Robert Reich: Government Must Spend More to Get Out of Debt
**Written by Doug Powers
You’ve heard of Keynesian economics, but this repeated call for increasing the debt in order to lower the debt is more closely related to the Keynesian model’s modern-day successor, the “Facepalmian” economic theory, to which Joe Biden and many others also subscribe.
Transcript of former Labor Secretary Robert Reich on CNBC from Real Clear Politics:
“The only way to restart not only jobs, Simon, but also economic growth, which is terribly important for every purpose including deficit reduction. the only way we’re going to get the deficits and long-term debt under control is if we get back growth. The only way to get back growth is for government to be this spender of last resort.”
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka agrees and has such an appetite for yet another stimulus that his salivary glands are working overtime even though that’s not allowed in their contract. But something in the back of my mind tells me these “huge government spending programs” were tried not long ago and didn’t work so well.
Click the pic of Reich (lower left) with President Obama to roll tape:
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Good grief..when does the insanity stop?
Rember, isn’t this the Guy who wanted to make sure the last money spent for “jobs” didn’t go to those white workers?
Let’s see–hubby and I are out of money; Jr wants (something), so we…. use the card!! Sure!!
It works so well in microeconomics, why not macro?
Fools.
With the left, never. Just continual evidence that liberalism is a mental disorder.
When you add all three of these together you would think that the unemployment rate would be near 0 and the economy would be just chugging along.
Hey, we are so broke we know we can’t pay out everything we have promised, so lets do some more wasted spending!
Have these Keynesian disciples ever produced one historical example of where this has ever worked?
Have any of them ever studied history? I know I asked a rhetorical question.
Quick question. Has anyone ever tried to see if when these morons say the government needs to spend more money if they correlate with Michelle Obama planning another vacation on the taxpayer’s dime?
I saw a “Herman” comic years ago, which is still gloriously in my mind:
A pudgy, wrinkled (as were most Herman characters), slightly hunched-over man is standing at the desk of a bank’s loan officer. The customer says, “I want to borrow just enough money to get out of debt.”
Priceless!
Except that the entire Obama administration has been sucked through a rupture in the Space/Time Continuum and is inhabiting that bank customer’s brain.
I just can’t get my mind around the fact that: They’re. Serious.
…you don’t even have a half-wit.
He’s short on ideas
too.
Even if all of this spending worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess if the Keynesians actually practiced Keynesian economics. Keynes also called for reduced government spending when the economy is doing well. Oops!
The same thing happens when the GOP is in control with their “supply-side” economics. They spend too much money!
It just doesn’t matter what economic theory is in vogue. The problem is that the government NEVER does the part that calls them to reduce spending. Government just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
I don’t mean to be short, here, but isn’t this small-minded thinking? A little common sense would help. I don’t expect a sawed-off answer to suffice, but anyone with a pint-sized brain can see that Reich’s thinking just doesn’t measure up. Tiny ideas aren’t going to solve this giant problem.
Either Jan 20, 2013 if we elect a true conservative, never if we re-elect The Won or elect a RINO.
This idiot would sell his horse in order to buy a new saddle.
Nope. Won’t even stop then. True conservatives would have to gain control of congress, courts, education, media and entertainment, otherwise the insantity will continue in infecting us. Even then it’ll probably take a generation to undo all the damage wrought be leftists.
wow, we spent more money than any previous administration, and it is still not enough, wtf? this is not microeconomics, or macroeconomics, it is megaporkeconomics, bordering on terraporkeconomics. we are running out of zeros to put on paper, and he wants us to get more zeros, wow. it must suck to work in the whitehouse today!
We would also have to replace all the leftist college professors with right-wing college professors, which are as rare as a Honolulu turn signal.
We have a Zero – he’s i
n the Oval OfficeThe White Houseon the golf course.Kinda interesting
Uh, Oh. My liberal sister’s head just exploded when I told her to stop calling it Labor Day…the new name is Americans with a Job who work to pay for those who Don’t Day. Guess I’m going to be excluded from Thanksgiving Dinner.
