May 15, 2013
In the wake of the release of the new CBO numbers projecting that the debt-to-GDP ratio is actually projected to fall over the next decade, the Washington Post decided to give us one of its classic deficit/debt fear-mongering stories. The piece could not avoid noting the obvious fact that there is nothing that could remotely pass as a deficit crisis in the immediate future, but it did tell us:
“Policymakers have capped spending on agency budgets, permitted across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester to take effect, let a temporary cut in the payroll tax expire and raised taxes on the nation’s wealthiest households. They have done nothing, however, to tackle the long-term affordability of Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to be the biggest drivers of future borrowing as the population ages.”
Of course one of the highlights of this and other recent reports has been the sharply lower projected rate of growth of health care spending which was driving the projections of bloated deficits in future years. One factor in the slower projected growth is the Affordable Care Act, so this assertion from the Post is simply untrue.
However the real gem is this line:
“the improvement in the short-term forecast has removed the air of crisis that has hovered around the budget deficit since President Obama took office.”
Wow, an “air of crisis.” And where did this “air of crisis” come from? It surely did not come from financial markets, where investors have shown a willingness to lend the United States government trillions of dollars at very low interest rates in the years since President Obama took office. It certainly did not come from competent economists who were able to recognize that the large deficits were a direct result of the economic collapse in 2008. It also did not come from the millions of people who lost their jobs due to the downturn and looked to government stimulus as the only possible source of demand that could re-employ them.
A more accurate statement might be that:
“the improvement in the short-term forecast has removed the air of crisis around the budget deficit that the Washington Post and its allies have sought to promote since President Obama took office.”
Let’s be serious here, the crisis was invented by people in Washington who have an agenda for cutting Social Security and Medicare. That is as clear as day. The deficit crisis does not actually exist in the world. In the world we have a crisis of a grossly under-performing economy that the Post and its allies have attempted to perpetuate.
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