The Failure of the Liberal Idea Machine

Washington Monthly ^ | 10-21-2012 | Ryan Cooper

[Sir Napsalot]

I was talking to a colleague in the office the other day, critiquing the first presidential debate. He was talking about how Romney’s responses were all organized around the theme of jobs, and Obama needed to calibrate his answers similarly. He suggested the lack of maintenance of the Bush years as a theme, something along the lines of how for 20 years we did nothing about spiraling cost of healthcare, didn’t fix our education system or rotting infrastructure, and made no investments in renewable energy. I pointed out that he could also organize around the idea of economic stimulus, Keynesian or otherwise, that being the whole point of the Recovery Act, which prevented depression.

“People don’t want to hear about more government spending to hire a bunch of bureaucrats,” he replied. “Trust me, they just don’t.”

I assume my colleague, who is a lot more experienced than me, is probably correct about general belief. But I got to thinking, and more and more I believe this is an enormous problem. Because on the straight economics, all those policies about fixing long-term problems, while worthy in themselves, are totally irrelevant to the question of creating jobs in the short term. In an economy with weak demand and a slack labor market, there are two ways to create jobs: Keynesian fiscal stimulus (government spending) or monetary stimulus through the Fed. Those are the only games in town, and if Democrats don’t convince people they work, the Republicans certainly won’t.

[Sir Napsalot]

Oblivious (general public) to the end.

People have a VAGUE idea about the enormous rate our Natl Debt and Deficit are accumulating. Not knowing too much is the self-defense to keep us from completely going nuts.

[Uncle Miltie]

Neither Keynesian government spending or monetary expansion (the Phillips Curve) create jobs.

They never have, ever, not once.

Spending and printing money are just what libs want to do, so they invented an “economics” to justify it.

[drbuzzard]

Whoever wrote that article is completely insane. He buys into nonsense about Obama being the biggest deficit cutter after Clinton. I really have to wonder what color the sky is in his world.