This passage from Meet the Press (10/14/12) says a lot about how middle-of-the-road elite journalists think about fiscal issues.
Here’s NBC veteran Tom Brokaw and host David Gregory:
BROKAW: I was just going to say, I talked to a lot of major business leaders who want Romney to get elected, but almost to a man and a woman, they say, “But you know what, we’re going to have to pay some more taxes in our category.” What they want to do, however, is to benchmark them against spending cuts, so that they can get spending down to 20 percent of GDP. There’s going to have to be a combination, in their judgment. And these are private business leaders who run big companies, and entrepreneurial people. And to a man and a woman, they were saying, “I can afford to pay a little more if I think it’s going to go for the right formulation about getting spending and tax revenue back in line.”…
GREGORY: They’re not burdened by these ideological fights. Often they’ll say, “Look, we don’t care.”
So Brokaw’s CEO pals, who just so happen to be Romney supporters, endorse a plan to cap government spending at exactly the same level—20 percent of GDP—that the Romney campaign is proposing.
But as an op-ed by Steven Rattner argues in the New York Times today (10/15/12), this is a remarkably radical concept. Given his call for a dramatic increase in military spending, Romney would need to cut the rest of the budget (non-healthcare, non-military) by 40 percent to meet this arbitrary target.
To Beltway journalists like Brokaw and Gregory, wealthy CEOs aren’t ideological—they just want the government to get its affairs in order. And the way you do that, apparently, is by cutting spending that will surely hurt the poor more than anyone else. But at least they’re not getting all “ideological” about it.
The whole thing with the commentariat is that they are socially liberal and economically conservative. This is how they trick themselves (and most of the public) into thinking that they aren’t ideological. This is the modern American Overton Window on economic policy: far right to “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more!” I appreciate the hat tip to reproductive rights and gay marriage, but it certainly doesn’t make up for the free trade and anti-union nonsense we get from them. More here:
Serious Centrist Saletan’s Selfishness
And ain’t it amazing that that all these upper class pundits just happen to have a set of “non-ideological” beliefs that are best for their social class. That couldn’t have anything to do with it, right?
Or, to get all scatalogical about it
Yeah, we’ll put some piss in the pot
If you make sure the shit lands on the lowly
Oh man, some one didn’t read his Insoc Dictionary for today’s word usage.
“They’re not burdened by these ideological fights. Often they’ll say, “Look, we don’t care.””
Re-tweet; Ideological = Morals. “Look, we don’t have em”.
Maybe you should change the headline; I don’t think” ideological” quite works. Perhaps
“ideofarcical” would be better. Anyone who lives under austerity knows that there’s nothing logical about it. Mostly, it’s very painful.
Wow here we go again.Lets all say it together.If Obama got 100% of his tax wish list ……it would not make a dent!It matters not one wit who says what, about paying a little more of this or that.With welfare up 32%.Food stamps doubled.Poverty climbing every day it will do little more than pay down one of those social programs.How bout this headline…CEOs tout austerity ..The people tout austerity…..The government spends,prints,and borrows,and takes a dump on austerity.
As I said to my Republican U.S. representative Sean Duffy, It seems we have a GDP problem!
Remember, the Repubs are the ham fist of the powerful and the Dems are the foot draggers-((you know…the proverbial “cats that can’t be herded” myth)). The astonishing inaction of democrats when they had the majorities last was proof enough. BOTH parties are equally corrupted by money and power to do the will of powerful and wealthy elites.
So you get mad at one party and elect the other? It doesn’t matter.
Something like 80-95% of corporate increases in ‘profit’ is derived by cutting costs now. Not increasing the size of the company, not growing-but shrinking. Even shipping jobs overseas. Does that make sense for us? The invisible hand of the market? Hogwash! We’ve been fed this garbage for decades now so we think we have to subject ourselves to doing NOTHING-all because of an idea. That we can’t mess with Mother Nature!-oops I mean business ‘evolution’. Well-they mess with corporations PLENTY in the most successful European countries. And their standard of living is far higher and people are happier by any measure. They have a long memory from the days when their parents and grandparents fought brilliantly and sometimes died to control the greed of corporations at home.
We Americans are steered skillfully into strangling each other over (politics) concocted arguments and phoney issues. The elites just go right on fixing the game and whistling all the way to the bank.
