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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEconomists See No Crisis With U.S. Debt as Economy Gains
By David J. Lynch - Mar 22, 2013
Representative Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, declared this month that the U.S. national debt is hurting our economy today. Its an idea embraced by almost every Republican and even some Democrats.
Economic data -- on jobs, housing and investment -- dont support that claim. And economists across the political spectrum dispute the best-known study of the subject, by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, which found that nations with debt loads greater than 90 percent of their economies grow more slowly.
Three years after a government spending surge in response to the recession drove the U.S. past that red line -- the nations $16.7 trillion total debt is now 106 percent of the $15.8 trillion economy -- key indicators reflect gathering strength. Businesses have increased spending by 27 percent since the end of 2009. The annual rate of new home construction jumped about 60 percent. Employers have created almost 6 million jobs.
And with borrowing costs near record lows, the cost of paying off the debt is lower now than in the year Ronald Reagan left the White House, as a percentage of the economy.
MORE...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-22/economists-see-no-crisis-with-u-s-debt-as-economy-gains.html
vi5
(13,305 posts)What Paul Krugman said. And has been saying.
Yavin4
(35,438 posts)social programs which have benefitted millions of Americans and has helped grow the economy. Republicans know that taking on social programs directly like Soc. Sec., Medicare, Medicaid, Education, etc is a losing proposition. The American people don't want them eliminated.
So, they have to go after their funding. They have to make the argument that these programs cannot exist because there is no funding for them which is complete hogwash.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)succeeded in doing. It is a certainty, if sequestration (aka austerity) comes to the US, unemployment goes up again & recession deepens dramatically. Where were the GOP patron saints of no debt and a balanced budget during the Bush/Cheney spending spree? Remember....the one that increased profiteering and bailed out the banksters? Where were these beacons of conservatism?
It's beyond hypocrisy, it is absolute economic suicide...and this is their aim.