Despite some primary pandering in Ohio, Obama isn't that progressive on economic issues...Insofar as there is what to worry about with Obama's team, it's where they come down on deficit reduction versus social investment.It seems, therefore, that these guys think the basic decision is: Should our government keep on spending money it doesn't have, but spend that money on the poor instead of the rich? Or should we pay back the money that Bush borrowed to spend on the rich? If you think the former, you're a "progressive," while if you think the latter, you're a "neoliberal."
Count me in the "neoliberal" camp, then (whatever my reservations about free trade). Yes, paying down the deficit without spending money on poor people will mean that Bush did in fact succeed in transferring wealth from the middle class to the rich. This is a bitter pill that we're going to have to swallow, because to keep up this deficit spending is madness.
If a looter comes in and smashes up your store and gives some TVs free to his friends and then runs away laughing, what do you do? Do you say "Well, his friends got some TVs, so my friends should to!", and then loot your own store some more? Or do you just get to work fixing up the store, even though that means letting the bad guy's friends get richer than your friends?
The truth is that bad guys loot society, while good guys build it back up. Bad guys are parasites - that's why we call them "bad." And we're never going to get even with them unless we become bad guys too. But pretty soon there won't be much of a society left to loot.
So for God's sake, kill the deficit. And do try to provide social insurance, but do it cheaply (I think this can be done). Bush smashed up our budget and our regulatory system and left the wreckage for us to clean up. So instead of making it worse, let's get started cleaning up.
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