Support deficits! Save jobs!
- February 7, 2010
- 1 comments
- Posted in Latest Posts, The Economy
For those screaming about the “Obama recession,” look at this chart. The red bars show jobs lost under Bush (from January, 2008, getting worse every month). The blue bars show jobs lost under Obama (a gradual reduction in the number of jobs lost every month).
A country can’t recover in 12 months from the worst economic decline in a generation. But if you want to know why the Administration ramped up the deficit in 2009, the answer is here. The stimulus put a floor under the sickening slide and helped begin the long climb back. That’s a good use of federal spending–to stop the bleeding and start the process of getting workers back into jobs.
If the Tea Party had controlled the government, and slashed spending to try to “balance the budget,” job losses could have reached numbers not seen since 1932. AND the deficit would have grown even worse. You’d see red ink spilling everywhere, as tax collections fell and welfare payments (food stamps, unemployment pay, Medicaid, etc.) rose. Between running a deficit by ignoring the calamity of an economic collapse and running a deficit to stop it, I’ll take the latter any time.
Tags: federal deficit, Obama, stimulus, unemployment
Have been reading your site for a few days and enjoying it quite a lot. But this latest entry is what compelled me to comment. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your common sense outlook on our financial/economic situation.