Mr Ellis's List: Economy

• But even the presumption that there's a discrepancy between popular targeted spending programs and deficit reduction is false.
• Returning the wealthiest Americans to Clinton-era tax rates while boosting demand to fuel eocnomic recovery isn't at odds with reducing the deficit. That's how we'll reduce the deficit.
• That journalists at the supposedly "liberal" New York Times have so internalized false conservative memes on macroeconomics that they present an Alice-in-Wonderland case against targeted taxes and spending as matter-of-fact apathy about the deficit is nothing short of terrifying.

1 more annotation...

• I get a little bored repeating over and over that our short-term deficit is almost entirely not Barack Obama's fault. It's mostly the fault of the Bush tax cuts, the Bush wars, and the financial collapse that happened during the Bush presidency. At this point, though, this is more in the nature of a religious debate than a factual one, and conservatives are going to keep repeating the same tired disinformation about the deficit regardless of any evidence one way or the other.
• As you can see, by 2013 or so, virtually the entire deficit is due to Bush-era policies/disasters. So cut this out and post it on your refrigerator.

1 more annotation...