Legal Commentary

The Geithner-Tea Party Alliance

By Big Tent Democrat

Didn't see it, but on Meet the Press, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said:

DAVID GREGORY: How viable a political force do you consider the Tea Party to be?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: [L]et me do the positive side of this. Okay? We've-- just been through eight years where people said-- many people said, ‘Deficits don't matter. We can-- we can pass huge tax cuts, pass huge new programs without paying for them.’ That debate has changed fundamentally. Now you don't hear people say anymore, ‘Deficits don't matter.’ You don't hear people saying that we can pass enormously—enormous expansion of government without paying for it. That's an important change. I think all Americans understand that our deficits are unsustainable. And I think that'll be helpful as we move to try to make the hard choices to bring them down again.”

Steve Benen thinks this is smart:

[W]hat I liked about his response was its subtle underpinnings. The Treasury secretary's remarks [. . .] effectively told the Tea Party crowd, "Oh, now you're worried about fiscal responsibility.[ . . .]" [T]he real rage should be directed at the Republican gang that turned surpluses into deficits, and added $5 trillion to the debt.

It's a nice thought, but it has no relation with reality. Consistency and logic have never had anything to do with Republican/Tea Party thinking and the Media's coverage of these issues. What will happen instead will be Republican/Tea Party demands for government spending cuts (not the military,Social Security and Medicare of course) with no acknowledgment of the fact that it was the Bush tax cuts that caused the massive deficit. This is stupid stuff from Geithner imo.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 18, 2010 (boomark / email).