This page was last updated on April 21, 2011.
Brat pack; Editorial; Beaver County Times; April 21, 2011.
If you’re familiar with previous Times editorials on this topic and your head didn’t explode while you read this editorial, more power to you.
The editorial leads off with “S&P warning means it’s time to grow up. The adults have spoken. Now it’s a matter of whether the screaming brats want to grow up. The credit rating agency Standard and Poor’s is the grownup in the room, and the brats are the politicians in the United States who refuse to act like adults and actually do something about the nation’s out-of-control budget deficits and mounting debt.” Later the editorial says, “it is going to require … spending cuts and tax increases … to deal with the problem. The American people must no longer be indulgent parents who tolerate this misbehavior.” Note the Times doesn’t appear to consider itself one of “the brats.” You have to give the Times “credit” for chutzpah.
Let’s look at the Times credibility on the topic of debt and deficits. The Times has published a series of editorials that alternated between lobbying for more spending and complaining about spending. 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. For at least the last four years preceding the 2008 election, and likely from the first day of the Bush administration, Times editorials constantly and correctly complained about federal deficit spending, the country’s growing debt, and the burden that debt puts on us and future generations. Referring to these complaints as crocodile tears, I questioned the motives in my critiques because Times editorials concurrently lobbied for more spending on just about every proposal that came down the pike. As I’ve noted previously, since we elected President Obama, Times editorials now support deficit spending. Seven previous examples are “Last resort,” “Limited options,” “Budget crunch,” “Making the grade,” “Failing grade,” “Move it along,” and “Double-dip recession.”
In the case of the Pennsylvania 2011-2012 budget proposed by Gov. Tom Corbett, every Times editorial on the topic has bashed every proposed spending cut. Other than symbolic cuts by the General Assembly on itself and the executive branch on itself, the Times “solution” to our debt/deficit problems is increasing taxation. To the best of my knowledge, only once has the Times conceded “Raising taxes could slow the economy.” I would like to know the education and work history of the Times editorial board. You see, economic growth is a necessity to deal with the deficit yet the editorial never mentions it. Of course if the editorial had mentioned economic growth, it could not have advocated “tax increases.”
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