Recession-proofing Government

Today's Object of Ridicule and Scorn is Barack Obama for that prime time turd. Second place goes to Bob Herbert for this pearl from the New York Times.

UNFAZED BY REALITY By Bob Herbert

Imagine that you’ve got the gas pedal to the floor (or almost to the floor) as you try to get your vehicle to the top of a mountain, where the road will level off. You’ve made real progress, but the vehicle is straining and wheezing. 

I’m having a really hard time relating to this hypothetical; I don’t drive a hybrid.

You’re not there yet. 

Why in the world would you lift your foot off the gas and risk rolling back down the mountain?

Without knowing exactly what ridiculous point he’s trying to make, I'll take a crack at this one. Here’s a brainstorm:

a) The road is out ahead.
b) There’s a better road about a half-mile back.
c) The engine is overheating.
d) Some idiot put diesel in the engine at the last fill-up.
e) You’re slowing down so that you can get out of the hybrid and into a vehicle that actually functions.
f) The driver is masochistic.
g) This is a Sisyphean parable.

Something like this is happening 

Oh good. I was hoping that it was relevant in some way to an event and/or situation that is actually occurring.

in the fight to haul the United States out of the depths of the worst recession since the Great Depression. 

My brainstorms just went 7/7 in effectively answering a rhetorical question with metaphor. That’s precisely how inane this argument is going to be.

The deficit hawks — policy makers from the very same crowd whose crazy theories and rampant irresponsibility got us into this terrible fix in the first place 

I’m having a hard time following this flippant backhander, so bear with me. Deficit hawks are the people who think the deficit is bad. Considering that Bush generally receptive to deficit growth, as liberals love to point out, It’s hard to argue that the “deficit hawks” have any policy decisions in place. Unless Bob Herbert is trying to argue that the recession has its roots in the Reagan administration, deficit hawks didn’t “[get] us into” anything.

Before the recession, you couldn’t find a deficit alarmist anywhere. Republicans had all but stricken the idea of fiscal responsibility from the agenda in 2008. The nomination of John McCain, the most liberal Republican Senator to run against Barack Obama, the most liberal Democratic Senator, is proof enough of the Republicans’ accession to liberalism in 2008.

— want the United States to step off of the stimulus gas, 

This would be the proverbial diesel gasoline (stimulus money) in an engine built for unleaded (the US economy).

a move that might very well stall the current, extremely fragile recovery. 

The recession is fragile in the way that a patient recovering from the flu is fragile after he’s dosed with immunosuppressants.

The latest struggle on this front has to do with the crucially important issue of federal relief to state and local governments, 

Another pearl of wisdom from Bob Herbert: “Always trust an alcoholic around booze.” Nothing says “trust government” like failing governments.

which are facing nightmarish budget scenarios. Consider the following comment from General Davie Jr., the chief of the Natomas Unified School District in Sacramento County, Calif.: 

Wow. Herbert is digging deep for this one. Was the Associate Deputy Manager of Recess Curriculum in the Dakotas Region at the Department of Education not available?

“We made the decision to close our eight elementary school libraries with a heavy heart, but our budget situation is so dire that we had no choice. We’ve also cut all of our health aides, eliminated busing, shortened our school year by five days, increased K-3 class sizes to 30 to 1, and issued layoff notices to about 30 percent of our teachers, classified staff and administration.” 

That’s 214 people. When the economy is hurting as bad as it is, 214 teachers should be laid off.

Similar decisions, potentially devastating to the lives of individuals and families and poisonous to the effort to rebuild the economy, 

I dare Bob Herbert to explain how laying off teachers, administrators and nurses, eliminating busing, and shortening the school year translates in any way into a macroeconomic effect.

are being made by state and local officials from one coast to the other. 

But mostly on the two coasts, where local liberals have been destroying fiscal responsibility for decades.

State and local governments are obliged by law in nearly all cases to balance their budgets, but their revenues have fallen off a cliff because of the long economic downturn. Thus, they are slashing away at important government services, laying off workers and raising fees and taxes. 

That’s what happens in a recession. It’s also cold in winter, in case you were wondering.

