“Myth No. 1 is that the American people now demand deficit reduction as never before. Don’t believe it. Yes, if you ask Americans about the deficit, they’ll tell you they hate it. But opinion polls show that people care far more about high unemployment, the weak economy, and the like. Furthermore, once the discussion gets down to specifics, it is difficult to find anything the public favors that would make a serious dent in the deficit. No higher taxes, please, except on millionaires. No cuts in big programs like Social Security or Medicare. The attraction to lower deficits is only skin-deep.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
AI is causing concern among the LGBTQ communityIn the Spotlight One critic believes that AI will 'always fail LGBTQ people'
-
'Modern presidents exercise power undreamed of by the Founding Fathers'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Today's political cartoons - April 15, 2024Cartoons Monday's cartoons - flamingos in flight, taxes, and more
-
Viewpoint: Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay M. Winterfeature From The New York Times: “Nearly half of all people now live in countries where women, on average, give birth to fewer than 2.1 babies...
-
Snowden’s silence on Putin
feature If Edward Snowden truly is a moral paragon, then he should announce that he can no longer stomach Vladimir Putin’s oppressive behavior.
-
The irrelevance of the United Nations
feature Once again, the United Nations has been “rendered impotent by a small group of thugs.”
-
Millions of closeted gay men
feature “What percent of American men are gay?”
-
The smug confidence of libertarians
feature Why are most libertarians white dudes?
-
Seeing racism for what it is
feature Riley Cooper’s case shows just how poorly he and most other Americans understand “what a racist is.”
-
Searching for a libertarian paradise
feature Not one of the world’s 193 sovereign states—not even a tiny one—has adopted a full-on libertarian system.
-
Viewpoint: Juliette Kayyem
feature From The Boston Globe: “It is now clear that the Tsarnaev brothers had no strategic plan but to kill in a very public fashion....