Time magazine (7/8/13) sent former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and right-wing activist Grover Norquist to the zoo. To solve the country’s problems.
No, really.
“The idea was to bring antagonists together in an unexpected setting, where they could work out their differences on the future of the country,” explains the magazine’s Michael Scherer. The point was to have a little fun, obviously—but there’s a serious problem here, too.
Policy debates are only as broad as the establishment media allow them to be. And on this particular issue—fiscal policy, or what decisions the government should make about spending and revenues—the media tend to prefer staying within what you might call a center-right spectrum of opinion, where all “sensible” people agree to cut spending on safety net programs, while perhaps differing on some details about where (and whether) to raise additional revenue.
So Time‘s selection of antagonists is instructive: A Republican who believes we must cut spending on things like Medicare and Social Security (along with some tax increases), and a conservative who wants to cut spending on things like Medicare and Social Security, but without any tax hikes.
As Scherer puts it, “They both favor more free-trade agreements and would like to entertain means testing for Medicare and cuts to Social Security.”
Cuts to the programs the elderly depend on for income and healthcare—how entertaining.
Why are these the two poles of the debate on fiscal policy? Scherer explains, “Both men command significant megaphones in American politics, and the substance of their disagreement has huge implications for the future of the country.” Norquist is fervently anti-tax, while Simpson
represents the Republican half of the bipartisan Simpson/Bowles plan, which envisions a solution to the current deadlock that would involve about $1 in tax increases for every $3 in spending cuts. For moderates from both parties, much of the corporate-boardroom class and all sorts of Establishment figures in the press, this sounds like a fair solution, given the deep and lingering partisan divide among voters.
Scherer also explains that the “differences between Simpson and Norquist mirror the split in the Republican Party as a whole these days, between a shrinking group of pragmatists that believes compromise is the answer and a growing faction that believes it is the enemy.”
But of course, the fiscal debate in this country should be broader than a disagreement between two Republicans. The media-corporate boardroom consensus that Scherer describes as backing Simpson isn’t very popular with the public; people tend to want to protect the so-called “entitlement” programs like Social Security and Medicare, and have no aversion to raising taxes on the wealthy or, say, cutting military spending.
And the Simpson/Bowles plan called for deep cuts with only modest increases in taxes on the well-off (Extra!, 1/11), which is why it was so roundly criticized by progressive economists. Why not a debate that includes those voices? Paul Krugman might not mind a trip to the zoo.
Or—better yet—why pretend that Grover Norquist and Alan Simpson really know much about fiscal policy in the first place? The fact that both men are Beltway operators makes them powerful, but that shouldn’t be confused with wisdom.
I am not surprised. When Time reported today or yesterday on the Morales plane fiasco, the “reporter” said that “we” may never really know if Washington, DC ordered the plane down because Washington politicians won’t say so. In other words, their word is gold. Is that fact checking? Moreover, the Miami-based Latin Americanist cited in Time’s article is not an authority. And, to top it off, crucial questions were not addressed. For example, readily available on Youtube after the Morales plane fiasco was footage of protesters in Bolivia burning flags outside the American Embassy there. A handful of protesters also defaced the walls of either the American Embassy itself or the compound that houses the American Embassy in Bolivia. American readers should be concerned. Why? After the plane incident, why was security not stepped up at the Embassy in Bolivia? Did the United States with John Kerry as Secretary of State want something to happen at that Embassy that would have been a pretext to have a military incursion in Bolivia? As it was, the scene harkens the readings of Carlos Castenada’s writings about the Yaqi sorceror Don Juan and his wife, now his widow, La Gorda. The woman stomping on ashes of burned flags outside the embassy really reminds one of that Yaqi sorceress. Did the US State Department want more? Did it want something along the lines of Benghazi? That is what Time should be asking. I am.
A debate between extreme right wing big corporate committeeman Alan (Homer) Simpson and unindited money launderer and government bathtub drowner is like having Hitler and Mussolini argue about dividing up Europe.
This is the standard way the CMSM shows us “opposites” working together. Look a little closer and about the only real difference is that they are two separate people!
They ( finance capitalists aka oligarchal scum) aren’t going to give up on “needed cuts to entitlement programs” aka “completely unnecessary cuts to the only thing you get for you tax dollars anymore” – because you sure as fuck don’t get any o’that congressional representation. ..I have to wonder, also, who in the hell reads time magazine anymore? who in the hell watches meet the press?? we need to find out who that incredibly lazy and badly informed minority is, and set them straight, and finish off the msm once and for all by NOT PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO IT..Im not suggesting FAIR stop paying attention to it. As long as corporate whores like David Gregory have a megaphone I want to know FAIR is parsing the garbage for us.
This is mind-boggling. The worse the economy gets, the more the powerful draw their wagons and narrow the range of the contest. Look at how I see their plan; First, shrink the federal system because we can’t win national elections. Thus, redistricting, shrinking the voting rights, and the unchecked corporate financing of campaigns become essential tools for keeping the US House as a check on any legislation that threatens their chokehold on the federal government.
Let power devolve to the 50 states, where we can win, one state at a time. Part-time legislators, weak administrative bodies, and lax election finance laws will assure our dominance. We have the money to win 50 games at once, and we have the staying power to win those off-year gubernatorial elections and state races by which we can cement our dominance. We keep the base turned on by our tough talk on migrants and our restrictive abortion laws. Once in power, ALEC has proven the means by which to cement our corporate agenda through ready-made legislation that none dare oppose unless he or she wants to face our millions in the next election.
This is sort of a thumbnail sketch of a general plan that I gather from the news I read. My hypothesis is that the powerful know the demographics are such that they can’t win nationwide elections, so what they can’t control, they downsize. They then take the game to the 50 subdivisions; shift the power there, and then control that power.
Shocking, does anybody watch this program anymore? Sadly they really don’t know any better.
They should give them both a test there.The test will see which one is more likely to fall for Obamas lies,his deceptions,and his mechanizations against the constitution.Who ever fails gets put in a weasels cage.