Liberal assertions that cuts in government spending will cause certain death are nothing new. Sixteen years ago this week, Krugman’s fellow columnist Bob Herbert warned New York Times readers that the welfare reform bill Republicans were then debating in the Senate “would hurt many people, would kill some and would help no one.”
Herbert could not have been much farther from the mark. Two years later, after President Clinton had signed welfare reform into law, New York Times journalist Jason DeParle reported that “welfare rolls have fallen more than 40 percent in three states that have been among the most energetic in urging recipients to work: Oregon, Wisconsin and Indiana. And caseloads have declined by 25 percent or more in 16 other states.” DeParle’s article said nothing about people dying in the streets of Portland, Milwaukee or Indianapolis.
More recently, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein accused Sen. Joe Liebermann, I-Conn., of being “willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands” because he threatened not to vote for Obamacare.
Klein relied on a flawed study as evidence for this hyperbolic claim. Krugman and Herbert had no evidence whatsoever. But the bottom line is that facts and evidence make little difference in such cases. Liberals are always going to claim that conservative resistance to their big government plans will result in untold human misery and death. They will fight conservative insistence on spending cuts by claiming that mere fiscal probity in government would result in millions dying hungry in our streets. After crying wolf so often, they’ve lost their credibility. Their apocalyptic pronouncements are greeted with disbelief even by most liberals.
If the United States is ever to end its addiction to government dependency and rein in out-of-control spending, policymakers must shrug off the fear-mongering of the Krugmans, Herberts and Kleins of the world. Ryan tells CNN he is doing just that. In his words, “I gave fear up for Lent this year.” Other conservatives should follow his lead.
First, let me make clear that I do believe that shrugging off fear-mongering is important. But more important is how we do so — and as I’ve been urging for years now, the way to do so most effectively and permanently is through a reclamation of language.
To wit: relying on accepted, bipartisan political parlance, spending “cuts” are nothing more than cuts to the rate of future spending, spending that increases automatically at a rate that exceeds the rate of inflation. And so “draconian” “spending cuts” are really nothing more than cuts to the amount of its yearly raise the government grants itself.
Once people understand that, threats of “cuts” harming people are seen for what they are: a suggestion that reality itself, which previously existed on specific rates of spending without leaving in its wake a host of dead and dying citizens denied a social safety net, is lying to them.
Similarly, “loopholes” in the tax code aren’t loopholes at all, but are rather portions of the tax code that grant deductions for certain things under certain conditions, and as such are perfectly legal. Want to make such “loopholes” obsolete and make sure “everyone pays their fair share” and “has skin in the game”? Propose a flat tax.
For as long as I can remember we have allowed the left to frame the terms of debate. But the real tragedy is how the ostensible “right” has simply conceded such framing as a kind of natural state of affairs, agreeing to live and operate inside such parameters.
Or perhaps “tragedy” is the wrong word; because frankly, I think many in the establishment right have learned to embrace to framing and to live comfortably inside it as part of a permanent ruling structure that transcends party. Why else would “our” Congressional leadership, who surely knows that such framing is dishonest and misleading, continue to accept it and operate within its rhetorical dictates?
In short, these scare tactics aren’t relegated to liberals. And until we conservatives and constitutionalists insist that our representatives resist the very framing that provides them their political power at our expense, we are merely aiding in our own mugging.
… spending “cuts” are nothing more than cuts to the rate of future spending…Similarly, “loopholes” [are] portions of the tax code that grant deductions for certain things under certain conditions, and as such are perfectly legal.
That’s just crazy talk! I bet you support one of those crazy candidates who wants to let everybody die of starvation and disease.
Huntsman would never say such things, and I have it on the good authority of many self-proclaimed reasonable, sane, moderate Republicans from Madison and Manhattan and Boston and San Francisco that Huntsman is the only electable guy in the race. We’d better hope he stays in the race, or we can kiss Madison and Manhattan and Boston and San Francisco goodbye come Election Day!
Who is to be scared of who goes to who is to be the sovereign and who is to be the ruled? This is the question and what one answers it with defines the side you are on.
