Oh, I don't know about that. It depends what kind of Keynesian you are. If you are a Keynesian who just focuses on what the absolute size of the deficit is, then yes.
But if you are a Keynesian who also pays attention to the fact that different forms of government spending have different multipliers, and military spending is the smallest, then no. Especially in a context - like the present - in which the size of the government deficit is effectively constrained politically, then the question of what form of government spending creates the most jobs is very important indeed. Krugman has been a bit AWOL on the issue of cutting military spending lately. But nobody elected him King of the Keynesians. Bob Pollin is co-author of two papers that looked at this issue, 2007 and an update in 2009. In the first paper, they found that a billion dollars in military spending produced 2000 fewer jobs than tax cuts to promote personal consumption. That means that if you cut military spending by $200 billion - for example, by pulling all US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan after 2011 and 2014, respectively - and used the money for tax cuts for personal consumption - like, a payroll tax holiday - that would create 400,000 jobs. On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 2:43 PM, c b <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Robert Naiman > > If you go to the website, there's a scroll at the top that tells you > what the specific demands are, including "end the wars, bring the > troops home": > > http://october2011.org/frontpage > > ^^^^^^^ > > CB: Seems to me one of the shortcomings of Keynesian politics is that > it would not counsel cutting military spending in recessions, as > military spending is stimulus , too. Marxist analysis advocates > welfare spending as strengthening the working class, but cutting > military spending. This issue demonstrates an important difference > between the two theories. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
