Our public schools are inadequate, especially for kids whose families are in the bottom two-thirds – squeezing more than 30 of them into classrooms designed for 20, with threadbare textbooks, no science labs, no after-school programs. And our roads and public transportation systems are outmoded, suffering from decades of deferred maintenance and neglect, which also burdens the bottom two-thirds in particular since they rely on housing thats usually far away from where they work. So why aren’t we investing more in schools and infrastructure? Wed also be creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs at the same time -- jobs desperately needed by a record number of Americans who have given up looking for work. Conservatives say “we can’t afford it.” Baloney. (1) The deficit as percent of GDP falling, and will soon be close to the average over the last thirty years. (2) Both the deficit and debt as percent of GDP will fall even faster if we grow faster. (3) Growth depends in part on public investments in education and infrastructure, which enable all of our people to be more productive. (4) So it makes financial sense to borrow more to finance these investments. (5) We can also finance them by raising taxes on the wealthy, who are richer than they’ve ever been, and are now paying a smaller percent of their incomes and wealth in taxes than at any time in the last 85 years. The logic is clear. Why don’t they get it? Why aren’t our elected leaders making this case?
Posted on: Sun, 09 Feb 2014 16:50:47 +0000
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