link here to article
Martin Feldstein is a senior economist who worked in the Reagan administration. This article reflects standard conservative dogma and puts the blame for our weak recovery on the Obama administration. He correctly argues that the stimulus should have been bigger but conservatives would have never voted for a bigger package. They also would not have voted for a stimulus without tax cuts. Feldstein argues that the focus should have been of increased government spending which has a higher multiplier than tax cuts. He is correct but his conservative friend in Congress would not have voted for a stimulus that was not tax cut heavy.
He also points out that wages have not grown and that consumer spending has been weak. He is correct but he fails to point out that real wages only grew 4% in the last decade. I believe that someone else was in the White House during most of that period. He then suggests that business investment has been weak because business does not like Obama policies. He should know that business responds to consumer demand more than it does to any government policies. Changing government policies to encourage business confidence is not the answer to weak business investment. Consumers need income in order to spend and they entered the recession with historically high debt to income ratios. Consumer demand won't change until wages grow and debt deleveraging slows down.
Feldstein then turns to longer term problems of deficit reduction. He wants to cut deficits while making the Bush tax cuts permanent. In other words, tax cuts that go primarily to the top 1% would be paid for by cutting social programs. Sadly, Feldstein and the WSJ care more about tax cuts for the wealthy than they do about deficit reduction.
This article could be used as a classic example of conservative economic propaganda that is sponsored by the WSJ and supported by a senior economist whose better days were in the 1980's.
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