Which is at once fortunate and unfortunate.
Yes.
Depends on your definitoion of liberal.
On the social issues, pretty much ALL Democrats have come around to the “liberal or else” position. No Democrat is going to oppose abortion or gay marriage, for instance.
But will a similar movement come about on the economic issues or the foreign policy issues? No, I don’t see that.
There are still pro-life Democrats, and pro-life sentiment is increasing, not decreasing:
Which means there will be more pro-life Democrats in the future catering to that.
I honestly think liberalism is so varied and factionalist that it prevents a cohesive Democratic movement.
Getting dogmatic would be an awful idea as it would only isolate the subgroups, though a strong liberal coalition such as you’d find in Europe would be a political monster.
How strong the liberal coalition is has more to do with the state of the budget than anything else. It tends to be strongest when there’s plenty to go around. It fractures when the budget pie starts shrinking. Europe is a lot less lefty on economic issues than it used to be.
Immigration politics also tends to create divisions, because it often puts native working class folk at odds with immigrants. We’ve also seen this in Europe.
I don’t buy that the liberal coalition’s strength is based on the state of the budget. If you think this is so, how about some cites? It was awfully strong in '06, '08, and '12 – are you saying the budget was in great shape then?
It’s not the kind of thing that changes year to year and it’s not really noticeable yet. While new social programs are impossible due to the inability to raise taxes on anyone making over $400,000/yr, major cuts are still off in the future. But they will come, it’s simple math. You can’t raise taxes, you have to cut spending.
Which is different from Republicans, who will increase the deficit if it means they can give their constituency another tax cut.
Borrow and spend is pretty irresponsible. Can’t be done anymore though. Next recession will do us in if we try it again.
Is it worse than borrow and tax cut? At least deficit spending creates jobs, which cannot be said for tax cuts.
Depends on the circumstances. Sometimes it is simply necessary. N.B.: Keynes has never been discredited.
Yeah, recessions excepted, of course.
Recessions happen, sure. But prior to the creation of the fed and a certain level of Keynesian stimulus they happened routinely - every 3-5 years - and were more severe that our usual recession (the 2008 mess excluded as an outlier).
Blaming recessions themselves on any form of Keynesianism is simply to show a certain lack of knowledge of American economic history and behavior.
About that next recession: pretty near inevitable, given the fact that theRepublicans keep trying to gut the Dodd-Frank bill (and mostly succeed).
I’m not blaming recessions on anything in particular. Just noting that since we’re still running a $400 billion deficit, a recession may easily put us back into $1 trillion deficit territory and severely limit our options for fighting recession at the very least.
Which of course the Republicans will fight with their usual weapon- tax cuts for the wealthy. About time to dust of the old Laffer curve?
Depression? Tax cuts! Recession, tax cuts! Neuritis, neuralgia, that sluggish feeling? Oh, you better believe that calls for tax cuts!