The Arizona Daily Star joins the Very Serious People media villagers who want to cut social security and Medicare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Our sad small-town newspaper the Arizona Daily Star has decided it wants to be among the Very Serious People of the Washington, D.C. media villager establishment today in an editorial opinion in which the editor opines that "everything must be on the table," i.e., the GOP talking points for including cuts to social security, Medicare and Medicaid in the federal debt ceiling limit negotiations. No sacred cows in reining in debt. (I would point out that social security and Medicare are, in fact, a "sacred" trust (trust funds) between the government and the American people).

Like all editorial opinions it is unsigned, so we do not know who is in serious need of an education to correct the factual misstatements made in this editorial opinion.

The federal debt ceiling limit is for money the federal government has already spent. It is simply an acknowledgment by the government of the United States that it will pay its bills and make good on its debt, as required by the "full faith and credit clause," Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution.

It is not a budgetary matter. President Obama asked for a "clean" federal debt ceiling limit bill back in January. Tying the federal debt ceiling limit to conservative slash and burn spending cuts in the budget to "drown government in the bathtub" is how the Tea-Publicans are able to take America hostage and to exert leverage for ransom for a vote that is their constitutional duty to perform.

The Star editor writes, "Congress can simply vote to allow the government to borrow more. That must happen, and soon." Just how politically naive is this editor? The Tea-Publicans are holding America hostage and they are not about to give up the only leverage they have for their ransom demands. There is no good faith or the national interest involved here. This is all about raw political power.

This Star editor actually writes "We're glad the Republicans in Congress are using the debt-ceiling deadline as leverage to push for the beginnings of a solution." In other words, this editor supports the Tea-Publicans taking America hostage, killing the hostage and blowing up the economy in an act of economic suicide to get their way on their right-wing agenda. The Daily Star supports economic terrorism against their fellow American citizens (despite later saying "Congress must raise the ceiling on federal borrowing. Period." These two positions are logically inconsistent and incoherent).

This editor should be reading Professor Jack Balkin, whom we have discussed here. Under What Circumstances Can The President Ignore the Debt Ceiling?:

The Fourteenth Amendment imposes a constitutional duty on both the President and Congress not to act in such a way as to bring the validity of the public debt into question. As I have explained in previous posts, the purpose of section 4 was to prevent the political branches from holding the validity of the public debt hostage as part of a political threat or in order to exact political revenge.

I believe that section 4 was designed to prevent what the Republican leaders of Congress are currently doing. Members of Congress should stop trying to use the risk of default to hold the country hostage in order to win concessions on ordinary matters of politics. The should simply increase the debt ceiling to match appropriations that Congress has already made. Then they should have negotiations about taxes and federal spending.

Got that, you terrorist-loving editor?

This Star editor then turns to the GOP talking points of the Very Serious People media villagers who insist that cuts to social security, Medicare and Medicaid be included in the federal debt ceiling limit negotiations. Once again, the federal debt ceiling limit is not a budgetary matter. Tea-Publicans have tied these matters together to exert leverage in their hostage taking.

This Star editor makes the fantastic claim that "These programs constitute a huge portion of the federal budget – more than 40 percent – and their forecast growth means they'll be eating up more and more costs. Changes are necessary and inevitable – if not now, then very soon." Let's educate this editor. Rep. Ellison Questions Putting Social Security Into Debt Ceiling Deal: It Isn’t Adding To Deficit, It ‘Loans Us Money’:

White House Budget Director Jacob Lew wrote recently that “Social Security benefits are entirely self-financing. They are paid for with payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers throughout their careers.” Prominent economists like Paul Krugman have debunked the notion that there’s a “Social Security crisis” that demands deep cuts.

Democrats including Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have noted that Social Security “does not add one penny to the deficit.” The Social Security Trust Fund currently holds approximately $2.6 trillion and can pay full benefits through 2037 and close to full benefits for decades after. Very minor tweaks to the system would strengthen Social Security for future generations and bolster the program in important ways.

Nevertheless, conservatives have tried to make entitlement programs a scapegoat for the nation’s deficit, despite the fact that two of the biggest causes of our current deficit are the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and two wars that were never paid for. A recent Pew poll found that 60 percent of Americans believe it is more important to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits intact than to reduce the deficit.

You didn't see any of these facts in this editor's opinion, did you? Because it doesn't match the GOP talking points of the Very Serious People corporate media villagers.

