Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Jeffrey Frankel — Four Magic Tricks for Fiscal Conservatives


You know this already, but its funny.
By the time the crowd realizes that it has been conned, the magician has already pulled off the greatest trick of all: yet another audience that came to see the deficit shrink leaves the theater with the deficit bigger than before.
Project Syndicate
Four Magic Tricks for Fiscal Conservatives
Jeffrey Frankel | Professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, previously served as a member of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers

2 comments:

Broll The American said...

So the premise of this is that the candidates will always promise to reduce taxes and spending in favor of "balance" and reducing the deficit, yet while the tax cuts are easy to implement the spending reductions are nearly impossible creating a cycle of broken campaign promises and increased debt.

From the point of view of MMT this is actually a formula for success, no? It seems like while Obama is considering more of the same (with the possibility of a tax increase on the top 2%), Romney promises to drastically cut taxes while he's not at all specific about cuts (cuts which he won't be able to make as per the premise of the article).

So would Romney be a win for MMT? Tax cuts without the ability to cut real spending?

Tom Hickey said...

Because under "Reagan" the govt spending will go to military expenditure, and Putin has already warned that if the US increases military spending so will Russia, and that will just start another arms race. Is that what we want or need?