November 29, 2010
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Thomas Friedman told Congress to just shut up and reduce the living standards of the vast majority of the population. In his column today Friedman said that Congress should quickly embrace the cuts in Social Security and Medicare proposed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission, and get on with the rest of Friedman’s agenda. Friedman has apparently decided there is no other way to move forward than to force moderate-income retirees to take big cuts in their living standards.
Of course others might point out that there are enormous potential savings to Medicare and Medicaid from allowing beneficiaries access to the more efficient health care systems in other countries. The government and private sector could also saving hundreds of billions of dollars a year from replacing the system of patent support for drug research with more efficient mechanisms.
In addition, the government could easily raise more than $100 billion a year from taxing the excesses in the financial sector, a route even advocated by the International Monetary Fund. This would require the sector most responsible for the economic wreckage the country is now experiencing to pay for the damage.
And, those who know basic economics (forget Friedman here) know that the current deficits pose no burden whatsoever. Deficits run in times of high unemployment do not displace private sector production; they simply utilize resources that would otherwise be idle.
And, there need be no future tax burden associated with the interest on this debt. There is no reason that the Fed can’t simply buy and hold the bonds issued to finance the deficit. This would mean that the interest paid on the bonds would go to the Fed, which would in turn refund it to the Treasury. This means that the interest imposes no net cost to taxpayers.
But Friedman doesn’t have time for thinking about these alternatives to cutting Social Security and Medicare. After all, each of these would involve confronting wealthy and powerful interest groups, Thomas Friedman doesn’t get paid to cause these people trouble.
Friedman’s line is to tell Congress to shut up and go after those high-living former schoolteachers and factory workers. After all, what business do these people have enjoying a decent standard of living when Thomas Friedman has an agenda to pursue?
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