Ezra Klein writes, ‘Note that a Republican was president after the 1981, 1990 and 2000 recessions. Public-sector austerity looks a lot better to conservatives when they’re out of power than when they’re in it.’ But he doesn’t spell out the reasons why.
How the Debt Ceiling Hostage Crisis, and the policies it produced, have hurt our unemployment rate: http://ow.ly/dyN9C
“The prodigious production budget that funded the debt hysteria news narrative from 2009 to the present was seen as a worthwhile investment, not only because it prevented policies that would have helped the economy, but also because it made possible policies that hurt the economy, namely the elimination of jobs and programs that invest in a strong, expanding middle class, and the prolonging and deepening of the jobs losses caused by the great recession.
“A slow recovery and an unemployment rate over 8 percent are essential to the case being made against President Obama by Republican media products and the politicians who star in them. Both are not unlike elaborate special effects or gigantic sets constructed for blockbuster movies like Avatar or Titanic — they may be insanely expensive to create, but without them, you simply don’t have a movie.” —Eric Byler