Ryan Streeter
I've long harbored this anxiety that a majority of Democrats are willing to pilot the American economy into the ground rather than give up an inch of ideology.
Judging by President Obama's awful budget, layered with cynicism and gamesmanship as it is, the deficit and our nation's debt are pawns in a political chessmatch more than a crisis we have to face.
And judging by the rhetorical drama on the Democratic side of the aisle over the inconsequential (in terms of the deficit) amount the Republicans want to cut from the budget right now, we can expect that when Republicans release their entitlement reform plans in their spring budget, we will see all manner of wailing, whining, and gnashing of teeth.
A thousand chicken littles will be unleashed. The barnyard will be abuzz. The horses will get scared. And so on.
The tragedy amidst what otherwise would make a good comedy is that they may actually stall real reform and bring us one step closer to an economic meltdown unlike our country has ever seen. Anti-capitalists don't really worry about this, which is why I'm worried.
In the midst of the ongoing debate over spending, Henry Waxman found his way over to the Center for American Progress today to call Republicans "science deniers" because of their opposition to the kind of heavy-handed environmental legislation and regulation Waxman favors. There may be some conservatives who harbor some iffy views beyond the boundaries of healthy skepticism, but Waxman's was clearly playing to his crowd.
It was an exaggerrated line tossed as red meat to a left-leaning audience, but it gave me an idea.
Why don't Republicans take a cue from our cousins in the UK and start referring to Democrats as "deficit deniers"? It's an expression found in common political parlance in the UK. Conservatives have been using it for awhile to criticize the left for avoiding the structural issues underlying the British economy's troubles, and some on the left have even gone so far as to embrace the term.
Waxman types will say that Republicans' "science denial" will result in wrecking the world for our children and grandchildren. But if there's any scientific evidence about what will wreck the world for the next generation, it's the mathematics of "deficit denial."
Aside from Kent Conrad and a few other reasonable Democrats, the political left in America is behaving as though it is governed by deficit deniers. Watch their actions rather than listen to their words, and you have a hard time disagreeing with the proposition that "deficit denial" is something of a creed on the left.
So let's call a spade a spade. And let's all start worrying together what it means for our shared future.
(I give credit to Sam Coates, formerly with ConHomeUK, for suggesting to me awhile ago that we start using the "deficit denier" expression more in America)
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