The NYT had an editorial this weekend that trotted out some dangerous mistruths about the deficit and framed the issue as a left vs. right political game.
I hardly know where to start, but I will note that we’ve had massive accumulations of new debts under every single administration since the early 1980s, and that it hasn’t seemed to matter which party has controlled which branches of government. One could be forgiven for suspecting that, when it comes to deficit spending, there aren’t two parties, but only one.
The real truth is that we have a culture of reckless spending in DC that transcends either or both parties, and I always lose a bit of trust in those who attempt to paint it otherwise. This is simply not a partisan issue.
The second objection I have to this editorial rests with its attempt to step past our deficit by painting it as self-evidently necessary (emphasis mine):
When the White House released its new budget last week, including more spending to create desperately needed jobs, Republican leaders in Congress denounced President Obama for driving up the deficit and demanded that the Democrats halt their “reckless” ways.
The deficit numbers — a projected $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2011 alone — are breathtaking. What is even more breathtaking is the Republicans’ cynical refusal to acknowledge that the country would never have gotten into so deep a hole if President George W.
by farmer-brown-2