Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Statesman, hoist on its own petard

The Statesman has an editorial today that just makes it look silly and intellectually weak. Under the misleading title "A problem so big, it took two parties to build it," the editors blame our national debt pretty much equally on both Republicans and Democrats. They write
Republican and Democratic presidents and Congresses have done their share to pad the debt.
They say "we've also got to commit to doing it right," and then they call for a "candid, intellectually honest view of how we've gotten into this mess." And then they close with this
After all, it's going to take more than one tea party to fix a crisis created by two political parties.
This is wrong, and it simply feeds the Republican myth that Democrats are to blame for most of our national debt. If the Statesman wants to be "intellectually honest," it will stop promoting this false view of what got us into debt. Look at this graph.



The national debt has gone down under every Democratic President since Truman, and has gone up under the last three Republican presidents. Intellectual honesty would be pointing out that the debt increased from around 30% to around 70% in the Reagan-Bush years.

The "crisis" the editors refer to was clearly not created by both parties; the Republicans own it, lock, stock and barrel. Granted, the debt has gone up a bit under Obama, but primarily to fix the problems he inherited from President Bush.

This is maddening. I expect newspapers to fact check and report the truth. Sure, have an opinion, but like I said about Vaughn Ward, you're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. Statesman editors, you screwed this one up royally, and in so doing contributed to the very ill will you were trying to decry in the editorial. By perpetuating that myth that Democrats are responsible for the debt, you fed the idiocy. Nice work.

Oh, and btw, America's deficit wasn't years in the making, that's a function of the budget annually. The debt was years in the making. Try harder, will ya. So much for "we've got to commit to doing it right."

2 comments:

Sisyphus said...

This bullshit irritates the hell out of me. Instead of calling a spade a spade, they get all intimidated by the very political climate they helped foment and in which they are willing participants.

Ironic that teabaggers don't bat an eye when Cheney says "deficits don't matter", but get a black man in the White House and they're knocking on the doors of Armageddon. What a bunch of tools.

Thanks for calling them out. Now you got me all riled.

Nemesis said...

Damn. I agree with Sisyphus. It's maddening.