A Better Economic Story
The White House’s newly released budget proposal for FY 2023 has a lot to commend.
Major investments in education, public health, and housing, among other long-underfunded areas.
Significant stock buyback restrictions, “critical building blocks to steer the economy toward prioritizing what really matters,” as Roosevelt’s Niko Lusiani said in a statement.
And a billionaire minimum income tax that would have represented a leap forward in progressive taxation (though defeat is all but assured after Sen. Joe Manchin’s latest position).
But what the White House got wrong: emphasizing deficit reduction in its rollout and reinforcing falsehoods that have inflicted job loss and economic harm in past recoveries.
“The flawed logic of ‘fiscal responsibility = reduced deficits’ is what led deficit hawks—including leading Democrats—to hamper our recovery from the Great Recession,” Roosevelt President and CEO Felicia Wong tweeted.
“It doesn’t speak to voters' concerns about jobs, the economy, and the high cost of living. And it comes at the expense of many far more effective ways to tell the story of today’s economy,” she wrote.
“A better story: emphasize public investment for jobs—good jobs numbers today, again.”
Read more of Wong’s analysis.
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