Original Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fi-hiltzik5-2009feb05,0,3254037.column
By Michael Hiltzik
What in heaven's name does Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have against honeybees?
That question haunted my days after I saw the Kentucky Republican on TV fulminating about a provision he found in the proposed government stimulus package. The provision, he said, would provide $150 million for "honeybee insurance."
"This is nonsense," he said, as if he took it personally. You had to think he got stung as a kid or maybe caught a local swarm in the act of recruiting aphids for Al Qaeda.
So I resolved to get to the bottom of this scandalous expenditure.
But first, a little background.
McConnell's Sunday appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" was part of a full-scale GOP assault on the Obama administration's stimulus bill, which was passed last week by the House with zero Republican support. The package is being debated this week in the Senate. The GOP, as I write, is thinking about a filibuster.
Yet the Republicans seem to have trouble coming up with more than irrelevant or trivial arguments. Appearing on ABC on Sunday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), for instance, owned up to calling the stimulus plan the "worst plan since the 16th Amendment paved the way for the income tax."
Because the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, this rather dated DeMint's mind-set. In any event, he didn't offer a proposal on how to fund the government, including his paycheck, without an income tax. He just complained that the stimulus plan involved a lot of spending. He would prefer that it all be in tax cuts,apparently on the grounds that the tax cuts enacted under the Bush administration in 2001 bequeathed to us an economy that has performed so well.
On NBC, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), said she wanted the bill to have more spending on infrastructure, but she wanted it to be on military infrastructure, even though much of that winds up as scrap metal in Iraq and Afghanistan, not bridges and schoolhouses in the United States.
She said she would strip from the bill all the "social spending that is not going to create jobs," but when pressed by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), her on-air debating partner, she agreed to preserve some social spending, such as unemployment benefits. The effect of this exchange was to leave Hutchison sounding as though she made up her position as she went along.
Very little of these discussions addressed the principle underlying the stimulus bill. The idea is that when the private sector withdraws from the economy by cutting back on capital spending and laying off workers, it is up to the government to take up the slack, if necessary via deficit spending.
This isn't radical thinking. It's endorsed by, among others, Martin Feldstein, who was Ronald Reagan's chief economic advisor and is consistently voted by his peers as the Economist Least Likely to be Mistaken for a Democrat. Feldstein opposes most of the tax cuts favored by the GOP, especially business tax cuts. To be fair, he isn't entirely enamored of President Obama's proposal -- he thinks it should spend more on programs that will produce more short-term employment and less on open-ended programs.
Yet the plan before the Senate includes hundreds of billions of dollars in near-term programs and projects. There's $90 billion for school construction and renovation and educational grants and $79 billion for state educational programs, most of which would be spent within two years. Of the $27 billion for highway construction, most would be spent within four years.
The bill also appropriates billions for the kind of forward-looking projects we've neglected during the last two decades, such as broadband infrastructure, water and anti-pollution programs, and alternative energy research, which will produce long-term economic benefits for the entire country.
Is it possible to slip pork into a bill this massive? Well, duh. But pork is often in the eye of the beholder. House Republicans this week released a list of $19 billion in provisions they called "wasteful" (i.e., 2% of the total package). But the list includes numerous projects that many Americans would support and that would plainly stimulate our limping construction and manufacturing sectors. For example, the purchase of new computers and vehicles for federal agencies, the building of fire stations and other public facilities, and the upgrade of rail lines.
Is this the best the GOP can come up with? Or are Republicans just determined to undermine the recovery effort? It's hard to disagree with Obama's complaint that "modest differences" over the package are being inflated to stall the whole program.
That brings us to McConnell and his problem with "honeybee insurance." It turns out that the Senate minority leader took his cue from Neil Cavuto of Fox News, who has been carrying on about the topic for more than a week. Their campaign was joined Tuesday by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who stood on the floor of the chamber challenging "any member to come and explain what that provision was."
I'm no senator, but I'm pleased to inform Vitter that it is, in fact, a disaster insurance program for all livestock producers. Beekeepers obviously would be minor beneficiaries next to, say, cattle ranchers, so it's a tad bit dishonest to label the whole program "honeybee insurance."
The provision simply continues a program enacted by Congress last year, overriding a veto by President Bush. In other words, the Senate voted on it twice in 2008 -- once to enact and once to override. Connoisseurs of political comedy will see the punch line coming: McConnell and Vitter voted yea both times.
So it turns out that McConnell isn't really against honeybees. He's only using them to pretend that he's got a principled objection to a stimulus plan aimed at pulling the country out of the most severe recession in decades.
The honeybees, and the rest of us, are merely collateral damage.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
On the Edge
Original Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06krugman.html
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.
It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.
Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.
It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world.
Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans. Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners.
Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall.
It’s no wonder, then, that most economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. Some private analysts predict double-digit unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office is slightly more sanguine, but its director, nonetheless, recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy ... the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.”
Worst of all is the possibility that the economy will, as it did in the ’30s, end up stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap.
We’re already closer to outright deflation than at any point since the Great Depression. In particular, the private sector is experiencing widespread wage cuts for the first time since the 1930s, and there will be much more of that if the economy continues to weaken.
As the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out almost 80 years ago, deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on.
