Read on Twitter
Great reporting. Awful framing.
"...officials are growing increasingly wary of the massive federal spending"
"The concerns about the deficit"
"...internal concerns about the deficits"
It's 2020. People who supported the Trump/Bush tax cuts are not concerned about deficits 1/ https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1259512953025499136
"...officials are growing increasingly wary of the massive federal spending"
"The concerns about the deficit"
"...internal concerns about the deficits"
It's 2020. People who supported the Trump/Bush tax cuts are not concerned about deficits 1/ https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1259512953025499136
It's 2020. "Starve the beast" and attacks on Social Security and Medicare are decades old. Why are they still being reported at face value, as sincere concerns, without even asking about more revenue as a policy option? 2/
It's 2020. Real interest rates are negative, tax revenue is historically low b/c of 20 years of tax cuts, inflation is nonexistent, and debt service costs are the lowest in decades. Why are you even reporting about concerns about deficits, using only the GOP frame of spending? 3/
The right response to White House/GOP statements of these concerns is this: 4/ https://twitter.com/mcopelov/status/1242490213517189121?s=20
It's still early days in the COVID-19 crisis, but this is incredibly discouraging. The media are already giving oxygen to deficit/spending concerns. This is exactly what happened last time: 5/ https://twitter.com/mcopelov/status/1085588312184811522?s=20
And the result was a Lost Decade, driven by federal stimulus that ended too soon, the budget sequester, and massive state/local government austerity: 6/ https://twitter.com/mcopelov/status/1121888942129864704?s=20
The idea that crisis spending now is a long-term burden is nonsense. Here are some useful calculations from Canada. The US, as the issuer of the world's reserve currency, faces even fewer fiscal constraints, and the long-term costs would be similar: 7/ https://twitter.com/mcopelov/status/1258559165481525249?s=20
There are crucial, serious discussions to be had about US fiscal policy. But we're never going to have those if media coverage grants the premise of "concerns about the deficit" to those who have empirically demonstrated a total lack of concern about deficits for decades. 8/
And we're never going to have them if discussions about what we can afford do not include information about the revenue side of the equation & realistic assessments of what the US can afford as issuer of the global reserve currency in a world that is no longer the 1970s 9/
In any case, the lede/headline is buried at the end:
"The consequences of debt and deficits is not an issue in the short term,” @ernietedeschi said. “Our priority should be to do whatever it takes to overcome the coronavirus, and we’ll deal with the consequences later.” 10/
"The consequences of debt and deficits is not an issue in the short term,” @ernietedeschi said. “Our priority should be to do whatever it takes to overcome the coronavirus, and we’ll deal with the consequences later.” 10/
