Job One

by digby

John Maynard Keynes can stop rolling over in his grave for a couple of minutes:

On a conference call today with economists who blog and folks who blog on the economy, Speaker Pelosi sought to bridge the gap between progressive proponents of public investment to create jobs, and right-leaning Democrats touting austerity for immediate deficit reduction, by saying: “We will never have deficit reduction without job creation.”

The Speaker statement is grounded on the notion that without a growing economy that creates jobs and expands the nation’s tax base, the deficit cannot be tamed over the long-term.

Yes indeed.

Now if someone could take the time to explain that deficits aren’t causing unemployment and recession, that would be very helpful. Unfortunately, the owners of America have spent a lot of money persuading people that their problems are all caused by government spending and taxing rich people and in order to get the economy moving again the government needs to pull in its belt and cut taxes. It’s going to take a lot to deprogram them.

Update: More on the conference call.

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