Here from Matt Cameron are a couple of charts to illustrate the nature of the conservative recovery. First off, is socialism holding back the private sector? Nope:
Ask yourself if you genuinely believe that additional public sector layoffs would be replaced at a greater than 1:1 ratio by private sector hiring. If yes, you’re well-positioned to attack the Obama administration’s macroeconomic stabilization policies from the right. But how will that work?
And where’s it happening? Mostly at the local level:
The federal government should have stepped in when the recession hit with generous bailouts to states and municipalities to help stabilize their budgets. Instead, an austerity-minded congress has been letting state governments sink. Then a new crop of budget cutting governors came to office determined to slash spending while trying to avoid responsibility for unpopular cuts. The result was to push a lot of budget pressure downward onto local government, where we’re seeing huge cutbacks even thought he population continues to grow.
Previous in TP Yglesias
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