Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz seems to be toying with a presidential election bid, because right now, what America needs is a radical austerian (boldface mine):

In recent interviews, Schultz has argued that progressive Democrats have grown so rigidly ideological, they can no longer recognize basic political and policy realities.

He has also contended that the wealthiest nation in human history can’t afford to provide public health insurance to all of its citizens; that the national debt is a bigger threat to the United States than climate change; and that Democrats would be wise to demonstrate “leadership” to the electorate — by calling for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

“It concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic Party are going so far to the left,” Schultz told CNBC Tuesday. “I say to myself, ‘How are we going to pay for these things,’ in terms of things like single payer [and] people espousing the fact that the government is going to give everyone a job. I don’t think that’s realistic.”

Schultz went on to say, “I think the greatest threat domestically to the country is this $21 trillion debt hanging over the cloud of America and future generations … The only way we’re going to get out of that is we’ve got to grow the economy, in my view, 4 percent or greater. And then we have to go after entitlements.”

He would make an awesome Republican! While he’s not a theocratic fundamentalist or a white supremacist, he really does love himself some austerity:

But there’s nothing “realistic” or “non-ideological” about Schultz’s worldview. In fact, his ideological commitments are more detached from empirical and political reality than are those of the left-wing Democrats he decries.

There is no mathematical reason why the U.S. government cannot “afford” single-payer health care. America has a higher per-capita GDP than Denmark, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and virtually all other European and Asian nations that boast universal health insurance systems. The U.S. also has lower tax rates than most developed nations — and spends more on its military than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined. There is no question that America has the means to ensure that all of its residents have high-quality, affordable health care. The fact that the U.S. declines to do so is the product of political choices not technical necessities.

America does have a genuine problem with rising health-care costs. But keeping those costs off of Uncle Sam’s books doesn’t make them disappear. In fact, it likely makes them more of a problem: Single-payer systems have had a much easier time of containing costs than America’s has…

Further, the idea that the national debt is the greatest domestic threat to the United States is nearly as indefensible. The U.S. government is not like a household or a business (although, plenty of businesses recognize the benefits of debt-financed investment) because it can print its own currency. And unlike Venezuela, our currency is backed by a vast and dynamic economy, and the largest military in world history. This makes our debt an exceptionally safe investment, in a world growing ever more crowded with savers desperate for a secure place to store their wealth. For this and other reasons, racking up $21 trillion of debt hasn’t prevented America from continuing to borrow money at near-zero interest rates. And there is little reason to expect those rates to spike rapidly at any point in the foreseeable future. Currently, America’s debt is equal to a little over 100 percent of its GDP. Japan, meanwhile, has debt equal to 250 percent of its GDP — and can still borrow money at virtually no cost.

The other downside to running high deficits is that they have the potential to fuel inflation — but after a decade of deficit-spending and accommodative monetary policy, America’s inflation rate remains below the Federal Reserve’s target. For now, our economy could use more inflation — not less — and there is no basis for believing that inflation will just start accelerating rapidly once we’ve gone too far.

In this context, it is not realistic to believe that reducing government spending should take precedence over making massive investments in a clean energy grid; it is delusional.

Finally, Schultz’s fixation on entitlement cuts betrays either an ignorance of — or callous indifference to — the bleak finances of America’s retirees. The collapse of private-sector pensions — along with the failure of wage growth to keep pace with the rising costs of health care, housing, and higher education — has left Americans more dependent on Social Security benefits for their retirements, not less: As of 2016, nearly half of U.S. families had no retirement account savings at all, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Right now, we should put people to work fixing all of the broken shit. While unemployment is low, employment rates aren’t that high: there are still people who need jobs–and Intelligent Designer forbid that labor should be in the driver’s seat for a bit. Republicans in 2017 demonstrated that there is a lot of room for spending, even if they did so in the form of tax cuts for the rich. After decades of crappy public infrastructure and goods, we deserve–and can have–nice things.

One of the greatest political cons of the last few decades was how ‘centrists’ managed to convince many people that they’re not radical ideologues. They are: they value a GDP:ratio more than people. Enough radicalism already.