University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan, speaking about the perverse impact of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) on unemployment:
When you pay people for being low income you are going to have more low-income people.
Washington economists have a Keynesian emphasis on weak demand,
Mr. Mulligan, by contrast, studies the supply of labor and attributes the state of the economy in large part to the expansion of the entitlement and welfare state, such as the surge in food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and other safety-net programs. As these benefits were enriched and extended to more people by the stimulus, he argues in his 2012 book "The Redistribution Recession," they were responsible for about half the drop in work hours since 2007, and possibly more.
When you put it like that maybe even Democrats will understand. I seem to hear the ghost of Milton Friedman chuckling quietly. There is more at an excellent
Wall Street Journal article about Mulligan which requires no subscription for access.
