After all, it would lead to sharply lower tax revenues and payments for disability would soar. CBO would have to add trillions of dollars to future deficit projections. Certainly this would be a fiscal crisis if ever there was one. If it applied the same standards to nuclear war as it did in its lead article today, such a war would be described as a fiscal crisis. The article begins by describing a day during Obama's transition in December of 2008. The article tells readers: "Obama was welcoming and upbeat, although later that day he would learn during a meeting with his economic advisers that the fiscal crisis was even worse than they had believed." Umm, what? The economy was losing 700,000 jobs a month. GDP was plummeting at a 6 percent annual rate. The entire financial system was teetering on collapse. What fiscal crisis are they talking about? The economy was on the edge of a collapse. If Obama had anyone on his staff who was wasting their time worrying about the deficit at the time, then the country is in really serious trouble.
--Dean Baker
