http://www.levy.org/default.asp?view=publications_view&pubID=104bea1f434
"Reagan proved deficits don't matter."
Dick Cheney (quoted in Suskind 2004, p. 291)
Far be it from me, a card-carrying member of the Texas Left, to defend the moral character of Richard Cheney, the Apogee of Evil. But fiscal policy is not a matter of moral character. It is a matter of economic argument, of theory and evidence.
Also see Randy Wray's:
http://www.cfeps.org/pubs/pn/pn0004.html
Sometime this year, the US prison and jail population will reach two million inmates -- most of whom are males of prime working age. Incarceration rates and spending on prisons have been rising rapidly. Indeed, the number of prime age males in prison now approaches the number of officially unemployed adult males, while prisons have become a major growth industry in at least some regions of the country. Further, there is a movement to increase employment and production of goods and services within prison walls and two bills were introduced in Congress that would encourage this while at the same time subjecting prison labor to greater market discipline.
In this note, we raise the question "can penal Keynesianism replace military Keynesianism". First we should describe the economics of "military Keynesianism".