Robert Reich: Barack Obama Should Should Forget Budget Balancing and Binge Like a Drunken Sailor

Reich doesn't actually want Obama to do a Clinton, since the 42nd President actually balanced the budget in 1997. Message to Reich: Your program's been tried and found wanting. More spending doesn't work. It's bankrupting us, you freakin' commie.

See the former Labor Secretary at Wall Street Journal, "Can Obama Pull a 'Clinton' on the GOP?":

When the Great Recession wiped out $7.8 trillion of home values, it crushed the nest eggs and eliminated the collateral of America's middle class. As a result, consumer spending has been decimated. Households have been forced to reduce their debt to 115% of disposable personal income from 130% in 2007, and there's more to come. Household debt averaged 75% of personal income between 1975 and 2000.

We're in a vicious cycle in which job and wage losses further reduce Americans' willingness to spend, which further slows the economy. Job growth has effectively stopped. The fraction of the population now working (58.2%) is near a 25-year low—lower than it was when recession officially ended in June 2009.

Wage growth has stopped as well. Average real hourly earnings for all employees declined by 1.1% between June 2009, when the recovery began, and May 2011. For the first time since World War II, there has been a decline in aggregate wages and salaries over seven quarters of post-recession recovery.

This is not Bill Clinton's economy. So many jobs have been lost since Mr. Obama was elected that, even if job growth were to match the extraordinary pace of the late 1990s—averaging 300,000 to 350,000 per month—the unemployment rate wouldn't fall below 6% until 2016. That pace of job growth is unlikely, to say the least. If Republicans manage to cut federal spending significantly between now and Election Day, while state outlays continue to shrink, the certain result is continued high unemployment and anemic growth.

You can see where this is going. Republicans won't spend more. Wah!

And Chris Matthews, at the clip, thinks it'd work if more people lost everything and started jumping of bridges.

That's the plan. Great job guys.