so opines Eugene Robinson in this op ed for Tuesday's Washington Post.
It is crammed full of data to make the argument. He begins like this:
The economy is growing much more quickly than expected. Inflation is basically nonexistent. The federal budget deficit has been slashed dramatically. The stock market is reaching all-time highs. One of our long-running wars is over, and the other is winding down. The status of the United States as the world’s preeminent economic and military power is unchallenged.
He then challenges the notion that people should be depressed, or obsessed by the deficit - which even at $680 billion for FY 2013 is
an incredible 37 percent less than the deficit for fiscal 2012.
That, plus the 2.8% annual rate of growth in the 3rd quarter, the stunning 204,000 jobs preoduced - both figures well over expectation (with the slight increase in unemployment due to the Government shutdown, for which Robinson rightly offers a round of applause for the Congress [although it really should just be the Republicans therein]) helped fuel the Dow Jones Industrial Average to an all-time high.
This leads to two paragraphs that I view as the heart of the column, which I will share below.
In isolation, these numbers look pretty good. Compared with the rest of the world, they look really good. The United States doesn’t have structurally high unemployment (like Europe), an addiction to overheated growth rates (like China) or mounting inflation (like major developing nations). Slow and steady may be boring, but it’s better than many exciting alternatives.
And if we acknowledge the (boring) slow and steady?
Sharply lower deficits plus faster economic growth add up to a significantly brighter long-term fiscal outlook. The nation’s $17 trillion debt remains a problem to be sensibly addressed and solved. But it can no longer be represented as a crisis requiring an immediate decision to deny Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits to Americans who need them.
Note again that last sentence, writing of the debt that
it can no longer be represented as a crisis requiring an immediate decision to deny Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits to Americans who need them.
Austerity is NOT the path to follow.
For one thing it is not necessary.
For another, it hurts the American people, especially those whose economic circumstances are most tenuous.
Of greater importance, it seriously damages the economy, only accomplish the function of shifting ever more wealth into the hands of rentiers and financiers, doing little to stimulate economic growth or jobs.
Robinson also examines foreign policy, a topic that for now I will leave to you explore on your own, noting only this sentence, a powerful rejoinder to the likes of John McCain:
The notion that peace would blossom in the Middle East if only the United States were willing to invade a few more countries is absurd.
Robinson grants that there are grounds to criticize the Obama administration, but also points out that
by historical standards, the United States is doing well domestically and internationally. And by any objective measure, the trend lines are positive, not negative.
Many here can find strong grounds on which to criticize the President. Certainly I have been a harsh critic on educational policy, among other topics.
But we should also consider the alternative scenarios, had his Republican opponents won either of the elections in which he prevailed, and realize how much, despite missteps and some mistaken policies, this country has benefited while on Obama's watch.
Robinsons' finally paragraph delightful skewers the DC conventional wisdom, including both the political and the chattering classes:
Perhaps this is why politicians and commentators have enough time on their hands to occupy themselves — and worry everyone else half to death — by pretending that the sky is falling.
It isn't, although if we listened to the austerians, it would have already collapsed upon us all.
The column is a keeper.
And it serves as a very good reminder that for all our complaints, we are far better off than we would have been under either McCain or Romney.
We can, and should, do better.
But we can start by drawing the line against slashing the social safety net when without doing so we are already making progress in a way most other countries are not.