-By Warner Todd Huston
Despite that no real cuts to government spending have yet occurred as a result of sequestration and that government spending is actually increasing, The New York Times is fearful that “austerity” has already come and it is “killing” government jobs.
Binyamin Appelbaum, opens his February 26 piece claiming that the federal government is already “cutting back at a pace exceeded in the last half-century only by the military demobilizations after the Vietnam War and the cold war.”
In keeping with his past support for growing government in times of economic downturn, Appelbaum went on to claim that government spending can “expand the nation’s economy, just as private sector transactions do.”
Even as Appelbaum characterized these policies as “austere,” several paragraphs down he did offer a counter point to the theme.
“Total government spending continues to increase, but those broader figures include benefit programs like Social Security. Government purchases and investments expand the nation’s economy, just as private sector transactions do, while benefit programs move money from one group of people to another without directly expanding economic activity,” he wrote. (My bold)
Even with sequestration, federal spending is on track to increase by $5.9 trillion by 2023.
Appelbaum repeatedly uses the word “austerity” to describe the cost-cutting measures being considered–or merely threatened–in Washington. The definition of austerity is “enforced or extreme economy.” But proposed cuts to growth in federal spending amounts to as little as 2.3 percent. These are hardly draconian or “extreme” cuts.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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