Virtual Summit

New York Times columnist David Leonhardt told readers today that the problem of the debt is “we, the people.” Is that so?

Was it we the people who were too dumb to see an $8 trillion housing bubble and recognize that its collapse would wreck the economy? No, that was the job of the great Maestro Alan Greenspan and his sidekick Alan Bernanke, the brilliant scholar of the Great Depression. It was also the job of all the economists who do research and opine to the public on the macroeconomy. Virtually all of these highly educated highly intelligent economists either did not see the bubble or insisted it was not worth their time.

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

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Last week I livestreamed the first closed door meeting of the president's fiscal commission. I did this out of frustration that we received no response to a letter that we sent from 81 organizations representing over 61 million Americans, asking that all the work of the commission be done in the open. Letters were also sent by Chairman John Conyers and Minority Leader Boehner asking for transparency.

Today is the mandatory spending working group and we will be livestreaming it the whole time (we brought a power cord this time).

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

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People care about jobs. They still care about jobs. And politicians who don't care about jobs will lose their jobs, because that is what motivates voters.

Polling at Pollingreport.com proves that people are much more concerned about jobs than deficits. (Note there are some polls that show equal concern, no polls that show deficit with a higher concern) more »

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The Washington Post (a.k.a. Fox on 15th Street) is getting ever more aggressive in pushing its anti-welfare state agenda. A front page news article on the Greek financial crisis told readers that: "And though economists and other analysts generally agreed that the program was necessary to prevent a full-blown financial crisis, they also agreed that it won't work unless European governments follow through on promises to bring down their large deficits and restructure their economies to become more competitive."

It then added: "'We can't finance our social model anymore -- with 1 percent structural growth we can't play a role in the world,' European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Monday in remarks at the World Economic Forum in Brussels, just hours after European Union finance ministers approved the new program."

In fact, there is nothing resembling the consensus about the failure of Europe's social model that this editorial implies.

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

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Have you noticed that there is a very odd logic around the DC Beltway deficit-cutting frenzy? Here is the basic argument:

A) Things worked great back when taxes on the rich were high. We built up the infrastructure that made us prosperous, and we built up a middle class. We didn't have budget deficits. There were many other benefits to the economy, society and our democracy. They were America's golden years.

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

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This is the sixth installment in our Social Security Works series. more »

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That is the only thing that readers of his column on the "death spiral" of the welfare state can conclude. After all, he notes the size of the budget deficits facing various European countries, but discusses them entirely in the context of their wlefare states. He apparently does not know that these countries all face severe downturns as a result of the collapse of housing bubbles in the United States and elsewhere. During recessions budget deficits always expand as tax collections fall and spending on items like unemployment insurance and other benefits rise.

Contrary to what Samuelson claims in this column. Most European countries have been willing to pay the taxes needed to support their welfare states. And this has not prevented them from maintaining rates of productivity growth (the long-term determininat of living standards) comparable to the United States.

The economic crisis caused by the collapse of the housing bubble does make sustaining the welfare state more difficult, just as it makes every other aspect of economic life more difficult. This points to the need to have more competent people setting monetary policy (unfortunately, none of the incompetent central bankers have been fired), but it does not provide insights into the viability of the welfare state, which is most needed in times of economic hardship.

Originally posted at Beat The Press

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

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Anne Kim and Jonathan Cowan of Third Way took to the Politico Arena op ed page (and url) on Thursday with the hoary slander that progressives care only about "expanding the entitlement state" and have no interest in economic growth or expanding wealth. Apparently blind to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, they then replay New Democrat staples from the 1990s as if they were somehow new or relevant. They get it wrong.

This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

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This post is part of our ongoing "Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck The Economy."

President Obama issued a proclamation declaring May 2010 “Older Americans Month.” This is a noble-sounding document, filled with praise for “these treasured individuals who have contributed so much to our nation.” But in several important respects, this lofty rhetoric just doesn’t match the harsh reality of what the administration’s debt commission is proposing for actual older Americans.

Here’s what the proclamation has to say about Social Security: “By strengthening Medicare and Medicaid, while protecting Social Security, we help ensure all Americans can age with dignity.” Yet this is a long way from what Obama’s debt commission, and the people on it, are saying.

Former Republican senator Alan Simpson, along with President Clinton’s chief of staff Erskine Bowles, are the two co-chairs of the debt commission. When they were interviewed on Fox News Sunday last week, Simpson had this to say about Social Security and its recipients:

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