1825 K Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006
202-955-5665 (tel) | 202-955-5606 (fax) | www.ourfuture.org
|
The Challenge |
We have a jobs crisis, but the media and political elite are focused on deficits and debt. How do we make the case that pursuing austerity only will deepen the jobs crisis and send us back into recession? |
|
Make the Case |
With mass unemployment, declining wages and a sinking middle class, consumers are tightening their belts. Companies won’t create jobs without customers. We need the U.S. government to act. We have work to be done and people in need of work. And we can pay for it by insisting that the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, bringing the soldiers home and investing the savings here at home, ending obscene subsidies to entrenched corporate lobbies like Big Oil, and borrowing at historically low interest rates. |
|
Case In Point |
♦ To address the global slowdown over the last three years, Europe cut deficits and America increased deficits [1]. The result: Europe’s unemployment rate has gone up, and America’s unemployment rate has gone down [2]. ♦ We learned this lesson 70 years ago in the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt steadily reduced unemployment for five years in large part by investing in public projects. But when Roosevelt prematurely reversed course and cut spending in 1937, he sparked a new downturn [3]. Only when Roosevelt really stepped on the gas during World War II, with massive public investment and the biggest budget deficits in American history [4], did the Depression truly end. |
|
Counterpoint |
When they say: We’re already in a debt crisis. If we keep racking up these deficits, we’ll turn into Greece, with soaring interest rates and inflation, a declining dollar and America’s credit ruined.
You can say: The U.S. becoming Greece? That’s a joke. Want a comparison? Think Great Britain. They inflicted austerity on a weak economy and sunk back into recession, with rising unemployment, spreading misery and a worsening debt burden. Right now we can borrow money at record low rates. Our basic infrastructure is decrepit and needs to be rebuilt. Our construction industry is flat on its back. Any business leader with a brain would leap at the opportunity to do work that we have to do at record low costs.
When they say: Government spending doesn’t create jobs.
You can say: Tell that to the teacher who gets hired at a newly built school, or the rail worker building a high-speed train line, or the steelworker making a wind turbine, or the veteran able to help restore our national parks or the teenager working at her first summer job.
When they say: By ignoring the ticking time bombs of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, you are putting your head in the sand.
You can say: Conservatives pushing trillions in more tax cuts for the already rich aren’t worried about deficits. You want to cut spending, not deficits. And now you’re aiming at the core pillars of family security. Social Security is legally forbidden from increasing the deficit and Medicare has just been made more solvent thanks to the health care reforms in Obamacare. We don’t have to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to get our books in order. Over the long haul, we need more reform to reduce costs in the overall health care economy – and that will lower the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. You just are using this economic crisis as an excuse to destroy programs you never supported.
|
|
The Public Pulse |
♦ Americans are deeply concerned about deficits and spending, but when asked what they are most concerned about, Americans overwhelmingly say jobs and the economy, not deficits (Multiple polls [5], including most recently Bloomberg National Poll [6] and New York Times/CBS News [7]). ♦ When asked in an August poll which is most important, increasing spending to improve the economy or avoiding a big increase in the deficit, respondents divided down the middle, 48 percent each (The Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation [8]). ♦ By 52 to 33 percent, participants in a September poll said spending on infrastructure projects is a better way to create jobs than cutting taxes (ABC News/Washington Post [9]). ♦ By a 3 to 1 margin, voters in the swing states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia, don’t believe Medicare and Social Security need to be cut to reduce our deficits (The Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation [10]). |
|
Tweet This |
Last 3 yrs. Europe cut deficits, US increased deficits. Europe: unemployment up. US: unemployment down #smarttalk via @OurFuture |
|
Learn More |
» Austerity Watch [11]: OurFuture.org's continuing analysis of austerity policies in the U.S. and abroad |
1825 K Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006
202-955-5665 (tel) | 202-955-5606 (fax) | www.ourfuture.org
Links:
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/yes-theres-been-austerity-in-europe/2012/05/08/gIQAQ1NsAU_blog.html
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/a-graph-that-makes-obamanomics-look-good/261249/
[3] http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/what-roosevelt-recession
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/business/economy/from-world-war-ii-economic-lessons-for-today.html
[5] http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
[6] http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/rQjgh_WBlvCk
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/15/us/politics/New-York-Times-CBS-Poll-Results.html
[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/08/18/National-Politics/Polling/question_6362.xml?uuid=tzdTxumEEeGXOe75nF-yhQ
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/08/27/National-Politics/Polling/question_6502.xml?uuid=g6VJLO_8EeG3TITtVeAwCw
[10] http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/medicare-rates-as-top-issue-boosts-obama-in-swing-states/2012/09/26/0c2c2032-082a-11e2-a10c-fa5a255a9258_graphic.html
[11] http://www.ourfuture.org/features/austerity-watch
[12] http://www.ourfuture.org/features/snapshots-austerity