And deflationary traps can go on for a long time. Japan experienced a “lost decade” of deflation and stagnation in the 1990s — and the only thing that let Japan escape from its trap was a global boom that boosted the nation’s exports. Who will rescue America from a similar trap now that the whole world is slumping at the same time?
Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.
So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.
It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.
It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.
Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.
It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world.
Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving — a good thing in the long run, but a huge blow to the economy right now. Developers of commercial real estate, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, are slashing their investment plans. Businesses are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. And exports, which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the past couple of years, are now plunging as the financial crisis hits our trading partners.
Meanwhile, our main line of defense against recessions — the Federal Reserve’s usual ability to support the economy by cutting interest rates — has already been overrun. The Fed has cut the rates it controls basically to zero, yet the economy is still in free fall.
It’s no wonder, then, that most economic forecasts warn that in the absence of government action we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump. Some private analysts predict double-digit unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office is slightly more sanguine, but its director, nonetheless, recently warned that “absent a change in fiscal policy ... the shortfall in the nation’s output relative to potential levels will be the largest — in duration and depth — since the Depression of the 1930s.”
Worst of all is the possibility that the economy will, as it did in the ’30s, end up stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap.
We’re already closer to outright deflation than at any point since the Great Depression. In particular, the private sector is experiencing widespread wage cuts for the first time since the 1930s, and there will be much more of that if the economy continues to weaken.
As the great American economist Irving Fisher pointed out almost 80 years ago, deflation, once started, tends to feed on itself. As dollar incomes fall in the face of a depressed economy, the burden of debt becomes harder to bear, while the expectation of further price declines discourages investment spending. These effects of deflation depress the economy further, which leads to more deflation, and so on.
And deflationary traps can go on for a long time. Japan experienced a “lost decade” of deflation and stagnation in the 1990s — and the only thing that let Japan escape from its trap was a global boom that boosted the nation’s exports. Who will rescue America from a similar trap now that the whole world is slumping at the same time?
Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.
So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.
It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Pentagon increases spending on public relations, raising concern about propaganda
Original Link: http://www.startribune.com/nation/39161127.html
By CHRIS TOMLINSON
As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls "the human terrain" of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law.
An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.
This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department.
"We have such a massive apparatus selling the military to us, it has become hard to ask questions about whether this is too much money or if it's bloated," says Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, which tracks the military's media operations. "As the war has become less popular, they have felt they need to respond to that more."
Yet the money spent on media and outreach still comes to only 1 percent of the Pentagon budget, and the military argues it is well-spent on recruitment and the education of foreign and American audiences. Military leaders say that at a time when extremist groups run Web sites and distribute video, information is as important a weapon as tanks and guns.
By CHRIS TOMLINSON
As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically increasing the money it spends to win what it calls "the human terrain" of world public opinion. In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in violation of federal law.
An Associated Press investigation found that over the past five years, the money the military spends on winning hearts and minds at home and abroad has grown by 63 percent, to at least $4.7 billion this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. That's almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.
This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations — almost as many as the total 30,000-person work force in the State Department.
"We have such a massive apparatus selling the military to us, it has become hard to ask questions about whether this is too much money or if it's bloated," says Sheldon Rampton, research director for the Committee on Media and Democracy, which tracks the military's media operations. "As the war has become less popular, they have felt they need to respond to that more."
Yet the money spent on media and outreach still comes to only 1 percent of the Pentagon budget, and the military argues it is well-spent on recruitment and the education of foreign and American audiences. Military leaders say that at a time when extremist groups run Web sites and distribute video, information is as important a weapon as tanks and guns.
Hawks Urge Boosting Military Spending
Original Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45676
By Jim Lobe
Despite a shrinking national economy and a record defence budget, U.S. neo-conservatives and other right-wing hawks are mounting a spirited - if misleading - campaign to persuade Congress that the military should get a bigger slice.
They are calling on Congress and President Barack Obama to boost military spending next year even beyond the projections made by the administration of former President George W. Bush as to what would be needed.
They are also arguing for devoting tens of billions of dollars of the nearly one-trillion-dollar economic stimulus package that Obama is trying to push through Congress by mid-February to defence spending, insisting that increased orders from largely U.S.-based military contractors should translate quickly into more jobs at a time when official unemployment rate is moving quickly toward two digits.
"These kinds of expenditures not only make economic good sense, but would help close the large and long-standing gap between U.S. strategy and military resources," wrote Tom Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a predominantly neo-conservative think tank, last month.
"If bridges need fixing, so too do the tools with which our military fights," he argued, adding that Congress should increase defence spending by at least 20 billion dollars a year. "A critical element in any recovery will be strengthening the foundations of a global economy, built upon U.S. worldwide security guarantees."
The campaign, which coincides with increased spending by major defence contractors for lobbying activities, comes at a critical moment for the new administration, which is focused more on getting the stimulus package passed quickly than on its precise content and on getting its key appointees confirmed and in place in the sprawling bureaucracies that make up the government.
The administration is also still putting together its fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget and is not expected to release details until next month, less than seven months before the fiscal year begins.
For now, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is insisting that the Pentagon's budget's be set at 527 billion dollars for next year, consistent with the Bush administration's estimates as to its needs for FY 2010, an eight percent increase over the current year's military budget.
