(The following letter was addressed to Arnold York) I am stunned that you can’t comprehend how running the Federal government in red ink for five years on borrowed money creates economic growth and allows us to reduce the debt without any economic impact or risk. You probably don’t understand these simple facts, either: war aids the economy, shipping our industrial and service sector jobs oversees aids the economy, unemployment aids the economy, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Now, in order to fully understand Bush’s economic plan, I simply need you to relax and stare at the swinging pendulum while we go over Keynesian economic theory from Principles of Macroeconomics by Roy Ruffin and Paul Gregory:
“According to Keynes, if budget deficits are required to raise output to full employment, then these budget deficits are a necessary price to pay for full employment. The actual size of the government surplus or deficit is not critical at any one point in time. The budget deficit should not be allowed to stand in the way of important macroeconomic goals. To pursue a balanced budget during a cyclical downturn would only make the downturn worse. A balanced budget policy would also intensify inflationary cyclical upturns.”
Therefore, Bush is correct, the deficit doesn’t matter, and it is a balanced budget that causes inflation. Your problem is not that you don’t understand economics, your problem is your failure to understand Doublespeak. Once you do, everything becomes very clear. Let’s continue from the same textbook. “The Great Depression of the 30’s created the appropriate climate for the Keynsian notion that the government should ensure full employment.”
Great! The current administration’s plan will bust us right out of the Great Depression! I know what you’re thinking. (We Republicans pride ourselves on this ability.) You’re thinking, “I am not asking about deficit recovery during the Great Depression. I am asking about today’s economy.” Except, oops – it is today’s economy, according to Harold Meyerson’s article in the February 4th edition of “The Washington Post:”
“In short, what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery more than it does any period of prosperity between the presidencies of the second Roosevelt and the second Bush. In eight out of the nine preceding recoveries the U.S. has gone through since the end of W.W.II, the share of the corporate income growth going to profits averaged 26 percent, and never exceeded 32 percent. In the current recovery, however, profits come to 46 percent of the corporations’ additional income.
“Conversely, labor compensation averaged 61 percent of the total income growth in the preceding recoveries, and was never lower than 55 percent. In the Bush recovery, it’s just 29 percent of the new income coming in to the corporations.
The great balancing act of the New Deal has come undone and the problem with pre-new deal recoveries is that they never created lasting prosperity.” Meyerson must have made that last part up.
Otherwise, that would mean that Bush is trying to run Windows financial software on a 1969 mainframe system built during the Great Depression. Don’t know about you, but nobody I know can get that software working on a 21st century computer. What’s the biggest complaint? It makes their system crash, not recover. Take comfort though, Mr. York, Bush would never do that to us. He said so.
And ultimately, that’s all the explanation you should require as a patriotic American citizen.
There is something more important than debt resolution that must be addressed from your column last week. Frankly, I’m concerned for your safety. How dare you question George W. Bush’s economic plan? You don’t sound very American.
Don’t you listen to the President? “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” You might want to be more careful when expressing a questioning view of the current Bush Regime. Heard of the Patriot Act? If your patriotism is in question they can do terrible things to you. I’m sure you’re a very nice man, none the less, remind me never to sit next to you in a public venue or start your car.
Jannette Frazier