Why can't the White House make the case for what it's trying to do about the economy as clearly as Rep. Alan Grayson does in a few simple sentences?:
We're at the bottom of the economic cycle. And we've known since John Maynard Keynes pointed it out in the '30s after the Great Depression started, that it's the fundamental responsibility of government to match national supply with national demand.
We have a $14 trillion economy. $14 trillion of goods and services get created in this country. And because of the mismanagement under the Bush Administration, we had only $13 trillion of demand last year. We had only $13 trillion of demand this year. So at the bottom of the economic cycle, which is where we're at now, the government has to borrow money to step in and sustain demand. Otherwise the economy collapses and you have a second Great Depression.
Now, at the other end of the cycle, which is where we were in 2005-2006, we should have been saving money. That's what Clinton did. We had four straight years of surplus, government surplus under Clinton. We were seven years away from paying off the entire national debt through proper economic management.
I think he might have been exaggerating a little there. All the Clinton surpluses were on track to do was wipe out the national debt by 2012, not 2007, and to fund Social Security for a few more decades.
How long ago that was. Before a Republican became President and burned down the house. And now Americans have forgotten all that and are getting ready to vote the 'Thugs back in? Unbelievable.