[PEN-L:3010] Re: Even Business Week

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Max Sawicky quoted:

>Business Week    Editorial   February 15, 1999
>
>A Better Use of Surpluses
>
>President Clinton will be remembered for many things, but in the economic
>arena, fiscal responsibility will top the list...
>
>It's certainly prudent for President Clinton to worry about the solvency of
>the government's entitlement programs.  But Clinton's budget and surplus
>plans give a decided edge to the elderly and don't focus enough on the
>young.  To help the economy build on its strengths, Washington should
>promote investment in human capital.  Numerous economic studies have
>demonstrated that investment in people delivers much higher returns than
>investment in physical capital.  While there's still debate about which
>investments work best, everything from Head Start program and early
>childhood education to adult training and retraining should get more
>attention than they do in Clinton's budget.
>
>Then too, research and development deserve a boost.  Here, the budget
>contains some modest initiatives.  What's needed is a serious stimulant to
>basic research, which has been lagging in recent years.  Without continued
>gains in education and training and new innovations and scientific
>findings - the raw materials of growth in the New Economy - the
>technological dynamic will stall.  No question, belt-tightening has been
>good for the U.S. economy.  Now the trick is to figure out how to parcel out
>the rewards of self-discipline in the most productive way possible for the
>economy.

Yes. Very nice to see. But to paraphrase Joseph Stalin, how many votes in
the Senate finance committee does _Business Week_ have?


Brad DeLong

Blatantly calculating politically, and hoping that some day he'll rise to
the level of a "mere" advocate...