Congress to Deficit Panel- "What, Me Worry?"

Freeman, here.

Way back in April-- prior to this blog being hijacked by jocks and World Cuppers-- I talked about the President's bi-partisan Deficit Panel in conjunction with the Greek Tragedy. In light of the recent Irish Tragedy and the mid-term elections here on the Continent, it seems austerity is once again fashionable (if it ever was). To think that my concept of inputs (tax dollars coming in) and outputs (government spending) was not lost on the Deficit Panel's collective brains. I want to give thanks today on the eve of our great national holiday- I feel like a trailblazer.


The Panel will send a report to Congress on December 1st and both side's of the aisle will presumably take issue with it because it will recommend cutting spending and eliminating various tax breaks. Roughly, the report's thesis will be, "For a while now, the federal government has spent more than it has brought in. This is unsustainable." Roughly, the collective congressional response will be, "We cannot deal with this at such a bad economic time. Let's worry about it later, that is, once we are not in office."


The response is nearly certain because Congress never actually fixes wide-ranging, difficult problems, and because pundits, via the papers, are already attacking the Panel's proposal. "A perverse austerity plan" says the Boston Globe-- "the deficit panel needs a reality check" claims the Sacramento Bee and for good measure the vaunted Salem News says the "deficit commission's ideas ignore current economic crisis." Just like Greece (shown below), France, Germany and Ireland before us, I am sure there will be trouble in the streets with bandana-covered faces if austerity measures are enacted-- and this is the true reason Congress does not want to worry about it. A heavy debt load is unpopular, but even more unpopular is paying more for a college education, health care and Amtrak.

A few questions in conclusion;

1. What kid likes to have his allowance taken away?


2. What is more perverse than refusing to deal with an obvious, 80 year old problem?


3. Who in Congress will be willing to oppose this conventional, Keynsian wisdom of increasing public outlays during a recession?


4. Is the papers' "cure" of an expanded public outlay actually creating recessionist pressure and/or exacerbating The Great Recession? The medicine worse than the disease?