Peter Orszag, the former White House Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), now a “Distinguished Visiting Fellow” at the “Council of Foreign Relations,” launched his debut in the New York Times yesterday.
Orszag’s found a cure for his personal employment prospects: put himself out for hire to continue the Bush Years deficit spending.
In typical neocon- liberal fashion, he admits there is a problem, and them offers a “compromise” which is supposed to be a concession, which actually does not nothing but continue the current status quo, because it doesn’t really happen. Orszag writes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09…” Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned. Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt. ”
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” …. extend the tax cuts for two years, and then end them altogether. Ideally, only the middle class tax cuts would be continued for now.
Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the the high income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it. ”
On consumer demand, they spend on shelter/utilities and food and then transportation, clothes, and finally luxury goods. Shelter- we have a housing glut, and don’t need to produce any in the immediate future. Food- no shortages yet, thankfully, only HUNGER, aka “food insecurity,” whereby the millions of jobless and underemployed are relying on food stamps, food banks, and charities to feed themselves and the school lunch program to feed the kids. Transportation, ie gasoline prices, are not spiking, but public transportation maintenance is lagging, and even the interstates are literally crumbling in hard hit states, such as CA. Manufacturing for clothing and consumer goods for things like appliances and electronics, we outsourced overseas in the name of stockholder’s profits.