>On Sat, 6 Jan 2001, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> We'd be even better off - in human if not macroeconomic terms - if we
>> had a national health insurance system, publicly funded childcare,
>> free tuition K-PhD, environmental reconstruction, rebuilt slums, etc.
>> Can't do that if your primary fiscal goal is paying down debt.
>
>Completely agreed. But given the balancing out link between deficits and
>monetary policy that's been on show during the 90s, shouldn't our argument
>now be that the macroeconomic effects are a wash and that's why we can do
>all these things? Rather than that deficits in themselves always give a
>big boost to the macroeconomy? When if balanced out by tighter monetary
>policy, they don't?
I'm no fan of deficits in general; I like Jim O'Connor's old formulation that "debt increases capital's power over the state." Better to tax them instead. Or, to quote the guy in All The King's Men, soak the fat boys.
Doug