How obama will pay for the jobs bill or second stimulus

[Bonestorm]

It was also the longest period of the greatest level of federal spending to that time. We've beaten Reagan's spending records since, but there was high criticism for the amount of spending performed under Reagan. You liberals STILL like to point out how much Reagan increased the national debt during his terms in office. When the spending was cut back under Bush I and the 1989 congress, the economy started contracting less than a year later, ending in the recession which limited Bush I to a single term in office. You think the timing between cutbacks in federal spending and the contraction of the economy is some kind of coincidence? If so, you are stupid beyond any hope of redemption.

First, whether Reagan was criticized is irrelevant to whether Keynesian policies of the early 1980s (1983 primarily) caused a recession seven years later in 1990. Second, government spending as a percentage of GDP remained the same in 1988 and 1989 and increased in dollar terms every single year from 1980 through the recession in 1990. Are you saying that those annual spending increases are actually spending cuts? Or does only lower spending as a percentage of GDP qualify as a cut? If it's the latter, spending as a percentage of GDP peaked in 1983 but no recession followed until seven years later.

Are you claiming the dot-com bubble was the result of Keynesian policies? LOL Who is it that hasn't a foggy fucking clue what they are talking about? The challenge is to find a period of economic growth which was the result of Keynesian policies that did NOT end when federal spending was cut. Yet, when federal spending was cut by the republican led congresses of 1997 and 1999 - the greatest set of cuts in recent history - and, again, less than a year later the economy started contracting, and again, resulted in a recession within two years of the last - and largest - set of spending cuts. Coincidence again? Only a full blown idiot can look at the timing between federal spending cuts and contraction of the economy and still believe Keynesian economic theory works.

Again, federal spending as a percentage of GDP peaked in 1991 and steadily declined throughout the 1990s. My point is that the increased federal spending in the the wake of the 1990 recession resulted in economic growth and the reduction in federal spending thereafter did not lead to a recession. And once again the period you have identified as "cuts" was actually a period of spending increases in terms of dollars spent.

Look up the budgets and national deficits and compare them to the expansion and contraction of the economy. It's all about timing. When federal deficit spending is rolled back, the economy has ALWAYS contracted within a year or two of those cuts. There are sometimes buffering factors, like the dot-com bubble, but even then, in the end, the economy contracted in response to cuts in federal spending. The number of times you can see a contracting economy within a year or two of federal spending cuts is NOT coincidence. It is a pattern of cause and effect which anyone with a real brain can easily see.

Even assuming you were correct, all this shows is that federal spending cuts result in lower economic growth. But how does that refute Keynesian economics? Very roughly speaking, Keynesian policy dictates that during times of recession, government spending should be increased and that during times of growth, government spending should decrease. Keynes did not profess to have devised a means of preventing recessions from happening.

You seem to be operating from the assumption that recessions should never happen. Well, they do. The business cycle exists. The question is which policies should the government pursue in response to the business cycle. You've conceded that cutting government spending results in lower economic growth so why should the government cut spending during business cycle downturns? That will only make the recession worse. And we don't even have to theorize about these things. Take a look at the UK and the other countries that have adopted austerity policies. That's exactly what you're seeing. And, should the GOP continue to obstruct Obama's efforts to grow the economy through increased government spending, that's what we'll continue to see, too.

(But having a real brain is not one of your attributes, is it? Osmosis while having your head up the donkey's ass has replaced what little gray matter you possessed with a different type of matter.)[/QUOTE]

 

[Damocles]

Borrow more now. Tax more later.

Translation: Take the money from your kids, because they can't vote.

Another translation: Can't somebody else pay for it?