About Hoyer, the article says:
So, what's he up to?
These latest moves cast a more aggressive Hoyer as a national spokesman and idea generator for his party on issues where more patently liberal Democratic leaders - such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi - have less credibility with middle-of-the-road voters. Indeed, after three decades of building a reputation as a superior inside player, Hoyer is amping up his outside game.
It goes on to talk about the rivalry between him and Pelosi.
"He's positioning for minority leader," said a senior aide to another member of the Democratic leadership. "And he's doing a good job of it."
Hoyer himself was quoted in the article saying:
The American people are focused on jobs and cutting spending, and it's important for our members to tell their constituents how we're addressing both issues.
Is that true? Or is that only true because all of the deficit hawks are telling Americans that the economy won't recover unless we cut spending and that we're passing this debt onto their children and grandchildren?
This might be a power play by Hoyer, but it's stupid for any Democrat to follow it. For Republicans, all calls to balance the budget or cut the deficit are entirely hypocritical, because they were only too happy to spend, spend, spend when it was their own causes (war and tax cuts for billionaires) that they were spending on. Now that the Dems are in charge, Republicans don't want to come out and say that they don't want to fund programs that help the American people. That sounds heartless.
So they say they want to cut spending, to balance the deficit. They try to look responsible. This is merely their way to neuter the Democratic agenda. Thus, if Democrats follow the Republicans into believing that now is the time to cut spending, they are setting the stage for their own electoral failure in November. In that way, Steny Hoyer is absolutely setting himself up for a job as Minority Leader - not Majority Leader as he currently is.
This is an old strategy, so why the hell are the Dems falling for it? Keynesian economics specifically calls for MORE government spending right now. The stimulus didn't work because it wasn't big enough! It's insanity to try to balance the budget at a time when tax revenues are in the toilet and entitlement spending is at a peak. Fix that scenario first by recovering the economy - and you need spending to do that - and THEN when tax revenues are higher (because people make more money and fall into higher tax brackets) and entitlement spending is lower (because fewer people need food stamps, etc), THEN deal with the deficit.
That isn't to say that there's no wasteful spending to cut right now. The Bush tax cuts can go. We've got two wars we can get out of. Lots of old, outdated weapons programs to cut. Those are places to cut if you want to cut spending. But cutting the spending - or failing to increase it - that will stimulate the economy is a fast track to committing political suicide.
How does this apply to school lunch? As the House Education and Labor hearing pointed out yesterday, spending more on school lunch now is a path to spending MUCH less on health care costs later. Talk about fiscal discipline. If you want to rein in future spending on preventable diet-related medical conditions, the only way to do that is to pay now for decent food in our schools. To me, this is the number one example of how screwed up the deficit hawks' priorities are. Penny wise and billions of dollars and the well-being of an entire generation foolish. |
