Reply to S/O How Will Romney/Ryan Improve Economy, Debt, Jobs..etc

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[quote=Anonymous][b] (Disclaimer: Not gonna lie - I am not an Economics person.  Feel free to dumb down your argument and get back to me.   )
I know little about deleveraging. I did a bit of research, and realized that there are three theories regarding deleveraging and monetary policy. You seem to fall into the "balance Sheet Recession" camp, right? This means that you believe no amount of stimulus will help? Or you might be in the camp that believes stimulus money can help but the gov't won't deliver enough? Not arguing your position. Just pointing out to others that this is one of 3 ways to look at monetary stimulus. If I'm correct about your viewpoint, I can't say that I disagree with you on that. I tend to think that tax cuts and rebates are a nice gift, but seriously doubt they help the overall picture. I know that we were pretty excited to receive a $2,000 check from Bush's tax rebate. I was supposed to run to the mall and pump it right back into the economy, but I didn't. I put it in my kids' 529. Many people I know used it to pay off debt.

As for Obama's tax cuts, I can speak form my own experience - we pay 10% less in income tax than we did in 2008, and our HHI is $125K. So we do enjoy the Obama tax cuts.

Please explain your claim that the increase in public education employees over the past 20 years FAR exceeds the number of students enrolled. Please break it down for us and tell us where all these extra employees are and why they are not necessary. I know that in our school district's elementary school, we have 21-23 students per classroom. There is not a single employee at my kids' school that is not crucial. In fact, the faculty is spread pretty thin. so where are all these extras?

Too many firefighters? tell that to people in NM, CO, CA, etc. Yes, the smoke jumpers are feds, but the local firefighters protect the cities as the wildfires get close. And I'm really glad that thousands of firefighters were not laid off prior to 9/11. Perhaps some areas can get by with less firefighters. these cities should come up with a responsible plan to reduce the number gradually and to find other tasks for them in the meantime, or train them for another career. many options depending on the city. Cutting their jobs when we were on the brink of a depression would not be the responsible thing to do!

Glad to see that you think more should have been spent on infrastructure. I happen to agree. Unfortunately, republicans gave Obama a REALLY hard time for putting too much into these projects. Do you remember that? Their reason was that construction projects end, so the money should not go to these temporary jobs.

I'm familiar with correlation v causality. Are you implying that you do not believe Bush caused the recession? Among other things, the guy started 2 wars AND cut taxes, bailed out banks, doubled discretionary spending! Like I said, I'm no math expert here, but I can't begin to imagine how you can say that calling it the Bush Recession is not accurate.

Pell grant - I'm interested in hearing your argument against pell grants. I would not not have a college education if it weren't for pell grants, so good luck convincing me! Sure, it probably needs to be reformed. I'll give you that. Perhaps we need a better screening process for the recipients and accountability for those who accept grants but don't complete their education. But investing in higher education is necessary in order for our kids to compete globally. Good grief, this is so NOT the area to cut spending! Especially since the kids entering college have grown up in a recession and their parents might not have been able to save for their education.

Are you actually arguing against the midwest refineries in favor of the global oil market? MW gas should not be subsidized and we are better off to let Canada send their oil overseas? Surely I'm not understanding your statement, so feel free to clarify.

I hope I don't sound snarky. Really not trying to - just in a hurry right now. I appreciate the debate. thanks for keeping me on my toes! [/b]

I'm only gonna address a couple of these for reasons I'll explain below.

Education:  I saw that stat the other day and poked around to replicate.  The BLS databases take more time to unravel than I care to spend, but a quick look at census data (census.gov) showed a 22% increase from '97-'07 in elem and secondary instructors, and a 27% increase in non-instructional ee's.  that's far above pop growth, and far below changes in test scores.  as for rest of your q's around this, beyond my pay grade.  I expect the NEA can explain why this is a good thing.

Firefighter--your reply totally non-responsive.  That's why i'm pausing--you can't start a policy conversation and then get anecdotal.

Pell--don't really care how you (or I) got thru college.  again we're discussing policy which is made (one would hope) on broader data.  There's plenty of data out there correlating increases in federal programs to higher tuitions.  One could reasonably argue that slashing Federal aid to higher ed is a solution to high tuitions.  Again this is a point made for at least a decade by the fiscal conservatives that only now are the lib's starting to echo (once total student debt made page 1 of the post.)

I'm pausing here..frankly I'm just weary of the absence of thoughtful questioning of conventions here and elsewhere in the political debate.  And, yes, Bush didn't start the recession any more than did Barney Frank with his relentless boostering of home ownership at any cost (while collecting campaign funds from the finance industry.)  It might fit with your preferred narrative, but alas life is a bit more complicated.

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