This page was last updated on May 11, 2011.
Mixed signals; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 11, 2011.
The editorial says, “Defict [sic] reduction is wildly popular with their party’s base. (Never mind that these anti-debt zealots were hypocritically silent when their party almost doubled the national debt during the George W. Bush presidency, when their party controlled Congress for the first six years.) Medicare also smacks of socialism, as those on the right have now defined it.” I know the Times and its fellow travelers would like us to believe it, but the assertion “anti-debt zealots were hypocritically silent” is a straw man.
As for the “Medicare also smacks of socialism, as those on the right have now defined it” comment, how is Medicare not socialism or another version of leftism?
The editorial says, “The fact is that Medicare does need to be addressed.” While the Times has made this comment (insincerely, in my opinion) over the years, not once has it floated a proposal. All the Times does is come up with reasons why non-leftist proposals allegedly won’t work. This editorial is no exception.
That the Times speaks of hypocrisy is a hoot. 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.”
The editorial concludes with, “Ideology and politics must not drive Medicare changes.” Seriously? Medicare has been about “Ideology and politics” from the beginning. As a reminder, Medicare came to us from a Democrat-majority Congress (Democrats were 68% of both the House and Senate) and a Democrat president. Shamefully, Republicans were almost evenly split, barely supporting Medicare in the House (70-68) and barely opposing Medicare in the Senate (13-17).
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