January 20, 2017: Deficit Spending Suddenly Acceptable

Click here for an article in The Washington Post, by , entitled "How Obama’s unaffordable socialism could become Trump’s smart conservatism."

Obama's stimulus plan in 2009 would have done more to dig the country out of the economic hole that Bush dug if it had been twice as big. According to the Republican congress, of course, the deficit and the national debt were the biggest emergencies facing the country. And Obama has been pushing for five years for a big infrastructure program; Republicans have blocked it at every turn.

Suddenly, though, on Inauguration Day, the Republicans will come to the conclusion that the country's infrastructure is in terrible shape and needs a lot of work; a big construction program will put a lot of people to work, people who will then be paying taxes and spending their money on local goods and services; and it makes a lot of sense to borrow now for such a program, while interest rates are at historical lows. (Actually they're rising somewhat just recently; they were better during the years Obama was trying to make that point.) But Inauguration Day will arrive, and with it a new attitude by the Republicans:

For the last 35 years, Republicans haven't worried about deficits when they've been in power—in fact, former vice president Dick Cheney said that “Reagan proved” they “don't matter"—and treated them like the greatest threat to the republic when they've been out of it. So the fact that this would add a lot of red ink wouldn't be a dealbreaker. Republicans are going to resume not caring about the deficit the moment the calendar flips to Jan. 20, 2017.

And like that, rebuilding our roads, bridges, schools, airports, water systems, and electrical grids will go from being Obama’s unaffordable socialism to Trump's prudent conservatism.

So will the Democrats step up and cooperate with the Republicans on a trillion-dollar infrastructure program? You might think so, but maybe not:

Trump, you see, doesn’t want the government to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure. Instead, he wants the government to give corporations $187 billion worth of tax breaks to try to get them to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure. The problem with that, as former Obama and Clinton official Ronald Klain points out, is that there’s no guarantee these tax breaks would get companies to build infrastructure they weren’t already going to build, and no way to get them to build infrastructure where it’s needed the most but isn’t the most profitable. Places like Flint, Mich., where lead-free water pipes are a necessity people might not be able to afford if a utility boosted their rates even more.

In other words, Trump's plan might mostly help rich investors make money off infrastructure, and rich communities get infrastructure they were already going to.