by Eric Byler, July 30, 2011
Many Republicans in Congress are embracing the "debt hysteria" media narrative, so much so that addressing the debt takes priority over jobs and the economy. The question is, why?
A recent Gallup poll shows that, when Americans are asked what is the most important problem facing our country, only 16% point to the federal deficit or the debt, while 74% identify job creation or other economic issues as their deepest concern — this despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on debt ceiling hysteria bombarding us from our TV sets.
But, with an eye on the 2012 election, some Republican strategists feel that the federal debt is the better issue for electioneering and obstructionism. The debt is going to grow — regardless of whether the jobs market improves — between now and the election. With some creative math and a few billion dollars in campaign commercials, it's very easy to make it seem as if President Obama alone is responsible for the enormity of the U.S. debt (more on this below). If, on the other hand, the media narrative was about jobs and the economy, there might be the political will in Washington to DO SOMETHING about jobs and the economy. This would make Obama's reelection very likely. So, the more they can use their news channels, Congressmen, and radio stations to point the national conversation toward the federal debt and away from jobs and the economy, the better chances Republicans will have in 2012. That's why Republicans favor a solution that schedules a third season of "Debt Hostage Reality TV" for early 2012, and that's why Obama opposes this.
For the next several years at least (until such time as the majority of Americans have migrated to social media where We the People have a fighting chance), we are stuck with the narratives that right wing media holdings choose for us (and thus for policymakers in Washington). So let's ask the question: is there any truth to the notion that is the basis of the electioneering strategy that led to the Debt-Ceiling Hostage Crisis? Did President Obama cause the deficit and the debt? Or, if not, is there at least a case to be made so that the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of campaign ads in 2012 won't have to lie to us completely?
Please take a moment to look at this graphic entitled Policy Changes (as opposed to inherited policies) Under Two Presidents and note that President Obama's numbers include projections through 2017. As Ezra Klein of The Washington Post explains quite plainly:
Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them.
To relate this specifically to the debt-ceiling debate, we’re not raising the debt ceiling because of the new policies passed in the past two years. We’re raising the debt ceiling because of the accumulated effect of policies passed in recent decades, many of them under Republicans. It’s convenient for whichever side isn’t in power, or wasn’t recently in power, to blame the debt ceiling on the other party. But it isn’t true. [MORE]
However, if you look at the statistical analysis as Egberto Willies cited in his recent essay criticizing President Reagan for tripling the national debt (see National Debt chart above) — Obama, too, looks pretty bad. That analysis measures the federal debt as a percentage of our gross national product (GNP). Obama took over at a time when our economy was collapsing, creating a steep drop in gross national product. This required emergency stimulus spending, passed by both the Bush and the Obama administrations, to avoid a complete global economic meltdown. Thus the debt increased suddenly. The GNP fell suddenly. So as a percentage of GNP, the debt increased sharply just as Obama came into office.
Another way of measuring the national debt is in dollars adjusted for inflation. This is what you see in the Gross Federal Debt 1940-2015 graphic by National Priorities Project. There is a dramatic increase in our national debt beginning around 1980 and continuing to this day (with the exception of the 2nd half of the Clinton administration when there were budget surpluses). Both methods for measuring the debt reflect poorly on Reagan, but in Obama's case, debt as a percentage of GNP reflects poorly while dollars adjusted for inflation is consistent with his predecessors. (Perhaps that's why those slick infomercials starring Rep. Paul Ryan tend to focus on the debt as a percentage of GNP.)
The debt hysteria narrative likes to focus on spending alone, without consideration of any other factors like revenue, or the size of the GNP. But if you look at the full picture, hysteria is clearly optional. Really, it's not required here. As our population has grown, so too has the size of government. Our economy has also grown tremendously during the period shown on the colorful chart you see here.
Bush 43, Obama, and Reagan/Bush 41 all increased spending by about the same ratio. Clinton is the only president in recent history to see that ratio decrease. Hysteria campaigns about the debt and the deficit tend to be scheduled by agenda-driven media outlets like Fox News with very predictable timing. This may explain why Americans who consume Fox News products suddenly became hysterical about spending on Jan. 20, 2009. The massive stimulus and Wall Street bailouts three months before Obama took office might have been a more authentic time, but Fox News was too busy trying to elect John McCain. The numbers didn't look any different on Inauguration Day than they did on Jan. 19, but the media coverage certainly made a switch, and their electioneering/legislative strategies followed.
