We're obsessed with the deficit.
Nobody talks about the deficit when Republicans are in control.
"Thank you very much."
But when Democrats get in control,
suddenly it's all about the deficit.
Deficit. Deficit. The deficit.
It goes back to Ronald Reagan and his budget director, David Stockman.
They really did come up with a kind of plan to, as they put
it, "starve the beast."
The beast, obviously, in their view, was the federal government,
and the way they starve the federal government
is that they just spend like mad on the military.
"I submitted to the Congress a defense budget.
We requested a major increase in the defense program."
And they provide tax breaks at the same time.
They rack up a huge debt so that by the time
you get the first Democrat who is president, Bill Clinton,
then there's nothing that Clinton can do except cut the deficit.
That is the measure of his success.
Well, let me take you back to 1992, 1993.
I was the head of the economic transition team for Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton ran on a platform of putting people first,
investing in education and job training and infrastructure
and basic research and development.
The first thing we run into is this question about,
"How are you going to possibily deal with the deficit?"
The huge deficit.
We can see the same deficit obsession living on now
that Joe Biden is in the White House.
It rears its ugly head again in terms of Build Back Better.
Everybody worries that there's going to be too much spending
and we've got to get the deficit "under control."
"I implore them one more time
not to play Russian roulette with the American economy."
The irony here is that you've got a piece of legislation
that is enormously popular and necessary and it is paid for.
There are taxes that will increase, particularly
on corporations and the wealthy to pay for it.
And yet, people are still screaming that it's
going to cause huge problems for the deficit.
They're not saying this about the military budget, which keeps expanding.
They're not saying this about tax cuts.
I mean, that $1.9 trillion tax cut that was passed by the Republicans.
But suddenly, this $1.75 trillion over 10 years.
I mean, this has become an object of concern for the deficit?
That's absurd.
But also, those who want to vote against it,
they get a kind of a protective shield. They can always say,
like Joe Manchin has already been saying,
"I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation."
Oh, well, I'm not sure I'm going to vote for the Build Back Better
because it may have deficit implications.
Well, that's obviously bulls***.
If you look at the military budget and extrapolate
from what it is today, over the next 10 years,
it's $8 trillion.
I mean, that $8 trillion has got to come out of somebody's pockets.
We give billions of dollars of corporate subsidies, tax subsidies away
every year to what — Big Pharma, the biggest banks.
We are giving subsidies away to oil and gas.
All we do is focus on these episodic,
specific, rather small compared to everything else
programs designed for the middle class, working class and the poor.
To help people.
So please don't believe Republicans or the corporate media
or, you know, conservative economists when they go off on the deficit.
Always put it in context.
Always ask yourself, well, compared to what?
And why is it that it's only when Democrats are proposing things for average
working people and the poor and middle class that we hear about the deficit?