The politics of inversion (no spam)

[fable]

That's to say, I say it, and then I do the opposite. It's what Stephen Colbert delights in calling "truthiness," or something that comes close to truth but...just...isn't...there. The joke is that if it isn't the truth, it's a lie, and there are so many political leaders throughout the world that glory in this, I thought they deserved a thread of their own, with examples.

Take my favorite example of inversion (or inverted thinking, if you will), Dubya. He recently made a speech at the traditional economic center of the US, Wall Street, that included this: "The fact is that income inequality is real. It has been rising for more than 25 years."

Then a couple of days ago, he released the budget he's sent onto Congress. It includes the following:

$77 billion in funding cuts for Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years, and $280 billion over the next ten.

$223 million in funding cuts (4% decrease from this year’s levels) to the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

$4.9 billion, or 8 percent, cut in education, training, employment and social services” grants.

$100 million cut for Head Start, which provides child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families.

$2.4 billion cut in community and regional development grants--which often provide funding for low- and middle-income communities--to $16.5 billion, from $18.9 billion.

$400 million (that's 18%) cut in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, “which provides $2.2 billion to help people pay heating bills this year.”

$172 million (nearly 25%) cut in funding for housing for low-income seniors.

YET...Dubya doesn't forget the other side of the equation! The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has stated that in Bush's 2007 budget, “People with incomes of more than $1 million would get tax cuts averaging $162,000 a year (in 2012 dollars) in perpetuity.”

This is the politics of inversion on a magnificent scale. If the scent of hypocrisy can often be noted around the Oval Office, this is the truck load of fish offal tossed out the back of a below-standard seafood restaurant at midnight.

Oh, but here's another. Just 5 days ago, Bush made a statement from the White House for general US consumption: "Childhood obesity is a costly problem for the country. We believe it is necessary to come up with a coherent strategy to help folks all throughout our country cope with the issue."

By the laws of inversion, he should actually be doing nothing of the sort, right? Wrong. He should be cutting funding to deal with obesity, rather than demanding it. And as it happens, Dubya is actually doing just that. Because while asking Congress to set aside $17 million for a new program to promote ‘healthy behavior’ among teens, he's also asking that same Congress to eliminate the preventive health services block grant, which provides $99 million a year to help states...wait for it...prevent obesity and other chronic conditions.

Over to you.

[Silur]

Give the poor man a break. He has a war to fight, and is running out of money. He has to get it *somewhere*. Now, he can't very well stiff his old buddies, so who can blame him for blowing unknown people no one cares about anyway?

What can I say. Dubya is no way alone in this behaviour, and I think it's simply because people hear what he says and never bother to check the result. Therefore it works. Journalism dug its own grave by "being responsibly tactful" after September 11, and now that their credibility is close to zero, it doesn't matter how much they scream foul.

[kathycf]

This is a policy that seems always popular to political groups in power. I think they get the idea from Alice in Wonderland. It makes sense to me, given the extremely skewed logic at work. If you go through the looking glass a time or two then it makes perfect sense to combat an issue such as childhood obesity by cutting off funding to help those afflicted.

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Alice in Wonderland.

Inversion

If you would murder cry victim.

If you would oppress cry liberator.

If you would plunder cry saviour.

If you would enslave cry freedom.

[fable]

Did I fail to mention that in his 2007 budget, Bush yet again states that he will pay for many conservation programs by selling off national forests to industry? I'm not joking about this. It's all in there. Listening to or reading his material is good training to develop blood pressure control.

[VonDondu]

Since I'm not really a liberal, I am not fully sympathetic to the idea that entitlements and income are the same thing. If you cut people's benefits, I have a hard time seeing that as a reduction in their "income". (Whether entitlements are desirable and good for the country is a completely separate issue.) And I definitely don't think that tax cuts and income are the same thing. If you cut one group's taxes, it's not fair to say that they are getting more "income". (Again, whether taxes are necessary and good for the country is a completely separate issue.)

But anyway, I never expect people to be consistent and rational and fair when it comes to income and taxes and social programs, so it doesn't surprise me that government spending does not match conservative rhetoric. Budgets are complicated, and it's easy to get confused about them, anyway. Besides, everyone knows that rich people are greedier than everyone else, so malfeasance, graft, cronyism, pork barrel politics, etc. are IN character for them, not OUT of character.

What bothers me is a different kind of "say one thing, do another". For example, the Bush administration is currently trying to promote abstinence before marriage for all singles under the age of 30. Ha! Why doesn't Bush make his own daughters "abstinence ambassadors"? And if he thinks that people of military age should be "fighting terrorism" in Iraq, which he calls "the greatest calling of our time," then how come no one in his family is serving in Iraq? Budgets are hard to read, but that sort of double standard is crystal clear.

Speaking of blood pressure control, this isn't good training for me. I just have to stop thinking about these things if I want my blood pressure to return to normal. Not many people besides Bush have that effect on me.

[kathycf]

I tend to think of this type of behavior to be something that all politicians do, regardless of political affiliation. It is easy to look at Bush and see this, but to be fair, he is by far not the only president, nor politican to practice the politics of inversion.

I have found myself growing very cynical and jaded when it comes to politics...