You Care About The Deficit

Raising The Minimum Wage, As President Obama Proposed In His State Of The Union Address, Tends To Be More Popular With The General Public Than With Economists.

Many Of My Students Assume That Government Protection Is The Only Thing Ensuring Decent Wages For Most American Workers. But Basic Economics Shows That Competition Between Employers For Workers Can Be Very Effective At Preventing Businesses From Misbehaving.

If You Think About It, Candidate Obama, Sen. Obama, Was Running On Sort Of Long-run Economic Issues, Like Restoring Prosperity To The Middle Class, Dealing With The Perennial Problem Of Health Care In The United States. He Talked A Lot About The Budget Deficit, About The Need To Transition To Clean Energy.

If Increasing Income Equality Is The Goal, It Might Be Wiser To Put Money Into Infrastructure Than To Subsidize Manufacturing. Construction Also Pays Good Wages, But With Lower Educational Requirements. And America's Infrastructure Needs Are Enormous.

Cold-turkey Deficit Reduction Would Cause A Significant Recession. A Recent Analysis By The Congressional Budget Office Estimated That Going Headlong Over The Cliff Would Cause Our Gross Domestic Product, Which Has Been Growing At An Annual Rate Of Around 2 Percent, To Fall At A Rate Of 2.9 Percent In The First Half Of 2013.