In a Bloomberg article, “Skyrocketing Deficits? So What, Says New Washington Consensus” the Editor writes:
“With its plaintive call for balanced budgets, the fiscal hawk once pervaded Washington. But it’s getting harder to spot one.
That’s because of President Donald Trump, and the equal-and-opposite reaction he’s provoked on the U.S. left.
Trump is proving as indifferent to fiscal orthodoxy as to any other kind. The spending measure he signed on Friday, (September 2018) along with the one approved in March (2018) and December’s tax bill (2017), amount to the biggest stimulus outside recessions since the 1960s. They sailed through a House led by the supposedly hawkish Paul Ryan, who’s due to step down in January without much progress on his goal of reining in so-called entitlements like social security — an illustration of how Republican deficit scolds are in retreat.
On the Democratic side, the reaction that’s firing up the grassroots isn’t “How could you do that?’’ It’s: “Why can’t we do that?’’
The article says, “In both parties, deficit spenders are gaining ground” and, “The deficit is outrunning forecasts by The Congressional Budget Office, which estimated in April (2018) the gap would approach $1 trillion next year.
It concludes with the “No Worries” argument of the Modern Monetary Theory. MMT doesn’t argue that deficits never matter, but that the US – as the monopoly creator of dollars – isn’t at risk of being forced to default on its debt.
Yikes – All the seasoned Elected Politicians left the room since they would tell their younger colleagues – there is no free lunch!