[bapimporb]

How could laying off hundreds of thousands of people accomplish anything other than hurting the economy? The only thing it accomplishes is furthering the right-wing jihad against the U.S. government.

Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/business/artic...conomists_say/

The massive federal spending cuts that will follow the deficit reduction deal could further weaken a national economy that has been rapidly losing momentum, economists said.

While few forecast an imminent downturn, they said the withdrawal of hundreds of billions of federal dollars comes at a bad time. Over the past few months, hiring has ground almost to a halt, the unemployment rate has resumed an upward trend, and overall economic growth has been barely positive.

...

Stocks plunged yesterday on fears of a weakening economy, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing more than 265 points. It was the eighth consecutive day of declines, the longest losing streak since October 2008, during the financial crisis.

Persistently high unemployment above 9 percent and a fear of additional job losses also weigh heavily on consumers, who dramatically reined in their spending; between May and June, the nation’s savings rate rose from 5.0 to 5.4 percent. The weak economy, further hurt by a stagnating housing market, has raised concerns that the nation could slip into a second, or double-dip, recession.

...

Gary Richardson, an economist at the University of California at Irvine and a scholar of the era, said unemployment rates soared to 19 percent in the year after the Roosevelt administration raised taxes and cut government spending and contracts as a way to solve the country’s long-term deficit problem.

“Sadly in the last three days we have repeated the biggest policy mistake of the Roosevelt administration . . . cutting government expenditures in the midst of prolonged high unemployment,’’ he said. “It’s certainly not going to help the recovery.’’

[Lyikmcmb]

Study history or be doomed to repeat it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessi...7%E2%80%931938

By the spring of 1937, production, profits, and wages had regained their 1929 levels. Unemployment remained high, but it was considerably lower than the 25% rate seen in 1933. In June 1937, some of Roosevelt's advisors urged spending cuts to balance the budget. WPA rolls were drastically cut and PWA projects were slowed to a standstill.[3] The American economy took a sharp downturn in mid-1937, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production declined almost 30 per cent and production of durable goods fell even faster.

Unemployment jumped from 14.3% in 1937 to 19.0% in 1938, rising from 5 million to more than 12 million in early 1938.[4] Manufacturing output fell by 37% from the 1937 peak and was back to 1934 levels.[5] Producers reduced their expenditures on durable goods, and inventories declined, but personal income was only 15% lower than it had been at the peak in 1937. In most sectors, hourly earnings continued to rise throughout the recession, which partly compensated for the reduction in the number of hours worked. As unemployment rose, consumers' expenditures declined, leading to further cutbacks in production.

[JEWELMARGY]

There's a time and place for spending cuts and while i agree they need to be made, they need to be responsibly. The cold hard facts are in order to recover from this recession we are going to have to invest in this country. We've got to look at possibly raising taxes in order to dig ourselves out and once we have turned the ship around then we need to take a harder look at spending cuts.

Spending cuts now will equal more job losses.