That amount, which does not include the roughly 170 billion dollars Washington is spending this year on ongoing military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in what the Bush administration called the "global war on terror", already makes up more than 40 percent of the world's total military expenditures.
But, as pointed out this week by the influential Congressional Quarterly, the Pentagon's bureaucracy and hawks in think tanks and Congress are insisting that OMB's request actually amounts to a 10-percent cut in a 584-billion-dollar recommendation submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff last fall in an apparent attempt to pressure the incoming president into a major increase.
On Jan. 30, the far-right broadcast outlet, Fox News, quoted what it called a senior Defence official as saying that the administration was demanding a 55-billion-dollar cut in defence spending.
At that point, other voices jumped in. Max Boot, a neo-conservative military analyst at the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), asserted that Pentagon chief Robert Gates had opposed the OMB's ceiling and warned that if Obama did not overrule it, "he could be doing terrible damage not only to our armed forces but also to his carefully cultivated image of moderation."
The following day, Robert Kagan, a leading neo-conservative ideologue at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joined the outcry in his monthly column in the Washington Post, offering five reasons why "a ten percent cut in defense spending" could have disastrous geo-political implications by signaling to U.S. enemies that "the American retreat has begun".
"At a time when people talk of trillion-dollar stimulus packages, cutting 10 percent from the defense budget is a pittance, especially given the high price we will pay in America's global position," he wrote. "...(T)his is not the time to start weakening the armed forces."
"It's pretty remarkable," said William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation (NAF). "Obama agrees to Bush's (defence budget) increase, and the neo-cons are running around saying, 'Oh, he's gutting the military'."
Hartung and other defence analysts see this latest manoeuvre as part of a larger campaign by the Pentagon bureaucracy and the defence industry, which anticipated growing pressure on the defence budget even before the outbreak of the current financial crisis in September, to protect their interests even at a time when the Pentagon's political leadership recognises that huge increases in military spending they enjoyed during the Bush era are not sustainable.
Overall, military spending increased by about 60 percent since Bush took office in 2001, not including the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In addition to the apparent disinformation about the alleged "cut" in defence spending, the Pentagon's allies in the media have been pushing hard for increased military spending to be made a part of the stimulus package.
That campaign was launched in late December when Martin Feldstein, former President Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser and an AEI fellow, argued in the Wall Street Journal for at least 30 billion dollars to expand military procurement, research, and recruitment. Such an expansion could create some 330,000 jobs, he estimated in an article entitled "Defense Spending Would Be Great Stimulus".
"Military procurement has the further advantage that almost all of the equipment and supplies that the military buys is made in the United States..." he noted. "...Because of the current very high and rising unemployment rates among young men and women," he added, "...now is also a good time for the military to increase recruiting and training."
Frank Gaffney, Jr., president of the far-right Centre for Security Policy (CSP), quickly echoed that message in his weekly Washington Times column. "I have long believed it is mistake to use the defense budget as a jobs program. We should buy military hardware because it is needed for our security, not to boost employment," he wrote.
"That said, where increased employment follows from making necessary investments in our armed forces' capabilities to fight today's wars - and, no less important, tomorrow's - it would be absurd not to include the Pentagon in an economic stimulus package."
Meanwhile, the major military contractors have stepped up their lobbying efforts. According to the Wall Street Journal, three of the biggest companies - Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and Northrop-Grunman - boosted their multi-million-dollar lobbying budgets by between 54 percent and 90 percent beginning in 2008 as it became clear that the Bush spending binge was nearing an end.
According to Hartung and other Pentagon critics, now is the critical moment for a reformist administration to begin cutting the defence budget, notably by canceling expensive conventional-weapons systems, such as the F-22 fighter jets and the V-22 Osprey aircraft that have proved both hugely expensive and of dubious utility.
"They have a chance to stop the train and start moving back in the right direction," he told IPS. "If they don't take it now, it'll just get harder down the road."
"The problem they're not getting huge public pressure to cut, whereas they are getting a lot of pressure to spend more," he said.
By Jim Lobe
Despite a shrinking national economy and a record defence budget, U.S. neo-conservatives and other right-wing hawks are mounting a spirited - if misleading - campaign to persuade Congress that the military should get a bigger slice.
They are calling on Congress and President Barack Obama to boost military spending next year even beyond the projections made by the administration of former President George W. Bush as to what would be needed.
They are also arguing for devoting tens of billions of dollars of the nearly one-trillion-dollar economic stimulus package that Obama is trying to push through Congress by mid-February to defence spending, insisting that increased orders from largely U.S.-based military contractors should translate quickly into more jobs at a time when official unemployment rate is moving quickly toward two digits.
"These kinds of expenditures not only make economic good sense, but would help close the large and long-standing gap between U.S. strategy and military resources," wrote Tom Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a predominantly neo-conservative think tank, last month.
"If bridges need fixing, so too do the tools with which our military fights," he argued, adding that Congress should increase defence spending by at least 20 billion dollars a year. "A critical element in any recovery will be strengthening the foundations of a global economy, built upon U.S. worldwide security guarantees."
The campaign, which coincides with increased spending by major defence contractors for lobbying activities, comes at a critical moment for the new administration, which is focused more on getting the stimulus package passed quickly than on its precise content and on getting its key appointees confirmed and in place in the sprawling bureaucracies that make up the government.
