Prove to me that massive spending cuts to entitlements would benefit our economy, since that same austerity program, where the peons pay for the bad investment decisions of large financial conglomerates, is working so well in Europe these days:
“Recession comes as no surprise and it is going to get worse next year,” said Desmond Supple from Nomura. “Europe has imposed dusted-off policies from the 1930s and they are driving peripheral countries towards depression,” he said.
“We are seeing a mix of pro-cyclical fiscal austerity, overly-tight monetary policy, and regulatory overkill under the Basel III bank rules that are forcing lenders to tighten credit. Europe is stuck in a bad equilibrium and it is not going to end until there is a change of course.”
Prof Paul de Grauwe from the London School of Economics (LSE) said austerity measures imposed on the Club Med with no offsetting stimulus by the creditors was creating a contractionary bias to the whole system and and leading to a “very dangerous situation”. [...]
Prof Luis Garicano from the LSE said it would be an “outstanding idea” for Spain to break free of EU austerity diktats and seek a neutral umpire. “The IMF has been on the side of reason, whereas the EU has been behaving like a creditor trying to get its money back.”
Prove that government stimulus spending on rebuilding and creating essential infrastructure is a bad thing, and that we should continue to plod along with an outdated and inefficient electrical grid, crumbling roads and bridges, rather than create jobs laying the foundation for a 21st Century economic revival.
One concept often used to assess the effectiveness of government spending is the multiplier. The fiscal multiplier represents the dollar change in economic output for each additional dollar of government spending. Thus, a multiplier of two implies that, when government spending increases by one dollar, output rises by two dollars.
Based on the results shown in Figure 1, we find that multipliers for federal highway spending are large. On initial impact, the multipliers range from 1.5 to 3, depending on the method for calculating the multiplier. In the medium run, the multipliers can be as high as eight. Over a 10-year horizon, our results imply an average highway grants multiplier of about two. [...]
Most of the literature concentrates on the multiplier effect of military spending. But such spending is arguably nonproductive in an economic sense. By contrast, government investment in infrastructure, such as roads, can raise the economy’s productive capacity. In that respect, it can have a higher fiscal multiplier. Another difference is that we concentrate on the multiplier effect on GSP, while the literature typically studies the effect on U.S. GDP as a whole.
Prove that spending less and less money on public education, both K-12 and secondary education, is a good thing for our children's and our nation's future, since our refusal to support education has led to the US students the
ranking among the lowest in math and science scores among all the developed countries, and has led to a significant decline in America's economy's former competitive edge.
U.S. students recently finished 25th in math and 17th in science in the ranking of 31 countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. [...]
The competitive edge of the US economy has eroded sharply over the last decade, according to a new study by a non-partisan research group. The report found that the U.S. ranked sixth among 40 countries and regions, based on 16 indicators of innovation and competitiveness. They included venture capital investment, scientific research, spending on research, and educational achievement. ... The prestigious World Economic Forum ranks the U.S. as No. 48 in quality of math and science education.
Prove to me that increasing the economic burden on the middle class, while lowering taxes for the wealthy and subsidizing large corporations, will work to create a better economy and more and better paying jobs for everyone when all the evidence is to the contrary:
Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita GDP increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was 1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.
Prove that the "free market" offers the best solution for our lack of affordable health care, when the rise of for profit health care insurance and the lack of universal health care for all Americans has led to the most expensive health care system in the world, increasing mortality rates, and more uninsured people than any other developed country in the world.
The World Health Report 2000, Health Systems: Improving Performance, ranked the U.S. health care system 37th in the world — a result that has been discussed frequently during the current debate on U.S. health care reform.
Despite the claim by many in the U.S. health policy community that international comparison is not useful because of the uniqueness of the United States, the rankings have figured prominently in many arenas. It is hard to ignore that in 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.
Prove to mean that deregulation and "voluntary compliance" by industry will eliminate all our environmental problems, when the evidence shows de-regulation only leads to worse pollution and environmental degradation of our air and water resources. For example, from 2002:
North American power companies, the continent's biggest polluters, slashed spending on energy efficiency programs by 42 percent between 1995 and 1999, in part because of the deregulation of electricity markets, an environmental watchdog said Monday.
In a 45-page report on the continent's electricity market, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a Montreal-based agency created under the North American Free Trade Agreement, said power companies cut expenditures on energy efficiency measures to $1.4 billion in 1999 from $2.4 billion in 1995.
That added to air pollution in the United States, Canada and Mexico, which hurts both the environment and human health, the agency said.
Power companies made the cuts largely because of the restructuring of the electricity industry, which includes the privatization of public utilities, the commission said.
"Much of the electricity demand growth during this period could have been significantly moderated by energy efficiency measures, thus avoiding the associated air pollution and other environmental impacts, had these programs not been left to languish under restructuring," the report said.
Prove to me that "Unions" are the primary cause of our economic crisis, rather than
Wall Street, Big Banks and unfettered Bain-style disaster capitalism.
A bipartisan federal investigative report has affirmed what many on Main Street have known for quite some time: Our financial crisis and resulting recession occurred as a result of risky, unethical and likely criminal behavior by reckless Wall Street institutions and the regulators that failed to stop them.
The panel singles out in particular Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Credit Reporting Agencies and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). A fitting punishment for Washington Mutual and OTS' inexcusable behavior is that they no longer exist.
The panel concludes Goldman Sachs deceived Congress, investors and the public when they shorted the housing market in 2007. Goldman Sachs should be ashamed for betting against America. Goldman Sachs wanted the housing market to fail in spectacular fashion because that way they would receive spectacular profits for their company. I guess this must be what Goldman Sachs' CEO meant when he said his company was doing God's work.
It is high time those responsible for this financial crisis be held accountable, both civilly and criminally. I commend the panel for making referrals to the Department of Justice for criminal investigations. I also commend the 19 recommendations the panel made to help ensure a crisis like this does not happen again.
This bipartisan report also puts into context the current budget battles waging in California, Wisconsin, and Washington, , D.C. Nowhere in the report are the words "union," "collective bargaining" or "workers 'rights" mentioned.
The facts speak for themselves, so I sincerely doubt you Republicans can "prove" that your policies, implemented over the last three decades - tax cuts for the wealthy, austerity for the poor and middle class, union busting, and eliminating any role for government to play in solving our massive social, environmental and economic problems, instead leaving everything up to "free market solutions" - have benefited anyone other than large multinational corporations and a very small number of well to do Americans. But go ahead and try, punks.