Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Today is the day when everyone draws the wrong conclusion.
First, there's David Broder's column in the Washington Post, Conservative Governors With Tax Appeals.

INDIANAPOLIS -- When they were colleagues in the House of Representatives, it was hard to find two more conservative Republicans than Bob Riley of Alabama and Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Both of them decided to run for governor in their home states in 2002 and both defeated the Democrats who were seeking second terms.

And that meant that both of them inherited the same kind of budget woes that afflict almost all the states -- the byproduct of a long economic slump that has sapped tax revenue at the same time that Medicaid costs have been running out of control.

Their response has not been what you would expect. Unlike President Bush, who has allowed budget deficits to spin out of sight and prescribed tax cuts as the chief remedy for what ails the economy, Sanford and Riley have chosen a different -- and more difficult -- course"


What they did of course, was raise taxes, and Broder concludes, It is ironic to see the anti-tax sentiment emanating from Washington confronted by conscientious Republican governors. But you have to admire their courage -- and their realism.

I agree that they're doing the right thing, but to admire them for this is a bit much. I mean let's just look at the facts: for much of the past 20 years, the Republican answer to everything has been "cut taxes." Taxes are bad because it's your money and why should the government have any say over it," goes this simplistic line, propagating a myth that no one has to pay for anything. In this imaginary world, trash collection is free, roads maintain themselves, and no one needs government service for anything. And that reality does indeed work for the wealthy, who can afford to have their services taken care of by private interests. And these two yutzes profiled in Broder's article gladly supported tax cuts when they were in Congress. As Mark Sanford says, "no one was further out than I was in Congress when it came to [cutting] taxes." And now he's governor, and he's finding out that things aren't so abstract, and so he's raising taxes on cigarettes, which can pretty much be identified as a tax on the poor.
This is "admirable"?
Look, I'll give these Republican dunces credit for facing reality, but admiration is a bit much. After all, it was their rhetoric that led to the reality they find themselves in.

Next up is Robert Samuelson, who writes in Deregulation Mirage that deregulation isn't to blame for the blackout, don't think about it, don't talk about it. In fact, according to Samuelson, "no one is responsible for reliability."