The Zombie Rises: The Return of Simpson-Bowles

By Robert Borosage

April 19, 2012 - 11:19am ET 

Take a good look at Europe—bloody riots in Athens and Madrid, rising unemployment, spreading poverty and suicide, and a deepening recession—because the current American elite consensus bizarrely wants to drive America down that same path.
Europe's miseries come from imposing austerity before recovering from the recession caused by the financial collapse. Conservatives in Germany and England inflicted harsh measures to enforce budget discipline—hiking taxes, cutting spending.