Why is Washington Obsessing About the Deficit and Not Jobs and Wages?

robertreich.org — It was the centerpiece of the President’s reelection campaign. Every time Republicans complained about trillion-dollar deficits, he and other Democrats would talk jobs. That’s what Americans care about — jobs with good wages. And that’s part of why Obama and the Democrats were victorious on Election Day. So why are we debating how to cut the deficit when we should be debating how best to use the cheap money we can borrow from the rest of the world to put more Americans to work? Because too many Democrats inside and outside the Beltway have ingested the deficit Kool-aid that the “serious people” on Wall Street have serving for two decades. And the President has been all too willing to legitimize their deficit obsession by freezing federal salaries, appointing a deficit commission, and, now that the election is over, going back to deficit-speak.

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