The term “Mental Giant” quickly comes to mind.
sarc/
We spend $3,790,000,000,000 dollars already. Perhaps Robert Reiccccccccchhhhhhhhh should re-familiarize himself with the law of diminishing returns.
So why do you guys have Thanksgiving dinner on Labor day, anyway?
Sad but very true. Absent a cataclysmic event or a benevolent dictatorship, I’m not sure if the damage will ever be undone.
Hm. Maybe it was in this thread that I should have mentioned that Christie just blasted Cantor for daring to suggest that any FEMA money we spend on the disaster everyone saw coming be offset with spending cuts. Yes, Cantor spoke like a conservative.
Christie thinks the debt can be argued later, because they need money noooow.
The talking heads on “The Five” are all on Christie’s side. Greg Gutbuster suggested it was like attending a funeral and mentioning the $50 the deceased owed you. No, it’s more like the funeral director requiring payment before planting the deceased.
way O/T: Just saw a Michele Bachmann tweet that was too big to retweet…
I’m sorry, but I immediately thought of Reich and Obama (and Christie…). With apologies to Hydrocephalacs everywhere.
Im surprised Obama has tried changing the name to Funemployment Day.
It can now be said that Reich has a Munchkin sized brain to match.
How many of the clueless masses will believe? Way more than I care to know about.
What a dolt I am!!
I have clearly trashed the entire society of Munchkinland.
Please forgive me wee folk.
You don’t understand, thejim–liberals hold a grudge for a long, long time. Come November, if Obeyme’s likability doesn’t improve (which I doubt it will), I won’t be invited for Thanksgiving OR Christmas…heh.
Has Robert ThirdReich ever said something that made sense?
If it is anything like the liberals on my wife’s side of the family then it may just be a blessing in disguise
Reich is so short he could work at Jiffy Lube without a pit.
mental giant, and reich, the word oxymoron comes to mind
Only if he had a step stool.
Someone really needs to publicly ask one of these clowns straight up: WHEN HAS YOUR WHACKJOB THEORY EVER WORKED IN PRACTICE??
Christie is a liberal on every single issue. The “hurricane” is his meal ticket for finally balancing the state budget after which everyone will see that other than being the most obese governor in America, he is no different than Jerry Brown when it comes to his politics. That works for Ann Coulter and her Log Cabin Republicans.
The sad thing is that about half this country believes these insidious lies.
These people couldn’t be more nutty if they were fruitcakes!! On WHAT planet is up down and spending saving?? Anyone?? Bueller?? My head just blew off…again!
Spend money to get out of debt? Right.
Spoken like a true little commie a$$turd!
Maybe if these Progressive dilatanttes started paying their fair share, we could put their money in a special “lock box” like they did with SSI, and use it (only) to pay off the debt…better yet, maybe we could send them to China, and allow them to work it off. I’ll bet they could show the ChiCom’s a thing or two about Socialism!
When we get rid of the Marxist, commie liberals. If by some turn of luck we conservatives can take control of Congress and the Presidency in 2012 we can not go back to sleep again, ever!
Question: What does Robert Reich, Donna Shalala, and Chris Sperling have in common, besides ideology?
Answer: None of them got to go on the adult rides in Disneyland, as teenagers, because they didn’t pass the height requirement!
Or; At one time or another, they were mistaken for Herve Villechaize, of Fantasy Island fame, a place they all belong, now!
Some (un)notable Reich-y quotes:
I know this has already been asked.
Where do they get these fools?
This guy is an economist? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
Just kidd’in you. I have to admit that neither side of our family harbors Libs, couple of “mean-well-save-the-planet-by-recycling” types, but political Conservatives.
How do these morons ever make it to and through government?
That’s because of the intentional dumbing down of the population. The fact that mindless garbage like Jersey Shore and Big Brother are top rated shows tells you all you need to know about the mental capacity of the drones you’re talking about.
the country gets these fools because the many voters want a free ride
i liked him as nick nack better, along with scaramanga.
Ummmm . . . lemme see. Three mortgages on my house, 3 car payments, 5 credit cards maxed out . . . probably what I need to do is sign up for another new car? I’m sure my banker would agree?
