letter to the editor

Democrats have the better tools

Mon, 10/12/2020 - 2:45pm

    Dear Editor:

    A few days ago I grabbed my camera, sporting an ultra-wide angle lens, to record the rainbow outside our house. Earlier, I used a telephoto to film a small hummingbird.

    We all try to use the right tool for the right job. The telephoto would fail to record the rainbow just as the ultra-wide angle would hardly catch a hummingbird.

    This came to mind today as I reviewed events of the Great Recession of 2007-2010. The US economy recovered slowly, hampered by government austerity, especially the GOP-led sequestration of 2013.

    Business owners hire more employees when customers spend more money. When they spend less, employment drops. During recessions households naturally cut back spending. They utilize austerity.

    Recessions are the wrong time for government to cut spending. If households cannot spend to keep people employed, the government can and must. When both households and government use austerity, people suffer longer.

    We tried this in Maine. As the US struggled to rise from the Great Recession, Maine grew even slower. We under-performed the sluggish US recovery as a result of the austerity programs put in place by the governing Maine Republican party whose ideology always dictates austerity.

    So here we are again, this time fighting a world-wide pandemic with dwindling job prospects. Households are naturally reacting with cutbacks. Once again, this is the wrong time to employ Republican austerity. We tried that experiment recently enough to remember that it was the wrong tool then, as it is now.

    At this moment in our economic cycle and evolution, I feel certain that Sara Gideon, Chellie Pingree, Chloe Maxim, and Holly Stover are going to be a much better team for the task ahead. They represent a shift towards balance and prosperity while the Republican response of cutbacks will create a lopsided and lingering recession.

    Pragmatism supersedes ideology when the economy is concerned. Like my photos, the economy requires the right tools for the right tasks. As a macroeconomist, I perceive that for now, the Democrats have the better tools.

    Marcus Hutchins

    Southport