The GOP and their ‘magic asterisks’

[deminks]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-gop-and-their-magic-asterisks

In 1981, the newly inaugurated Reagan administration presented Congress with a budget plan filled with an odd little trick that came to be known as the “magic asterisk.” The technique, as Michael Kinsley explained a few decades ago, “consisted of hiding phony cuts in the small print of various budget documents in order to exaggerate the Administration’s success in spending reduction and to minimize the projected deficit.”

In effect, the “magic asterisk” represented illusory spending cuts that the Reagan White House promised to figure out later. The new Republican administration didn’t want to come right out and say, “We can’t figure out how to make our numbers add up,” so they used the asterisks as placeholders.

At the time, some Republicans in Congress weren’t quite sold on the idea, so Reagan’s aides asked allies in the media to attack them. It worked – GOP lawmakers “beat a tactical retreat” and gave in to Reagan’s bogus budget games. The result was some of the largest deficits in American history, even after Reagan had promised the country the opposite.

A generation later, congressional Republicans aren’t questioning the trick; they’re embracing it. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) took a look at the new House GOP budget blueprint and told the Washington Post, “They have a magic asterisk.”

(snip)

Part of the problem, of course, is that the objective itself is ridiculous – there’s no policy reason to pursue a balanced budget in 10 years and plenty of substantive reasons not to. GOP lawmakers simply think it sounds nice, so they’ve made it a priority.

Just as important is that, in pursuit of the pointless goal, Republican lawmakers intend to shred the nation’s safety net, stripping millions of health care benefits, food stamps, and other social-insurance programs intended to keep working families’ heads above water.

(end snip)

Wow, just wow.

[Fred Sanders]

1. Remember when Bush balanced the budget? Me neither...tooks two wars "off the books" though.