(Ebenezer Scrooge encounters Jacob Marley's ghost.)

The American Scrooge Epidemic

Steve Pearlstein writes about Blue Dog centrist Democrats and the deficit:

The Blue Dogs want you to believe that, unlike those other profligate politicians, they really, really care about bringing the federal budget deficit under control, even in the midst of the worst economy in 75 years.

That's why the caucus of fiscally conservative House Democrats insisted last week that their party leaders strip out nearly $30 billion in funding for health-care coverage for the poor and the unemployed from emergency legislation extending jobless benefits. It's not that we're heartless, they explained, it's just that the country can't afford it.

All of which raises the question of why the Blue Dogs couldn't muster the same fiscal discipline when it came to spending $22 billion over the next three years to guarantee that American doctors, who are far and away the best-paid in the world, don't suffer any significant declines in their incomes just because of a little thing like a recession or a government budget crisis.

Given the choice between protecting high-income docs and economically struggling patients, those courageous Blue Dogs sided with the docs.

(via Dean Baker)

Job Bill vs. Deficit by David Leonhardt

The case against the jobs bill starts with the idea that the economy is recovering. Since the recession’s nadir, in January 2009, the job market has improved at the most rapid pace since 1983. On Friday, forecasters expect the Labor Department to report that job growth continued to accelerate in May.

There is always the chance that the economy could slip back again. But the case for optimism seems stronger. Corporate executives are becoming more upbeat, surveys show. Business travel has picked up. Silicon Valley firms are doing more deals. Nissan broke ground last week on a car battery plant in Tennessee, and Chrysler is adding 1,100 jobs at a Jeep plant in Michigan.

...

Of course, even if the bill is not very expensive, it is worth passing only if it will make a difference. And economists say it will.

Last year’s big stimulus program certainly did. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 1.4 million to 3.4 million people now working would be unemployed were it not for the stimulus. Private economists have made similar estimates.

There are two arguments for more stimulus today. The first is that, however hopeful the economic signs, the risk of a double-dip recession remains. Financial crises often bring bumpy recoveries. The recent troubles in Europe surely won’t help.

The second argument is that the economy has a terribly long way to go before it can be considered healthy. Here is a sobering way to think about the situation: If the next four years were to bring job growth as fast as the job growth during the best four years of the 1990s boom -- which isn’t likely -- the unemployment rate would still be higher in 2014 than when the recession began in late 2007.

Voters may not like deficits, but they really do not like unemployment.

Leonhardt suggests doing both the job bill and more deficit reduction. The political question is how do you do deficit reduction.