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Some of us didn’t take the skills deficit seriously, but David Brooks shows us that it is a real problem. Apparently the New York Times cannot find a conservative columnist who can deal with basic issues of logic and arithmetic. Brooks is very upset because the budget deal apparently does not include any cuts in Medicare.
He also is very angry that so many people insist on relying on arithmetic and pointing out that the “$1 trillion” deficits are almost entirely due to the economic downturn caused by the collapse of the housing bubble and not some fundamental imbalance of taxes and spending. He scoffs:
“They have found that the original Keynesian rationale for these deficits provides a perfect cover for permanent deficit-living.”
Wow, those damn math nerds!
On the more fundamental question of the long-term deficit projections that have Brooks so excited, fans of arithmetic keep pointing out, to Brooks’ frustration and anger, that it is all due to our broken health care system. If our per person health care costs were comparable to those in Germany, Canada, or any other wealthy country we would be looking at huge budget surpluses in the future, not the enormous deficits that have Brooks so excited.
Serious people therefore talk about fixing our health care system. (Trade is one possible route, although committed protectionists like Brooks apparently never even consider it.) In fact, recent cost numbers suggest that we may already be on the right track. But Brooks doesn’t look at numbers. He is really angry because the public doesn’t want to suffer and politicians who want to keep their jobs are not anxious to make them suffer.
It’s best to let Brooks tell the story himself:
“Ultimately, we should blame the American voters. …
“Most members of Congress are responding efficiently to the popular will. A large number of reactionary Democrats reject any measure to touch Medicare or other entitlement programs. A large number of impotent Republicans talk about reducing the debt, but are incapable of forging a deal that balances tax increases with spending cuts.”
Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economy and Policy Research. He also writes a regular blog, Beat the Press, where this post originally appeared.
Photo from jekert gwapo licensed under Creative Commons
15 Comments
Suffering is good for the soul, says Brooks, whose suffering is the sadness of knowing that others aren’t suffering.
Three words: FUCK David Brooks!
The New York Times also employs a conservative columnist who can’t reason and can’t write. His name is Ross Douthat.
Fuck DAVID BROOKS!
O my goodness. David Brooks reminds us why Amerka is anti-interlectural. He’s priceless.
Conservative intellectual = conservative who uses words of more than one syllable without regard to sense or meaning, so long as they make him or her sound clever to the ignorant.
Wonder if Pelosi feels the same. I suspect another cave when the fiscal bill gets to the House. Krugman pointed out today in the NYT that BO always negotiates by giving away the farm before the counter offers are made. Could someones else do the negotiations?
What REALLY pisses Bobo off is that the old farts like me aren’t dying off fast enough to suit him. Well, that and the fact that people he doesn’t approve of are having sex…
Brooks looks like a snail that lost its shell. I’m sure he is a nice guy to drink with and discuss garden parties and sex trips to Thailand.
My mother says that David Brooks is a horse’s ass and that people have known this for years.
Mr. Brooks has never been one to let the facts or the math get in the way of his “views”. Here’s from October 14th, 2008 commenting on the unnecessary bailout of GM vs. the necessary bailout of Wall St:
“Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be.
This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.”*
So using $750B bailing out Wall St without any restructuring, investigation, or accountability was necessary, but using $50B to get GM through bankruptcy (which includes restructuring, investigation, and accountability) was not OK. Somehow I can just guess where Mr. Brooks has his own money invested, and it isn’t in a company that makes real things like GM, but with the financial crooks that collapsed the world economy.
Then on November 28th, 2008, he comments on Mr.
“Over the past year, the federal government has poured money into the economy hundreds of billions of dollars at a time. It has also guaranteed investments, loans and deposits worth about $8 trillion. Barry Ritholtz, the author of “Bailout Nation,” points out that this project constitutes the largest infusion in American history.
If you add up just the funds that have already been committed, you get a figure, according to Jim Bianco of Bianco Research, that is larger in today’s dollars than the costs of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the New Deal, the Korean War, Vietnam and the S.&L. crisis combined.
Is all this money doing any good?”**
He does seem to acknowledge at that point that much, much, more money that $750B is being used to bailout Wall St, and he’s skeptical where it’s doing any good. Well, so am I.
Mr. Brooks priorities are fairly clear cut underneath all that hand wringing. We just had to spend trillions practically overnight to protect his investments, but when it comes to saving companies, workers or health care, well, that’s just too expensive even if it’s less money over a much longer period of time.
And as you points out, Mr Brooks sidesteps the whole fact that Medicare is the least expensive health care in the US. Apparently, bloated health care costs are OK as long as private companies get the profit. I wonder if Mr. Brooks includes investments in private health care insurance companies along with his financial industry investments?
How come every time I read Mr. Brooks it reminds me of an investment adviser “talking his book”?
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/14iht-edbrooks.1.17829085.html
**http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/28/opinion/28brooks.html
A dose of Brook’a former NYT colleague Chris Hedges and a bit of economics from Richard Wolff would do the Brooks a world of good – but then he would have to get off his high horse and face a reality outside his hermetically sealed Washington Belt world…
Weally, PW. You misunderestimate them. They’re very successful and some are quite clever.
A sad state of affairs when American newspapers like the Times and broadcasters like PBS have no problem whatsoever enabling and publishing serial liars like Brooks. Or George Will. Or pick ‘em.
It’s gotten so bad that lies about arithmetic are deemed not only acceptable- but something to be promoted and rewarded.
Even about arithmetic.
Fuck David Brooks gently with a chain saw.