You'd be wrong.
Steve Pearlstein, who's been writing such gems as full throated defenses of Fannie Mae for as long as I can remember, sums up the incoming House majority's skepticism of current economic policy, to wit:
-quantitative easing
-retaining the Bush tax cuts for households making over $250,000
-unlimited unemployment benefits
as follows:
"GOP to jobless: Drop Dead"
To be fair to Pearlstein, this is from the headline, not the column, and headlines are generally written by editors - not the person who wrote the article or column, so I'll reserve the possibility he (a) didn't write it and (b) chewed out the person who did.
The fact is, there are serious policy arguments on these issues on both sides (see, for example, a critique of the fed's quantitative easing by some of the nation's leading economists). Pearlstein himself claims to have concerns. Why he can voice them but others can't isn't clear. I think there's a distinctly unparliamentary name for criticizing others for something you do yourself, but let's not go there. The name calling obscures these honest policy differences, and reduces our chances of finding the middle ground that Pearlstein and his ilk claim to seek.
Instead, Pearlstein goes on about William Jennings Bryant, and only cites economic authorities that fit the Post's preconceived preferences for big government. If the big government policies are the right ones (and I have defended some, e.g. TARP) they certainly need better defenders.
No comments:
Post a Comment