The administration is also still putting together its fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget and is not expected to release details until next month, less than seven months before the fiscal year begins.
For now, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is insisting that the Pentagon's budget's be set at 527 billion dollars for next year, consistent with the Bush administration's estimates as to its needs for FY 2010, an eight percent increase over the current year's military budget.
That amount, which does not include the roughly 170 billion dollars Washington is spending this year on ongoing military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in what the Bush administration called the "global war on terror", already makes up more than 40 percent of the world's total military expenditures.
But, as pointed out this week by the influential Congressional Quarterly, the Pentagon's bureaucracy and hawks in think tanks and Congress are insisting that OMB's request actually amounts to a 10-percent cut in a 584-billion-dollar recommendation submitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff last fall in an apparent attempt to pressure the incoming president into a major increase.
On Jan. 30, the far-right broadcast outlet, Fox News, quoted what it called a senior Defence official as saying that the administration was demanding a 55-billion-dollar cut in defence spending.
At that point, other voices jumped in. Max Boot, a neo-conservative military analyst at the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), asserted that Pentagon chief Robert Gates had opposed the OMB's ceiling and warned that if Obama did not overrule it, "he could be doing terrible damage not only to our armed forces but also to his carefully cultivated image of moderation."
The following day, Robert Kagan, a leading neo-conservative ideologue at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, joined the outcry in his monthly column in the Washington Post, offering five reasons why "a ten percent cut in defense spending" could have disastrous geo-political implications by signaling to U.S. enemies that "the American retreat has begun".
"At a time when people talk of trillion-dollar stimulus packages, cutting 10 percent from the defense budget is a pittance, especially given the high price we will pay in America's global position," he wrote. "...(T)his is not the time to start weakening the armed forces."
"It's pretty remarkable," said William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation (NAF). "Obama agrees to Bush's (defence budget) increase, and the neo-cons are running around saying, 'Oh, he's gutting the military'."
Hartung and other defence analysts see this latest manoeuvre as part of a larger campaign by the Pentagon bureaucracy and the defence industry, which anticipated growing pressure on the defence budget even before the outbreak of the current financial crisis in September, to protect their interests even at a time when the Pentagon's political leadership recognises that huge increases in military spending they enjoyed during the Bush era are not sustainable.
Overall, military spending increased by about 60 percent since Bush took office in 2001, not including the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In addition to the apparent disinformation about the alleged "cut" in defence spending, the Pentagon's allies in the media have been pushing hard for increased military spending to be made a part of the stimulus package.
That campaign was launched in late December when Martin Feldstein, former President Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser and an AEI fellow, argued in the Wall Street Journal for at least 30 billion dollars to expand military procurement, research, and recruitment. Such an expansion could create some 330,000 jobs, he estimated in an article entitled "Defense Spending Would Be Great Stimulus".
"Military procurement has the further advantage that almost all of the equipment and supplies that the military buys is made in the United States..." he noted. "...Because of the current very high and rising unemployment rates among young men and women," he added, "...now is also a good time for the military to increase recruiting and training."
Frank Gaffney, Jr., president of the far-right Centre for Security Policy (CSP), quickly echoed that message in his weekly Washington Times column. "I have long believed it is mistake to use the defense budget as a jobs program. We should buy military hardware because it is needed for our security, not to boost employment," he wrote.
"That said, where increased employment follows from making necessary investments in our armed forces' capabilities to fight today's wars - and, no less important, tomorrow's - it would be absurd not to include the Pentagon in an economic stimulus package."
Meanwhile, the major military contractors have stepped up their lobbying efforts. According to the Wall Street Journal, three of the biggest companies - Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and Northrop-Grunman - boosted their multi-million-dollar lobbying budgets by between 54 percent and 90 percent beginning in 2008 as it became clear that the Bush spending binge was nearing an end.
According to Hartung and other Pentagon critics, now is the critical moment for a reformist administration to begin cutting the defence budget, notably by canceling expensive conventional-weapons systems, such as the F-22 fighter jets and the V-22 Osprey aircraft that have proved both hugely expensive and of dubious utility.
"They have a chance to stop the train and start moving back in the right direction," he told IPS. "If they don't take it now, it'll just get harder down the road."
"The problem they're not getting huge public pressure to cut, whereas they are getting a lot of pressure to spend more," he said.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
More Weak Knee Problems at the Post on Stimulus
Original Link: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=02&year=2009&base_name=more_weak_knee_problems_at_the
By Dean Baker
The Washington Post again tells us that the stimulus is "staggering." Just a few days ago they told readers that it was "breathtaking in size and scope."
It might be helpful to tell readers that the collapse of the housing industry has lead to a $450 billion falloff in the pace of annual residential construction, the loss of $8 trillion in housing wealth will reduce annual consumption by around $450 billion, with the loss of $8 trillion in stock wealth leading to a further decline in annual consumption of $250 billion. In addition, the collapse of the non-residential real estate bubble will likely reduce annual demand by another $200 billion. This gives us a total decline in annual demand of around $1350 billion or $2,700 billion over two years.
Next to a demand loss of $2,700 billion, an $825 billion stimulus package seems rather small. The Post might try to look for reporters who are better at arithmetic and more sure in their footing.
