Bye-bye, Miss American Pie - Toles

[somone]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/?hpid=opinionsbox1



Remember when the deficit was the most terrible, dangerous, threatening, catastrophic, calamitous, insidious, irresponsible, impending existential disaster striking at the root and foundation of the Republic and it's citizens? That was way back a month ago before the election when that line of argument could be used against the Democrats. With my wizard-like powers of prediction I foretold the screamingly obvious that AFTER the election, when the GOP caravan rolled in, deficits would disappear as an operative concern.

And now, lo and behold! We have a budget "compromise" in which the president agreed to make the deficit BIGGER to get some money to the unemployed, and in exchange the Republicans agreed to make the deficit BIGGER by extending tax cuts for the rich. In case you missed it, this chart from Ezra Klein gives a pretty clear idea of the proportions of those tax cuts. Follow that big bouncing ball at the bottom as the GOP sings its song about fiscal rectitude.

As for Obama? Oh, the craven cave-in! Unless it's just the way he got an imperfect form of the second-round-of-stimulus that he wanted anyway. --Tom Toles

[DearAbby]

1. delete