I have been arguing that the deficit should be second in our concerns. I want our first concern to be getting people back to work. But right now, it’s deficit hysteria news cycle hour after hour.

From John Talton writing in his column, Sound Economy –

Amid the deficit hysteria, it’s important to remember its two major causes: The worst recession since the Great Depression and two wars, along with many other military commitments, that have lasted longer than World War II. As in 1945, the year the war ended and the deficit was even higher. Such was one of the reasons that taxes were above 90 percent on the rich in the 1950s: To pay off that debt.

(Why don’t we add the totally irresponsible tax cuts of the Bush administration? They made a lot of people very, very rich and devastated the budget.)

More from the essay –

Nobody in power is talking about seriously taxing the richest, really closing corporate tax loopholes, eliminating tax breaks on mergers, and returning to a more progressive tax system to hold down what is now historic income inequality. Cutting Social Security and Medicare are much in favor, and not only among Republicans or crusty old Alan Simpson, co-chairman of Obama’s deficit commission and a Social Security hater from way back. If this happens, will the deficit hawk elite ensure jobs are available for those once quaintly called “retirees”? Jobs with benefits? Also, nobody in power is talking at all about stopping the unsustainable military adventures that are helping drive up the deficit.

Discussing the issues is not in fashion. Any rational discussion of the deficit would have to arrive at the simple, obvious conclusion that it its much easier to pay off debt in a society with high employment, therefore you spend what it takes to get full employment and then work on the deficit.

We are instead going to pretend that paying down a deficit during an economic catastrophe makes sense.

Is doesn’t.

James Pilant