Fraternity of Failure: The Alternative Version

By Thomas I. Palley

Hillary Clinton does not want to talk about past economic controversies. And it is easy to understand why. There is much that is troubling. But let’s not go along with her wishes. You can learn a lot by studying recent history and even more by watching how politicians react to that history.

The big “let’s move on” story of the Clinton campaign is the refusal to answer journalists. According to the Washington Post in the first 29 days after she announced her campaign she took just eight questions. The campaign’s response to all this? Blah. Reporters whining as usual.

Now, I’m not going to be impolite and focus on questions about the Iraq War which have been getting Jeb Bush in deep trouble with some liberals. Instead, I’m going to focus on economic policy which is my area of expertise. It also seems to be the focus of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

Read rest here.

Jeff Faux on Brad DeLong’s Defense of NAFTA

By Jeff Faux

Brad DeLong recently criticized an op-ed I wrote about the negative impact of the twenty-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement on American workers. The stakes here are higher and more immediate than the rehash of an old ideological dispute. This is not so much about the past as about the future. Corporate lobbyists are pushing President Obama and congressional Republicans to pass the NAFTA-like eleven-country Trans-Pacific Partnership” (TPP)—right after the November election. Since it took effect in 1994, NAFTA has been the template for the subsequent series of trade agreements that have accelerated the globalization of the U.S. economy. But its failure to deliver as promised has soured the public and many in Congress on so-called “free trade.” Getting lawmakers to swallow the TPP will be easier if its promoters can somehow make lemonade out of the NAFTA lemon. To start with, DeLong fails to tell the reader that he is evaluating a law he helped to produce. He worked on NAFTA when he was a deputy assistant secretary in Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department...

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Unemployment, welfare and the budget battles

As part of the plan to 'end welfare as we knew it' (Clinton, remember?) the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program replaced the New Deal era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). As shown by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) during the last recession TANF did not increase hand in hand with unemployment.

While unemployment almost doubled, TANF cases increased by slightly more than 10% during the crisis. The program that expanded the most during the crisis was the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which used to be called food stamp program. But hey, no worries, Republicans want to cut the program significantly.