need to be lost before it's crystal, crying out loud, starkly clear that austerity is discredited, failed"?
No doubt this is largely a rhetorical question, akin to those age-old queries about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop.
Even still…austerity? Really? What sort of austerity would that be? The type that allowed for the creation of $4.9 trillion in new debt during the two Bush terms, and added another $4 trillion to the taxpayer tab in the two and a half years since President Obama moved into the White House? The sort of austerity that involved passing a $950 billion health care overhaul, an $800 billion stimulus package, and a debt deal that not only does not cut government spending over the next decade, but allows it to continue to rise? The austerity that has so-far included $1 trillion-plus in debt-financed, pay-for-it-later (with interest!) deficit spending each and every year that President Obama has been in office, and has the country hurtling towards a 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio? That austerity?
Alternatively, one could ask: How many jobs need to be lost before it's crystal, crying out loud, starkly clear that the the case for endless, massive increases in debt-financed federal spending is discredited, failed?
