“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: That Terrible Trillion
As you might imagine, I find myself in a lot of discussions about U.S. fiscal policy, and the budget deficit in particular. And there’s one thing I can count on in these discussions: At some point someone will announce, in dire tones, that we have a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR deficit.
No, I don’t think the people making this pronouncement realize that they sound just like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies.
Anyway, we do indeed have a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR deficit, or at least we did; in fiscal 2012, which ended in September, the deficit was actually $1.089 trillion. (It will be lower this year.) The question is what lesson we should take from that figure.
Dana Milbank: At the mercy of backbenchers
To hear House Speaker John Boehner tell it, President Obama is a veritable Stephen Colbert.
“It’s clear that the president’s just not serious,” Boehner said at his weekly news conference in the House TV studio Thursday.
“The White House is so unserious,” he said a moment later.
“Here we are at the 11th hour, and the president still isn’t serious,” he repeated.
Boehner is right – seriously. The administration hasn’t been treating the “fiscal cliff” talks as a substantial negotiation, and for one very good reason: It’s not clear it has anybody to negotiate with.
At the White House and on Capitol Hill, a fear is growing that Boehner is not in a position to negotiate a successful deal, because if he strikes the kind of compromise needed to solve the fiscal standoff, he may well lose the support of his House GOP caucus – and possibly his job as speaker.
From a tragic weekend, a return to the daily grind of politics. Our hearts may not be in it, but the challenge is undying and the struggle is one: to protect each other and preserve our humanity in the face of relentless forces. [..]
Last year in Africa I heard the story of a nine-year-old girl who took her own life rather than face the horrors in her village. Her voice has spoken to me ever since, informing the work of my days with the graphic immediacy of her experience. Now the children of Newtown speak to millions of us. For me the voice of Newtown will alway be the voice of that friend of a friend’s daughter. From now on she will always be a still, small voice in my life.
As mournful as they are, we need those voices. Without them we become soulless purveyors of numbers and facts, debating-team members with no stake in the outcome other than the desire to win an argument.
E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Now is the time for meaningful gun control
We should mourn, but we should be angry.
The horror in Newtown, Conn., should shake us out of the cowardice, the fear, the evasion and the opportunism that prevents our political system from acting to curb gun violence.
How often must we note that no other developed country has such massacres on a regular basis because no other comparable nation allows such easy access to guns? And on no subject other than ungodly episodes involving guns are those who respond logically by demanding solutions accused of “politicizing tragedy.”
It is time to insist that such craven propaganda will no longer be taken seriously. If Congress does not act this time, we can deem it as totally bought and paid for by the representatives of gun manufacturers, gun dealers and their very well-compensated apologists. A former high Obama administration official once made this comment to me: “If progressives are so worked up about how Washington is controlled by the banks and Wall Street, why aren’t they just as worked up by the power of the gun lobby?” It is a good question.
Eugene Robinson: Ready to jump from the ‘fiscal cliff’
Are you as sick of the “fiscal cliff” as I am? Actually, that’s a trick question. You couldn’t possibly be.
Having to read and hear the constant blather about this self-inflicted “crisis” is an onerous burden, I’ll admit. But just imagine having to produce that blather. Imagine trying to come up with something original and interesting to say about a “showdown” that has all the drama and excitement of, well, a budget dispute.
As if this weren’t bad enough, it happens that both of the protagonists – President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner – have reasons to wait until the last possible moment to agree on a deal. Obama believes time is on his side, and Boehner (R-Ohio) needs to show the troops that he will fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds, in the fields and in the streets. This could go on past Christmas, at which point many of us will be looking for a real cliff to jump from.
Juan Cole: Questions I Ask Myself About the Connecticut School Shooting
I ask myself, “Why?”
Why do U.S. cable news networks intensively cover these mass shootings, making it the only story for a day or two and prying into every detail of them, when they aren’t interested in preventing them from happening again through banning semiautomatic weapons? Is it just, like, a natural disaster to them?
Why don’t the news anchors or discussants ever bring up the simple fact that between 1994 and 2004, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994: The Federal Assault Weapons Ban prohibited assault weapons? The prohibition was not unconstitutional. Congress foolishly put in a 10-year sunset provision, and of course Bush and his Republican Congress allowed it to expire.
Why doesn’t anyone blame George W. Bush for these mass shootings? He’s the one who led the charge to let the assault weapons ban expire. Why aren’t the politicians in Congress who take campaign money from assault weapons manufacturers ever held accountable by the public?
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