Posts Tagged ‘Michael Shear’

The Election Lesson: Hoover Was Right!

Friday, November 6th, 2009

The Washington Post reported (11/5/09) that some Democrats are "questioning whether they should emphasize job creation over some of the more ambitious items on the president's agenda." A couple paragraphs later, reporters Michael Shear and Paul Kane elaborate:

Moderate and conservative Democrats took a clear signal from Tuesday's voting, warning that the results prove that independent voters are wary of Obama's far-reaching proposals and mounting spending, as well as the growing federal debt.

The implication that "job creation" is somehow at odds with "mounting spending" and "ambitious" or "far-reaching" government proposals is a another example of the neo-Hooverism that corporate reporters seem to instinctively subscribe to. In reality, spending money is one of the basic tools governments have for creating jobs during a recession--and cutting government spending is one of the surest ways to make that recession deeper.

It's worth noting that none of the sources actually quoted in the article makes the case that cutting federal spending would be a good way of creating jobs.