This is why the Debt-Ceiling Hostage Crisis teleplay was scripted, cast, shot, acted, edited and disseminated by a collaboration of agenda-driven media empires, their mouth pieces in Congress, and Republican campaign strategists. This on-going series has brought in very good ratings because it attracts and entraps bankable stars like President Obama and Speaker John Boehner, and, because it is filled with dramatic conflict — some of it genuine, like the possibility that we'll see the first ever Great Depression On-Purpose. Thus, it was picked up early on by profit-driven news outlets and other types of media that adhere to journalistic standards (and also need to make a buck). It truly is a headline story.
But, behind all the spectacle and theater, the data shows that the rapid expansion of our federal deficit and debt since 1981 has to do with the OTHER side of the ledger — revenue — which has been drastically curtailed during this, the era of trickle-down economics. Since 1981, corporations and the super-wealthy have been successful in reshaping our tax code to reduce their contributions to America, while the middle class and the poor have been expected to make up the difference. The theory was that "a rising tide lifts all boats." If we lavished the wealthy and large corporations with tax loopholes and subsidies, the rest of us would benefit too, perhaps even enough to pay for the lost tax revenue.
It sounded good at the time, but trickle-down economics has clearly failed. As Republican opinion-maker Michael Stafford has written, while our economy has doubled in size since 1981, 80% of the income growth went to 1% of the population who now control 40% of our nation's total wealth. And, they've invested all that extra money well... in massive media holdings, clandestine and exclusive lawmaking conferences, political action committees (PAC's), and lobbying firms to increase their influence in Washington. With that influence, they've rewritten Wall Street and other oversight laws to further increase their wealth. And that wealth has, in turn, been used to further increase their power. This is what we call the Cycle of Corruption.
The enormity of the 2007-2008 economic collapse, and, pockets of anxiety over demographic shift made more acute by the election of Barack Obama, have made it possible to sell millions of people on a false narrative that makes it seem plausible that 30 years of bad policy can be blamed on our current, African American President. If not for these two factors, and the power of agenda-driven media to exploit them, we would not be forced to watch the Debt-Ceiling Hostage Crisis unfold. We'd be watching a whole different reality TV show. If John McCain were president, the debt ceiling would have been raised as a matter of course, just as it has been for decades (17 times under Reagan). There would be no massively expensive electioneering strategy called the Debt-Ceiling Hostage Crisis. Certainly, there would be almost zero appetite among Republicans in Congress to cause, or threaten to cause the world's first Great Depression On-Purpose.
Now, I recognize that billions of dollars have been spent on the narrative that says "the media" is biased toward the left, and, I recognize that this argument has been supported by all of the most popular TV shows and radio programs, all of which have millions of devoted, very conservative fans. But let's get real, and forget the labels for a moment:
It's a simple fact that media empires are very costly to acquire, and, for that reason, there is a much greater danger that they become biased toward the interests of those people who can afford to purchase them. Could it be any other way? Our nation's economic survival is not a question of left vs. right. Media content that uses partisanship and social issues to make it look that way must be exposed for what it is: soap opera. The Debt-Ceiling Hostage Crisis is a professional wrestling marathon with a little more clothing, and a little less authenticity.
Polls show that, by an overwhelming majority, Americans want the President and Congress to focus on creating jobs and protecting the economy. Instead, members of Congress are threatening to cause our nation's first ever debt default, and with it an economic crisis, deliberately destroying jobs, exploding the federal debt, and imploding our economy. The President has no choice but to accept this media-induced political ambush, and try to salvage our nation's economic viability, for his own sake, and for ours.
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Also by Eric Byler:
- Cost of the Bush Tax Cuts — Deficits Happen When Governments Decide Not to Pay for Government
- The Cycle of Corruption and how to break it (with Annabel Park)
- From film director to Coffee Party personal essay
- The Cost of the Bush Tax Cuts
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