By Dean Baker
The Washington Post again tells us that the stimulus is "staggering." Just a few days ago they told readers that it was "breathtaking in size and scope."
It might be helpful to tell readers that the collapse of the housing industry has lead to a $450 billion falloff in the pace of annual residential construction, the loss of $8 trillion in housing wealth will reduce annual consumption by around $450 billion, with the loss of $8 trillion in stock wealth leading to a further decline in annual consumption of $250 billion. In addition, the collapse of the non-residential real estate bubble will likely reduce annual demand by another $200 billion. This gives us a total decline in annual demand of around $1350 billion or $2,700 billion over two years.
Next to a demand loss of $2,700 billion, an $825 billion stimulus package seems rather small. The Post might try to look for reporters who are better at arithmetic and more sure in their footing.
The $10 Trillion Hangover - Paying the Price for Eight Years of Bush
Original Link: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/0082337
By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
"In the eight years since George W. Bush took office, nearly every component of the U.S. economy has deteriorated. The nation’s budget deficits, trade deficits, and debt have reached record levels. Unemployment and inflation are up, and household savings are down. Nearly 4 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared and, not coincidentally, 5 million more Americans have no health insurance. Consumer debt has almost doubled, and nearly one fifth of American homeowners are likely to owe more in mortgage debt than their homes are actually worth. Meanwhile, as we have reported previously, the final price for the war in Iraq is expected to reach at least $3 trillion.
As bad as things are, though, this is just the beginning. The Bush Administration not only has depressed the economy and racked up unprecedented debt; it also has made expensive new commitments to the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, to disability compensation and education benefits for veterans, to replenishing the military equipment consumed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simply to paying interest on the debt itself.
The president is not solely to blame for American profligacy, of course. Congress approved inequitable tax cuts and spending binges, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators, along with the mortgage industry and millions of consumers, share responsibility for the housing collapse. Nonetheless, the outgoing administration has made a series of unwise economic choices that together will add up to a burdensome legacy.
Using conservative assumptions, we calculate that the bill for Bush-era excess—the total new debt combined with the total new accrued obligations— amounts to $10.35 trillion. This legacy will have long-term consequences for America’s prosperity, but it also will weigh heavily and immediately on the Obama Administration, which will need to spend money fast to get the economy moving again."
Link: http://kelsocartography.com/blog?tag=linda-bilmes
The article has excellent exhibits/graphics showing: what drove the deficits; growing household and federal debts; National debt as a percentage of GDP from Truman to George W. Bush; major foreign lenders; and where the money went.
The $10.35 trillion bill consists of (in quotes):
"Increase in National Debt Debt has long been a fixture of American governance, of course, but—given the surplus President Bush inherited—even a conservative estimate of the Bush bill requires that we take into account the entirety at least of his addition to that debt. The Bush tax cuts lowered national revenues by about $1 trillion, even as the government spent nearly $900 billion in direct operations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and added another $600 billion to the total spending on “regular” defense, a significant proportion of which is indirectly related to those wars. And because interest accrues on the outstanding debt, interest charges also will rise. It should be noted as well that this increase does not take into account another factor: had Clinton-era policies been kept in place the past eight years, the CBO estimates, the overall national debt actually would have significantly decreased. Cost: $4.9 trillion
Projected Deficit for 2009 The rapidly weakening economy means that tax revenues will fall off, even as unemployment benefits and other government spending rise. Congress also is likely to approve a significantly larger stimulus package, possibly in excess of $300 billion, and more spending on the bailouts already undertaken, as well as new bailouts and subsidies for struggling sectors such as the auto industry. Moreover, even assuming that the United States begins to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, we expect that the war’s costs will remain steady at best in 2009, as functions are transferred to private contractors. We also expect that Congress will extend the temporary fix of the alternative minimum tax and will enact some form of additional homeowner mortgage relief. For all these reasons, next year’s budget deficit easily could rise to a trillion dollars, so our estimate is a bare minimum. Cost: $0.75 trillion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac When the federal government took over these failing residential mortgage giants, it also assumed their $5.4 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and outstanding debt. Under conventional accounting standards, this entire amount should be counted as part of the national debt. It is difficult to predict, however, how much exposure the United States has really taken on. We have included what is likely to be the minimum additional debt that the CBO adds on for these agencies, which is the $1.6 trillion in risky unsecured debt. The final cost, however, will depend on how far housing prices fall, and how many houses go into foreclosure, which presents the incoming administration with a significant dilemma: if it spends less on stimulus it will need to spend more on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Cost: $1.6 trillion
