Anne Kim and Jonathan Cowan of Third Way took to the Politico Arena op ed page (and url) on Thursday with the hoary slander that progressives care only about "expanding the entitlement state" and have no interest in economic growth or expanding wealth. Apparently blind to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, they then replay New Democrat staples from the 1990s as if they were somehow new or relevant. They get it wrong.
Lynn Parramore is the editor of New Deal 2.0, the website of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute.
The national debate over fiscal responsibility and sustainability is entering a new, critical phase. With so much at stake, the time has come to examine our fundamental assumptions about government deficits and debt. It’s time to consider alternative perspectives before we rush down potentially destructive policy paths that could compromise our future. The Roosevelt Institute’s New Deal 2.0 asked seven economic thinkers to address what they see as the most dangerous myths currently circulating on the deficit. more »
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The job of the news media is supposed to be to inform, not misinform. But Tuesday's Washington Post story, Obama team points to smaller deficit numbers, makes this claim about the cause of the huge $1.4 trillion budget deficit for FY 2009. more »
Conservatives who squawk about the deficit — and Democrats who should know better, but squawk anyway — tend to do so selectively. That is, they tend to focus only on spending. But spending is only half of any deficit equation. After all, a deficit is "the amount by which expenditures or liabilities exceed income or assets." When it comes to the government "income" really means "revenue," and that means if we're going to have an honest discussion about the deficit we have to talk about about taxes.
That half of the deficit equation — income or revenue — rarely enters the discussion, but the reality is the surest way to create a deficit is to increase spending while deliberately decreasing income or revenue. Who would do something like that? Something so obviously unsustainable?
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Conservatives who squawk about the deficit — and Democrats who should know better, but squawk anyway — tend to do so selectively. That is, they tend to focus only on spending. But spending is only half of any deficit equation. After all, a 
