SoS

SOS for SS Privates
Jon Chait offers the important and needed response to Dave Brooks' ridiculous observations at the potential, momentary end of privitization.

Meanwhile, in the New York Times, David Brooks writes a "A Requiem for Reform," in which he blames GOP miscalculation, Democratic partisanship, and the selfishness of the voters for killing privatization. (A departure from his usual sunny populism, wouldn't you say?)

Actually, if reform dies, it wasn't selfishness that killed privatization. It was precisely the opposite.

The irony of Brooks' complaint, which we're sure to see repeated elsewhere, is that selfishness has always been at the core of Bush's economic agenda. He passed tax cuts by dismissing Democratic worries that it would burden future generations with debt. Remember him waving dollar bills and promising, "it's your money"? He organized lobbies representing the affluent to push for the tax cuts that would benefit them disproportionately. Karl Rove's re-election strategy was built on appealing to the narrow self-interest of a series of groups. Farmers got lavish crop payments. The steel, shrimp, textile and lumber industry got tariffs. HMOs and pharmaceuticals got lavish subsidies. Etc.