This Tea-Publican Congress is the most batshit crazy insane Congress since just before the Civil War. There is no reason — none at all — that this Congress should have anything at all to do with the sacred trusts of social security and Medicare. This batshit crazy insane Congress is committed to ending these sacred trusts as we know it. These sacred trusts are financially secure long enough to wait for a more sane Congress to be elected in the future that will make the changes necessary to strengthen these sacred trusts, and not try to end them or destroy them as this Tea-Publican Congress would do.

The one point on which this Star editor and I would agree is that "revenue increases must be a meaningful part of any agreement. Tax breaks benefiting the very richest Americans should be eliminated as part of this deal. On that, we agree."

I would point out that just ending the Bush tax cuts, recently extended after the last Tea-Publican hostage taking in December of last year, would produce the $4 trillion dollars in deficit reduction currently under discussion. Do nothing: Let the Bush tax cuts expire to reduce the deficit – The Hill's Congress Blog (To be practical, the first option is the best – do nothing and let the tax cuts expire. . . Allowing the tax system to revert back to the pre-Bush era would reduce the deficit by about $4 trillion, an amount consistent with the goals of the deficit hawks.) And that is before winding down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and making cuts to the defense department budget.

As previously explained in a post earlier this year, Media Villager GOP-Spin On The Federal Deficit (excerpt):

“Absent major policy changes,” deficits will shrink quite a bit. As Ezra Klein noted:

[The CBO’s long-term budget outlook] shows the same thing as always: If Congress lets the Bush tax cuts expire or offsets their extension, implements the Affordable Care Act as scheduled and makes or offset the Medicare cuts prescribed by the 1997 Balanced Budget Act — which CBO calls the “extended baseline scenario” — the national debt will be totally manageable.

 * * *

If we do nothing, on the other hand, the budget deficit shrinks a lot. As Annie Lowrey recently explained, “[D]oing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically.” David Leonhardt added, “As federal law currently stands, some significant tax increases are set to take effect in coming years.”

* * *

The CBO juxtaposed these two alternative futures in a pair of graphs and, just as last time, it projects that deficits will disappear entirely by the end of President Obama's second term (if he gets a second term) if Congress were to just sit on its hands and do nothing.

As Mark Sumner writes today at Daily Kos, The only crisis here is the one the Republicans are making, and the corporate media villagers are selling for them:

There is no fiscal crisis. Everyone should be clear on that.

The United States is not bankrupt. Social Security is not about to founder. Wall Street is not on a precipice, the IMF is not standing by demanding massive shifts in our government, and U.S. bonds are not trading 1:1 with Charmin. There is nothing wrong.

Nothing except that the Republican Party is prepared to slice the nation's throat to get its way.

* * *

Not only does solving the issue at hand not require the launching of a single ship, it doesn't require the expenditure of a single dime. Raising the debt limit does not commit the United States to any debt it has not already incurred. Refusing to raise that limit is no more an act of fiscal prudence than refusing to pay the restaurant for a meal already eaten.

Not only is the money already spent, the Republicans are the ones who spent it. It's not Social Security that drove up the debt over the last decade. Social Security is responsible for 0% of the deficit. Make that 0.00%, to be exact. The deficit that the Republicans are railing against is driven by the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by the cost of the recently extended Bush tax cuts. You know what'll happen if we cut Social Security? We'll get less Social Security, not less deficit.

It's funny that politicians on both sides of the aisle keep demanding that "everything be on the table," when what they really mean is that "everything not responsible for the problem be on the table." Not that it matters. The truth is that Republicans aren't interested in solving the problem. They're making the problem. They invented it from thin, hot air and they're entirely invested in seeing that the problem gets worse.

Don't think the Republicans would put the nation at risk on purpose? Consider this: the only thing they won't even think about, the only option so odious they'll walk out of the room rather than talk about it, is precisely the only thing that would actually help. If we allow the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled—all of the cuts—the deficit will dry up and the nation will return to sound fiscal standing in short order.

* * *

If Republicans were actually concerned about the fiscal health of the nation, they would sign onto raising the debt ceiling without hesitation or condition. Because there's nothing wrong, and because raising the limit would cost nothing. Instead they've created a completely artificial problem as nothing more than an excuse to extend the damage they've already caused.

* * *

The only crisis we're facing is that one of our nation's political parties has decided to hold its breath until the nation turns red. And the media, the public, and the opposing party are treating this massive tantrum with far more respect than it deserves.

Now write your letters to the editor and give this fool a piece of your mind.