Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, November 21, 2011

Chait FTW

Republican game of "Ring Around The Budget"

Jon Chait makes a case so transparently obvious that it really shouldn't have to be made.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/republicans-just-arent-that-into-deficit-hawks.html

In this piece, he notes that the GOP simply does not care about deficits.  There is not a scintilla of evidence that they care about the difference between government revenue and government spending.

They care - exclusively - about lowering taxes and ending government programs.  To the degree they care about deficits it is entirely about ending social spending.  It has nothing to do with reducing deficits.  Look at Ryan's budget.  Any reduction in spending is offset by lowering taxes on the rich.

THERE LITERALLY SHOULD BE NO DEBATE ON THIS ISSUE.

Yet, as Chait notes, the media cannot bring themselves to describe the entirely obvious dynamic in Washington.

In fact, I just heard the same "blame both sides" on "even the liberal" NPR (right after a mocking piece about the Internet art that has been created over the UC Davis police assault).

It is no surprise that we can't understand the basic political dynamics in this country when we are being told what's happening by people who won't tell us what's happening.

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