dajafi wrote:While I can pretty much buy that deficit concerns are casting a pall on future projections (this was the motivating consideration of Clinton's 1993 deficit reduction legislation, which we know worked out pretty well), the whole "active government is spooking the poor businesses" argument is transparently absurd. The economy did pretty well during the Johnson administration, which was a lot more "activist" than Obama has been, and considerably less well informed or modest about it.

wiki wrote:The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy.[79] Business owners, however, now saw the controls as permanent rather than temporary, and voluntary compliance decreased.[79] The controls produced food shortages, as meat disappeared from grocery stores and farmers drowned chickens rather than sell them at a loss.[79] The controls were slowly ended, and by April 30, 1974, the control authority from Congress had lapsed.[79] However, the controls on oil and natural gas prices persisted for several years.[75] Nixon also dramatically increased spending on federal employees' salaries while the economy was plagued by the 1973–1974 stock market crash.[153]
In his 1974 State of the Union address, Nixon called for comprehensive health insurance.[154] On February 6, 1974, he introduced the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act. Nixon's plan would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance for their employees, and in addition provided a federal health plan, similar to Medicaid, that any American could join by paying on a sliding scale based on income.[154][155][156]

Werthless wrote:

dajafi wrote:While I can pretty much buy that deficit concerns are casting a pall on future projections (this was the motivating consideration of Clinton's 1993 deficit reduction legislation, which we know worked out pretty well), the whole "active government is spooking the poor businesses" argument is transparently absurd. The economy did pretty well during the Johnson administration, which was a lot more "activist" than Obama has been, and considerably less well informed or modest about it.

The actual spending during the Johnson administration on social services is dwarfed by social services spending in the last 20 years, even adjusting for inflation (My googling skills are coming up short on exact numbers). And if we're talking about activist government hurting business, we have to include the miserable performance of the 70s. Because even though Nixon was a Republican, he was very activist with respect to economic activities (wage and price controls, abolition of the gold standard, government payments rose from 6.3% of GNP to 8.9%, 10% tax on imports, etc).

Sound familiar?

wiki wrote:The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy.[79] Business owners, however, now saw the controls as permanent rather than temporary, and voluntary compliance decreased.[79] The controls produced food shortages, as meat disappeared from grocery stores and farmers drowned chickens rather than sell them at a loss.[79] The controls were slowly ended, and by April 30, 1974, the control authority from Congress had lapsed.[79] However, the controls on oil and natural gas prices persisted for several years.[75] Nixon also dramatically increased spending on federal employees' salaries while the economy was plagued by the 1973–1974 stock market crash.[153]
In his 1974 State of the Union address, Nixon called for comprehensive health insurance.[154] On February 6, 1974, he introduced the Comprehensive Health Insurance Act. Nixon's plan would have mandated employers to purchase health insurance for their employees, and in addition provided a federal health plan, similar to Medicaid, that any American could join by paying on a sliding scale based on income.[154][155][156]

drsmooth wrote:are you attempting to make an argument, or just providing a weak & interpretable-in-various-ways correlation?

Because one could say that a passive approach to things economic - with respect, say, to securities regulation - by other Republican administrations has had equally deleterious effects on businesses, and provide equally ambiguous reference points in defense of the assertion.

Obama said that while he appreciates the need for federal investment to fight the nation's high unemployment, private business, not government, holds the key to future job growth. "Ultimately, true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector," he said.

Instead, Obama and his economic advisers, concerned about balancing the need to create jobs against the need to reduce the deficit, have focused on measures in which they can use government money to leverage private investment.

"I think the president is between a rock and a hard place here," said Carl Schramm, chief executive of the Kauffman Foundation. "There were a lot of good ideas, but all of them cost money, and that is something the president doesn't have."

John Podesta, a close Obama ally and a chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, echoed that theme, saying Obama is caught between the need to create jobs and other economic challenges.

"Trying to get something going, particularly quickly, the range of options is constrained by the fiscal picture in the country," Podesta said after the forum. "Trying to find that sweet spot is difficult."

Obama defended his economic policies, saying that they have helped pull the economy from the brink of disaster, while dramatically slowing the pace of job losses and fostering growth for the first time in a year.

