Digby posted a letter from the Institute for America's Future, signed by 300 leading economists, urging the federal government to continue spending until we're out of the woods. The meat:
Today there is a grave danger that the still-fragile economic recovery will be undercut by austerity economics. A turn by major governments away from the promotion of growth and jobs and to premature focus on deficit reduction could slow growth and increase unemployment – and could push us back into recession.
History suggests that a tenuous recovery is no time to practice austerity. In the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal generated growth and reduced the unemployment rate from 25 percent in 1932 to less than 10 percent in 1937. However, the deficit hawks of that era persuaded President Roosevelt to reverse course prematurely and move toward budget balance. The result was a severe recession that caused the economy to contract sharply and sent the unemployment rate soaring. Only the much larger wartime spending of the early 1940s produced a full recovery.
There they go again. Using history and facts to prove a point. How quaint.
If the Republicans manage to take the House, spending will stop. Immediately. All of it. And, naturally, that's been the idea all along -- to sabotage the economy and therefore the Obama presidency. For now, without a majority, they're not entirely effective. But November could ignite a psychobomb that blows the whole recovery to smithereens.