One of those occasional high-contrast offsets appeared in today’s Albuquerque Journal.
One side came from Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson. The other side from New Mexico’s three hard-core liberals in Washington: Jeff Bingaman, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich.
Find Samuelson’s columns at www.washingtonpost.com/robert-j-samuelson/2011/02/24/ABSZV8O_page.html. I have always liked Samuelson, partly of course because I agreed with most of his arguments but also because he brings clarity and brevity to complex issues.
Samuelson outlined “the budget fictions of the right and left.”
The fictions, the fairy tales, are:
Conservatives: “We can reduce deficits and cut taxes by eliminating ‘wasteful spending.’”
Liberals: “We can subdue deficits and raise social spending by taxing ‘the rich’ and shrinking the bloated Pentagon.”
Neither fairy tale mentions entitlements, the big part of the problem.
The liberals made the front page with their fear of a proposal to change the index used for cost of living adjustments to social security.
Oh my gawd, Udall told the Journal, “While I would consider reasonable changes to the cost-of-living adjustment, pushing our seniors into poverty is a nonstarter.” Give me a break, Tom.
Even Rep. Steve Pearce, anchor of the right in our delegation, babbled a bit in semi-skepticism. Come on Steve, abandon the fairy tales.
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