Talk of the clown

If you were filled with trepidation that the New Yorker would fail to produce an analysis of the midterms sniffing with Central Park West superciliousness, then fear no more dear reader:

Another part of the problem, it must be said, is public ignorance. An illuminating Bloomberg poll, taken the week before the election, found that some two-thirds of likely voters believed that, under Obama and the Democrats, middle-class taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program are gone, never to be recovered. One might add to that list the public’s apparent conviction that illegal immigration is skyrocketing and that the health-care law will drive the deficit higher. Reality tells a different story. For ninety-five per cent of us, taxes are actually lower, cut by around four hundred dollars a year for individuals and twice that for families.

One may take note that $400 is quite a bit of money for those red staters in flyover country. Sure it's just a typical restaurant bill for the New Yorker staff at the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill (with drinks) but those people can purchase a used Ford pickup with that.

The economy has been growing, however feebly, for five straight quarters. Most of the TARP loans have been repaid and the rest soon will be, plus a modest profit for the Treasury. And the number of illegal immigrants fell by close to a million last year, thanks in part to more energetic border enforcement. The health-care law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says, will bring the deficit down.

Really? We're really going to go down the path of debunking these "savings" from the health care bill, despite all evidence to the contrary? Also: no mention of the trillion-dollar "stimulus" bill that revved unemployment up to 9.6%? The New Yorker laughably parrots the Administration's line from a world that drops off at the Hudson River.