{"id":226985,"date":"2010-01-25T13:10:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T18:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"tag:business.theatlantic.com,2010:\/\/3.34131"},"modified":"2010-01-25T13:17:01","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T18:17:01","slug":"somebody-else-solve-this-deficit-crisis-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/226985","title":{"rendered":"Somebody Else Solve This Deficit Crisis Right Now!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Washington, today is always the day to cut taxes, and tomorrow is
\nalways the day to have a meeting about reducing the deficit.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Harold Ford has an op-ed in the NYT that calls on Democrats to focus on tax cuts and deficit reduction to grow the economy. The Atlantic Wire<\/a> samples some liberal commentators who rightly skewer the piece for blithely moving from “More deficit-growing tax cuts!” to “Less deficit-growing!” in four paragraphs, without even pretending to acknowledge the discrepancy. Here are the relevant paragraphs:<\/p>\n

\n

First, cut taxes for businesses — big and small — and find
\ninnovative ways to get Americans back to work. We can start by giving
\nany companies that are less than five years old an exemption from
\npayroll taxes for six months; extending the current capital gains and
\ndividend tax rates through 2012; giving permanent tax credits for
\nbusinesses that invest in research and development; and reducing the
\ntop corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent…<\/p>\n

Second, we should pass a
\nmore focused health reform bill that restructures current health care
\ncosts before spending more, prohibits insurance companies from denying
\ncoverage for pre-existing conditions, enacts responsible reform on
\nmalpractice suits and extends health coverage to all children…<\/p>\n

Third, we should reform our immigration policy to ensure
\nthat those who contribute to our economy, especially foreign math and
\nscience graduates of American universities, have a clear path to
\ncitizenship.<\/p>\n

Finally, we need to address budget deficits now
\nrather than waiting for some ideal future economic situation. It’s a
\ngood sign that the Obama administration is following the advice of
\nSenators Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Evan Bayh of Indiana and other
\nDemocratic fiscal pragmatists who embrace the idea of a bipartisan
\ncommission to recommend spending cuts to rein in deficit growth. But we
\nmust be sure that the administration and Congress heed the commission’s
\nadvice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My problem with these paragraphs is not that I think they’re terribly
\nmisguided on the merits. I agree that targeted tax cuts could boost
\nemployment, which would boost production. I agree that overlooking
\nimmigration reform this year would be a terrible mistake, for precisely
\nthe reason Ford provides — clearing the citizenship path for foreign
\ngraduates of American universities. I do agree that we should pass
\nhealth care reform, although I don’t think Ford’s stripped-down version is practical.<\/p>\n

But here’s my problem: Ford has ideas for tax cuts, health care and
\nimmigration. But for deficit reduction, his idea is “Hey, let’s hear from somebody else!” This sort of vicarious indignation about the deficit is
\nwidespread — look at Conrad, and Bayh and Gregg. The entire deficit
\nreduction debate is like a group of high school kids who want to create
\na swanky sounding student group (International Affairs Inter-Student Ideas Engagement
\nCouncil!) in their senior year so they can list it on their college
\nresumes. We have a deficit crisis because the things causing the deficit like tax levels and entitlement spending are politically intractable. A commission won’t solve that problem. It will only rediscover it.


\n

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In Washington, today is always the day to cut taxes, and tomorrow is always the day to have a meeting about reducing the deficit. Democratic Rep. Harold Ford has an op-ed in the NYT that calls on Democrats to focus on tax cuts and deficit reduction to grow the economy. The Atlantic Wire samples some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}