We're Poor! How Can You Think of Spending Less Money? A News Fisking RE-POST

[despite numerous attempts at editing, the original version of this post kept getting jumbled. So I'm trying again. Wish me luck.]

The Hill (h/t Protein Wisdom):

Representatives of three liberal advocacy groups on Monday blasted President Obama’s proposed two-year freeze on federal civilian worker pay.

And by "blasted" the gang at The Hill undoubtedly mean "made a series of fatuous and unsurprising comments about. Hey, you try making this shit interesting."

John Irons of the Economic Policy Institute, Tamara Draut of Demos and Greg Anrig of The Century Foundation said it is a mistake to freeze pay until the economic recovery from the recent recession has taken hold more firmly.

“We think that is a terrible idea. We should be raising wages,” Irons said in a press call. “It is unclear why the president would want to do this.”

Yeah, who the hell would want to reduce the cost of government? I mean, aside from the plebes who pay for it. You know, the unwashed in flyover country.

“It reinforces the concern we have that the focus has shifted from creating jobs to deficit reduction. It is far too soon to be doing that. We need to be focusing on ways to lower 9.6 percent unemployment,” Anrig said.

Actually, Arnie, the time to do that would have been two years ago, before the massive spending binge. Now, other priorities make themselves felt. Weird, huh?

The representatives argued that federal pay has lagged private-sector pay and the reduction announced by Obama today would exacerbate the difference.

*blink* *blinkblink*

Um. Okay. Let's just assume that some manner of statistic exists to back up this statement. And let's also assume that this statistic takes into account the regular COLAS, step-raises, and benefits that federal workers get. Has it occured to these fine representatives that the private sector has shed jobs to the tune of 9.6% unemployment? While federal employees have enjoyed legendary job security? Well has it, you WHORES?!

Sorry, some kind of indigestion. Not enough fiber.

EPI, Demos and The Century Foundation today released their own plan for reducing the deficit, titled “Investing in American’s Economy,” which they said reduces the deficit to a “sustainable” level while protecting economic growth and entitlement benefits.

At one time, the word "sustainable" meant something. No, really. You could use it without quotes and everything.

In contrast to the plan proposed by the chairmen of the president’s deficit commission, the liberal groups’ plan focuses more heavily on raising revenue.

You don't say.

The deficit commission draft proposal relied on 75 percent spending cuts compared to 25 percent in revenue increases. Irons said the EPI-Demos-Century Foundation plan relies on about one-third spending cuts, one-third revenue increases and one-third reductions in tax expenditures such as tax credits.

For the unitiated, tax credits are when the government refrains from taking your money because you're doing something with it that the government likes. So that's one-third spending cuts, one-third higher taxes, and one-third taxing more of your money.

Awesome.

The plan also proposed short-term stimulus spending in order to bolster the recovery, to the tune of $250 billion in 2011 and $200 billion in 2012. 

So we're going to take money from people, and then turn around and spend money, so that people will have it? Is it just me, or is there an unnecessary segment to all of this?

This spending would be focused on early childhood development, transportation infrastructure, expanding rural access to broadband, bolstering healthcare information technology and research, and development spending, Draut explained.

So we're going to take money from people who have jobs and give it to:

• People too young to have jobs
• Short-term jobs to provide road for people who don't have jobs to commute
• Giving farmers faster internet (because we don't spend any money on farmers, or anything)
• Something about health care information (can any of this research be done on the internet? How about broadband?)
• Something entirely vague

How could this possibly go wrong?

To get spending down, the liberal plan would cut defense spending by $960 billion over 10 years.

I swear, if I hadn't read that, I would have simply assumed it.

To raise revenue, the groups propose a carbon cap-and-trade scheme or carbon tax, a surcharge on millionaires, closing foreign tax loopholes, and limiting the value of tax deductions for higher earners.

So to pay for all this, we're going to take money away from people who:

• use energy
• have money
• do business overseas
• have money (again)

That's sure to make companies start hiring!

Asked about whether it is responsible to maintain relatively high social spending, Irons said that recovery will be crucial to meeting the deficit reduction goals in the long term and that the drive for immediate austerity is not based on fact.

“We are not a Greece, we are not an Ireland, we are not a Portugal,” he said referring to several European economies that have faced debt crises recently.

Good to know. But before their debt crises, were those countries practicing immediate (or any kind of) austerity? Or were they doing something else?

Also, note the way in which Irony links defecit-reduction to an actual economic recovery. Why, it's almost as though the government depends on the economy, and not the other way around!