Eat the Future

"On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically, they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So I’d like to propose one: Eat the Future."

So begins Paul Krugman's latest column, in which he discourses on the sorry hold American voters seem to have on what's actually in the federal budget (as well as states), and their perhaps sensible but contradictory answers to poll questions in which they want more spending on stuff they favor, and lower taxes. Then Krugman continues:

"Which brings me back to the Republican dilemma. The new House majority promised to deliver $100 billion in spending cuts — and its members face the prospect of Tea Party primary challenges if they fail to deliver big cuts. Yet the public opposes cuts in programs it likes — and it likes almost everything. What’s a politician to do?

The answer, once you think about it, is obvious: sacrifice the future. Focus the cuts on programs whose benefits aren’t immediate; basically, eat America’s seed corn. There will be a huge price to pay, eventually — but for now, you can keep the base happy."

Krugman goes on to spell out what this means. Don't miss this column. And don't miss the distinction--that President Obama's proposals are focused squarely on winning the future. It couldn't be clearer.

Following up: a demonstration of some 10,000 union members who work in the public sector protested the Wisconsin governor's proposed attack on collective bargaining. Notably the protest was joined by members of the firefighters union, who are not included in the governor's proposal. Union solidarity is essential, and this is a first good sign. Update: Demos even bigger on Wednesday.

It is also another point of direct contention: public sector jobs. On Tuesday Speaker of the House John Banal asserted that if GOPer budget-hacking results in lost jobs, "so be it." Banal is one of those GOPers who lies regularly in support of his views--for example by asserting that the Obama administration has added 200,000 federal jobs. The number is one-tenth of that--20,000--which puts federal employment on a per capita basis at the lowest level since 1962. Update: Turns out that the jobs Banal is proposing to cut number one million--enough to send the country back into recession.

Not that this has anything to do with the larger proportion of racial minorities who are able to get government jobs because anti-discrimination rules are tougher.

Following up on the Chamber of Commerce story, the Chamber is claiming that "it knew nothing" of these the proposals from the security companies until the emails detailing them were exposed in the media.