But with the nation's jobless numbers projected to rise for months, he acknowledged that more must be done. Obama said he is "not interested in taking a wait-and-see approach when it comes to creating jobs." Yet, he repeatedly returned to his point that the ability of the government to spur job creation is "limited."

dajafi wrote:Again, I think he's probably right. Temperamentally if not ideologically, this is a pretty conservative president.

Werthless wrote:I'm just saying that the R or D next to a President's name doesn't necessarily dictate how economic interventionalist a president will be. Nixon, and subsequent R presidents, have all shouldered the mantle that Johnson's Great Society got rolling (not with their rhetoric, but with their actions). So pointing to Johnson over Nixon (who is probably the most 2nd most active president on economic matters we've ever had) isn't quite on point.

Clinton is probably a good example of an economic conservative, framed in these discussions, especially compared to Bush II.

And Obama, while I wouldn't call him conservative, is certainly more conservative than the rest of the Democratic party. But alas, maybe this is simply the brilliance of his moderate speeches.

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:Again, I think he's probably right. Temperamentally if not ideologically, this is a pretty conservative president.

Yep. Pain comes with transformative institutional re-arrangement as surely as night follows day, and there's few examples where the new pain is inarguably preferable to the old.

Nonetheless I've concluded that even in my declining years I'm constitutionally inclined to be for doing something, to see what happens, to discount arguments that the socioeconomic rules as is are the only rules that can or ought to be - a preposterous assertion, since people make up the rules, and can (not should, not ought, but can) make them up new every day.

That view is not 'safe', it's probably not even smart. But it's, I dunno - more fun.

Robert Kuttner: Most of the things that have been proposed today cost money, and there is this concern about the federal deficit.

I hope that your administration will recognize, as I know you will, that it's possible, first of all, to reduce the deficit over time and sometimes in the short run realize that you need to increase the deficit. And I hope the concern about the deficit in the long run doesn't crowd out the need for additional spending in the short run.

And I also think that some of these programs that increase jobs and increase GDP are probably the fastest way to get the economy back on a track that will reduce the deficit over time. It's certainly a better way to reduce the deficit than putting ourselves into a debtor's prison and assume we can deflate our way to recovery.

President Obama: Well, I think this is an important point. You know, we've been talking a lot about specific initiatives. There is a macroeconomic element to this whole thing. And so let me just amplify what was just said.

We have a structural deficit that is real and growing, apart from the financial crisis. We inherited it. We're spending about 23 percent of GDP and we take in 18 percent of GDP and that gap is growing because health care costs, Medicare and Medicaid in particular, are growing. And we've got to do something about that.

You then layer on top of that the huge loss of tax revenue as a consequence of the financial crisis and the greater demands for unemployment insurance and so forth. That's another layer. Probably the smallest layer is actually what we did in terms of the Recovery Act. I mean, I think there's a misperception out there that somehow the Recovery Act caused these deficits.

No, I mean, we had -- we've got a 9-point-something trillion-dollar deficit, maybe a trillion dollars of it can be attributed to both the Recovery Act as well as the cleanup work that we had to do in terms of the banks. In turns out actually TARP, as wildly unpopular as it has been, has been much cheaper than any of us anticipated.

So that's not what's contributing to the deficit. We've got a long- term structural deficit that is primarily being driven by health care costs, and our long-term entitlement programs. All right? So that's the baseline.

Now, if we can't grow our economy, then it is going to be that much harder for us to reduce the deficit. The single most important thing we could do right now for deficit reduction is to spark strong economic growth, which means that people who've got jobs are paying taxes and businesses that are making profits have taxes -- are paying taxes. That's the most important thing we can do.

We understand that in this administration. That's not always the dialogue that's going on out there in public and we're going to have to do a better job of educating the public on that.

The last thing we would want to do in the midst of what is a weak recovery is us to essentially take more money out of the system either by raising taxes or by drastically slashing spending. And frankly, because state and local governments generally don't have the capacity to engage in deficit spending, some of that obligation falls on the federal government.

Having said that, what is also true is that unless businesses and global capital markets have some sense that we've got a plan, medium and long term, to get the deficit down, it's hard for us to be credible, and that also could be counterproductive. So we've got about as difficult an economic play as is possible, which is to press the accelerator in terms of job growth, but then know when to apply the brakes in the out-years and do that credibly. And you know, we are trying to strike that balance, but we're going to need help from all of you who oftentimes are more credible than politicians in delivering that message.

