EPI analysis: Simpson-Bowles proposal would cost 4 million jobs

[Joanne98]

A new study of the Simpson-Bowles proposal--the precursor to the deficit commission's recommendations, should the panel come to agreement--by the Economic Policy Institute shows a major flaw of this proposal in this economy.

The recommendations issued by co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles would cost 4 million jobs over three years and reduce economic growth by 0.7 percent in 2012, 1.4 percent in 2013 and 1.9 percent in 2014, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

The Simpson-Bowles approach calls for job-killing budget austerity to begin in October 2011, even though most economic forecasters expect unemployment to remain as high as it is today or even increase by then....

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Simpson and Bowles “just told working Americans to “Drop Dead.”

Especially in these tough economic times, it is unconscionable to be proposing cuts to the critical economic lifelines for working people, Social Security and Medicare. Some people are saying this plan is just a “starting point.” Let me be clear, it is not.

In the EPI report, economists Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse note that because the Simpson and Bowles recommendations would reduce economic growth, they would end up lowering the deficit far less than Simpson and Bowles claim.

Bivens and Fieldhouse say the co-chairs’ proposal “threatens to increase the already unacceptably high level of unemployment and increases the possibility of the economy falling back into outright recession.”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/26/923140/-EPI-analysis:-Simpson-Bowles-proposal-would-cost-4-million-jobs

[Psephos]

1. How many jobs will national bankruptcy cost?

I don't know how best to stop the hemorrhaging, but I do know that continuing to borrow $5 billion each and every day will end badly.

[Vincardog]

3. You do understand that SSI adds NOTHING to the deficit?

[Psephos]

8. You're not referring to anything I said. n/t

[truedelphi]

5. Quickest way to end the hemorrhaging -

Stop the Damn Unending, Non Winnable Wars.

Cut back tremendously on "Homeland Security."

Reduce salaries to all Federal Agency employees -as the agencies work much harder at enforcing their endless provisions on small business while giving the Green Light to Big Business concerns. (Remember how the Deep Water Horizon Rig got MSS approval, almost over night?)

[Psephos]

9. Agreed. n/t

[NickB79]

2. Out of the frying pan, into the fire

"In the EPI report, economists Josh Bivens and Andrew Fieldhouse note that because the Simpson and Bowles recommendations would reduce economic growth, they would end up lowering the deficit far less than Simpson and Bowles claim."

Were they really so stupid as to not take into consideration the fact that cutting government spending would put millions of Americans out of work? Or, like rabid Teabaggers, did they just not consider government jobs to be "real" jobs?

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Their purpose is not to create jobs or for that matter

to help the American economy. Their purpose is to help squeeze the last dregs of personal wealth out of the Useless Eater class so that it may be absorbed by the Owner class all the more rapidly.

If viewed in this perspective, all their proposals make eminent sense.

[truedelphi]

6. Parallel functionality over the TSA matter.

The screening by high radiation scanners doesn't do squat about making us more secure, but does make us realize that we deserve to be treted like inferior serfs needing to constantly be obeisant to the "Master Class."

Nor does fingering some young woman's twat help out for security purposes. But again, it signals to us that we are only serfs who live "freely" only as long as the "Master Class" deems us as contributing enough to their Cause.

And of course, the money by the billion count goes off to the scanners' manufacturer.

Truth about the scanners irrelevance: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=529015&mesg_id=529015

[pa28]

7. delete

wrong place