Accept The Pain

by digby

Greider on the scolds:


The deficit hawks are flapping their wings and making a terrible squawk about the government's gusher of red ink. Good grief, a federal deficit of $1.4 trillion! What will become of us?

The gloom chorus includes GOP heavies and right-wing frothers, the editors of the Washington Post and other pinch-penny establishment journals, Blue Dog Democrats and even some of Barack Obama's own advisers. Never mind the bloody mess we're in, they insist. People should hunker down and accept their pain. Suffering is good for the soul.

This nonsense, grounded in ignorance and discredited nineteenth-century bromides, is a recipe for continuing the economy's downward spiral and could prove poisonous for the country. The hawks claim self-righteous rectitude in their warnings, but their real intent is to stymie the very spending programs that can deliver economic recovery and relief to battered citizens. Whining about deficits is a way to halt promising talk about another substantial stimulus package, one that should be focused more concretely on job creation. That will require more deficit financing, for sure; but at a time when unemployment hovers near 10 percent and foreclosures are in hemorrhage, more is needed.


Now that GDP has blipped up a tiny bit, expect these guys to start their song and dance in earnest. Ans yet, as Greider writes, there is every reason to believe that much more is going to be needed. But as far as these true believers are concerned, the crisis has past, now it's time to bleed the patient.


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