The New Civility

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2011/04/the-new-civility-1

George Packer, writing in the New Yorker:

The Republicans now hold just one house of Congress, yet they have controlled the terms of the debate, because they understand that budget battles are about far more than numbers, and they've made the ideology behind their various bargaining positions startlingly clear: government should be reduced to gasping for air. What's more, they're willing to deploy legislative terrorism—threatening to shut down the government and to allow the United States to default on its debt—to get their way.

"Terrorism"?

And here I had thought President Obama was willing to shut down the government to assure that Planned Parenthood kept its funding.

Might it be possible for a writer in the New Yorker to disagree with Republicans about the federal budget without calling them terrorists? Remember, had the Democrats passed appropriations bills for the year ahead when they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, this whole "shutdown" wouldn't have even been an issue.

There are plenty of other things to take issue with in this New Yorker piece, but at a certain point it's not even worth answering.

by Editor  |  Apr 18, 2011 at 1:10 pm Related Topics:  Government Spending, Press receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list