Debt and Deficit Delusions

[marmar]

from Dissent magazine:


Debt and Deficit Delusions
By Mark Levinson - November 19, 2012


One cannot open a newspaper or turn on a TV without being told that reducing the U.S. federal debt should be the country’s number one economic priority. A committee of CEOs warns that “our growing debt is a serious threat to the economic well-being and security of the United States.” Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and co-chair of Obama’s deficit commission, ominously declares that the “debt we are accumulating will be like a cancer. It will definitely destroy this country from within.”

This is nonsense. The United States is confronted with numerous threats to its economic well-being and security. The national debt is not one of them. The real challenges of our time are massive joblessness—23 million Americans cannot find full-time work—and the decrepit state of American infrastructure, most recently illustrated by the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy.

A multi-year investment program could address both of these problems and should be at the top of our national agenda. Yet it is not. Why?

The reason is our myopia about debt and deficits. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/debt-and-deficit-delusions