Government Spending and the Endless Recession: Cut Spending Now

Japan tried what Obama is trying. It failed.

Other nations slashed spending and prospered.

As Boskin points out, the Netherlands in the mid-1990s and Sweden in the mid-2000s "stabilized their budgets without recession [with] $5-$6 of actual spending cuts per dollar of tax hikes."

And he notes that Canada reduced government spending in the mid-1990s and early 2000s by an amount equal to 8 percent of gross domestic product.

Those cuts weren't painless, but they put Canada on a trajectory different from ours. Canadian voters value budget surpluses, and Canada managed to avoid almost all the bad effects of the 2007-09 recession.

Why isn't the political class interested in this? Because while a defanged political class may serve the interest of the public it doesn't serve the interest of the political class.

posted by Ace at 02:20 PM

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