Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In his State of the Union address yesterday President Obama who is not a radical left winger argued strongly against the Republican majority in Congress which is seeking further spending cuts. He argued that spending cuts would be a disaster for the American economy and that what was needed was a stimulus and certainly not retrenchment.

Is he not right in this regard? He does not go as far as I would prefer but he is at least moving in the right direction. This is in sharp contrast to what is being done in Europe, which is all about retrenchment. If stimulation for the European economy is needed, it will have to come from private or public investment, or increased consumer demand. Increases in consumer demand are being prevented by the debt burdens people face as well as high levels of unemployment and further austerity measures. Public investment is prevented by retrenchment and austerity, while the private investment on which the Tánaiste and other European leaders seem to rely is not forthcoming. What is the Irish Government going to propose during its Presidency in order to break this stranglehold? Surely the only way we can do so is by forcing the financial institutions to take a hit and lifting the debt burden over people in order to stimulate consumer demand. We need more public investment financed by higher taxes on the corporate sector.

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