Joseph Stiglitz: The Seven Deadly Deficits: What the Bush Years Really Cost Us

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



The Seven Deadly Deficits: What the Bush Years Really Cost Us

By Joseph Stiglitz, Mother Jones. Posted December 22, 2008.

And how President Obama can get the economy back on track.



When President George W. Bush assumed office, most of those disgruntled about the stolen election contented themselves with this thought: Given our system of checks and balances, given the gridlock in Washington, how much damage could be done? Now we know: far more than the worst pessimists could have imagined. From the war in Iraq to the collapse of the credit markets, the financial losses are difficult to fathom. And behind those losses lie even greater missed opportunities.

Put it all together -- the money squandered on the war, the money wasted on a housing pyramid scheme that impoverished the nation and enriched a few, and the money lost because of the recession -- and the gap between what we could have produced and what we did produce will easily exceed $1.5 trillion. Think what that kind of money could have done to provide health care for the uninsured, to improve our education system, to build green technology ... The list is endless.

And the true cost of our missed opportunities is likely even greater. Consider the war: First there are the funds directly allocated to it by the government (an estimated $12 billion a month even according to the misleading accounting of the Bush administration). Much larger, as the Kennedy School's Linda Bilmes and I documented in The Three Trillion Dollar War, are the indirect costs: the salaries not earned by those wounded or killed, the economic activity displaced (from, say, spending on American hospitals to spending on Nepalese security contractors). Such social and macroeconomic factors may account for more than $2 trillion of the war's overall cost.

There is a silver lining in these clouds. If we can pull ourselves out of the malaise, if we can think more carefully and less ideologically about how to make our economy stronger and our society better, perhaps we can make progress in addressing some of our long-festering problems. As a road map for where to begin, consider the seven major shortfalls the Bush administration leaves behind. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/113093/the_seven_deadly_deficits%3A_what_the_bush_years_really_cost_us/

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Excellent piece, but I think the National Debt will end up above $9.5 trillion.

[originalpckelly]

2. Bush raised taxes, because he didn't cut spending...

we'll all have to pay interest on the debt.

[Fumesucker]

3. No, bushie raised *borrowing*

Because he increased spending dramatically and cut taxes in the same manner.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Opportunity Cost

Put it all together -- the money squandered on the war, the money wasted on a housing pyramid scheme that impoverished the nation and enriched a few, and the money lost because of the recession -- and the gap between what we could have produced and what we did produce will easily exceed $1.5 trillion. Think what that kind of money could have done to provide health care for the uninsured, to improve our education system, to build green technology ... The list is endless.

This is why all those who advocated compromising with Bush and who applauded and aided robber baron capitalism in the usual "moderate" and "centrist" fashion are never coming off my shit list. It's not just the hurt we're feeling now that matters. The kinds of changes Stiglitz enumerates above--broadening healthcare programs, educational reform, development of cleaner energy sources-- are improvements that pay dividends to society, making it more prosperous and productive. Those were all items in the catalog so to speak when we chose, instead, to buy in to Reaganomics and Bush family foreign policy. War and pyramid schemes subtract, they're a dead loss. Over and over again in history such malinvestments have proved to lead to catastrophic social loss (albeit with tremendous wealth generated for a handful of insiders). But our pragmatic middle of the roaders couldn't buy in fast enough. They were throwing away the potential for a great future right alongside of the main perpetrators.