Debt from Other Bailouts Congress has already provided $700 billion in authority to purchase toxic mortgages and other assets through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. It also has committed another $800 billion to bailing out AIG, Bear Stearns, and other financial firms, and it most likely will extend this commitment to other core U.S. industries in the coming year. Although some of this cost will appear in the 2009 budget, much of it will not be accounted for until 2010 or later. Not all of the loans will go sour, so it is difficult to estimate the price tag on these programs. Cost: $0.5 trillion
Future Interest on New Debt The United States spends nearly $250 billion per year in net interest payments (interest paid on Treasury debt securities less interest received by the Social Security and other trust funds). The CBO projects that the net interest payable on the total debt will over the next decade exceed $3.35 trillion, of which about $1.5 trillion is directly attributable to the debt that we have taken on during the past eight years. Even this figure, however, understates the true amount of interest payable, because interest also will accrue on money that will need to be borrowed in the next ten years to pay for obligations incurred in the past eight years. Cost: $1.5 trillion
Medicare Part D The administration’s flagship prescription drug benefit program is expected to cost $800 billion over the next decade. It is possible, though, that the number will be larger. The program has been criticized because, unlike the department of Veterans Affairs, Medicare does not negotiate bulk price discounts with drug companies. In addition, the program coverage contains a “doughnut hole” whereby Part D stops paying for drugs after a senior receives prescriptions totaling $2,700, and doesn’t resume coverage until that senior has paid an additional $3,454 for drugs. Our estimate is based on the assumption that Congress will take steps to close the “doughnut hole” but also will take steps to encourage price negotiation with pharmaceutical companies. Cost: $0.8 trillion
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Entitlements For every U.S. serviceman or -woman killed in Iraq, fifteen more have been wounded, injured, or have contracted an illness serious enough to require medical evacuation. More than 350,000 U.S. veterans from the two wars have sought medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and nearly 300,000 have filed applications for disability benefits (more than 90 percent of which are likely to be approved). The cost of providing medical care and disability benefits may eventually exceed even the cost of combat operations, and over just the next decade, using the most optimistic assumptions, taking care of these veterans is going to cost at least $59 billion. The president also reluctantly signed into law a measure that restored education benefits for new veterans in an updated G.I. Bill, which we estimate will cost $40 billion over the next decade. Cost: $0.1 trillion
Rebuilding National Defense The armed forces have been severely depleted by the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, in terms of personnel, training, and equipment. While we urge spending reductions in some areas of defense (e.g., space-weapons programs and other projects with huge cost overruns), there is no doubt that the military will require a substantial expenditure to “reset” basic military strength. This includes the replenishment of aircraft, vehicles, and weaponry; restoring the National Guard to its previous strength; depreciation of equipment used or abandoned in Iraq; and the costs related to a partial withdrawal from Iraq, including the dismantling of some bases. In addition, the Pentagon will need to spend considerably more over the next decade on military hospitals, recruiting, and bonuses. Cost: $0.2 trillion
The worst legacy of the past eight years is that despite colossal government spending, most Americans are worse off than they were in 2001. This is because money was squandered in Iraq and given as a tax windfall to America’s richest individuals and corporations, rather than spent on such projects as education, infrastructure, and energy independence, which would have made all of us better off in the long term."
By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
"In the eight years since George W. Bush took office, nearly every component of the U.S. economy has deteriorated. The nation’s budget deficits, trade deficits, and debt have reached record levels. Unemployment and inflation are up, and household savings are down. Nearly 4 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared and, not coincidentally, 5 million more Americans have no health insurance. Consumer debt has almost doubled, and nearly one fifth of American homeowners are likely to owe more in mortgage debt than their homes are actually worth. Meanwhile, as we have reported previously, the final price for the war in Iraq is expected to reach at least $3 trillion.
As bad as things are, though, this is just the beginning. The Bush Administration not only has depressed the economy and racked up unprecedented debt; it also has made expensive new commitments to the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, to disability compensation and education benefits for veterans, to replenishing the military equipment consumed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simply to paying interest on the debt itself.
The president is not solely to blame for American profligacy, of course. Congress approved inequitable tax cuts and spending binges, and the Federal Reserve and other regulators, along with the mortgage industry and millions of consumers, share responsibility for the housing collapse. Nonetheless, the outgoing administration has made a series of unwise economic choices that together will add up to a burdensome legacy.
Using conservative assumptions, we calculate that the bill for Bush-era excess—the total new debt combined with the total new accrued obligations— amounts to $10.35 trillion. This legacy will have long-term consequences for America’s prosperity, but it also will weigh heavily and immediately on the Obama Administration, which will need to spend money fast to get the economy moving again."
Link: http://kelsocartography.com/blog?tag=linda-bilmes
The article has excellent exhibits/graphics showing: what drove the deficits; growing household and federal debts; National debt as a percentage of GDP from Truman to George W. Bush; major foreign lenders; and where the money went.
