3/31/2010

Is Barack Keynesian?

OBAMA is spending more and more and people are bent out of shape. You can find several articles that prove this. EXAMPLE. With all his stimulus packages it proves so.... The real question lingers in asking if he is spending more than other presidents and is he trying to fix other presidents mistakes? Another crucial point is can we fix debt with more debt?

4 comments:

Abigail said...

One article I read agreed that the use of Keynesian economics has been big for Obama. It goes on to say that if we don't start doing things differently, in particular using the economics of Laffer, our economy's future will be dismal. I don't necessarily agree with everything the article says, but I definitely think that things need to change.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/17/art-economics/

Victoria said...

In this article that I found says: “President Obama has proposed no long-run fiscal reforms, and like his predecessor seems to have a short-run Keynesian outlook.” According to this article, Obama is making a mistake with the current stimulus plan which is going to be ok in the short run, but it is going to bring more debt in the future for future generations, it is like the Swedish video says: “It is like peeing your pants” . I agree with this article, this plan is not going to make the population better in the long run, in fact is going to increase the debt, so why start it in the first place?

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9931

Jack said...

Abigail this is exactly my point!!! The media is talking so much about his spending that it seems like he is spending so much more than other presidents. in all actuality he is following the trends set by other presidents and is following "keynesian' traditions. Hey guys! Let's throw money at it!!! It needs to stop.

Dr. Tufte said...

-2 on Jack, for capitalization errors in the post and spelling errors in the comment.

I think it's wishful thinking to even view Obama's policies as Keynesian. Keynes at least had a theory.

Contemporary policies of both parties in the U.S., and most political parties elsewhere are labeled as Keynesian - usually pejoratively - but really aren't even close. They're worse.

Most of what passes for policy is in fact just tax and transfer schemes: social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on. Keynesianism is a philosophy of replacing business spending on capital with government spending on capital.

This is not at all what has been done by the Obama, Bush, and Clinton administrations.