 I know this is very difficult for the corporate media, let alone the conservative-dominated media (a large chunk of it), to comprehend, but it's really NOT difficult to understand why the "supercommittee" failed. It's so NOT difficult, in fact, that Greg Sargent manages to boil it down to one (1) easy-to-understand sentence.
Democrats wanted the rich to pay more in taxes towards deficit reduction, and Republicans wanted the rich to pay less in taxes towards deficit reduction. Is that really so hard to understand? No, it's not, for anyone with a high school education or higher (or lower, for that matter - this is really, really easy!).
Amazingly, though, the geniuses in the corporate and conservative media can't, or won't, report what happened honestly and accurately. They won't do this despite the fact that it's their job to do so - to explain what's happened in the news objectively and accurately, not just to lazily and mindlessly parrot political talking points handed to them, or whatever "everyone else" is saying. I mean, if that's all they're going to do, plus their absurd "on the one hand, on the other hand" false equivalency (which the corporate media has become infamous for), then why even bother "reporting" at all? If that's all they're going to do, then frankly they might as well just fold up their operations and go into a more lucrative business, since theirs is going steadily down the tubes regardless. Clearly, they're not adding any positive value here. To the contrary, what the corporate media's doing is actively harmful to helping the public understand what happened here, to analyze it and put in context, and ultimately to assign blame. As Greg Sargent adds, "Any news outlet that doesn't convey this basic fact to readers and viewers with total clarity is obscuring, rather than illuminating, what actually happened here." Which is, as Sargent explains very simply (again, even a lazy, mindless corporate media hack should be able to figure this one out), "the GOP proposal would have really meant is that that the wealthy would pay less in taxes towards deficit reduction than they would if we just did nothing, i.e., let the Bush tax cuts expire, as stipulated by current law."
So, how many of you are willing to bet the ranch that the corporate media will rise to the occasion here, starting on the tee-vee (aka, "idiot box") tonight? Personally, I wouldn't bet a really cheap lunch, let alone the ranch!
P.S. The corporate media might also want to report the fact that if we simply DO NOTHING, let current policy (including expiration of the Bush tax cuts) play out, U.S. budget deficits will be $7.1 TRILLION lower over the next 10 years than they would otherwise have been. That's a LOT more than what the "supercommittee" was talking about. Want to eliminate deficits entirely and go into surplus? Simple: combine the $7.1 trillion "do nothing" approach with the ditching of wasteful subsidies for oil companies, corn ethanol, mortgage interest deductions for rich people, and other utterly wasteful/stupid...uh, stuff. That would pretty much do the trick. Again, this isn't conceptually difficult to understand, it's just politically impossible to DO, because anti-government/anti-tax fanatic Grover Norquist and his Repubiclan puppets won't allow it. End of story. |