The $10.35 trillion bill consists of (in quotes):
"Increase in National Debt Debt has long been a fixture of American governance, of course, but—given the surplus President Bush inherited—even a conservative estimate of the Bush bill requires that we take into account the entirety at least of his addition to that debt. The Bush tax cuts lowered national revenues by about $1 trillion, even as the government spent nearly $900 billion in direct operations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and added another $600 billion to the total spending on “regular” defense, a significant proportion of which is indirectly related to those wars. And because interest accrues on the outstanding debt, interest charges also will rise. It should be noted as well that this increase does not take into account another factor: had Clinton-era policies been kept in place the past eight years, the CBO estimates, the overall national debt actually would have significantly decreased. Cost: $4.9 trillion
Projected Deficit for 2009 The rapidly weakening economy means that tax revenues will fall off, even as unemployment benefits and other government spending rise. Congress also is likely to approve a significantly larger stimulus package, possibly in excess of $300 billion, and more spending on the bailouts already undertaken, as well as new bailouts and subsidies for struggling sectors such as the auto industry. Moreover, even assuming that the United States begins to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, we expect that the war’s costs will remain steady at best in 2009, as functions are transferred to private contractors. We also expect that Congress will extend the temporary fix of the alternative minimum tax and will enact some form of additional homeowner mortgage relief. For all these reasons, next year’s budget deficit easily could rise to a trillion dollars, so our estimate is a bare minimum. Cost: $0.75 trillion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac When the federal government took over these failing residential mortgage giants, it also assumed their $5.4 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and outstanding debt. Under conventional accounting standards, this entire amount should be counted as part of the national debt. It is difficult to predict, however, how much exposure the United States has really taken on. We have included what is likely to be the minimum additional debt that the CBO adds on for these agencies, which is the $1.6 trillion in risky unsecured debt. The final cost, however, will depend on how far housing prices fall, and how many houses go into foreclosure, which presents the incoming administration with a significant dilemma: if it spends less on stimulus it will need to spend more on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Cost: $1.6 trillion
Debt from Other Bailouts Congress has already provided $700 billion in authority to purchase toxic mortgages and other assets through the Troubled Asset Relief Program. It also has committed another $800 billion to bailing out AIG, Bear Stearns, and other financial firms, and it most likely will extend this commitment to other core U.S. industries in the coming year. Although some of this cost will appear in the 2009 budget, much of it will not be accounted for until 2010 or later. Not all of the loans will go sour, so it is difficult to estimate the price tag on these programs. Cost: $0.5 trillion
Future Interest on New Debt The United States spends nearly $250 billion per year in net interest payments (interest paid on Treasury debt securities less interest received by the Social Security and other trust funds). The CBO projects that the net interest payable on the total debt will over the next decade exceed $3.35 trillion, of which about $1.5 trillion is directly attributable to the debt that we have taken on during the past eight years. Even this figure, however, understates the true amount of interest payable, because interest also will accrue on money that will need to be borrowed in the next ten years to pay for obligations incurred in the past eight years. Cost: $1.5 trillion
Medicare Part D The administration’s flagship prescription drug benefit program is expected to cost $800 billion over the next decade. It is possible, though, that the number will be larger. The program has been criticized because, unlike the department of Veterans Affairs, Medicare does not negotiate bulk price discounts with drug companies. In addition, the program coverage contains a “doughnut hole” whereby Part D stops paying for drugs after a senior receives prescriptions totaling $2,700, and doesn’t resume coverage until that senior has paid an additional $3,454 for drugs. Our estimate is based on the assumption that Congress will take steps to close the “doughnut hole” but also will take steps to encourage price negotiation with pharmaceutical companies. Cost: $0.8 trillion
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Entitlements For every U.S. serviceman or -woman killed in Iraq, fifteen more have been wounded, injured, or have contracted an illness serious enough to require medical evacuation. More than 350,000 U.S. veterans from the two wars have sought medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and nearly 300,000 have filed applications for disability benefits (more than 90 percent of which are likely to be approved). The cost of providing medical care and disability benefits may eventually exceed even the cost of combat operations, and over just the next decade, using the most optimistic assumptions, taking care of these veterans is going to cost at least $59 billion. The president also reluctantly signed into law a measure that restored education benefits for new veterans in an updated G.I. Bill, which we estimate will cost $40 billion over the next decade. Cost: $0.1 trillion
Rebuilding National Defense The armed forces have been severely depleted by the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, in terms of personnel, training, and equipment. While we urge spending reductions in some areas of defense (e.g., space-weapons programs and other projects with huge cost overruns), there is no doubt that the military will require a substantial expenditure to “reset” basic military strength. This includes the replenishment of aircraft, vehicles, and weaponry; restoring the National Guard to its previous strength; depreciation of equipment used or abandoned in Iraq; and the costs related to a partial withdrawal from Iraq, including the dismantling of some bases. In addition, the Pentagon will need to spend considerably more over the next decade on military hospitals, recruiting, and bonuses. Cost: $0.2 trillion
The worst legacy of the past eight years is that despite colossal government spending, most Americans are worse off than they were in 2001. This is because money was squandered in Iraq and given as a tax windfall to America’s richest individuals and corporations, rather than spent on such projects as education, infrastructure, and energy independence, which would have made all of us better off in the long term."
Health Care Now
Original Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/opinion/30krugman.html
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe — in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care.
Which raises a question: Why has the Obama administration been silent, at least so far, about one of President Obama’s key promises during last year’s campaign — the promise of guaranteed health care for all Americans?
Let’s talk about the magnitude of the looming health care disaster.
Just about all economic forecasts, including those of the Obama administration’s own economists, say that we’re in for a prolonged period of very high unemployment. And high unemployment means a sharp rise in the number of Americans without health insurance.
After the economy slumped at the beginning of this decade, five million people joined the ranks of the uninsured — and that was with the unemployment rate peaking at only 6.3 percent. This time the Obama administration says that even with its stimulus plan, unemployment will reach 8 percent, and that it will stay above 6 percent until 2012. Many independent forecasts are even more pessimistic.
Why, then, aren’t we hearing more about ensuring health care access?
