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FRUM: Reading between the budget lines
Commentator David Frum.
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Kai Ryssdal: The backing and forthing over the federal budget continues apace in Washington. House Republicans have a bill on the floor that'll cut more than $60 billion from everybody's favorite line item -- that'd be domestic discretionary spending -- by the end of September. The White House says flatly the president won't sign it if it ever does get to his desk.
There's a long way to go yet in negotiations, but commentator David Frum says there's something missing from the discussion so far.
David Frum: The president's budget says it will cut $1.1 trillion from the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years. Once upon a time, a trillion dollars was a lot of money. Not any more. That $1 trillion cut over 10 years leaves the president's planned deficit 90 percent intact.
The president's plan is so feeble that you have to believe he has a stronger strategy up his sleeve. And he does. The president's real unconfessed budget plan is to win the 2012 election -- and then allow the Bush tax cuts to expire at the end of 2012.
That's a plan. But it's a bad plan. Why? It's a bad plan from the president's personal point of view because it pushes him to fight the 2012 presidential election on the Walter Mondale platform, "I'll raise your taxes."
It's a bad plan from the national point of view because it confronts the economy with a stark choice: Either massive persisting deficits -- or else close the deficits with big additional taxes on work, saving and investment. And that's atop the additional taxes on work, saving and investment in the health care bill.
What we need instead is a budget that moves to balance by squeezing waste out of Medicare and Medicaid, the biggest pot of money in the budget. We spend 60 percent more per person than anybody else for mediocre results, so there have to be some savings available -- by ratcheting back Social Security for those not in need. By bringing the war in Afghanistan to an early successful close. And by raising revenues from consumption and pollution, not work, saving and investment.
Above all: We don't need secret plans. We need open discussion of this impending national crisis.
Ryssdal: David Frum is the editor of FrumForum. Back in the day he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Robert Reich is up next week. Your thoughts are welcome anytime.
"Mr. Frum may be a man who doesn�t let the truth get in his way, but Marketplace should at least make sure the commentaries it airs are at least somewhat reflective of it (the truth, that is)." By Bill Davis 02/17/2011 Couldn't agree more. It really seems like it's a case of "he's a fraud, but he's our fraud, so we're sticking with him". Is it a favor to Frum, some prior obligation? Whatever, allowing Marketplace to project an image of credibility doesn't happen when Mr. Frum speaks.
Mr. Frum is just as duplicitous as his former employer, Mr. Bush.
When he says president Obama would campaign on a platform to “raise YOUR taxes,†just who is Mr. Frum addressing with his commentary? President Obama has proposed ending the Bush tax cuts only for the top earners. The estimates I’ve seen place this as accounting for 2 to 3 percent of the country’s population. If we were take Marketplace’s national audience of 8 million as a representative sample of the United States (which I admit it’s not), then Mr. Frum must only be aiming at roughly 200,000 listeners. Everyone else — all 7.8 million of us — should just turn off their radios, right?
That’s not what Mr. Frum intends. He and the Republican Party have relentlessly, and wrongly, characterized the president’s position as an increase in everyone’s taxes. That is Mr. Frum’s intention when he states that Obama will “raise YOUR taxes.†Mr. Frum may be a man who doesn’t let the truth get in his way, but Marketplace should at least make sure the commentaries it airs are at least somewhat reflective of it (the truth, that is).
"ratcheting back Social Security for those not in need" - I've been depressed since hearing this meme floated for the first time yesterday. While I wouldn't be eating cat food without SSA, it is the third leg of a stable retirement income I am planning, which will supply me with the means to travel, study, volunteer and probably provide for long term care if needed. He wants to knock that third leg out from under my increasingly frail bones and punish me for earning an income during my working years (by being smart and working hard) that has enabled me to save up a bit of a nest egg? (What happened to raising the cap on contributions to SSA?)
Straw man -
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
Marketplace, why do you continually allow your program to be soiled by this uneducated fool? Your listeners are smarter than this. They are not dumb and will not eat the BS fed to them by Frum.
frum's real unconfessed plan is to reinstate slavery in the US.
That's a plan. But it's a bad plan. Why? It's a bad plan from the free people's personal point of view because it pushes America back 200 years.
Above all: We don't need secret plans. We need open discussion of this impending national enslavement crisis.
"By bringing the war in Afghanistan to an early successful close." - Mr. Frum
What is this, "Bewitched"? Just wiggle your nose and bring this ongoing FUBAR disaster to "an early successful close"?
It's way, way too late for "early", and since nobody with any influence will say in public what "success" even looks like, then we are stuck wasting lives and money and time with no "close" realistically in sight.
Makes sense that Mr. Frum wrote speeches for The Shrub. Just hang a banner and call it good. Mission Accomplished right? Easy as can be. Refried silliness with no grounding in reality is what it is.
1476 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
2326 Coalition troops, (including U.S. have died in Afghanistan.
"Early and successful" like it's a wave of the hand. Amazing.
Everything in the budget has its ardent defenders. Cutting military waste translates into weakening our military and reducing our ability to meet our international commitments. Reducing funding for energy assistance programs translates into freezing grandma and grandpa to death.
As a result, any suggestion for trimming the budget will be met with anger. That means the political success strategy is to get the other party to make the first move so you can attack it.
President Obama has reduced some discretionary spending and his been criticized for not taking the lead and doing to little. His response is to try to open a dialogue, and when the Republicans make suggestions, Democrats will be able to attack them for being heartless.
It's a game. Unfortunately, we the people are the losers.
