Need For Economic Growth Mentioned In Only 14 Articles. In the first week following the enactment of a deal to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling, major print outlets -- The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times -- were more than three times as likely to mention deficit and debt reduction as priorities over economic growth and job creation.



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Economists Identify Growth As More Pressing Than Deficit Reduction

Lawrence Summers: Deficits Are A "Second-Order Problem." In an October 13 op-ed in The Washington Post, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers noted that current debates over deficits and debt distracts from discussing the need for increased employment and economic growth.

[div class="excerpt" style="background:#DDFFFF;border:solid 1px #000000;"]This tragedy is compounded by the fact that most of the substance being debated in the current crisis is only tangentially relevant to the major challenges and opportunities facing the United States. This is the case with respect to the endless discussions about the precise timing of continuing resolutions and debt-limit extensions, or the proposals to change congressional staff health-care packages or cut a medical-device tax that represents only about .015 percent of gross domestic product.

More fundamental is this: Current and future budget deficits are now a second-order problem relative to other, more pressing issues facing the U.S. economy. Projections that there is a major deficit problem are highly uncertain. And policies that indirectly address deficit issues by focusing on growth are sounder in economic terms and more plausible in political terms than the long-term budget deals much of the policy community is obsessed with. (The Washington Post, 10/13/13)