BCT Editorial – 3/6/06

This page was last updated on March 7, 2006.

What chutzpah; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 6, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Bush White House has no right to lecture Americans on saving for the future

“It’s like a father lecturing his children not to smoke while holding a cigarette between his nicotine-stained fingers.

“Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney admonished Americans for their profligate ways. The Associated Press reports he urged his fellow countrymen to do a better job of saving. He worried that workers too often are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently.

“‘The American dream begins with saving money and that should begin on the very first day of work,’ Cheney told a conference being held in the nation’s capital exploring how to encourage people to boost savings and be better prepared for retirement.

“Cheney is right in an idealized, fantasy world way. But try socking away a lot of money while working at a job that pays $12 an hour or less. Try saving for the future when living from paycheck to paycheck is a challenge.”

[RWC] This is a predictable response from a newspaper whose political leaning promotes individual dependency on government.

Who said to “sock away a lot of money?” It’s easy for me to say, but I believe it’s possible to save regardless of how much you make. Through the “miracle” of compound interest, even minor savings can grow substantially if you start saving with your first paycheck. My parents taught me to save (piggy banks, Christmas clubs, et cetera) almost before I could count what I was saving.

By the way, in an editorial (“Depressing;” February 5, 2006) decrying the poor savings rate, the author never mentioned the Times was living “in an idealized, fantasy world.” The editorial concluded, “The looming scenario is right out of Aesop’s ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper.’ Like the grasshopper, Americans are having a grand time playing around while giving little thought to the future. Meanwhile, the ants - the Chinese, Indians, etc. - are busily preparing for the future. If the future does belong to them, it’s because we frittered it away.” (Note: I couldn’t link to the previous editorial because it is no longer on the Times website.)

This is just another example of the Times changing its tune in order to bash the Bush administration.

“But the really galling part of the vice president’s remarks is that the Bush administration does not practice what he is preaching. This administration, aided and abetted by borrow-and-spend Republicans in Congress, has taken government profligacy to new levels of irresponsibility.”

[RWC] The last sentence can be true only if you believe history began when President Bush took office. Regardless of party, government went on a deficit spending spree beginning in the 1960s.

“The Bush White House and Congress aren’t saving for the future; they’re borrowing against it in record numbers, shifting an enormous amount of debt onto future generations of Americans.”

[RWC] This is absolutely correct, yet it is not the result of Times fiscal principles. It is simply partisan sniping.

For example, when was the last time you read an editorial detailing all the spending cuts that needed to be made to balance the budget? Indeed, editorials talk about so-called “mandatory” spending, claiming that serious spending cuts can’t be made.

“Yet that didn’t stop Cheney from wagging his finger at Americans who are struggling to get by because they are not squirreling money away for their retirement.

“What chutzpah.”

[RWC] If this is true for VP Cheney, it’s doubly true for the Times, especially when you consider the previous editorial noted above.