It Will Always Be On The Table
by digby
Greg Sargent reports that the president said this today:
"But what I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership out of the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible. We saw in their Pledge to America a similar set of irresponsible policies. They say they want to balance the budget, they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts, and $16 billion in spending cuts. And then they say, `We're gonna somehow, magically balance the budget. That's not a serious approach.
There's no doubt that he's correct. But I would caution that if he thinks he will be rewarded for being serious about balancing the budget he needs to think again. The Democrats thought they had banished the "big spender" label for all time when Clinton not only balanced the budget but created a surplus. The thinking was that nobody could ever say again that the Democrats were irresponsible stewards of the economy and they could finally "take that off the table."
I think it's fairly clear that didn't work out the way they planned it. The Republicans have a neat trick of running up huge debt and creating economic crises when they are in office and then vilifying the Democrats for what they have to do to clean up the mess.Once it's done they come back into power and pass out all the goodies to their rich friends. It's a clear pattern. There's no "taking it off the table."
As long as this pattern holds, Democrats will always be on the defensive, stuck with the dirty work and never being able to reap the electoral rewards for doing it. So they should probably just forget trying to earnestly prove to America that they really are the "responsible" party and concentrate on delivering peace and prosperity. I have a sneaking suspicion that's what people really care about.
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