Dangerous yes, but for who. It is good for the enemies of the United States to be “scared” of the President. So who is it that Stern believes need to be “scared” of Obama. It’s not other nations.
paul ryan’s health care speech
Link
Andy Stern fails to recognize that Clowns are inherently scary.
Time to, yet again, queue up that noted urban philosopher’s bit:
“They gonna take our shhhiiiittt!!!”
Link
Buddy, then there’s that other classic: “Facts are like Kryptonite to a leftist!”
“NOOOOO!!!! NOT A FACT!!! NOOooo!!”
Medicare as a focal point is way down the list of burning issues to try to nationalize the elections over. I agree that competing policy alternatives should be emphasized but jobs, inflation and other kitchen table issues should take precedence. Get the people working again first.
I think I disagree BT, at least to the extent that the Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare/ObamaCare complex is the preeminent cause of our fiscal deficit and long-term debt, hence has to be the point of attack for getting these under control. In order to obtain the mandate from the people, who, after all, are the sovereigns in this political picture, the Republican candidates have to bring these issues to the fore, discuss them, propose solutions, persuade the voters, win the election and then act to change these monsters. So, rather than down the list, they should sit at the very top.
“Get the people working again first.”
drill here drill now, no epa
Sdferr,
I have no problem with discussion of long term solutions to long term problems, but Ryan seemed to want to make Medicare the centerpiece of the discussion and i find it hard to believe that folks won’t remember what party added the prescription benefit to the behemoth and now suddenly they have found religion? Let’s solve the immediate problems first, focus like a laser on employment, rebuilding the manufacturing base, deregulating the regulators, fixing our schools, building energy independence and basically making the government as inconsequential to our lives as possible. I agree with NR in that we need some policies that can be fixed with a stroke of the pen (cool, huh)and have a short term investment to payoff timetable.
These are the immediate problems BT, though not as an exhaustive list, since there are many immediate problems. (As, for instance, radical change of the tax code). But dong these things, that is, addressing them honestly to begin with, will, I believe, begin to break the logjam of fear in the markets. This too, isn’t to say that decent government, once in place, can’t simultaneously make simpler changes to the onerous regulatory environment, make hiring freezes and force reductions across the Federal government and so on. But time is running very short to begin to address the entitlement disaster about to engulf the nation. So, we have to start, I think. Now.
And more, if we think why these particular problems, the runaway entitlements, have not been addressed, when they would have been better addressed earlier (leading to greater savings of the nation’s wealth, for instance)?
It seems simple: because these are by far the hardest problems the nation has to address, at least on the political level. They are hard politically because they have been easy to demagogue, easy to mislead the people on, easy as a source of ill-gotten votes based on lies, and hard because every solution takes a bite out of someone, or many tens of millions of someones, at least in the short-run (as opposed to having no solution, which simply takes everyone down the tubes). And the harms they do, and will do, creep in slowly, practically unnoticed if current, and thoroughly unnoticed if only taking place in the relatively distant future (which doesn’t make the harms to come any less certain).
But the opportunity is here, finally brought home to large portions of the voters on account of Obama’s disastrous socialist over-reach in the last three years.
So, one way or the other, for good or ill, great changes are coming. Better we should have a politics that will face up to those necessary changes and attempt to bring them about in an orderly way, than a politics that shies away or purposely ignores them, let alone a politics that purposely lies about them — promising that there is no problem — only then to have them break the nation to tiny bits in chaos.
And for that orderly change, we need the people to take their part in leading; in choosing with a purpose, with a will to make the change; in accepting our part of the responsibility for the change. But this can only come about when the people are informed and conscious of the choices they must make.
I think that if the party presents viable solutions to the real life problems of swing voting independents and rank and file members , ie make it far more common for breadwinners to actually win bread, and by that i mean removing obstacles to opportunity, then the party has come a long way in earning or re-earning credibility as to the wisdom of their economic philosophy.
