By Erick Erickson -
Janet Yellen has been one of the few officials in the government to consistently care about the national debt. Under Barack Obama, the national debt has gone up ten trillion dollars. He has added more to the national debt than any other President in history. Yellen has cautioned against this. As Donald Trump prepares to come in with an Obama style infrastructure plan, suddenly Janet Yellen is again worried about the national debt.
Yellen cautioned lawmakers that if they spend a lot on infrastructure and run up the debt, and then down the road the economy gets into trouble, “there is not a lot of fiscal space should a shock to the economy occur, an adverse shock, that should require fiscal stimulus.”
But the political left in America, since Barack Obama has been in office, has said the national debt was no big deal.
In February of 2013, Anne Mayhew of the University of Tennessee said there is nothing scary about the national debt.
In November of 2013, Raul Carrillo of the Modern Money Network said we shouldn’t be worried about the debt.
From January of 2015, The Week said not to worry about the debt.
In June of 2015, the International Monetary Fund advised us to stop worrying about rising national debt.
In April of this year, Bob Bryan at Business Insider said there was nothing wrong with $19 trillion in debt.
But suddenly, suddenly, Janet Yellen saying this about Donald Trump’s plan is making big news.
USA Today is reporting on it. NPR is on it too. Expect major Democrats to start complaining.
But keep in mind that they were perfectly fine with an ever growing national debt as long as Barack Obama was the one running up the tab.
