More Jobs Versus Less Debt

Should the governments take action to reduce national debt or spend money to create jobs? Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says the U.S. should fund the stimulus until unemployment is lower: “In much of the world, including the United States and Europe, a debate is taking place about whether the government’s first responsibility should be to reduce unemployment—which is at elevated levels—or to reduce government deficits and debt. Many of the arguments for deficit reduction are simplistic, based on ignorance or derived from ideology.”