Capitol Ideas/Smoke, Mirrors, and the Adversary Press
Bethell, Tom
SMOKE, MIRRORS, AND THE ADVERSARY PRESS by Tom Bethell resident Bush's performance in the 1 budget talks perhaps even surpasses conservatives' worst suspicions about his lack of political...
...Being the newspaper of record on these things, I think we probably have a duty to get that number on the record, no matter how much we have to qualify it...
...A t least in the three-week period following the $500-billion announcement, the spending totals were also not mentioned in the Washington Post, which had budget stories by twenty-one reporters and several columnists...
...Wall Street Journal reporters would not sit still for such shenanigans from the private sector...
...In fiscal 1980, total spending was $591 billion...
...I would have to talk to Al Hunt, the paper's Washington buHelp us explode myths about Catholics...
...Mail to: NEW OXFORD REVIEW Room 381 1069 Kains Ave...
...udget numbers are tiresome, but .13 bear with me...
...Probably up to about nine numbers...
...Harvard historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr...
...Bush doesn't...
...is The American Spectator 's Washington correspondent...
...Among fundamentalists there is that whopper of a myth that the Pope is the Anti-Christ and the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, a hideous and many-tentacled pagan cult...
...They thereby not merely disguised the smoke and mirrors, but, wittingly or not, constituted a key element of the smoke-and-mirror apparatus...
...James Baker, one wonders...
...So do Gingrich and Reps...
...He added that the outlay figures "do not capture the controversies and choices being made...
...Three days later Bush was asked at a news conference: "Why do you think you're so much more comfortable with and better at foreign matters than domestic...
...But the reporters showed no interest in the numbers...
...Then he cuts it back to $100,000 and announces to the world that his salary next year will be reduced by $40,000...
...As far as I know, Pear scooped the reportorial field with these numbers...
...First he placed 200,000 U.S...
...O n October 1, Susan Rasky of the New York Times reported that the famous deficit-reduction plan "would bring the deficit down by $40 billion next year...
...The current Republican leadership does not think in terms of winning and the best we can hope for is that they will finally retire to their respective golf courses...
...The younger Republicans know they can win if they are permitted to fight...
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...Notice that I didn't say Republican politicians...
...If any network TV news reporter mentioned the numbers, I would be very surprised...
...A woman at the press office answered the phone...
...Eventually, the deputy bureau chief, Thomas Petzinger, Jr., got back to me "on this matter of why we're not giving the bottom line...
...One day Bush went up to Capitol Hill, having signed the stopgap spending bill he had threatened to veto two days earlier, and said: "I'm here to discuss what we can do at the White House to help move the process forward...
...It has the largest spending savings ever—more than $300 billion," Bush said in his televised address...
...And it's complicated...
...In 1982, remember, President Reagan was hoodwinked with the promise that he would get three dollars in spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase...
...Berkeley, CA 94706 PAYMENT MUST ACCOMPANY ORDER $3.50 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1990 reau chief...
...He should have tried to persuade the American people—not to "do" anything, but to understand that the Congress had by no means given up its big-spending ways, and that nothing could be reformed, certainly not the budget deficit, until this was corrected...
...No smoke, no mirrors . . . " Notice the awkward phrase "spending savings...
...Vice President Quayle understands this...
...Michel is the Dutiful Caddy, and Bob Dole the Angry Caddy—angry at the younger Republicans like Newt Gingrich of Georgia, for wanting to be players rather than caddies...
...This is the budget story that reporters cannot bring themselves to report, and in fact seem eager to disguise...
...dent, and he doesn't like it much now...
...Once again, the Beltway culture and the media praised him for doing so...
...troops in the Saudi Arabian desert...
...and for comparison purposes, the comparable outlays for the year just beginning...
...But with Dick Darman and the OMB, they are totally uncritical...
...All you have to know is that federal fiscal years begin three months ahead of calendar years, on October 1. So we are just beginning a new 'fiscal year, 1991...
...But precisely for that reason, a story on the looseygoosey nature of the numbers that the brazen Darman has been using is one that is crying out to be written...
...You probably haven't seen these numbers in print...
...Right...
...Bush is Caddy in Chief (as he wavered on taxes and capital gains, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reported on October 21, "he clung to the Democratic leadership and kept House Republicans at a distance...
...At least nine numbers...
...On September 30, Bush notoriously announced that he had managed to get a $500 billion deficit reduction deal—the result of "blood, sweat, and fears...
...People really basically want to support the President on foreign affairs, and partisanship does, in a sense, stop at the water's edge...
...Pursuing the golfing metaphor briefly, it's more appropriate to think of Bush, Dole, Michel & Co...
...I looked all through both newspapers for the spending totals, but they were nowhere to be found...
...The alliance that he was so highly praised for assembling will henceforth make life difficult for him...
...David Wessel and Alan Murray reported in the Wall Street Journal: "The bipartisan plan calls for $34.4 billion in spending cuts and tax increases in the fiscal year beginning today...
...The average reader can hardly be expected to guess that the federal spending machine is roaring away as usual when he is told that next year there will be "$34.4 billion in spending cuts and tax increases...
...The chief executive officer of a corporation plans to give himself a $140,000 raise...
