Talking The Talk

by digby

On the CNN Money show this morning, chief fiscal scold David Walker said the budget deficit is the biggest problem facing the country and will cause every citizen to have to pay the government $155,000 in higher taxes. There will be ever tighter credit, higher interest rates and higher oil prices.

Then the editor at large of Fortune magazine came on and said the only solution to this pressing and immediate crisis is going to be an enormous tax increase on the middle class that the president is simply not telling us about.

Finally, they turned to Mark Weisbrot of the CEPR who began to talk about how this fear mongering was completely absurd, that more than a century of statistics show … and he was cut off for breaking news. Maybe they’ll go back to the subject tomorrow. But if you were watching today, you were left with the impression that the deficit is the cause of all of our economic problems and that unless the government stops spending money right NOW, you can expect a bill from the IRS for $155,000.

This is why people are brainwashed into believing that the problem with our economy isn’t a bunch of rich gamblers playing with other people’s money while skimming off millions in bonuses for themselves — or wealthy corporations rigging the system to make the taxpayers bear the burden for their failures. It’s that the government is spending too much money on old and sick people.

Yesterday I even saw Gretchen Morgenson, one of the smartest economics writers out there, say on MSNBC that a public option was a problem because we’ve all seen that when government gets involved in industries it always ends up costing more. It was like it was a tick, a bit of reflexive social lubricant that’s required in order to be taken seriously as a member of the club.

We know that the US already spends more on health care per capita than any other industrialized country and doesn’t cover everyone. Is it really reasonable to believe that the insurance companies are going to voluntarily cut their own profits? Doesn’t the government have to get involved to fix health care? And if they get “involved” they might as well do it right and create a plan that will actually force the insurance companies to do what’s necessary to bring down costs so that we don’t spend more money while we treat everyone, correct? How else will this happen, fairy dust?

I don’t think people quite realize how pervasive and unthinking free market fundamentalist assumptions and anti-government ideology is among the ruling class and the media elite. Even those who know better simply don’t know how to think or speak from any other framework. This hard push on the debt and fear of higher taxes runs on well worn grooves in American politics — they sound reasonable and familiar and work hand in glove with the moneyed interests which are determined to stop any kind of fundamental reform that erodes their privilege.

Update: Fredericka Whitfield is hosting a health care hour and did say something to the effect that at the very least, the sad little losers who don’t have health insurance at all probably need to be “given” a little something so they don’t keep forcing the hospitals to raise costs. (Maybe we could get something like Doctor’s Without Borders to pitch in. Oh wait.) I guess we probably should be grateful that well compensated television celebrities are so compassionate that they don’t think it’s a good idea that their fellow citizens die on the streets. (Those millions who are going bankrupt from being undercovered or who are living as slaves to their employers so they don’t lose their coverage are just out of luck. They should become TV celebrities too so they don’t have such problems.)

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