Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
What's a Tea-Publican deficit peacock to do? (They love to rail against the deficit, but their economic policies only add to the deficit). The deficit, which Tea-Publicans created but like to use against Democrats, is disappearing. Oh Noes!
Paul Krugman writes, About That Debt Crisis? Never Mind:
OK, another toe dipped in reality. The new CBO numbers are out, and they scream “debt crisis? What debt crisis?” Here’s the actual and projected ratio of federal debt to GDP:
Yes, debt rose substantially in the face of economic crisis — which is what is supposed to happen. But runaway deficits? Not a hint.
Yes, there are longer-term issues of health costs and demographics.
As always, however, these have no relevance to what we should be doing
now — and it’s far from clear why they should even be a priority for
discussion. As I’ve written before, the VSP consensus seems to be that
to avoid the possibility of future benefit cuts, we must commit
ourselves now now now to … future cuts in benefits.
Why, it’s almost as if the real goal was to make sure that benefits get cut even if the fiscal outlook improves.
Meanwhile, our policy discourse has been dominated for years by what
turns out to be a false alarm. To the millions of Americans who are out
of work and may never get another job thanks to premature fiscal
austerity, the VSPs would like to say, “oopsies!”
Or maybe not even that. I’m happy to report that the Times does place
this fiscal news on page 1.
[U.S. Budget Deficit Shrinks Far Faster Than Expected, "[T]he government’s annual deficit is shrinking far faster than anyone in
Washington expected, and perhaps even faster than many economists think
is advisable for the health of the economy."]
But correspondents tell me that at VSP
Central, aka The Washington Post — where deficit panic has pervaded the
news pages as well as the opinion section — the stunning new deficit
report is buried as a small item deep inside the paper.
[This is due to the Post's unholy partnership with the Pete Peterson Foundation, which is committed to the destruction of social security and Medicare. The Washington Post Lets Pete Peterson Write The News On The Deficit. The Post piece is written by Peterson's embed reporter, Lori Montgomery. CBO sees brighter economy with budget deficit to plunge to $642 billion this year, "On Tuesday, some analysts urged congressional Republicans to call an end to their fixation on budget cutting."]
And Bowles and Simpson, who are now 26 months into their prediction of
fiscal crisis within two years, will continue to be treated as revered
gurus.
[Their Fix The Debt corporate front group is associated with the Pete Peterson Foundation; his son is on the board.]
Ezra Klein adds, Wave
goodbye to our deficits:
Here’s the short version: Washington’s most powerful budget nerds have
cut their prediction for 2013 deficits by more than $200 billion.
They’ve cut their projections for our deficits over the next decade by
more than $600 billion. Add it all up and our 10-year deficits are
looking downright manageable.
Read his whole post — with graphs! CBO says deficit problem is solved for the next 10 years.