Monday, April 11, 2011

Republican victory

The Republicans won this latest budget standoff. They won, because they have framed this as all about budget cuts. Budget cuts have taken center stage, but they shouldn’t. The focus certainly shouldn’t be only on the amount of spending cuts. We should actually be hearing a lot more about spending without the cuts. In a recession, when the deficit is large, it is very important to spend wisely and carefully. Spending in the right places can help turn things around. Not spending can delay a recovery, or worse. Infrastructure spending (bridges, roads, trains, electrical power grids, etc.) is an example. People should also be talking intelligently about taxes and the possibility that some of them may have to increase. Also we should be talking about how we got here and how we might avoid coming back. Specifically, we need to bring reform of the financial sector back on the table. Somehow the Republicans have been able to turn a failure of regulation into a call for less government. The President’s unwillingness to, when push really came to shove, reform the financial sector is a big reason why. So is his reluctance to lead a more vocal opposition to the demonization of public employees and government regulation. The bottom line is that there is a much fuller conversation that should be going on. The Republicans appear to believe that it is to their benefit to truncate this conversation; to turn it into a debate about spending cuts … and they have succeeded. If you need any more evidence, just take a look at what the Democrats are trumpeting as their big victory: keeping funding for NPR and Planned Parenthood intact. It makes you wonder what the next ‘victory’ will be.

No comments:

Post a Comment