Rejection of Reality Has Become Endemic to Politics
Robert Schlesinger

June 26, 2011

Republicans Edit History on Paul Revere, Taxes, Debt

Listen my children, and you won't be failin' basic American history like Sarah Palin. Hardly a man is alive who is not aware of the former vice presidential candidate's recent quote, uttered with little care. The great patriot, she rambled, "warned the British that they weren't gonna be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells and making sure, as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots that we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free."

Thus was ignited the second battle of Lexington and Concord, with Palin and her partisans exchanging volley after ridiculous volley with not only the press but history itself. She insists that she knows her history better than those fusty, liberal old lamestream historians. (Joel J. Miller, author of The Revolutionary Paul Revere, wrote in the certifiably conservative National Review Online that "From Revere's own account, it's clear that he didn't fire a shot, he didn't ring a bell, and he didn't intend to warn the British of anything," adding, "In short, Palin basically got the whole story wrong.")

Palin's minutemen made their stand on Wikipedia, editing Revere's entry there to fit Palin's view of reality. The whole squabble perfectly reflects a political culture where such absurdist rejection of reality has become endemic -- especially on the right. It used to be said of conservatism that it stood athwart history and yelled "stop." Increasingly it seems to stand beside reality while hitting the "edit" button.

The editing impulse can be as narrow as the semantics of policy.

Take the debate over House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan 's plan to repeal and replace Medicare. Traditional Medicare guarantees healthcare coverage for the elderly. Ryan's plan would replace that guarantee with a promise that the government would pay for a fixed amount of healthcare costs, with the seniors paying the difference (if they can). Republicans vehemently argue that this would not be a voucher system ("voucher" being a politically unpopular term). But to paraphrase the Bard, a voucher plan by any other name would be as unpopular. They can dress it up however they want, but the facts of the plan remain. And "voucher" is an accurate enough term that even Fox News strays from the GOP talking points and uses it.

Or the editing impulse can fly in the face of decades of economic history. Take the Republican Party and tax cuts. The inviolability of tax cuts is an article of faith in the GOP. Tax cuts drive economic growth, the catechism goes, and tax increases, as House Speaker John Boehner put it last month, "wreak havoc" on the economy. Republican presidential candidates trip over each other to produce the most fantabulous tax cut plan. Last week, for example, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty laid out a series of proposals -- including reducing individual tax brackets to 10 and 25 percent, the corporate rate to 15 percent, and eliminating capital gains and estate taxes altogether -- which the Center for American Progress estimates would cost $7.8 trillion over 10 years.

Such is the power of tax cuts in the GOP mind, however, that they can actually suspend the laws of common sense and math (that bringing in less revenue will result in less revenue coming in). Pawlenty argued that his tax cuts would inspire such unprecedented economic growth that tax revenues would actually increase. It's classic supply side economics, disconnected from the reality of the last decade.

It was 10 years ago last week that George W. Bush signed the first of his tax cuts into effect. If Republican theology were correct, these tax cuts should have triggered an economic golden age. A full decade on, according to MSNBC's Mark Murray, the economic fruit of Bush tax cuts: 1.1 million jobs. Oops, sorry, that's 1.1 million jobs lost. By contrast, the higher-taxed 1990s saw a net gain of 20 million jobs. If that's havoc, sign me up.

And when Bush took office, the United States had a hefty budget surplus and the prospect of actually paying down the public debt. But while the GOP decries Barack Obama's debt and deficit, "the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will account for almost half of the $20 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019," according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Or as the Center for American Progress notes, had the Bush tax cuts not been enacted, "total debt as a share of GDP would be under 50 percent this year -- instead of pushing 70 percent." There would, in other words, be no debt crisis.

And perhaps we would not have to endure the debate about raising the debt ceiling. Here Republicans are playing a breathtaking double game. GOP leaders quietly agree with the ground truth fact -- that failing to raise the debt ceiling, and letting the government go into default, would be an economic catastrophe -- and acknowledge that a deal will get done because it must get done. But at the same time, knowing that voters confuse the debt ceiling (which involves paying off debts already incurred) with new spending, they baldfacedly assert that they will only cut such a deal if Obama accedes to their agenda. Even in an age of rhetoric divorced from reality, it's an audacious and irresponsible bluff, trying to project an image of bold responsibility while implicitly admitting that they risk the economy itself.

Which brings us back to Palin, who last week argued that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "cries wolf" on the default issue, arguing that a default would not involve another economic crisis. If nothing else, the comment shows that Palin's grasp of economics is as strong as her grasp of history.

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