Bait, Switch

Ross Douthat laments the Congressional GOP's Day 1 failure to deliver on its promise to cut $100B in spending:

Hugely depressing, but hopefully hugely instructive as well. The pledge to cut $100 billion was always more of a symbolic sop to the Tea Parties than a real step toward fiscal discipline.

Did the rubes know it was "symbolic" ? I doubt it.

You can’t have fiscal responsibility if you keep entitlements, tax expenditures and defense spending off the table, and the fact that these realities have been exposed in the very first week of G.O.P. control, thanks to the peculiarities of the fiscal calendar, is probably good news for fiscal conservatism. The sooner we get certain fond illusions out of the way, the better.

Yes, now that the GOP has won the election, it no longer needs the services of the lie that the Democrats want to cut Medicare, Social Security and defense spending. Now that the rubes have been sufficiently fooled, the GOP can get down to the business of doing exactly the opposite of what voters elected them to do!

Good plan, Douthat!

5 thoughts on “Bait, Switch

  1. MikeJ

    Yes, now that the GOP has won the election, it no longer needs the services of the lie that the Democrats want to cut Medicare, Social Security and defense spending.

    With the exception of defense spending, how’s that different from what they say at FDL?

  2. cleek

    how’s that different from what they say at FDL?

    they say “Dems want to cut SS” is a lie ?

    i thought they believe that (some) Dems really do want to cut SS.

    /confused

  3. MikeJ

    No, I meant that what they say at FDL is identical to what the GOP says,m not to what you were saying. I’m sorry, it’s only 7:30 and my first coffee is still brewing.

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