Responses to the Boston Marathon Bombing

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook; a criticism of Barney Frank for his response on TV to the Marathon Bombing in which he made the point that a well functioning government is crucial in dealing with tragedies like this.

In this terrible situation, let's be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government. It is very fashionable in America, and has been for some time to criticize government, belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think ... of [their] health care. Here we saw government in two ways perform very well. ... I never was as a member of Congress one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes. No tax cut would have helped us deal with this or will help us recover. This is very expensive.

The responses of conservative commenters were a torrent of nasty put-downs of Frank for politicizing the bombing. But when I clicked over to the video I was struck by the way Frank made his point- he didn't call out specific people, or the Republican party.  He didn't blame anyone for anything- he made what I think is an interesting and important point, that when we talk about how government spending is "out of control" we should think about things like government-funded first responders, who may often be sitting around twiddling thumbs on our dime, but are there when we need them, like on April 15.  Hey, he was nothing like this stuff on twitter.  Or this:

If you’re looking for an example of a politician cloaking his cowardice in principle, look no further than Rep. Steve King (R-IA).
On Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the Boston Marathon bombing that left three dead and more than 150 injured, King gave an interview to National Review Online where he used the attack to justify his opposition to immigration reform.
From the interview:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, a prominent House conservative, says Congress should be cautious about rushing immigration reform, especially after Monday’s bombing in Boston, where three people were killed.
“Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa,” King says. “If that’s the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture.”
On immigration, King says national security should be the focus now, and any talk about a path to legalization should be put on hold. “We need to be ever vigilant,” he says. “We need to go far deeper into our border crossings. . . .We need to take a look at the visa-waiver program and wonder what we’re doing. If we can’t background check people that are coming from Saudi Arabia, how do we think we are going to background check the 11 to 20 million people that are here from who knows where.”

I guess in a world with the internet and billions of people who feel really strongly about stuff, it will be easy to troll for outrageous comments on every side of an issue related to a terrible event like the Boston bombing.  In the twitter link above the Tea Party blames President Obama for the bombing, pointing out that President Bush kept us safe (I guess 9/11 doesn't count for them).

For the record, I don't think Boston demonstrates much of a lesson that benefits anyone's side in the political wars (if it had been an assault weapons attack, that might have been a different story).

All my condolences to the families of the victims.

Hello Again, Sorry for the Hiatus

Well, I've been a little busy lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about the latest political budget disputes.  I mysteriously can't sleep tonight, so here are my thoughts:

Most striking to me lately is the framing of President Obama's latest budget proposal, in which he puts in writing his offer last year to John Boehner, to cut benefits to Social Security and Medicare, in return for tax increases.  It's the "grand bargain" all the centrist pundits are keen on, and in fact it's not anything new- it seems that the administration has been continually frustrated by the mainstream media's framing of the budget issues, blaming both sides for the budget impasse while the administration proposes compromise after compromise and is rebuffed. 

This has been building as centrist pundits like David Brooks kept criticizing Obama for not reaching out to the GOP, while pushing him to propose exactly what he was already proposing.  Of course the real reason that no Grand Bargain is possible is that Republicans are totally unwilling to consider revenue increases under any circumstances, and thus have nothing to offer in any compromise that's better than the status quo to Democrats and liberals.  The right wing press is completely hysterical about the budget deficit, insisting that our out-of-control debt will destroy Ameerica, but they won't endorse raising taxes one nickel in order to combat it- which makes one wonder how serious a problem it really is in their minds.

But there's something else happening that doesn't seem to be getting noticed through all the carping: the budget deficit is actually going down already.  With the tax increases of 2013, the Sequester, the economic recovery, and previous budget cuts forced by Republicans, the deficit is down 47% in four years.  And that's while the US is among the lowest-taxing countries in the first world.

 

 



That's 2010, and this year's tax increases would change things a little, but not much. 

Now a sane Republican party would be bragging about how their tight-fisted spending has brought the deficit down even while taxes remain really low.  They have every right to brag about it!  Spending is certainly much lower because of the influence of the Tea Party.  But it seems like the Republican party is now temperamentally unable to celebrate victory if they have to share it with Obama or Democrats.  In some ways this is the biggest obstacle of all to productive lawmaking in a divided country- if Obama agrees to it, it's by definition a bad deal for them.