Reich on the deficit and economy

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has a response on the news the White House is pushing about the deficit not being nearly as bad as forecast. He's quick to point out that while revenues have increased, they're still running $100 billion behind what the White House projected in 2001 when it campaigned for its large tax cuts.

The best way to find out whether the Bush tax cuts have really helped is to compare the current recovery with every previous recovery since World War II. What do we find? Real revenue growth in this one is trailing the average of all previous recoveries. So is the rate of new investment. So is the rate of job creation.

You don’t have to have total recall to remember that after Bill Clinton raised taxes and cut spending, we had faster revenue growth than now, a higher rate of new investment, more jobs, and a more rapidly-vanishing deficit.