NYT attack on FisCons overlooks Russia, other defaults

The US Report ^ | July 5, 2011 | Kay Day

[Crush]

One day before a 3-day holiday weekend when most Americans were daydreaming about BBQ, cold drinks and fireworks, the White House released a report on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The report claims the usual—millions of jobs created or saved, etc.

By July 4, when most Americans were jumping on BBQ and fireworks, New York Times columnist David Brooks was jumping on something else—fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party. To be fair, Brooks may not have read the Obama administration report before he attacked the FisCons.

The Weekly Standard did read the report and columnist Jeffrey H. Anderson also did some basic math on that Recovery Act: “[T]he ‘stimulus’ has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job…In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.”

Brooks was busy assailing the FisCons: “If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no.” For added emphasis, Brooks said the fiscal conservatives would say no even if you would cut government by a yard.

Then the NYT pundit went into overdrive. He really doesn’t care for FisCons: “The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it… The members of this movement have no...

[elpadre]

“The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities...”

bullseye - and neither do I. These are the people who have been screwing up our nation and the world for many years. I often wonder how those who claim to be so intelligent are, in reality, so dumb.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Their intelligence does not live up to their education.

Being the best at regurgitating Marxist dogma read from text books does not make you intelligent. It makes you smart. Big difference.

[fella]

” scholars and intellectual authorities...” Are living proof that there are exceptions to the ‘Peter Principle’ in that they have far surpassed their level of competency and survive there.