You are well on your way to having one of the best Thanksgivings and Christmases ever!
To Hangfire @#15:
I have a friend who once wrote a song with the line:
“It’s so lonesome in the saddle…since my horse died.”
I tried that.
Problem is, since Barry’s watch began, my equity has gone down $60K since the property values have nose-dived.
{What is past-perfect tense of nose-dive? Has nose-dived or Has nose-diven?}
Cut gov inflicted costs. Taxes, raise wage, (Davis Bacon) more legal costs, more lawsuit costs, regulation compliance costs.
taxes are the smallest part.
Keep on adiggin’ that hole, Bobby!
“The only way to get back growth is for government to be this spender of last resort.”
Um, jobs created by government spending last exactly as long as the money allocated to pay for them lasts. . .then they go back away.
The best this sort of ‘growth’ can hope to achieve, is a short-term dip in unemployment followed by a later spike in unemployment as the jobs created go away. We have a perfect example of this exact thing from the previous government stimulus.
Thing is, when those jobs have gone away, the additional debt incurred by creating them is still there, dragging down the economy in the long term.
It’s the macro-economic version of cooking the books, shifting liabilities into later accounting periods to enjoy the appearance of fiscal health in the current period.
Come on y’all. Give ‘im a break. All those years of gettin’ beat up, having his lunch money stolen, and gettin’ his head shoved down the john have messed with his brain.
Hi Robert Reich, Cheddar here. May I call you Retard Rob? No? Hey, can you do me a solid? Could you punch yourself in the throat real hard? Thanks!
So a multi-trillion $$ stimuLOSS wasn’t enough, we need to flush MORE printed Obamonopoly money down the toilet?
Since Doug wrote this piece, let me add a trackback in lieu of Michelle’s normal practice:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/01/22/robert-reich-keep-stimulus-money-away-from-skilled-workers-and-white-male-contractors/
Remember.. Robert Reich was the one who came out and said stimulus jobs should not be awarded to ‘white males’. Sounds a lot like sexism and racism to me.
Dude, you need a serious reality check in the worst way. Oh, and by the way, you suck!
Hey, look, I found something (over at Hot Air) that we could spend more money on: FAT-BURNING-UNDERWEAR.
Is it possible we could create some that would make libprogleftists vanish?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8732342/Japanese-snap-up-fat-burning-underwear.html
Reich is an underconsumptionist, a fringe variety of Keynesianism. He has little confidence in the market but great confidence in government to correct problems. He argues that redistribution is needed to spur economic growth because when the rich get too much income and do not spend enough, aggregate demand is deficient. His primary inspiration for this thesis that excessive income inequality causes depression is not Keynes or any other prominent past economist, but Marriner Eccles, head of the Fed under Roosevelt and Truman, who is not regarded by anyone other than Reich as either an excellent central banker or an economic theorist.
Once you understand where he is coming from, what he says is predictable. Because he argues that redistribution will aid economic growth, he is very popular on the Left. He ignores incentive effects of redistribution and says the only important effects are the demand-side effects.
I think skidmark remover is what you seek
Yup…my holidays are going to sooo much better this year. I’m not going to miss the screaming (literally) from the progressive liberals about how educated, smart and informed people like Reich and other’s in the Obama administration are. I’m actually going to enjoy my dinner this year.
FirstSkirt
When it’s about money and handouts—never.
Liberalism ends in three ways:
1) A more conservative, logical philosophy replaces it.
2) It implodes on itself.
3) Some combination of the above two. As Alfred Tonybee noted in his research of civilizations: Most of them die from within before they are overrun by someone else.
Notice that none of the three choices involved fields of flowers with dancing beatniks and hippies and unicorns.
Here is an analogy: your toilet backs up, do you clean up the mess or raise the cieling.
You left out the best part: when those jobs go away, the Keynesoids will then start in with “See? We stopped spending and look what happened. We never should have stopped spending.”
I’m not exaggerating, by the way. That’s the exact argument many of them made and continue to make in response to the criticism of FDR’s policies. They said that we were making progress against unemployment until 1937, when the government (was forced by reality to) cut back spending.
