A great piece from Martin Eiermann in the Huffington Post last month about the assumption (“myth”) that the welfare state (public spending, entitlements, etc.) is blamed for fiscal crisis at all levels of government. The same narrative prevails in U.S. politics, especially as we teeter over the “fiscal cliff.” Five years have passed since the […]
austerity
Mayors go to Capital Hill to urge action on the “fiscal cliff”
Mayors from Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and other cities visited Washington, D.C. to talk with lawmakers about the effects of “sequestration” on cities. “Too often,” says Mayor Rybak of Minneapolis, “a line-item cut in Washington one year will lead to an expense in a city the years after.” Scott Smith, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., is […]
Economists urge “Jobs and Growth, Not Austerity”
Campaign for America’s Future is circulating a petition against austerity measures: About 350 economists and experts have signed a statement calling for “presidential leadership — and congressional action — to spur jobs and growth, not dangerous austerity.” The statement warns Washington leaders to heed the lessons of European countries that have tried to cut their […]
The Austerity Bomb
The “fiscal cliff” is definitely the worst term for a constructed policy impasse, but I’m not sure how I feel about “austerity bomb.” Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo used the term in an article earlier this week: Automatic, across-the-board reductions to domestic and defense spending, combined with the looming expiration of the Bush tax […]
Austerity, then and now
I saved this article almost a year ago, but I came back to it while thinking of how things in Europe have unfolded over that year, and how austerity has become a more loaded term across the Atlantic, even as it . Cowell begins by lamenting (I think, his tone is hard to gauge) that […]