Captain Obvious: Cut FAT, not BONE and MUSCLE from Budget

One of the most irritating things about politics--if you follow it with any regularity--is the childishness of it all. Politicians long ago realized that the bulk of the public isn't "plugged in" all the time, and so they've only got to give the impression that they're doing what "America wants." Perception is everything. This is where sound bites and Frank Luntz's Words that Work Orwellian NewSpeak comes in.  Relaxing pollution regulations for big business thus becomes a "Clear Skies" initiative, and the casual observer says, "okay, that's fine."

The insidiousness of this is, that politicians now take something they want to accomplish--busting unions, killing Medicare, giving tax bennies to rich guys, making it okay to dump waste into the river--and they dress it up with language and talking points that appeal to their base to get it done. They do this in countless ways. They find one or two good arguments that support what they're doing, and the casual observer (or the blindly partisan) among us not only go along, we actually support the position.  Here are a couple of examples:

Budget Munster, Paul "Eddie" Ryan
from Washington Examiner

- Voter ID laws - Done to decrease Democratic voter turn out, but argued that it is to weed out voter fraud.

- Constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage - Passed to keep a boot on the neck of gay people, but argued to "protect the children" or "protect marriage" (the word or concept).

- Union busting - Done to decrease financial support of Democratic candidates (among other things), but argued that it somehow helps state budgets. Proof of that not needed.

- Privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc. - Supposedly to "save" the programs, but really to dismantle them, and shift the burden and expense to the user. Puts the dollars into private hands, further enriching the upper class, while pushing the middle class, working poor and elderly further down.

There is much more along these lines, and the argument that "both sides do it" may have a little legitimacy in this issue, but not a lot. Democrats may employ similar tactics to get things done, but it is rare for a Democratic policy proposal to take from the poor and give to the rich. It is rare that a Democratic proposal is a wolf in sheep's clothing to enrich the already rich. When it comes down to Koch brothers vs. George Soros, at least Soros is actually spending money that leads to policies that are not in his own financial interest.

All this brings me around to (finally) Rep. Paul Ryan and his supposedly courageous and serious and powerful debt reducing plan.  It isn't either of those things. It fails to address revenue at all, and further cuts taxes for the upper tier. It places emphasis not only on the ridiculous "trickle down" theory that has never been shown to work, but on other projected numbers that have nothing to support them but hope and/or magic. When it could propose cutting fat (think: $500 hammers and $1,000 toilet seats in defense contracts), it instead cuts bone and muscle (EPA regulations, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.).

I'm all for cutting waste. There's got to be tons of it. And there's probably waste even in the popular and needed programs. But using over-simplistic language, buzz words and talking points, politicians like Ryan dive in to the budget with a meat fork and carving knife, and just start hacking away. It may already be cliche, but President Obama's "scalpel" analogy is right on the money. And by not addressing the revenue side of things, Ryan and the Republicans ultimately show that they are not serious.