BCT Editorial – 7/28/10

The editorial leads off with “Government efforts kept economic downturn from being much worse.”  I hope no one is surprised the Times would make this assertion.

Here is what I wrote in my critique of “Looking ahead” (2/17/09): “Here’s a prediction.  If the left can’t figure out a way to spin a failure into a success (as was done with FDR and the New Deal), editorials will tell us nothing was promised and/or things were worse than we thought.  Also remember the Congressional Budget Office reported that ‘doing nothing’ would be marginally better than the porkulus bill.  Therefore, any improvement that would have happened anyway will be credited to the porkulus bill.”

The Times tells us, “If anything, more needs to be done, not less, because even though the economy has stabilized, the threat of a double-dip recession is still a real possibility.  Pulling back now increases the odds of that happening.”  Have you noticed the leftist “solution” for a failed leftist program (redundant?) is always to do more of what failed?  You’ll recall this paper cries crocodile tears about deficit spending and debt one day and the next day pitches a fit if anyone proposes spending cuts or adhering to “pay-go” rules. 

The editorial says, “The critics have an advantage in that they don’t have to prove their case.  They are free to criticize what was done because it was, well, done and there are results to look at.  What they don’t have to defend, though, is what would have happened if nothing had been done because, well, it never took place. … We don’t know the consequences of doing nothing.”  What the Times wants us to miss is it’s doing exactly what it accuses critics of doing.  If critics can’t defend their position “because, well, it never took place,” how then can the Times claim “Government efforts kept economic downturn from being much worse?”  You can’t make that assertion without knowing what would have happened with any other course of action, yet the editorial concedes “We don’t know the consequences of doing nothing.”  By the way, “doing nothing” is doing something.

Something else the Times wants us to miss is - in addition to the 2009 CBO forecast - critics have history on their side.  Here’s what Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression, said about FDR’s “stimulus.”  Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939, Sec. Morgenthau said, “We have tried spending money.  We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.  And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job.  I want to see this country prosperous.  I want to see people get a job.  I want to see people get enough to eat.  We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.”