Remember when Bush the Unelected entered the White House and all of those nasty lies were floated, saying that the white trash Clintonistas had trashed the place, going so far as to (gasp) steal the "Ws" from all of the computer keyboards (far too much sense of humor to expect from the Clinton administration, sadly)? Thank god, Republicans said, the Adults our back in Our House.
Well, Brad DeLong is bitter, angry, increasing partisan, and SHRILL. Why? Because the so-called adults are really trashing the place. Knowingly, gleefully.
"Why do so many of us who worked so hard on economic policy for the Clinton administration, and who think of ourselves as mostly part of a sane and bipartisan center, find the Bush administration and its Republican congressional lapdogs so... disgusting, loathsome, contemptible? Why are we so bitter?
"After introspection, the answer for me at least as clear. We worked very hard for years to repair the damage that Ronald Reagan and company had done to America's fisc. We strained every nerve and muscle to find politically-possible and popularly-palatable ways to close the deficit, and put us in a position in which we can at least begin to think about the generational long-run problems of financing the retirement of the baby-boom generation and dealing with the rapidly-rising capabilities and costs of medicine. We saw a potential fiscal train wreck far off in the future, and didn't ignore it, didn't shrug our shoulders, didn't assume that it would be someone else's problem, but rolled up our sleeves and set to work.
"Then the Bush people come in. And in two and a half years they trash the place. They trash the place deliberately. They trash the place casually. They trash the place gleefully. They undo our work for no reason at all--just for the hell of it. Reading Suskind's The Price of Loyalty shows just how casual and unthinking it was."
DeLong also asks, what is up with the Washington Post editorial board? Specifically, what to make of this:
"Technological and organizational shifts are driving firms to close jobs down permanently, and laid-off workers are having to look for entirely new work. That takes time. Firms have to create jobs they never had before, which takes longer than re-creating old ones. As a result, the new structural nature of unemployment means that job creation lags in the early stages of a recovery.
"Mr. Bush should not be blamed for this, though his irresponsible fiscal policy harms business confidence and therefore job creation. But the bigger question is whether jobless recoveries are a bad thing. They are, after all, the flip side of good news. There is less cyclical unemployment these days, so recessions are milder; fewer jobs are being created now because fewer jobs were destroyed during the downturn. Moreover, a jobless recovery means, by definition, that each worker is producing more. Higher productivity, in turn, is the best promise possible of higher wages and employment in the future."
Rinse and repeat: "Mr. Bush should not be blamed for this, though his irresponsible fiscal policy harms business confidence and therefore job creation." Whaaa?
Before this editorial, the only major national publication I would have thought would have an editorial wondering if job loss was "a bad thing" would have been the newspaper that first outed those Lucky Duckies.
As we leave the strange sanity of New Hampshire (and Iowa) voters, Timothy Noah wonders about the sanity of the Dem's "Southern Strategy." Tonight, I heard a report on NPR validating Noah's comments. One voter claimed that the Dems can't win without the South and the South won't vote for anyone who doesn't have a bubba accent (listen, if you can, to the change in timbre, if that's the right word, to Edwards' dulcimer tones as he ventures below the Mason-Dixon line).
Breaking news:
"BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) -- Howard Dean shook up his presidential campaign on Wednesday after absorbing back-to-back defeats, replacing his campaign manager Joe Trippi and bringing in a longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore to try and stabilize his faltering candidacy, Democratic sources said.
"The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Dean told congressional supporters in a telephone conference call that he was installing Roy Neel as campaign CEO. Dean added that Trippi would remain on the payroll, the source said. But another source said that Trippi had decided to depart the campaign rather than accept the change."
Well, Brad DeLong is bitter, angry, increasing partisan, and SHRILL. Why? Because the so-called adults are really trashing the place. Knowingly, gleefully.
"Why do so many of us who worked so hard on economic policy for the Clinton administration, and who think of ourselves as mostly part of a sane and bipartisan center, find the Bush administration and its Republican congressional lapdogs so... disgusting, loathsome, contemptible? Why are we so bitter?
"After introspection, the answer for me at least as clear. We worked very hard for years to repair the damage that Ronald Reagan and company had done to America's fisc. We strained every nerve and muscle to find politically-possible and popularly-palatable ways to close the deficit, and put us in a position in which we can at least begin to think about the generational long-run problems of financing the retirement of the baby-boom generation and dealing with the rapidly-rising capabilities and costs of medicine. We saw a potential fiscal train wreck far off in the future, and didn't ignore it, didn't shrug our shoulders, didn't assume that it would be someone else's problem, but rolled up our sleeves and set to work.
"Then the Bush people come in. And in two and a half years they trash the place. They trash the place deliberately. They trash the place casually. They trash the place gleefully. They undo our work for no reason at all--just for the hell of it. Reading Suskind's The Price of Loyalty shows just how casual and unthinking it was."
DeLong also asks, what is up with the Washington Post editorial board? Specifically, what to make of this:
"Technological and organizational shifts are driving firms to close jobs down permanently, and laid-off workers are having to look for entirely new work. That takes time. Firms have to create jobs they never had before, which takes longer than re-creating old ones. As a result, the new structural nature of unemployment means that job creation lags in the early stages of a recovery.
"Mr. Bush should not be blamed for this, though his irresponsible fiscal policy harms business confidence and therefore job creation. But the bigger question is whether jobless recoveries are a bad thing. They are, after all, the flip side of good news. There is less cyclical unemployment these days, so recessions are milder; fewer jobs are being created now because fewer jobs were destroyed during the downturn. Moreover, a jobless recovery means, by definition, that each worker is producing more. Higher productivity, in turn, is the best promise possible of higher wages and employment in the future."
Rinse and repeat: "Mr. Bush should not be blamed for this, though his irresponsible fiscal policy harms business confidence and therefore job creation." Whaaa?
Before this editorial, the only major national publication I would have thought would have an editorial wondering if job loss was "a bad thing" would have been the newspaper that first outed those Lucky Duckies.
As we leave the strange sanity of New Hampshire (and Iowa) voters, Timothy Noah wonders about the sanity of the Dem's "Southern Strategy." Tonight, I heard a report on NPR validating Noah's comments. One voter claimed that the Dems can't win without the South and the South won't vote for anyone who doesn't have a bubba accent (listen, if you can, to the change in timbre, if that's the right word, to Edwards' dulcimer tones as he ventures below the Mason-Dixon line).
Breaking news:
"BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) -- Howard Dean shook up his presidential campaign on Wednesday after absorbing back-to-back defeats, replacing his campaign manager Joe Trippi and bringing in a longtime associate of former Vice President Al Gore to try and stabilize his faltering candidacy, Democratic sources said.
"The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Dean told congressional supporters in a telephone conference call that he was installing Roy Neel as campaign CEO. Dean added that Trippi would remain on the payroll, the source said. But another source said that Trippi had decided to depart the campaign rather than accept the change."
posted by John at 6:06 PM
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