False Equivalence from Alan Simpson

Alan Simpson, not my
favorite ex-Senator

False equivalence is one of those things driving me and other liberals crazy lately.  It's when a pundit or politician tries to demonstrate his or her balance and reasonableness by criticizing the excesses of both sides in a debate about policy.

There have been times, like before the Republican party went completely insane, when such a view could be justified.  Now it's hard to do so.

Here's a case in point from Alan Simpson:

This article shows Alan Simpson again trashing both sides:

Simpson ladles out his disdain in equal portions for his own Republican Party as well as for the Democrats. The message is that they are in denial: “If someone says, we can get you out of this box without touching precious Medicare, precious Medicaid, precious Social Security, or precious defense, someone ought to just say, ‘You’re a fake. You’re a phony.’”

...“You can go back to your base on the left and say, ‘I was working my butt off to get a plan and someone mentioned entitlement reform and I walked out of that room,’” says Simpson. “The right guys will say, ‘I was working day and night, I couldn’t sleep, and someone mentioned a tax increase and I walked out of that room.’”

I want to throw up.  Because nobody on the left refuses to touch entitlements.  Obama has floated many plans to cut Social Security benefits, and of course ObamaCare notoriously gains savings by cutting costs in Medicare.  The second half, however, pretty accurately describes virtually every Republican politician these days- tax increases are completely off the table. 

Now Alan Simpson is a conservative Republican himself, so it must be hard to admit that his guys are the ones making it impossible to make a deal- but if he had some intellectual honesty he would add his voice to those on the right (like Jeb Bush recently) who criticize Republican intransigence.

I guess what's required for the conversation to really start on the budget is for the Bush Tax Cuts to expire at the end of 2012.  Then we'll be working from a higher tax base rate, and Republicans won't have to vote for a tax hike since it will kick in automatically.  My big fear is that Democrats will wuss out once again and give away the store in a quest to compromise with those for whom "compromise" actually means "vote for exactly what I want".