And yes i am well aware of the fact that the problems facing this country, problems 100 years in the making are reaching critical mass.And I am also very aware that the problems will not be solved in one election cycle. We are at the crossroads, directions must be chosen, even if the journey is long. Medicare is not the hot button issue Ryan thinks it is. It is not the problem, though granted it is part of the problem.
Sdferr,
You were probably posting your last as i was writing my last.
Please don’t misunderstand me. You are correct. The opportunity to educate is here. The opportunity to show why your solutions are better than their solutions is here. The federal government living beyond its means is the sure road to third rate status and a much larger dependent peasant class. Entitlements is a large part of the problem. Crony capitalism or vote buying is a large part of it. We are in agreement. The mere asking price of the executive branch, where it takes almost a billion dollars in donations just to capture it and or keep it is bewildering. But then again maybe not, when we see stories of Solyndra or no bid contracts and the amounts that change hands.
But practically, pragmatically, living in the real world-ly, the GOP needs to pick up 5% more voters than it did last time around. Where will they come from? Who is your target? What is your pitch?
I hope I hadn’t BT, and take your misgivings in good faith.
For my part, there is something of a chicken and egg situation to the idea you expressed as “Medicare is not the hot button issue Ryan thinks it is.” This situation, which I think you correctly diagnose as to circumstances today, I think you can see, can have been brought on due to the constant demagoguery the people have been experiencing these last many decades. So, to the extent that Ryan has been immune to that demagoguery and has managed to see correctly further down the fiscal road that our run-of-the-mill citizen, it seems to me incumbent upon him (and others similarly situated to him) to bring it to the public’s attention.
This is to me, for now, a theoretical position with regard to my beliefs about how the country was meant to be organized. The people, as I said, I think sovereign (as do they, judging solely from the birth of the tea party in outrage at being left out of the decisions with respect to the “stimulus”, with ObamaCare capping the insult by being shoved down their throats).
As to the practical terms of winning votes, I’ve no advice for the politicians (who, after all, have to have this knowledge as a function of their art,) save to urge honesty upon them, and fullness of address. Treat Americans as mature adults ought rightly to be treated. Don’t assume the people won’t understand complexity. Tell the truth.
than our run-of-the-mill citizen
“But time is running very short to begin to address the entitlement disaster about to engulf the nation. So, we have to start, I think. Now.”
no unleash the nation now from the reg. stupidity. then take on the nanny state. make money 1st.
I think we are on the same page, we are just coming at it from different angles.
I got an email from an old friend who is running for my old council seat.
My advice to her was simple. Be yourself. Be honest. Admit if you don’t have an answer to the question. But most importantly, earn their trust.
Ryan’s focus might work well with the Congressional and Senatorial Races. Not so much for the Presidential Race.
BT, I’m afraid that this election cycle is crucial. That is, without the backing of the people for making great changes this time around (at the least beginning to make them), even if as I expect Obama will be thrown out of office (and many many Congressional Democrats with him, on both sides of the Capitol,) the potential for backlash once dismantling the entitlement edifice begins, is too dangerous.
This is Ryan’s judgment as well, I think. He has said that 2012 is the year of decision in the largest philosophical sense of our politics: either we will be a nation of classical liberalism in government or we will become a nation like the democratic-socialists of Europe. And this, he says, with a view to the Presidential election as well as to the Congress, for he knows that the changes required to save the nation demand the cooperation of both branches. And Obama, he understands, will not cooperate with any Republican Congress once having won a second term (hell, Obama can’t bring himself to cooperate with a half-Republican Congress in his first term. For Obama, it is as though the election of 2010 didn’t happen).
The way i look at the problem is longer term. I think the first thing we need to focus upon is capturing both houses, either with veto proof majorities or capturing the executive branch at the same time.
Then we can repeal ObamaCare and we free the economy from onerous regulation and mandates. Then we embark on a Manhattan style project to make this country energy independent.
In the meantime we work on changing the culture so that when the plans for the new Medicare and the new Social Security introduced for future generations are explained there will be a better understanding of the value of making the change. And when i refer to changing culture i mean not only the participants of the plan but those involved in writing the plans. Follow the money.
OT: Do any posters or lurkers in here receive medical treatment from the VA?