Only little hole in that argument: if what they describe was truly the case, then it wasn’t much of a Keynesian “stimulus”, was it?
2) never happens. Leftists are like locusts, they consume an economy until it is belly up and move on to the next healthy economy.
1) only happens when public schools are not used as indoctrination centers.
3) Well, given the above, won’t happen.
In the unlikely event that you are wrong, I have, strictly as insurance, a vw bus in the garage and a hand-thrown pottery jar.
These morons are certifiable.
Errah, Brilliant!!! Just print more money and pay off the Chinese! Hope we don’t run out of ink and paper though.
I read this somewhere:
Economists were invented to make Astrologers look smart.
None of it really matters any more. The tea party’s efforts were noble, but too little too late. Neither Obamacare nor any of this gargantuan spending will ever be reversed.
Liberals are like bears. If you feed them once, they come to expect you to feed them again. Pretty soon they’re no longer fending for themselves, but rather demanding that you continue to feed them. Eventually they get violent and dangerous. The Congressional Black Caucus is a prime example. They are now demanding their (taxpayer’s) money and threatening violence.
We are on an irreversible path to a total economic breakdown, which will result in communist dictatorship, complete takeover by a “global” government, civil war, or all of the above. Either way, the outcome won’t be good. I fear we’re doomed.
A bad dream indeed. These Leftists are like flesh eating zombies. Neither logic nor Superman can kill them. They keep resurrecting constantly. Maybe if “news” outlets would stop breathing new life into their crack ideas…. ?
Around here he’s known as Robert “The Third” Reich. The last thing we need is more National Socialism.
Socialism has heard its death knell. This is such good news actually. Even the average man in the street with a modest education and grasp of reality can see the fraud that is Marxian Socialism. In control for the last 75 years and now total control for the last 5, the complete criminal failure is clearly apparent for all to see.
2012 is going to be an epic slaughter. A long time in coming. Danger point: failure of Republicans and fiscal conservatives to finish the deal and cut off the head of the snake. Never underestimate Republicans’ ability to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
If Reich gets violent call 911.
They can put Oboobie’s face on the Trillion Dollar Bill.
They are Inter-Generational Felons all.
If any Socialist policy on Earth actually works, pigs will lauch themselves from stockyards around the country and fly to Obama’s rescue in DC.
Most liberals are intellectually deficient; in most cases if brains equated to money they couldn’t afford to pay attention.
Have these people somehow come up out of Alice’s looking glass, from Opposite World?
How do people in their right minds believe that doubling down on massive debt helps?
Oh, wait. I said “right minds”.
Nevermind.
Darn straight!
Poop! The “liberals are like bears” analogy just needs to be taken one step further: when the “bear’s” demands get to be unrealistic we relocate them to some european style socialist utopia. Failing that, out comes the 12 gauge with slugs.
Problem solved…
O.T.:
Sorry about the way I blockquoted that. I dl-ed a new spell checking app for my Droid, and I think it ate the “off” tag for the blockquote.
Please forgive me name callin’ here good peoples, BUT….
P.Obama,Mr.(3rd)Reich, and the rest of the kooks who think digging the hole deeper will get them out of the hole they’re digging are LOONEY-TOONS! But then again maybe the sides of that hole will ‘give way’, and bury these NO-NOTHING-NIMRODS!!!!
*Exhale* Now I feel better!
I don’t know why people like Reich don’t emigrate to Russia or North Korea. Those places are more in line with ideal world.
The height challenged Reich went on to explain that 1+1=POTATO.
It’s a perfect expression of the ideology of the leftist/socialists in this country. That’s why I’m now calling them what they are: socialists.
They subscribe to the idea that everything flows from Big Government. They’re adherents of Marxism, though they’ll never admit it. It’s a great example of the principles Marx wrote about in “Das Kapital”.
They NEVER learn from their mistakes, or from history. For example, with what this country has thrown dollar-wise into education in the last 40 years, we should have the best-educated students on earth if government money was the answer. But what’s the reality? Exactly the opposite.
They will NEVER admit their ideology is flawed. Never.
Sec. Riches remarks are proportional to his stature – to little too late.