David Gregory serves Dem talking points by obsessing over ‘ratios’

If you watched Meet the Press yesterday (and if not, see the video below), you saw that David Gregory pushed House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy pretty hard over the matter of the "ratio" of spending cuts and tax increases as a way of reducing the deficit.

By harping on this line, Gregory is serving as a propagandist for the Democrats. The whole notion of a "ratio" of spending cuts to tax increases as an approach to reducing the deficit is a dodge invented by the Obama Administration, which has absurdly claimed that it offered a ratio of 10 (spending cuts) to 1 (tax increases, or "revenues" as they prefer to call it), and that Republicans are so ideologically rigid that they rejected even that "reasonable ratio." This is Bolshevik. For one thing, "spending cuts" as purported by Democrats in Washington are not real spending cuts at all. They are "cuts" against a baseline increase. For another thing, they count things as "cuts" - such as the Afghan War drawdown - that are going to happen anyway, and are already built into long-term projections. For another thing, they assume "savings" from ObamaCare that are far from guaranteed. For another thing, they use the usual gimmick of spending cuts in the "out years" that future Congresses are under no obligation to follow through on.

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The tax increases, by contrast, are immediate and permanent as soon as they are passed into law - and almost never produce the "revenue" promised because they have the effect of hampering economic growth, which Democrats never acknowledge when they demand higher tax rates and simply assume the higher rates will produce exactly the revenue they wish for. Gregory also plays a game with McCarthy by treating as ridiculous crucial policy proposals - particularly the repeal of ObamaCare. In Gregory's mind, it's ridiculous to talk about repeating ObamaCare because he considers it politically impossible to achieve. Even if that's true, at least for now, is that a reason it should not be proposed? ObamaCare is terrible law. It is based on false fiscal premises and it will surely have a far worse budget impact than its apologists claim. If you're going to make a serious proposal to balance the budget, that should start with every change in policy that would benefit the nation, and repealng ObamaCare has to be at the top of that list. If Republicans declined to propose its repeal because of the political climate in Washington, they would not be doing the job that an opposition party is supposed to do. Obviously David Gregory is a product of Washington groupthink, and you can expect the questions he asks to reflect that. The obsession over ratios, and the dismissive attitude toward the rate of ObamaCare, shows just where conventional wisdom in Washington is. That's why it's so essential to find a way to shake it up.

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