E.J. Dionne this morning writes about the bizarre cult of Bush Budget promoters and how they throw out statistics that are just plain lies… and a cowed media reports them as fact. But what I found most interesting about his opinion piece was a bit at the end. Suddenly, it all made sense — the hypocrisy of conservatives who build huge deficits. Why didn’t I ever realize this was what they were doing?
And at least some of the president’s supporters are perfectly candid about the game that is being played. So I offer three hearty cheers for my conservative friends on the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Writing on Tuesday — beneath a cheeky headline, “Hooray for the Deficit” — the Journal’s opiners argued that “the much-loathed budget ‘deficit’ is the main, and perhaps the only, reason we may finally get some federal spending restraint.”
“The good news,” the Journal declared cheerfully, “is that the size of the current deficit is once again focusing political attention back where it belongs, on the rapid rise in federal outlays.”
Every commentator and reporter should thank these editorialists and shout, “Free at last!” All the pious claims by less candid conservatives that they and their president truly care about the deficit can now be ignored. The whole point (and, yes, this happened in the 1980s, too) is to create deficits, followed by a “crisis,” followed by demands for cuts in domestic programs, especially in those “federal outlays” for low-income people.
It’s always what’s right under your nose that you miss.
