Cognitive Deficit

Another great example of the mainstream media helping propagate a piece if conventional wisdom based an absolute fabrication: everyone "knows" that a huge part of the reason Democrats will fare poorly in the midterms is the public's disapproval of our federal budget deficit. First of all, the U.S. government has much more pressing economic issues than the budget deficit, such as a staggering unemployment rate, etc. Secondly, there is absolutely no reason to think that the current deficit is the mostly a product of Democratic visions of enormous government. Recently, GOP minority whip Jon Kyl said that as a matter of principle, "you should never have to offset costs of a deliberate decision to reduce taxes on Americans." While I suppose that this is acceptable tenet to hold, it absolutely does not square with deficit reduction or fiscal responsibility. In case Senate Republican leadership forgot, the federal government started the Bush years with a budget surplus. While plenty of factors beyond their control lead to the diminishing of that surplus, they had at least three major unfunded moves that annihilated the surplus: the Iraq/Afghanistan war, the tax cuts, and Medicare Part D. The biggest Democratic legislative initiative in this millennium was the Affordable Care Act, which the CBO estimates will actually reduce the deficit over the long term.

Jonathan Bernstein has a great post about this subject, and takes a look at the policies of Mark Kirk, a relatively mainstream Republican candidate for Senate. He touts his opposition to any new taxes, his original support for the Bush tax cuts, and his desire to make those permanent. In addition to this, he claims he voted against last year's appropriations bill because of earmarks, yet then says he strongly supports the expansion of infrastructure to bring his state "into the 21st century." Of course, this is obviously not the first time a politician has been hypocritical about earmarks, and thats not really my point. Running a budget deficit is a viable policy, especially in a time of economic recession, and has been embraced by ours and other governments throughout the 20th century. However, being labeled as fiscally responsible when supporting a state of permanent war, tax cuts, and no real plan to actually cut any spending is a farce. And that the media gives Republicans a pass by not calling them out on these contradictions and allowing them to benefit from them come election time is journalistically irresponsible.