Who are the true austerians?
by digby
Matt Yglesias reports on latest austerity apologetics from the UK:
The failure of austerity policies in the United Kingdom is a bit of an embarassment for proponents of austerity in the United States, so austerians like Veronique de Rugy have beat a tactical retreat toward arguing that the problem in Britain is too many tax hikes.
And I agree—those tax hikes were misguided because austerity was misguided and so a fortiori tax-side austerity was also misguided.
But as a simple matter of arguing honestly and clearly, if your policy prescription is “deficit reduction but without any tax increases” then deficit reduction isn’t actually your policy prescription at all.
Agreed. So, if we were to apply this observation to the deficit reduction plans in the US, we would see that the only people who are serious about reducing the deficit are the Democrats since they are the ones who want to slash spending and raise taxes while the Republicans only want to slash spending.
Which brings us back to Yglesias’ first point: “tax hikes were misguided because austerity was misguided.” What the Democrats are proposing is to do exactly what the UK did — tax hikes and spending cuts. And they are back in recession.
No, the situation isn’t exactly the same. We have different issues and are at different stages in the economic cycle. But unless you think this economy is now booming it’s still a bad time for austerity.
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