The silly and smarmy New York Times

How the mighty have fallen. Today, the Times has a profoundly titled editorial “Of dollars, deficits, and destiny” about how the U.S. should seize a rare fiscal opportunity to balance our finances.

It is obvious that the administration and Congress should be taking advantage of this easy- money period to rein in deficits. Waiting to do so will make dealing with them much more painful. And yet, the Republican leadership in both the House and Senate have pledged to pass more unpaid-for tax cuts when they return to Washington in mid-December. The House version of the budget would increase the federal budget deficit by an estimated total of $7.7 billion over five years; in the Senate version, the deficit increase would total $31.8 billion.

The NY Times is publicly wetting itself over an eight or even a $32 billion deficit increase over a five-year span due to tax cuts. Meanwhile, it’s written precious little about the multi-trillion dollar deficit looming due to massive increases in Medicare and Social Security spending just over the horizon. But then, that’s the Times for you: the only way to reduce the deficit is to raise taxes. Never, ever breathe a word about the other side of the equation and reining in spending. How can anybody take the Times seriously anymore, I have to ask.