Political Status Signaling

I suspect that most folks who think that “the deficit” is in some way “bad” are unable to convincingly articulate why that is so. Rather, they just go on about “out of control” spending and pat themselves on the back for being the only one serious enough to want to cut things people like.

I suspect that not only can they not articulate why debt is bad, they can’t explain why dealing with it is more important than doing whatever it is they want to cut. This is just the end game of the “starve the beast strategy”, its not exactly a secret.

But somehow, obsessing over debt has become a stand in for bipartisanship, civility, and responsibility, so its become quite popular. The result is that we don’t address the very real, very immediate problem of mass unemployment, in favor of addressing the very hypothetical, very long term problem of debt.

I know I sound like a broken record on this, but its really amazing that the “responsible” answer to a real problem is to ignore it in favor of political status signaling. What better way to show off your serious, centrist mindset than by engaging in beltway groupthink embracing Bowles Simpson?

I don’t think reducing deficits and debt is a bad long term goal at all, but not right now at the expense of reducing unemployment. I’m just really amazed by the tremendous quantity of people that worry about it, even though they can’t articulate why, because its what all the cool kids are doing.

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