2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumEzra Klein - "The Senate Democrats’ vague, conservative (as in preserves existiing benefits) budget"
I think Ezra Klein is getting too cute in calling Patty Murray's budget "conservative" because it does not propose to dramatically upend existing benefit programs. I think the point of Murray's budget is that there is no need to toss out Medicare, for example, since it could be tweaked to make it more revenue neutral without going to a voucher program. In this sense, I think Klein is buying into the media narrative that Republicans are "brave" for attacking benefits to the poor and middle class while offering tax cuts to the rich while Democrats are weak because they are trying to preserve such programs. Its the whole "gift" meme.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/13/the-senate-democrats-vague-conservative-budget/
There is little in the federal government Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) does not confidently propose to remake. Medicare becomes a voucher system in which we trust government regulators to keep private insurers in line. Medicaid and food stamps are handed over to the states. The tax code is flattened to two brackets. Ideologically speaking, these are very conservative decisions. But in the dictionary sense, they are anything but conservative decisions: Ryans budget is almost entirely about upending existing institutions, and his assumed savings reflect an extraordinary confidence that untested reforms will prove wildly successful.
Sen. Patty Murrays budget, by contrast, is both a more liberal and a more traditionally conservative document. Where Ryan sees the deficit as an opportunity for historic change, Murray treats it as an economic problem that requires a modest set of spending cuts and tax increases to solve. Where Ryans proposed deficit-reduction path is fast and severe, Murray moves slowly and cautiously. Where Ryan wants to remake the state and balance the budget, Murray just wants to stabilize and reduce the debt.
But even given that difference in objective, Murrays budget is deeply, even excessively, respectful of existing institutions. If the problem of Ryans budget is that it wants to do far too much, the problem with Murrays budget is that it is almost entirely devoted to saying what it wont do, and it gets very vague when the topic turns to what it will.
Riverman
(796 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)...should be spending more time schmoozing Republicans, which is part of the narrative that it is Democrats' fault that Republicans are instransient. Maybe Ezra Klein is moving to the middle and buying into some false equivalency so that he will be considered to be a "mainstream" journalist.
msongs
(67,441 posts)TomCADem
(17,390 posts)If you are saying that President Obama has been pushing bipartisanship, then the media meme that he has not done so, and that his latest efforts are too little, too late is false.
Or, if you are saying that the media meme is true, then your statement must be false.
Which is it?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Hayes is much better.
Edited to add 'much better than Klein' because I like Ed and Chris both better than Ezra. Hey, there was a band called 'Better Than Ezra' now that I think about it.
pnwmom
(108,994 posts)It just means that the budget is similar to many that have passed in the last several decades, during Democratic and Republican administrations. MOST people would think that's a good thing.
The House budget, on the other hand, takes an axe to the social contract that has developed since the days of Eisenhower.