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Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Media Panic Machine Revs Up

It is predictable, it is dishonest, but it is a thing of beauty.  I am speaking, of course, about the drumroll that has commence in the media about the "crisis" of sequestration that is about to hit the country.  On March first, unless Congress acts in the interim, defense spending will be cut across the board by approximately 7% and domestic discretionery spending by 5% with a small 2% cut to Medicare (that will not affect the benefits received by seniors.)  These are the automatic sequestration cuts designed by the White House to force, supposedly, the Congress into coming to agreement on more appropriate ways to close the deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars over the next decade.  As is usual whenever there might be cuts to domestic programs, the Democrats are holding press conferences to charge that the Republicans are mean; the GOP wants to "take food out of the mouths of babies" according to the Democrats.  Once those statements are made, they are blasted across the main stream media to the entire country, or at least that dwindling portion that still actually watches, reads or listens to the main stream media.  On top of this, the same media is also screaming that the sequester will stop the great economic recovery brought about by Obama's policies.  (Of course, that decline of 0.1% in the economy last quarter is hardly much of a recovery.)  When the GOP points out that the House has already twice passed plans to avoid the sequester, the media sniffs that this was just posturing.  After all, the plans would never pass the Senate, or so we are told, but in that body, senator Reid prevents any vote from even being taken on the Republican plans.  And when the senate Democrats and Obama come up with no actual plan to avoid sequestration, the media never even mentions it.  Instead we hear at length about how Obama wants a "balanced" plan to avoid sequestration.  In other words, Obama wants more tax increases.  If one were to count the number of articles in which the media derides Obama for proposing a tax increase which could never pass in the Republican controlled house, it would take less than a second; all you would have to say is "zero".

This time, the media is even rolling out the stories about the big divisions among Republicans as to how to react to the sequestration.  Some "wise" Republicans are said to be apoplectic about the damage that sequestration will do to the recovery.  It is a new twist for the media to start this storyline so early.  Usually, this discussion of splits among the GOP waits until the last few moments right before some secret deal is struck.

What makes this all so enjoyable this time is that it is clearly destined to fail.  Obama can give speeches, but that is all they are.  There are no secret negotiations about which reporters can write.  There is no ability to derride Republican proposals while the Democrats stay silent.  This time, with no secret talks underway, the Democrats look like the do nothing, say nothing crowd that they have been for the last four years.  Imagine that!  The senate Democrats are actually going to have to take a position in public.  Further, if Obama wants to come up with a proposal, he will have to do it in public.  The level of turmoil among the Democrats is astounding.  It is as if they do not understand what has happened.

Let me give a good example of what I am talking about.  Yesterday, we heard that the White House is now prepared to include reform of entitlements as part of a deal to avoid the sequester.  That reform is to be severely limited in scope, but at least reform of entitlements is now "on the table".  Really?  That is how the media portrays it; a murky offer of entitlement reform designed to draw the Republicans back to the secret negotiating table.  If the GOP can just keep to its current course, however, this murky offer with no details will disappear like the nonsense that it is.  Obama will have to make a real offer, a public proposal to avoid the sequester.  If he keeps talking about raising taxes, he knows that there will be no deal.  If he actually talks in public about cutting entitlement spending, he knows that he will lose the ability to say that he is against such cuts.  The game underway should be called "Squeezing the Demogogue."

The best thing about all of this is that, no matter what, there will actually be a budget reduction on March 1.  Sure, there will be pain inflicted from budget cuts.  That is the nature of budget cuts.  There is no way to avoid pain from real budget cuts.  But, the USA will actually have take a step towards reducing its deficits.  In the long run, the economy will fare far better as will the country.



 

 

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