BCT Editorial – 3/27/11

This page was last updated on March 27, 2011.

Wise words; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 27, 2011.

The editorial says, “In a recent column, Thomas Friedman noted ‘the GOP is calling for cuts in the things we need to invest more in - like education and infrastructure - while leaving largely untouched things we need to reduce, like entitlements and defense spending. A country that invests more in its elderly than its youth, more in nursing homes than schools, will neither invent the future nor win it. Read over that last sentence. Wiser words were never written.”

Here are a couple of observations before I proceed. First, as I’ve noted before, despite all the editorials we read professing to abhor deficits and debt, nowhere do editorials seem to find spending cuts of which the Times approves. This is just more evidence the Times merely cries crocodile tears when it “complains” about deficits and debt (here and here). Other than populist ideas like cutting how much the PA General Assembly spends on itself, I can almost guarantee the Times will bash just about any spending cut proposal. If the cut is small, we’ll get the “drop in the bucket” editorial as we saw in “Quick hits/NUMBERS GAME.” If the cut is substantive, we’ll get the “draconian” editorial telling us the cut victimizes this or that age, ethnic, race, sex, et cetera group.

Second, the editorial bashes Republicans for their proposed cuts but doesn’t mention Democrats at all. What about their cuts? Have Democrats proposed any cuts to “things we need to reduce, like entitlements?” Nope. In fact, at least for awhile, Democrats claimed that to keep spending at fiscal year 2010 levels was really cutting spending because those levels were below the levels in the FY 2011 budget President Obama proposed last year but the Democrat-majority Congress chose not to pass for political reasons. The Democrats knew they were already in trouble for the 2010 election and another budget with increased spending and a $1+ trillion deficit would simply destroy any chances they thought they had. They couldn’t even pass a budget with some cuts for show out of fear this would discourage the Democrat base and reduce Democrat voter turnout, again hurting their election results. Instead, Mr. Obama and Democrat congressional leaders opted for continuing resolutions to keep spending at current levels, hoping voters wouldn’t notice.

Let’s stick with the entitlements issue. To date, Republicans have been addressing spending in the aforementioned continuing resolutions and this isn’t where you can really address long-term programs and spending. According to Republican leadership, their proposals for the FY 2012 budget in April will include changes to entitlement programs. That said, I won’t hold my breath.

Should Republicans not have the courage to do anything substantive regarding entitlements, who would be surprised given what happens every time they try?

Let’s look first at the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, a significant contributor to the current economic mess. In 2001, President George W. Bush’s fiscal year 2002 budget (his first) raised an alarm about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and testimony before Congress by Treasury Secretary Snow raised the alarm again in 2003. Alan Greenspan also raised alarms in 2003 and 2005. Democrats, led by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), resisted all efforts to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Indeed, during a 2003 hearing, Mr. Frank said, “These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” I came across a Youtube video showing clips of congressional testimony in 2004 regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This video shows Democrats strongly defending Fannie/Freddie while Republicans and the regulator were sounding the alarm and pushing to rein in Fannie/Freddie. If Republicans knew what was going to happen, why didn’t they make a much bigger stink about it? Democrats were already using the anti-poor smear and I suspect some Republicans were afraid to press the issue because Democrats in the hearings showed they were also going to play “the race card.” As you’ll see in the aforementioned video, one Democrat (Lacy Clay – Missouri) referred to the hearings as the “political lynching of Franklin Raines [then-Fannie Mae CEO].” A black Democrat referring to the “lynching” of a black man was done specifically to send the message that supporters of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac reform would be branded as racists. Should the Republicans have forced the filibuster and endured the charges of racism? Absolutely.

Now let’s move to 2005. When President Bush proposed changes to help Socialist Security, they were the recommendations of the bipartisan President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security. The main recommendation proposed taxpayers have the option to invest a very small portion (4%) of their SS taxes in personal accounts, but still under the oversight and rules of the SS Administration. One of the Commission co-chairmen was former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) and he supported the proposal. No one ever questioned Moynihan’s liberal credentials and some Democrats supported such a proposal in the 1990s. It should have been clear sailing, right? Nope. Instead, Democrats immediately demonized the proposal as an attempt to kill SS and claimed everything from the proposal was turning SS over to Wall Street (privatizing) to a plan to cut benefits for current retirees. Sure enough, the proposal never got serious consideration because of all the disinformation. Jump ahead to the 2010 election and a local lefty told us “senatorial candidate Pat Toomey … wants to give … Wall Street the keys to Social Security funds.” The author later asserted, “There is little problem with Social Security; it is solid for the next 30 years.” The disinformation has already started.

The Democrat claim Republicans want to pull the rug out from under SS and Medicare beneficiaries would be funny if it weren’t for the following. Who actually took $500 billion from Medicare over 10 years? Democrats when they cooked the books in a failed effort to make Obamacare look deficit neutral. Who increased Medicare benefits via the prescription drug benefit? Republicans, though I opposed Medicare Part D and still do.

I can guarantee Democrats already have the boilerplate of their press releases and sound bites ready to go to demonize any Republican entitlement proposals as a cruel attack on __________ (fill in the blank). The same is likely true for Times editorials.