TIMOTHY NOAH NOVEMBER 18, 2011
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
The Washington Post's Lori Montgomery and Rosalind S. Helderman finally come clean. "If the congressional 'supercommittee' cannot agree on a plan to tame the federal debt by next week’s deadline, as now appears likely," they write, "here’s what will happen: nothing."
They still won't explain why the Republicans' proposed tax hike is actually a tax cut, and the story quotes Sen. Max Baucus, D.-Montana, at length about what a tragedy it is that Democrats are unwilling to capitulate, er, I mean compromise. They also quote Sen. Dick Durbin, D.-Illinois, making the more plausible case that it's a shame the super committee won't do anything to create jobs (a point also made by TNR's Jon Cohn). My own view is that yes, it's a shame, but I never really believed the super committee was going to do anything about jobs.
Still, it's nice to see a major metropolitan daily accept reality. Now if they'll only pull the plug on that silly doomsday clock on their homepage.
8 comments
Even if it did happen, we get 1.2 trillion in cuts and expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts. What's not to be happy about? If he gets re-elected, the President will look like a deficit wizard who dot it done despite the Republican efforts to thwart him. He should only trade all that for the jobs program he dreams about. Of course, if he gets re-elected the Republicans will lose their number one priority and maybe they will go back to fixing something other than the President.
- Nusholtz
November 18, 2011 at 7:41am
Note that "major metropolitan daily" isn't accurately describing WaPo's role here. Better to say "it's nice to see the Beltway's official centrist guarantor accept reality". I don't know that people wait with bated breath to see the Chicago Tribune's editorial exegesis of supercommittee tea leaves. WaPo's editorial page is the only one that's even marginally important on this issue. This is because the only people who are tearing their hair out about this--the only people who are trying to make every supercommittee peregrination superimportant--live in or get their orders from Washington DC. That chronically jaded low-info voters don't care about this one whit is perversely admirable.
- chaitless
November 18, 2011 at 7:47am
Well, on NPR this morning I heard an alarming report. Every commentator they had were running around like Chicken-Little about the Super-Committee. Seems the ONLY real problem we have is "What is the Stock Market going to do?!?!". Will they panic? Will they sell? Will it drop? Will S&P further downgrade our T-Bills (which had no effect before)? This is all sound and fury about speculation about how the Stock Market will react to a non-event. One commentator did mention that the failure of the Super-Committee is already factored in to stocks right now, though. Frankly, it sounds like Koch-Brothers propaganda trying to artificially raise the stakes on failure. The BEST thing that could happen is Republican intransigence against raising taxes, even allowing the Bush tax-cuts to expire, be revealed and highlighted over and over again. Especially by the so-called "failure" of the Super-Committee.
- AllanL5
November 18, 2011 at 8:48am
Put the clock out of business.
- liberalref
November 18, 2011 at 8:59am
One more thing did just occur to me. These Republicans have demonstrated, in December, April, and August, that they're quite capable of posturing and making offers they don't intend to keep and wailing about "uncertainty" and making threats against the Government budget and the American economy -- until... Until whatever manufactured crisis they've manufactured comes right down to the bloody last minute. Or even beyond the last minute by a few hours. At which time they FINALLY concede a few points, but by that time the Democrats have been pulled SO far right, it's always some kind of pyrrhic victory where the American Economy suffers. So I suppose they're going to try to do that again. The difference THIS time is that the "sequestration" worked out in August is so much better than any pyrrhic agreement the Republicans are willing to make. I sure hope the Democrats know this.
- AllanL5
November 18, 2011 at 9:27am
Laura Tyson reminds us this morning (in the NYT) that it was Brother Bill who reduced the capital gains rate to 20% from 28% in 1997 against the advice of Tyson and his other economic advisors who warned that the cut "would decrease future tax revenue, would contribute to rising inequality and would not increase saving and investment", in one of those "compromises" with Republicans. Why would anybody agree to a "compromise" that makes the nation worse off; that's not a compromise, it's a sell-out, a sell-out of the national interest for political interests. Of course, the same can be said about the Republicans on the supercommittee, who are offering a "compromise" that makes the nation worse off. I have criticised recent reporting by Lori Montgomery, but what's confounding (to me anyway) is that she wrote the article at the end of April which pinned the massive deficits right where they belong, on the Bush tax cuts ("The nation’s unnerving descent into debt began a decade ago with a choice, not a crisis"), an article for which she was roundly criticised by the right wing media. Could it be that she was reigned in by the WP following all the hubbub she created by that article?
- rayward
November 18, 2011 at 9:40am
Imagine that, politicians posturing and putting forth proposals they don't intend to see through. Never before in the Republic ... More likely she reined (sp.) in herself, ray.
- liberalref
November 18, 2011 at 10:31am
rayward I feel that politicians like to reduce the capital gains tax rates (and now the dividend rates) because one of the parameters used by the public to evaluate government effectiveness on the economy is the stock market. I think all it does. by and large, is move money from one form of investment (small business or bonds) to another, stocks.
- Nusholtz
November 18, 2011 at 10:37am