The economy needs stimulus, not deficit obsession
by David Atkins
Rachel Maddow, national treasure, tells it like it is:
The key part starts about three minutes into the video. That this is so obvious to reasonable people outside the bubble but not to the Village elites bespeaks an extraordinary level of either greed or stupidity on their part. In all likelihood, some of both. I have no doubt that Cokie Roberts and friends actually believe we have a deficit crisis. I’ve seen very well educated, well-meaning people in politics at the local level insist the exact same thing. It’s partly cultural, in fact: to be neoliberal and obsessed with deficits is to prove that one has graduated from the petty partisan politics of lesser mortals and into the realm of the truly educated few who see the big picture and have a concern for macroeconomics. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course, but such things stand out as an aspirational cultural badge of merit.
Cultic hysteria and groupthink affect everyone, no matter how smart they believe they are. Doubly so when said groupthink is convenient for the pocketbooks of those in question, and triply so when it becomes a unifying cultural symbol of the “in” crowd.
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