WILLIAMSON
FOR
U.S. CONGRESS
DEMOCRAT
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 6
“The Future Can Be Ours.”
480-607-9726
Dear Friend,
It amazes me how Conservatives constantly bad-mouth the stimulus package
implemented by President Obama in early 2009, even in the face of the fact
that it saved, basically, our nation’s economy. It’s true, there are still
problems with structural unemployment, and workers need to be paid a
living wage, but the economy never tanked, and we can thank Obama and
Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary at that time, for that.
I’m concerned about the national debt and about deficits, but to be too
concerned about them can lead to not spending enough money, and that can
lead to recession. Economies are sustained by spending, not excessive
saving; and when the private sector isn’t spending, the only potential
spender left is the government.
Anatole Kaletsky, in his New York Times column “Econoclast,” shared this
view two days ago concerning the after-effects of the financial crisis of
2008: “…countries that ignored their deficit problems, as did the United
States for most of the post-crisis period, or where governments decided to
play down their fiscal tightening plans, as did Britain this year or Japan
in 2013, have generally done better, in terms of both economics and
finance….
“Thus the six years since 2008 have provided strong empirical support for
the supposedly outdated Keynesian view that government borrowing is at
least as powerful as monetary policy in stimulating depressed economies
and pulling them out of recession.” (“New Respect Is Bestowed on Fiscal
Policy,” by Anatole Kaletsky, New York Times, Oct. 30, 2014,
www.nytimes.com).
I would attempt to explain this with an analogy this way: Let’s say a
father has a daughter who is in her early 20’s and making her way in the
world. But the daughter does not have a high-paying job. So the father
pays half her car payment, and helps her buy her groceries from time to
time with a check, periodically, of $100. Also, the father still has his
daughter on his health insurance plan, thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
An amount of money–not small–is deducted from his paycheck every two
weeks to support this.
Now Conservatives, such as Rep. Schweikert, would seem to say this. “You
should not be helping your daughter make her car payment–even half of it.
Your daughter is out in the real world now and must fend for herself. She
needs to be independent. Otherwise, she’s not pulling her weight. You give
your daughter $100 periodically for groceries. What are you–an enabler?
She will be dependent on you forever, if you’re not careful. Health
insurance? What are you helping her for? She’s got to learn to stand on
her own two feet.”
One can see the parent as the “government,” and the child as the
“economy.”
The “government”–the parent, in this case–does not have as much money
for itself, but in this time of low-paying jobs for young people, the
daughter is at least able to drive a safe car and get herself to work. She
can also, with the “government’s”–her father’s–help make sure she eats
enough healthy food so that she doesn’t get sick from malnutrition. The
health insurance which the “government”–her father–provides enables her
to get good counseling from doctors about such things as birth control so
that she can avoid getting pregnant at too early an age, which could
interfere, or destroy, any plans and efforts she is making to take college
classes to earn a degree or certificate so that she can be more
employable. If the “government”–the father–wasn’t there to help out, she
could, conceivably, as a worst case scenario, lapse into a life of crime
to get money to pay her expenses. If she was caught, went to court, and
was convicted, this would go on her record and could ruin her life.
If an economy is depressed, sometimes there is no other source of money to
spend except the government. If that money is not available to spend, the
economy falters and may lapse into a catastrophic depression.
Conservatives don’t seem to get that. They don’t seem to understand that
sometimes one must extend oneself to help another person; or that one must
ask that help be extended to them so that they can survive. Doug Ducey
says he’s a Conservative, but he’s really a hypocrite, because he wants
the Arizona state government to extend itself to help pay the tuition for
students who want to go to elite private schools. He wants to give a
government hand-out–money that should go to the public schools so that
inner-city kids can have quality textbooks and other necessities–to the
parents of those students.
President George W. Bush said he was a Conservative, yet he gave two
rounds of tax cuts to the wealthy that are one of the main causes for the
increase of the national debt and deficits that we now face. Welfare for
the wealthy is what those tax cuts amounted to, and we’ve been paying a
terrible price for that ever since.
If you would like to contribute financially to my campaign, check out my
website at williamsonforuscongress.com. Click on “Make a Donation”
and, by means of safe and secure PayPal, donate to your dedicated
Democratic candidate. If you wish to send a check, the address for that is
also on the “Make a Donation” page on my website. Remember, according to
FEC requirements, you must provide your name, address, employer and
occupation.
If you would like a yard sign, please let me know. You may pick it up, or
I can bring it to you.
The Future Can Be Ours if we reject the bottleneck economics of such
Conservatives as Rep. David Schweikert. Bottleneck economics is the view
that everything, in terms of money, can only be seen with one view:
namely, that government debts and spending are necessarily bad. This
narrow view excludes the notion that sometimes debt and spending serve a
constructive purpose and may even save a nation from economic collapse. If
not enough money is being spent in a faltering economy, sometimes the
government will be the only source of that money which is needed to be
spent; and sometimes the only way to get that money is to borrow it. This
approach, developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, and put
forth in 1935 in his Economics classic THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT,
INTEREST, AND MONEY, can save a nation, as it did our own country and
Britain in the Great Depression and the Great Recession, from economic
annihilation. Conservatives are loathe to admit this because the concept
of helping another or being helped by someone else is contrary to their
view of themselves as being self-sufficient.
Please vote for me on November 4th. I will represent your best economic
interests in Washington.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
John
W. John Williamson
Scottsdale, Arizona