Washington Post

My favorite new blogger is C.A. Rotwang at TPM Cafe. His post on another horrendous Washington Post article about the deficit is a must-read. He makes an important point about the size of the deficit here:

"[This quote is an excerpt from the Post article- e.d.] By adopting Bush's bookkeeping system, Obama has frustrated deficit hawks who say government should live within its means, especially given a new White House forecast that the next president will face a record $482 billion deficit during his first year in office. Obama also appears to undercut congressional Democrats who have made pay-as-you-go budgeting a central tenet of their leadership, insisting that new policies should be paid for instead of adding to the nation's debt."

Frustrated deficit hawks? Who gives a shit? These are the dudes LR quotes later saying: ""Leaving some of the tax cuts in place would cost us a small fortune. . . I don't know that any Blue Dog has a good way to pay for that." So the premise of the headline depends on the criticism of folks who have no proposed remedies.

"[R]ecord $482 billion"? Compared to GDP? Sorry, not even close. "Pay-as-you-go budgeting" as presently adhered to by the Hill Democrats is the notion of matching increases in entitlement spending or decreases in tax revenue to offsets (lower spending and/or higher taxes). So one, it does not include discretionary spending. Two, it applies to changes relative to current law, NOT to repairing the fiscal policies of the past. Three, according to LR's worst case scenario (shown in charts), the Obama deficit way out in 2018 is about $500 billion, not much higher than presently, and much lower as a share of GDP -- about x.x%.

The projected deficit is big, but in historical context it isn't abnormal, and it's really the least of our problems. It shouldn't intimidate policymakers.

The Post had a front page article on the deficit yesterday that makes me miss the days when MaxSpeak was still around. The article's bias is absurd for how obvious it is. The reporter quoted zero progressives. Is it so unreasonable to expect reporters to do more than reflect the establishment consensus?

But maybe it is. MaxSpeak's absence is conspicuous. That website was one of the few places you could go for budget commentary that pushed the boundaries of the debate. As far as I can tell, the progressive fiscal community does not promote itself with the same energy that the center/right coalitions do. For every Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, for every Brookings-Heritage axis of evil, there is no progressive counterpart. The press probably won't broaden the debate without one.

This matters. I see the impact every now and then. Some people in the social policy world think there isn't enough room in the budget to ask for big funding increases. They think they'll get laughed out of the room if they actually ask for what's needed. And unfortunately, they probably will, since the influence of the budget balancers runs deep. So they scale back their vision and hopes, and it becomes even harder to imagine that things will change.

Some folks will tell you that all this balanced budget talk makes progressive programs safer. That may be true when budget reduction and tax cuts are on the agenda. But when we're dreaming about tomorrow, I have no doubt it's a barrier. I just wish an organized force was pushing to tear it down.

Update: At least we still have Dean Baker.