This morning NPR interviewed economist Dean Baker. He claimed that there is too much focus on the budget deficit in recent months and that if anything the federal government needs to be spending MORE money. He believes that job creation should be focus of discussion and even went as far as to say that there is no difference between the private sector spending money to create jobs and the government spending money to create jobs.
I beg to differ. The difference is that a business can be forced to close it's doors. The government will just continue to borrow money and raise taxes.
There is a big difference, Mr. Baker.
Monday, February 28, 2011
NPR, I beg to differ...
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3 comments:
Sorry, but government and business are not alike. Government depends on revenue. If it's expenses exceed its revenue, it needs to collect more revenue.
Figihting two wars, one unjust and providing a tax cut for the wealthiest, is bad government policy. Extending those tax cuts is even worse policy.
That's like Wall Streeters saying although our revenue is down, we're going to give top management more for their gross incompetence. If all else fails (and it did), we can go to the government for a handout with no strings attached.
Adam Smith, the father of capitalism and the bane of conservatives, suggests that once a revenue source has been exhausted, new sources of revenue must be found.
That's a capitalistic principle that feudalistic conseervatives don't want to hear.
If it's expenses exceed revenue, perhaps it should consider reducing expenses.
Reducing expenses is where the rub comes in. For example, why not invoke the Adam Smith capitalistic prncipal of ending bounties?
That would include all tax breaks for business and religious institutions. Adam Smith claimed that companies that get bounties are more interested in the bounties they can get instead of the product or services they're supposed to be supplying.
Smith claimed that paying money to religion is the way to make a country poor. Today, it's those bogus "faith-based initiatives."
Why exempt derivatives, bank-laundered drug money and campaign contributions from paying a tax? To do so amounts to a government bounty to those beneficiaries.
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