Conservatives And The Deficit

Conservatives who squawk about the deficit — and Democrats who should know better, but squawk anyway — tend to do so selectively. That is, they tend to focus only on spending. But spending is only half of any deficit equation. After all, a deficit is "the amount by which expenditures or liabilities exceed income or assets." When it comes to the government "income" really means "revenue," and that means if we're going to have an honest discussion about the deficit we have to talk about about taxes.

That half of the deficit equation — income or revenue — rarely enters the discussion, but the reality is the surest way to create a deficit is to increase spending while deliberately decreasing income or revenue. Who would do something like that? Something so obviously unsustainable?

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Sarah Palin's keynote speech was quite a hit at this weekend's Tea Party convention. She even took a shot at pinning responsibility for the deficit on the Obama administration.

It's too bad Palin didn't have proper notes on hand, as she did for the Q & A after her speech. Then again, the message that it was actually the Bush administration that left us more in debt and less secure, wouldn't go over well with her audience.

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Listening to conservatives squawk about deficits is a bit like taking parenting and/or relationship advice from Medea, the Gosselins or "Octomom." At best, they serve as an example of what not to do.

As it is with children, so it is with conservatives and deficits. People who are very good at making them aren't necessarily all that skilled in dealing with them.

And we know, during the previous decade, conservatives proved themselves quite adept a creating a deficit from a surplus.

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