Because we want to leverage whatever public dollars are spent, and we are under no illusion that somehow the federal government can spend its way out of this recession. But it is absolutely true that any of the ideas that have been -- been mentioned here are still going to require some public dollars, and those are actually good investments to make right now.

Grayson recalled that it was the Bush administration who was close to the Saudi royal family.

"I remember Bush Junior kissing Prince Abdullah on the cheek, and then holding his hand for an extended period of time," Grayson snapped. "Maybe if he'd let him get to second base, then gasoline would be a dollar a gallon."

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) slammed Grayson's colorful remarks.

“The foul mouthed man-child from Orlando is at it again, taking to the airwaves to bring shame to struggling Central Florida families who want jobs, not nut-jobs," said Andy Sere, spokesman for the NRCC. "But speaking of bases, Alan Grayson’s constituents surely find themselves wishing his parents had never gotten past first.”

Warszawa wrote:If we were to even approach getting the deficit down, that really doesn't change the national debt and the burden it imposes on the economy. Unless you expect the budget to not only balance but to start on a runaway plus trajectory. At this point with a war going on, universal health care being debated, and social security and medicare for baby boomers coming up, I think a reduced deficit is pie in the sky thinking right now.....but do they ever still talk about a balanced budget amendment?

jerseyhoya wrote:

Grayson recalled that it was the Bush administration who was close to the Saudi royal family.

"I remember Bush Junior kissing Prince Abdullah on the cheek, and then holding his hand for an extended period of time," Grayson snapped. "Maybe if he'd let him get to second base, then gasoline would be a dollar a gallon."

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) slammed Grayson's colorful remarks.

“The foul mouthed man-child from Orlando is at it again, taking to the airwaves to bring shame to struggling Central Florida families who want jobs, not nut-jobs," said Andy Sere, spokesman for the NRCC. "But speaking of bases, Alan Grayson’s constituents surely find themselves wishing his parents had never gotten past first.”

pacino wrote:extremely doubtful

Democrats have been trying to pass a universal healthcare plan for nearly a century. But Woodrow Wilson dropped the ball on the first attempt, FDR gave up on the second, Harry Truman ran smack into the AMA on the third, Richard Nixon collided with Teddy Kennedy on the fourth, and Bill Clinton fell to Harry and Louise (and Bob and Newt) on the fifth.

Now we're on our sixth try, and the fight so far hasn't been a pretty one. The Republican side has been dominated by howling over death panels and socialism, transparently fake attempts at bipartisanship, and promises to filibuster and obstruct endlessly. On the Democratic side, activists have turned abortion funding and the public option into hills to die for, Olympia Snowe and Ben Nelson have become de factor kingmakers, and even at best none of the bills on offer will cover more than about two-thirds of the uninsured.

But you know what? This is still the farthest we've ever gotten, and with Democrats coming out of this week's series of negotiating sessions seemingly united behind a compromise plan, it looks like Harry Reid might actually get something passed through the Senate before Christmas. If that happens, a conference committee will likely report out a final bill sometime in January. And that will be the first time ever that Congress has even gotten to the point of voting on national healthcare.

The first time. So yes: It's not single-payer. The subsidies are inadequate. The public option, if there is one, will be so weak as to be a joke. Every interest group from insurers to doctors to seniors to pharmaceutical companies has been openly bribed to go along. Lots of people will still be left outside the safety net. It's a mess.

But so was Social Security when it passed. It left out domestic workers (because they were mostly black and Southerners demanded it), it left out farmworkers, and its payouts were pathetically small. But what it did do was establish the principle that the elderly should be taken care of. And eventually they were. The healthcare bill we're about to get is exactly the same: It does too little and it leaves too many people out, but it establishes the principle that everyone deserves decent healthcare. And eventually everyone will.

So hold your noses and celebrate anyway. It's taken us a hundred years, but if this messy, inadequate, infuriating healthcare reform passes it will be a historic occasion. FDR will finally be smiling.

dajafi wrote:Trying to decide how much I agree with this take on the healthcare debate, from Kevin Drum of Mother Jones....The point about Social Security is a really good one: the initial form of a law isn't what it has to be forever.