Republicans (the party who’s moral backbone ironically makes them most easily swayed to do the work) want us to “tighten our belt” out of this situation. Sounds like folksy good sense until you can see that it’s a power grab and a wealth transfer. Austerity is baloney folks-and has zero history of success. For the average Joe to benefit, economies must grow out of their recessions (like this horrible bust caused by bank fraud and deregulation) or they fall into long depressions. People think we got pulled out of the Great Depression by WWII but actually the war saddled us with huge debts. The real work had already been done by painstaking modernization of the economy including solid regulation of banks and by stimulus money spent putting people back to work. That didn’t happen by “trickle down” either. It was the federal Government. Get over it.
Republicans are also indoctrinated into a new religion centered around the idea that “Government is the root of all evil”. Hear that voice for what it really is y’all: the voice of people who want unfettered greed to flourish without government regulation or oversight. The people who want you to lose your hard fought-for benefits so you will be reduced to powerless worker bees hanging on by your fingernails to the tiny wages that will trap you for the rest of your days.
Democrats are fooled into believing the current crop are gonna save us from the republicans. Right.
Somebody follow this up with how Democrats are manipulated. I’m too close to see it. Hah
Responding to Michael e: “The people tout austerity”. They do? Then they’ve no experience of it. The people of Greece, Spain and Ireland, on the other hand, certainly do have some experience of it. And you won’t find them touting it. In Spain, for example, the austerity measures enforced on the population to save the banks means that close to one third of the population under 23 is unemployed. In Ireland the number of young people forced to leave the country to find work is at a level not seen since the 1960s – which suits the elites, as those same people might react to the situation were they to stay. And all to save the banks from a crisis that began with Wall Street and has destroyed the lives of countless millions across the globe. The people do not ‘tout austerity’, the rich do. Because it will never impact upon their lives.
Austerity is stupid. Austerians believe that if one cuts employment and the economy and thus cut government revenues from taxes, then the deficit will go away. Which is insane on the face of it.
Believing the lie that a governmental deficit and debt are a problem is even more stupid. The problem is austerity. Get the economy moving. Government revenues will increase. Government spending will continue to fall. (For example, payments from unemployment insurance will disappear.) Voila! No deficit, and the debt is disappearing. IT WORKED UNDER CLINTON..
Crowleysghost. One thing that will impact the lives of the rich is climate change. By 2050, life will be extinct except, maybe, at the Poles. All those 30 million dollar mansions in NY and Palm Beach will be under water. It is bizarre that the rich care nothing about their families and children and grandchildren. But then, maybe it’s not so bizarre. Anyone crazy enough to believe in austerity and to believe that the deficit is a problem, anyone that crazy is incapable of affection for anything but money,
Crowleysghost- By the “peoples” austerity I was speaking more of personal restraint,and responsibility.People have that by necessity.We can’t do what government does to extend its credit rating.As far as Austerity as a governmental measure …..understand how it works.Government shoots its wad on the craps table(not wall street), and runs out of cash.Now it cant fund those who can’t fund themselves.The plug is pulled and a lot of people get hurt.The rich still do better(they always do)because they have more to fall back on.The banks pay insurance to be fully insured and so they also hang in there longer- with more to fall back on.This is a natural course of events.This is not class warfare.This is not the haves and have nots.This is government being a lousy steward of the peoples wealth.
More gibberish, but it’s all ya got, so live it up.
True TimN, check out “absurdity today” on you tube
Excellent analysis, Briann.
By “personal restraint” you mean they are so poor they have to decide what to spend their meager amounts of money one Michael-e? Food or electricity if they still have a house or apartment. Both they can lose very quickly and the bank nor the apartment owners will help. (Very different from Russia when they had their financial collapse back in the 1990’s.)
Don’t you know Michael-e that austerity during a Depression gets you violence in the streets and tyranny? Maybe you do since the oligarchs want their Plutocracy up front now. They are tired of playing the “game of democracy” in their inverted totalitarianism. This happened to Germany from 1930-1932 when a Conservative by the name of Heinrich Brüning :
Heinrich Brüning (About this sound listen (help·info)) (26 November 1885 – 30 March 1970) was Chancellor of Germany during the Weimar Republic from 1930 to 1932. He was the longest serving Chancellor of the Weimar Republic.
Shortly after Heinrich Brüning took office he was confronted by an economic crisis caused by the Great Depression. Brüning responded with tightening of credit and a rollback of all wage and salary increases. These policies increased unemployment and made Brüning highly unpopular, losing him support in the Reichstag.
Invoking President Paul von Hindenburg‘s constitutional powers, Brüning established a so-called presidential government, basing his administration’s authority on presidential emergency decrees which were instituted without prior consent of the Reichstag.
Brüning remains a controversial figure in Germany’s history. His use of emergency decrees and ambivalent policies toward the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), at times opposing them and at other times cooperating with them, contributed to the demise of the Weimar Republic.
