"...extending unemployment benefits for those who have been out of work for an extended period. Better yet, he'd also like to add guaranteed health insurance and wage insurance for workers...."

"And now we not only need new jobs for all of the other unemployed people that existed before our reforms, but now we're going to have to find jobs for the additional 3% of the workforce that is no longer working because businesses can't afford to retain them. I'm not a math major, but it seems to me that maybe Dionne's goals don't dovetail quite as nicely as he'd like to believe."

I'm not a math major, either, but what's not clear to me is that it isn't possible that both the unemployed, with their extended unemployment pay lessening their use of food banks and homeless shelters, or worse (which make it rather hard to find work, to put it mildly), and the employed, who with this added safety net have slightly less terror at the idea of losing their jobs, aren't still better off, despite a perhaps-stipulated increase in unemployment.

I'm not saying it's a sure case that this is so, but it's not clear to me that it might not be. Of course, I'm speaking as someone who's currently agonizingly unemployed, and hardly unbiased.

Gary, that's certainly possible. But, as you know, I don't see it as the mission of the government to provide a safety net for the people. More to the point, Dionne is calling on the adminstration to create more jobs (something I personally think the government really can't do), but he also wants to institute these reforms that will result in a net loss of jobs and, quite possibly, an extension of the economic malaise we're enjoying at the moment.

And regarding your 'perhaps stipulated increase in unemployment;' perhaps you're smart enough to explain to me how a business could see its costs increase without either eliminating workers or raising prices (an option that may not be available, since demand for many products is relatively inelastic). I'm not smart enough to prove it, I guess, but by my reckoning, it is very clear that if the government imposes new costs on doing business, unemployment will go up. It may only be a little, because businesses pass on most of the costs to the consumer (a very regressive tax, btw), or it may be a lot because businesses aren't able to pass the costs on to the consumer, but it will happen.

"But, as you know, I don't see it as the mission of the government to provide a safety net for the people."

That's one of those points where we differ. I think FDR saved the country from revolution by providing one. I don't think the philosophy that led to the French Revolution worked out. We've seen the dynamic countless times in history.

I'm not saying there aren't limits to what a safety net should cover, or how it should work, or any of a hundred other valid criticisms, limits, and cautions. But I don't see evidence that the country, or any society, is better off leaving millions of people to starve in the street, become potential revolutionaries, or the other predictable historic effects of societies that were indifferent to the fate of the poor.

"... perhaps you're smart enough to explain...." I might or might not be, but I am most definitely not an economist, and I don't care to venture far in discussions where I become unconfident of what I do know. But I speculate that with the money from extended unemployment benefits, or other such "welfare," people go and, you know, spend that money, which helps the economy, and keeps employment from going yet further down. But it's a damn complicated business, economics, and one thing I do know is that a) it's not a zero-sum game, and b) it's not a subject where "common sense" is always, or even often, correct. Further deponent sayth not; I'd ask Brad deLong, or for a somewhat more lefty view, Max Sawicky.

I don't think we're likely to see millions of people starving in the streets, for one thing. I seem to recall that we didn't have this vaunted safety net for the first century-plus of the republic, yet nowhere in my study of American history did I see reports of mass famine (the Donner Party notwithstanding). Furthermore, you seem to see the safety net as something only government can provide. I'm not convinced that is the case. I consider it more likely than not that without a safety net, we would see increased work by private charities. It is also likely that we would see the economy doing significantly better, since there would be much less government drag on the economy. But that's neither here nor there, as your side has unquestionably won this argument, leaving me stuck with only the unpalatable option of going to some other country, as you noted a few weeks ago.

As for 'with the money from extended unemployment benefits, or other such "welfare," people go and, you know, spend that money,' has it occurred to you that the money you're referring to would be going into the economy anyhow? Comments like this remind me of the anti-space program types who argue we should be spending the money here on Earth, as if the space shuttle was carrying buckets of cash into orbit to be released there, never to be seen again. Note that the money that is going to pay for these programs (and I'm as puzzled by your scare quotes around welfare as you were by mine around progressive taxation, since certainly these programs are designed to provide for the welfare of their beneficiaries) is coming out of the compensation that could otherwise go to workers. So someone who has a job gets a little less and someone who is out of a job gets unemployment benefits. Even assuming that no money is lost in the transfer, which is unlikely, the best case is that two different people are spending the same money. I'm not aware of an economic theory that posits that two people spending money somehow are better than one person spending money if the final amount is the same.

"I don't care to venture far in discussions where I become unconfident of what I do know." One great thing about blogging: if you do get it wrong, there are plenty of people out there ready to explain precisely where you erred. It can be painful, but it's not the worst way I can think of to learn. C'mon, work without a net.

Sorry Gary, but FDR didn't increase jobs one iota. The recession began to end when we starte building lots of armaments for Britain and really was finished by the need to produce vast quantities of war materials after we entered WWII. Not to mention siphoning off lots of men and some women into the military which really helped end unemployment. Should we start another major conflict? That is the only way any government can create jobs.

One of the major problems with government 'jobs' is that they are payed for by the taxpayers. The government can only pay with money extracted from the rest of us who are doing real work. The bigger the government employment list gets the worse the rest of us are going to do.

The real way for government to help end a recession is to do what Greenspan and Bush did, that is, cut interest rates and leave more money in the private sector of the economy. I would argue that if those actions were not taken the job losses would have been significantly worse. Every president since JFK (except Clinton) has cut taxes when recession showed up (remember John Maynard Keynes?). After the tax cuts by JFK and Reagan the economy was strongly boosted for several years. If congress had then done what it should have and cut spending we could have sustained the expansions perhaps indefinitely. Congress will not do this when it is not in there interest, i. e., will not help them get reelected. I'm for term limits as an aide in solving this particular problem.

If you are going to reference Keynes then don't complain about government spending. C + I + G has G in it. Keynes viewed tax cuts and governent spending in the same light. Both could be used to pull us out of the dreaded 'liquidity trap'. What you are saying is true in that G comes from T which comes from us, but Keynes figured G now could be paid back with T later, when the economy was performing again.

Keynes would have agreed with Cheney when he said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

"Sorry Gary, but FDR didn't increase jobs one iota. The recession began to end when we starte building lots of armaments for Britain and really was finished by the need to produce vast quantities of war materials after we entered WWII. Not to mention siphoning off lots of men and some women into the military which really helped end unemployment. Should we start another major conflict? That is the only way any government can create jobs."

You don't seem clear on either what the words "safety net" mean, or on what the details of the New Deal were. Also, trivially, it was not called "the middling recession," you know.

Why, exactly, do you think FDR was re-elected in 1936? Due to the war? (I'd also add 1940, but you might suggest it was fear of war that caused that, though you'd be wrong.)

Your argument is that the majority of America would have been better off throughout the Thirties under Hoover's sound policies. Strangely, the American people disagreed with you in overwhelming numbers. Why is that?

I don't think it is fair to say that you have to agree with FDR or you are a Hoover supporter. You can disagree with FDRs fiscal policy and Hoover's monetary policy and be consistent. There are more than two options.

I think FDR was popular because he tried to do things to help the people. Whether he actually did more good or more harm is open to debate. Saying that the people at the time kept voting him in is hardly an honest debating tactic. Aren't you the one that is always arguing for context?