Mike the Mad Biologist

And by “it” I mean basic economics. By way of Digby, we come across this post from the Center for American Progress (CAP), which has been tweeted by President Obama’s team, with the following graphic:

Michael Linden, an economist for CAP, writes:

By the time Obama was sworn in, he was facing a $1.2 trillion deficit. Inconvenient though it may be for conservatives (especially those who are running for president), the truth is that spending, taxes and the deficit are all lower today than when President Obama took office.

We are suffering from chronic un- and underemployment, historically awful male employment, wage stagnation, not to mention a decaying infrastructure. And progressives along with the administration are celebrating this? Did they fall out of the stupid tree and hit every fucking branch on the way down?

Cutting government spending means people lose jobs. I’ve discussed the balance of accounts before, but if we cut deficits, total net private sector savings will decrease–that’s not ideology, that’s arithmetic. And who in the private sector will have their saving reduced? The one percent or the rest of us? Alrighty then.

What’s worse are all the fucking morons in the comments section of the Think Progress post–Democratic-leaning overall–who are cheering for this crap. If Democrats don’t comprehend how deficit spending and reduction are tools that can be used to move the economy towards desirable outcomes–paying people to do stuff we need done comes to mind–then we’re screwed.

In a sane political system, a candidate who boasted of cutting spending during a massive downturn would be out on his ass. Fortunately, for Obama, we don’t have such a system. So, deficits über alles becomes Our Great Cause.

This is yet another reason why we can’t have nice things.