The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.
By Eric Alterman, The Nation
Posted on September 5, 2011, Printed on September 6, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152301/why_are_politicians_running_from_economic_reality_into_tea_party_fantasy_land
In 2008 America elected as its president not only an African-American but an unapologetic Keynesian. In his inaugural address Barack Obama declared, “The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift. And we will act not only to create new jobs but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.”
The stimulus package that followed -- while disappointing in many respects (and based on a far rosier view of economic conditions than turned out to be justified) -- was nevertheless defended in explicitly Keynesian terminology. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act injected $814 billion into the economy. As Obama described it, the stimulus was “the largest investment in research and development in our history, the largest investment in infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower, the largest investment in education…in this country in thirty years” and “the largest investment in clean energy in our history.”
Return to Article