Poor Dean Baker has a Sysyphean task. He constantly points out the idiocy in the media and tries to get it to act more responsibly. It is an unending task because the stupidity seems bottomless...
Inventing Budget Crises: Standard Practice at the Washington PostI have a diagnosis: right wing nuts worry about budget deficits when Democrats are in power, otherwise, right wing nuts think it is wonderful to cut taxes and run a country on hot air.
Ezra Klein has a good piece in the Post's Sunday Outlook section on the need to change the filibuster rules in the Senate. However, he ends the piece with a bizarre reference to: "a coming budget crisis." This should have brought out the editor's red pen and some quick scratch marks.
What budget crisis? The country has an economic crisis,that manifests itself in the form of double-digit unemployment and mass foreclosures. This crisis didn't make the end of article list of concerns.
The economic crisis is causing large budget deficits, but on what universe is the budget a crisis? There is certainly no serious economic problem caused by the these deficits nor any immediate problem for the country's finances, as demonstrated by the low cost of borrowing in financial markets. Obviously, there are long-term budget problems, but these stem from the cost of supporting a broken health care system. And in any case, it is a bit hard to term budget strains that are well more than a decade in the future a "crisis."
So, the "coming budget crisis" is like "the coming attack of Martians," not a line that belongs in a serious newspaper.
When you have 10% unemployment, you are going to have budget deficits if you have any social safety net whatsoever. So the subtext of the Washington Post's concern about "budget deficits" is the perennial concern of the right to cut off any welfare for the poor in favour of a welfare for the rich (as in TARP bailouts).
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