Now, it’s possible that those of us who care about this issue are reading too much into the administration’s silence. But let me address three arguments that I suspect Mr. Obama is hearing against moving on health care, and explain why they’re wrong.
First, some people are arguing that a major expansion of health care access would just be too expensive right now, given the vast sums we’re about to spend trying to rescue the economy.
But research sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund shows that achieving universal coverage with a plan similar to Mr. Obama’s campaign proposals would add “only” about $104 billion to federal spending in 2010 — not a small sum, of course, but not large compared with, say, the tax cuts in the Obama stimulus plan.
It’s true that the cost of universal health care will be a continuing expense, reaching far into the future. But that has always been true, and Mr. Obama has always claimed that his health care plan was affordable. The temporary expenses of his stimulus plan shouldn’t change that calculation.
Second, some people in Mr. Obama’s circle may be arguing that health care reform isn’t a priority right now, in the face of economic crisis.
But helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus plan — and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis, ending one of the major sources of Americans’ current anxiety.
Finally — and this is, I suspect, the real reason for the administration’s health care silence — there’s the political argument that this is a bad time to be pushing fundamental health care reform, because the nation’s attention is focused on the economic crisis. But if history is any guide, this argument is precisely wrong.
Don’t take my word for it. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has declared that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Indeed. F.D.R. was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net. And the current crisis presents a real opportunity to fix the gaping holes that remain in that safety net, especially with regard to health care.
And Mr. Obama really, really doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of Bill Clinton, whose health care push failed politically partly because he moved too slowly: by the time his administration was ready to submit legislation, the economy was recovering from recession and the sense of urgency was fading.
One more thing. There’s a populist rage building in this country, as Americans see bankers getting huge bailouts while ordinary citizens suffer.
I agree with administration officials who argue that these financial bailouts are necessary (though I have problems with the specifics). But I also agree with Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who argues that — as a matter of political necessity as well as social justice — aid to bankers has to be linked to a strengthening of the social safety net, so that Americans can see that the government is ready to help everyone, not just the rich and powerful.
The bottom line, then, is that this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe — in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care.
Which raises a question: Why has the Obama administration been silent, at least so far, about one of President Obama’s key promises during last year’s campaign — the promise of guaranteed health care for all Americans?
Let’s talk about the magnitude of the looming health care disaster.
Just about all economic forecasts, including those of the Obama administration’s own economists, say that we’re in for a prolonged period of very high unemployment. And high unemployment means a sharp rise in the number of Americans without health insurance.
After the economy slumped at the beginning of this decade, five million people joined the ranks of the uninsured — and that was with the unemployment rate peaking at only 6.3 percent. This time the Obama administration says that even with its stimulus plan, unemployment will reach 8 percent, and that it will stay above 6 percent until 2012. Many independent forecasts are even more pessimistic.
Why, then, aren’t we hearing more about ensuring health care access?
Now, it’s possible that those of us who care about this issue are reading too much into the administration’s silence. But let me address three arguments that I suspect Mr. Obama is hearing against moving on health care, and explain why they’re wrong.
First, some people are arguing that a major expansion of health care access would just be too expensive right now, given the vast sums we’re about to spend trying to rescue the economy.
But research sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund shows that achieving universal coverage with a plan similar to Mr. Obama’s campaign proposals would add “only” about $104 billion to federal spending in 2010 — not a small sum, of course, but not large compared with, say, the tax cuts in the Obama stimulus plan.
It’s true that the cost of universal health care will be a continuing expense, reaching far into the future. But that has always been true, and Mr. Obama has always claimed that his health care plan was affordable. The temporary expenses of his stimulus plan shouldn’t change that calculation.
Second, some people in Mr. Obama’s circle may be arguing that health care reform isn’t a priority right now, in the face of economic crisis.
But helping families purchase health insurance as part of a universal coverage plan would be at least as effective a way of boosting the economy as the tax breaks that make up roughly a third of the stimulus plan — and it would have the added benefit of directly helping families get through the crisis, ending one of the major sources of Americans’ current anxiety.
Finally — and this is, I suspect, the real reason for the administration’s health care silence — there’s the political argument that this is a bad time to be pushing fundamental health care reform, because the nation’s attention is focused on the economic crisis. But if history is any guide, this argument is precisely wrong.
Don’t take my word for it. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, has declared that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Indeed. F.D.R. was able to enact Social Security in part because the Great Depression highlighted the need for a stronger social safety net. And the current crisis presents a real opportunity to fix the gaping holes that remain in that safety net, especially with regard to health care.
And Mr. Obama really, really doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes of Bill Clinton, whose health care push failed politically partly because he moved too slowly: by the time his administration was ready to submit legislation, the economy was recovering from recession and the sense of urgency was fading.
One more thing. There’s a populist rage building in this country, as Americans see bankers getting huge bailouts while ordinary citizens suffer.
I agree with administration officials who argue that these financial bailouts are necessary (though I have problems with the specifics). But I also agree with Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who argues that — as a matter of political necessity as well as social justice — aid to bankers has to be linked to a strengthening of the social safety net, so that Americans can see that the government is ready to help everyone, not just the rich and powerful.
The bottom line, then, is that this is no time to let campaign promises of guaranteed health care be quietly forgotten. It is, instead, a time to put the push for universal care front and center. Health care now!
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