The past, present and future of the deficit

Ezra Klein wrote The past, present and future of the deficit. "The takeaway? They’re all quite similar. Absent the financial crisis, the wars and the tax cuts, we’d be in pretty good fiscal shape right now. Which suggests that it’s probably not a great idea to be defunding our financial regulators and refusing to consider a return to Clinton-era tax rates."




These are from the Economic Policy Institute, Pew, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Worst president ever.

Klein also laments, How more stimulus could reduce the deficit, and vice versa. " In fact, there’s no stimulus money or tax increases on the table at all. And that’s because, for Republicans, deficit reduction is not the top priority. It’s lower, for instance, than opposing tax increases and stimulus. If it wasn’t, we’d have a deal already — one that could address both our jobs problem and our debt problem in a big way. Instead, we’ve abandoned the unemployed and are bickering over the debt. Which is perhaps the most frustrating thing about this issue: some policy problems are very hard to solve, but this one isn’t. There’s a win-win on the table, a deal that could address both the problems and the politics, but Washington seems entirely uninterested in it."