Muscatine

O.K., the beast is starving. Now what? That’s the question confronting Republicans. But they’re refusing to answer, or even to engage in any serious discussion about what to do.

For readers who don’t know what I’m talking about: ever since Reagan, the G.O.P. has been run by people who want a much smaller government. In the famous words of the activist Grover Norquist, conservatives want to get the government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

But there has always been a political problem with this agenda. Voters may say that they oppose big government, but the programs that actually dominate federal spending — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — are very popular. So how can the public be persuaded to accept large spending cuts?

The conservative answer, which evolved in the late 1970s, would be dubbed “starving the beast” during the Reagan years. The idea — propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol — was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait and switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit.

And the deficit came. True, more than half of this year’s budget deficit is the result of the Great Recession, which has both depressed revenues and required a temporary surge in spending to contain the damage. But even when the crisis is over, the budget will remain deeply in the red, largely as a result of Bush-era tax cuts (and Bush-era unfunded wars). And the combination of an aging population and rising medical costs will, unless something is done, lead to explosive debt growth after 2020.

So the beast is starving, as planned. It should be time, then, for conservatives to explain which parts of the beast they want to cut. And President Obama has, in effect, invited them to do just that, by calling for a bipartisan deficit commission.

Many progressives were deeply worried by this proposal, fearing that it would turn into a kind of Trojan horse — in particular, that the commission would end up reviving the long-standing Republican goal of gutting Social Security. But they needn’t have worried: Senate Republicans overwhelmingly voted against legislation that would have created a commission with some actual power, and it is unlikely that anything meaningful will come from the much weaker commission Mr. Obama established by executive order.

Why are Republicans reluctant to sit down and talk? Because they would then be forced to put up or shut up. Since they’re adamantly opposed to reducing the deficit with tax increases, they would have to explain what spending they want to cut. And guess what? After three decades of preparing the ground for this moment, they’re still not willing to do that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/opinion/22krugman.html?em

Well, tp...I guess it all depends on your research and sources. Krugman = liberal...and your brother proved that the NY Times = Liberal. Understandable.

However...libs were in charge/control and had the majority for the vote. Better be researching who in your camp failed you!!!!! You should really read what you wish to post before you post.

"The vote came just hours after the Congressional Budget Office issued a report predicting that the 2010 budget deficit will come in at $1.35 trillion...

It also came a day after the White House said it would try to put the brake on deficits by imposing a three-year freeze on discretionary, non-defense spending. But critics derided that idea as a fig leaf, because the freeze would apply only to a small portion of the federal budget.

"Is there any doubt that we are on a collision course with economic reality?" said Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), sponsor of the deficit commission proposal. "There is no question that doing things the same old way that has led to this crisis is unlikely to lead to a different result." ( That is the insanity definition). (Thanks!)

The Senate vote was 53-42 -- seven short of the 60 votes needed to approve the amendment. It was an unusual display of bipartisanship." LA Times.

"...and it is unlikely that anything meaningful will come from the much weaker commission Mr. Obama established by executive order."

"Critics say that approach will be toothless because Congress would not be required to vote on its (commission) recommendations."

BTW, tp...did you have ANY original thought on this post....or are we gonna continue to see you copy and paste entire articles without any comments; just like you used to do??

No Big Brother I did not copy the entire article. Anyone that was willing to click on to the provided link would have realized I left out the last four paragraphs. As for my thoughts on the article, I thought it was a good read.

Maybe you can tell us just what is it the Republicans want to do right now to deal with the deficit? So far I haven't heard much beyond more of the same lower taxes and make cuts, without any specifying of what cuts. Bipartisanship is just a word and talk is cheap.