For the federal government to stand by like a disinterested onlooker as this carnage plays out would be crazy. 

Times liberals think government should be disinterested:
1) When a massive oil rig explodes in the Gulf
2) When a flood of migrants overrun the country’s borders
3) Whenever a reasonable person suggests military action.

President Obama 

If only President Obama had executive experience balancing a budget, this might even be relevant

has called on Congress to provide substantial relief to these localities to ward off the harmful impact of the budget cuts. In a letter to Congressional leaders of both parties, 

If only sending a letter to both parties counted as bipartisanship, this might even be relevant.

he said he was concerned that “the lingering economic damage” of the financial downturn “has left a mounting employment crisis at the state and local level that could set back the pace of our economic recovery.” 

Lack of employment sets back the pace of recovery? You’re kidding. I don’t even have a smarmy simile for this. Employment is the single best metric of economic recovery. Claiming that a lack of employment is “setting back the pace” of the recovery is like saying a high temperature is setting back a patient’s pace of healing from a fever. (Okay, I never lack for a smarmy simile.)

He urged quick action to prevent the budget cuts from leading to “massive layoffs” of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees. 

And other campaign donors.

Congress had already been considering legislation that would provide something approaching $50 billion in aid to states: 

If states can’t support themselves, why even have them?

$24 billion to offset increased costs in the states’ share of Medicaid payments and $23 billion for teachers’ salaries. 

$97B. A mere pittance.

But the constant chatter from Republicans and increasing numbers of Democrats about rising federal budget deficits has stymied those efforts. 

Hallelujah, brother!

The concerns about the effect that this aid might have on long-term federal deficits are misplaced, because the effect would be barely noticeable — if at all. 

$327 for every man, woman, and child in the country. I hardly notice when the government takes hundreds of dollars from me.

But if Congress doesn’t act, the impact in the here and now will be both powerful and painful. The secretary of education, Arne Duncan, has warned that the nation could face an “education catastrophe” 

Like…millions of gallons of oil gushing out of our schools? Or is this just more of a “never let a crisis go to waste” type of catastrophe?

if the federal government fails to provide assistance to prevent the loss of 100,000 to 300,000 public school jobs. 

Should we retain temporary Census Bureau workers too? They need the work, after all.

Nicholas Johnson, the director of the State Fiscal Project at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told me in an interview on Monday: “We’ve already seen in the first quarter of this year that state budget actions lopped half a percentage point off of G.D.P. growth, knocking it from 3 1/2 percent down to 3 percent. To put it in terms of jobs, the actions of state and local governments right now are taking a little over 20,000 jobs out of the economy each month. That’s what it was in May, and there is every reason to believe it will continue unless the states get some assistance.” 

I can't be bothered to outline exactly how absurd it is to say that cutting government hurts GDP. Trust me, it is.

When you put people out of work, you cripple the quality of life of their entire families. 

Less blah blah and more economics.

When you start dismantling the public schools and driving teachers from the classrooms, you damage — and in many instances cripple — the lifetime prospects of untold numbers of pupils. 

Less blah blah and more economics.

When you undermine a recovery that is as fragile as this one, which is as fragile as a crate of eggs, 

If the recovery is so damn fragile, why do you believe so stridently that the policies that have created it are working?

you undermine the economic health of the entire nation. 

Is there a Truism School of Journalism that I’m not aware of? Yes, undermining an economic recovery is equivalent to undermining the economic health of the nation. Also, undermining the military is undermining the military strength of the nation. Undermining the American culture is undermining the cultural prestige of the nation, and undermining the US soccer team is undermining the athletic prowess of the nation—though barely.

These are the kinds of disasters that the deficit hawks, secure in their ideological dream world, 

The one that coddles the crazy idea that people know how to spend their money better than government?

are quite happily prepared to live with. 

To wrap up the gist of this article, Herbert’s main point is that hiring teachers is an essential part of a plan for economic growth—even if teachers don’t actually produce anything that grows the economy. This is an article on the economy that contains not one single reference to lowering taxes. It can’t be taken seriously, just like Bob Herbert.