When the politicians plunder the U.S. Treasury to pay the banks trillions of dollars, to make up for the gigantic losses caused by the reckless and criminal actions of the billionaire class, meanwhile attacking social welfare programs, education, unemployment insurance, workers’ salaries, public sector employees, and, next, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and engaging in a series of never-ending wars in order for U.S. capitalism to dominate its competitors — THAT’S class warfare.
Nightgaunt by personal restrain yes I do mean we all are forced to live within our means.The government is not.Not to argue the realities and reasoning of micro-macro economics, but is it not humorous(not)that all the rules of fiscal responsibility seem to fall away the higher up one climbs?Especially into those places that write the rules and regulations.Banks ,wall street,Fed,and on the top of the heap….the president.We the people just work, and pay our bills.We have personal restrain.It is called reality.They never have.One reason why people like Obama are so dangerous buy the way..He has never worked a job outside of academia or the public troff.He has NO RESTRAINT, because it has never been his money.So now he spends,prints,and borrows to keep every class quiet,and himself in office.This has never been a better time for a community activist as a leader.he would hire a fleet of empty bakery trucks(I will explain) if he could to drive the people to anger..But realize -this revolution of the so called underclass will be very different to any in history.People want to believe the banks,and wall street,the president or the Fed are hoarding the money while everyone else goes poor.Well this time they are more broke than we are.It is like a crowd fighting to be first to break into a bakery truck.But no bread is there.People like Tim believe there is an unending supply of money.Always just over the hill.Always being held by THE OTHER GUY.Well im here to tell you-not this time.We really and truly are broke.The rich and such will fare better FOR A TIME.Their larders are so much more well stocked.The banks will be kept going to the last of phony government monopoly money to be sure.But my friend this tide will carry us all over the same waterfall.We the people have already made some changes to keep our households warm and dry.We soon will loose the support of the government that to many of us now count on.Could we let the banks crumble,Industry fall and so on to pay to keep the social programs funded?For a time.Only for a time.We have one chance out as i see it.Recreate wealth.With all the good and bad that entails.Or arm yourself to fight for remaining crumbs
This is what comes of paying “journalists” too much.
More jibberish . . . I noticed that I allegedly believe in an endless supply of money . . . huh? Unbelievably dense, to boot.
And what’s this “we” shit? The ‘Cons have removed themselves from our Democracy, and are attempting to destroy what’s left of what they wrecked. You don’t belong, m.e., and maybe you’ll get your wish and the Nincompoop and the Bullshit Artist will get a crack at showing us all what happens when implacable greed, stupidity and a hatred of peace and the working class are joined together.
Well Tim at least we have got you contemplating a Romni win.As I recall you were a lot like Nancy Pelosi smirking, saying
“Romni will never be president”.Sounds like you think there is now a chance he may be.Well that is progress I suppose.Tim like your president you play word semantics.You either understand what i am trying to explain to you,or you do not.Im trying to tell you things are not as they seem.They are far far worse.To you that is just jibberish.Maybe if we were friends before the collapse(that a lot of us fully expected)I could of helped you shift your savings into those things that made me so much money.it did at least pad the time before the next shoe to drop.Probably you would of called it jibberish.Acted like you were smarter than me, and everyone else,and still lost your socialist ass.Im gonna try to ignore your snarky ways and be helpful.So here is another heads up.People I know who are “in the know” and have a shit load of cash- are planning on shifting everything to Canada with the push of a button.It is hard because Canadian banks will only take so much ,but there are ways.There is a serious shit storm coming down the pike Tim irregardless of who wins this election.We have spent ourselves into oblivion.Your side just happens to sound 10x as dumb as Romni ,because your nincompoop cant even conceive of turning off the tap.The borrowing,and printing.And You do still believe there is money hidden under rich folks mattresses that can fix this.Friend there aint enough to make a dent.That is what i have been trying to tell you.This ship is going down.Grab a life jacket and meet me up top.Canada…..Look into it.Great for teachers.Remember the book ‘ON THE Beach?The last spit of land.Well Canada will hold out a bit longer.I spoke for two years on what would happen when Fanny and Freddy went down.Lots of well meaning people called it Jibberish.Im not being smug but God damn it I told you so.Im Sad.Sad when this whole mess began under my guy Bill clinton, and sad when it fell as predicted ….taking all with it.What is coming next is far far worse.You have been warned.Do with that as you will
As said by todays socialist meanderings.Tim Im a constitutionalist .You are a socialist.Who doesn’t belong?