Joke of a Sham Actually Sham of A Joke

Today the front page of the New York Times features an obituary for the Congressional Deficit Committee. Should anyone be surprised at the collapse of a committe whose goal was to reach a political compromise that would reduce the National Debt by several trillion dollars, when half the membership represented a political party that has made a refusal to compromise its modus operandi?

Democrats insist that they were closing in on the framework of an agreement, but that Republicans backed away from their willingness to accept significant revenue increases in exchange for cuts in the growth of entitlement programs. They said Mr. Boehner sealed the fate of the panel on Thursday by offering a package that had a mere $3 billion in new revenue, far less than an earlier Republican plan.


Assuming a 3 trillion dollar debt reduction goal, that’s a 1000 to 1 ratio of spending cuts to “revenue increases.” That’s the amount of “compromise” the GOP is willing to show… not a 10 to 1 ratio of cuts to revenue increases, not a 100 to 1 ratio of cuts to revenue, but a 1000 to 1 ratio. And what remains to be seen is what these revenue increases consisted of. The New York Times areticle is careful not to refer to them as tax increases. Most likely they consisted of scaling back some trivial tax deduction or other.

And what were the Democrats offering?

Serious negotiations did not begin until Oct. 25, when Democrats offered a proposal to reduce deficits by $3 trillion over 10 years through a combination of spending cuts and $1.3 trillion of revenue, largely from tax increases.

The Democratic proposal included as much as $500 billion of savings in health care programs, higher Medicare premiums for high-income beneficiaries and use of a less generous measure of inflation that would reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security benefits.

A plan consiting of 57% cuts and 43% tax increases. The plan included cuts to treasured Democratic programs such as Medicare and Social Security, among other things.

When the Republican proposal consists of a 1000 to 1 ratio of cuts to revenue increases, while the Democrats’ proposal consists of a 57% to 43% ratio of cuts to revenue increases (yes, more cuts than tax increases, even in the Democratic plan) it’s pretty clear that only one of the two parties is at the table to get something done.

Still, you can expect that the mainstream media, as a whole, will do its best to apportion the blame equally.

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GOP mantra: “The 1% must be protected at all costs. It doesn’t matter if the world goes down in flames as long as the 1% can feast at the table.”

Still, you can expect that the mainstream media, as a whole, will do its best to apportion the blame equally.

Yes. I affectionately refer to this equal time for idiots phenomenon as The Fall of Kyoto.

Indeed. Do these assholes even conduct some type of research? It’s called, “whisper down the lame” journalism.

@JNOV will never finish this fucking sweater!:

In all fairness to the New York Times, let’s not forget that the details in the writeup come from their coverage. But I can pretty much guarantee that CNN & the major networks will blame everyone equally. Fox, of course will blame the Democrats, exclusively.

There were a bunch of old school journalists at the memorial service for my friend’s dad, mainly colleagues from Life magazine in the 60s and early 70s, and an LA Times Pulitzer winner. It was an honorable profession for the most part, before the dollar eclipsed the truth. I’m glad I was able to catch the tail end of it, when we had the time, budget and will to get some great work done.

We saw some married photojournalist friends later at dinner. They’re now wedding photographers. “No one would ever give you three months in the field to report a story now,” one said, referring to a massive project I worked on. “Yeah, and six months back at the office to write the goddamn thing,” I replied.

@redmanlaw: I read the other day that one of the news organizations (mind like a sieve, etc) laid off all their photographers. Their plan going forward is to use only photos they get for free.

@redmanlaw: I wonder what I would say to my 16-year-old self, when I decided to pursue journalism, if I could travel back in time.

@rptrcub: “May as well go to horse shoeing school, bud.”

Someone’s having jailbird for Thanksgiving.

. . . and, Today in Fucking Bullshit: “One Of Jerry Sandusky’s Alleged Victims Is Being Bullied, Had To Withdraw From School.”

@rptrcub: My 16-year-old self was all for it.

My 24-year-old self changed his mind and quit.

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