...The established media have duly noted us: Time finds us "conservative" (true enough, when it comes to doctrine, morality, and ecclesial authority), Newsweek says we're "cheeky" (probably more true than we realize), and The New York Times thinks our editorial policy is "curious" (probably very true, at least from the Times's perspective...
...Spending increased as usual, and Reagan later expressed annoyance at the deception...
...Among secular humanists there is a politically handy myth that only Catholics regard abortion as murder, and that no one in his right mind who is not a Catholic would object to legalized abortion...
...He added that "I think it would be good to get it in print at some point...
...Right on...
...The numbers no doubt will be published...
...The deficit reduction that Darman promised him will not materialize—especially not with tax increases...
...Nonetheless, the Journal's reporting has been characterized by an absence of skepticism about Darman's numbers...
...People probably should be reminded that, no matter how these things go, the spending always goes up," said Tom Petzinger...
...I agree with Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal and Tony Snow of the Washington Times that the unacknowledged battle lines are demographic...
...Whereas on domestic policy, here I am with Democratic majorities in the Senate and House, having to try to persuade them to do what I think is best...
...All you've got to do is spend five minutes talking to him about China and five talking about the budget to know where he's at...
...But it's at least worth noting who blew the smoke and held the mirrors...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1990 15...
...Under the budget agreement, federal spending would increase in fiscal year 1991, [but would decline by $11 billion] from $1,392 billion in fiscal year 1992 to $1,381 billion in 1993...
...The Journal filled two full pages of copy and had ten reporters on the story (Murray, Wessel, Jeffrey Birnbaum, Kenneth Bacon, Hilary Stout, Bruce Ingersoll, Bob Davis, Walter Mossberg, Jackie Calmes, David Rogers), but nowhere were the budget totals to be found...
...He agreed...
...For the first time," he added, "leaders of the Democratic Congress have agreed to real cuts that will be enforced by law, not promises...
...That's why there's a deficit today...
...What is going on here can be illustrated by the following example...
...and Vin Weber (R-Minn...
...Petzinger added that "outlays" was a "pretty loosey-goosey number at best, based on some freewheeling assumptions...
...The total federal budget was $100 billion at the time of President Kennedy's inauguration...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1990 13 Such as...
...Consider the words of Francis X. Maier, Editor of the weekly National Catholic Register: "The NEW OXFORD REVIEW is simply the best publication of its kind in the United States — always provocative, always interesting, always solidly Catholic...
...I won't give her name because she was quite candid and forthcoming...
...Total federal spending has not declined in any year since 1965...
...Secular humanists also purvey the myth that Catholics call abortion murder because they are puritanical and hate sex...
...Here is the amount that the government is planning to spend next year, after the famous $500 billion "deficit reduction" package: $1,360 billion...
...The New York Times, in an October 3 story by Robert Pear ("Savings Seen As Less Than Predicted"), did give most of the numbers, in a spirit of well-deserved skepticism...
...Throwing it away was an error on a par with that of an inexperienced card player who is dealt four aces but believes them to be low rather than high...
...Make check payable to NEW OXFORD REVIEW...
...He said he couldn't talk about it...
...But failing to report the outlays conceals the key point that the really hard choice—spending reduction, or even a spending freeze—is not being made...
...Oh, sure...
...Moreover, it is said, Catholics opposed to abortion don't really care about the sanctity of human life, as they claim to, because they are utterly indifferent to the threat to innocent life posed by nuclear weapons...
...Well," he replied, he was troubled because "I don't really know the answer to it...
...A box, setting forth the "economic assumptions underlying the accord," gave the forecast of GNP growth as a percentage only...
...Oddly, myths about Catholicism have even worked their way into the Catholic Church herself...
...Now Bush has been taken in, too...
...Among evangelicals there is a more sedate myth that Catholicism is a numbing religion riddled with dead formulas, empty rituals, and rigid prohibitions — a legalistic religion which fears the Bible and freezes out the grace of Christ...
...I hasten to add that Bush only has himself (and Darman) to blame...
...Bob Walker (R-Penn...
...As follows: The latest estimate for 1990 outlays (the amount of money the federal government spent last year) is, in billions ofdollars: $1,260...
...Itelephoned the Journal's Alan Mur- ray, to inquire why these numbers had been omitted...
...He knows he can't avoid it, but that doesn't make him have to like it...
...He said the reporters in the bureau "make a pretty convincing case that it's hard to make these numbers rise to the level of the news of the day...
...That is an eight percent increase...
...Today, a one-year increase of $100 billion is called . . . ? Deficit reduction...
...If that's what you've been looking for in a Catholic monthly magazine, then help us explode myths and prejudices, and subscribe today...
...But his story was on page D27...
...Well, the January estimates and the July estimates, the post-agreement estimates, the adjusted consolidated baseline estimates and the Gramm-Rudman baseline estimates...
...Hunt's secretary wanted to know the exact nature of my inquiry...
...There are lots of different numbers that are correct," she said...
...This is an intimidating syllabus of myths — but happily, each myth is inaccurate and erroneous, and each one is disproved by the existence and insistence of the NEW OXFORD REVIEW...
...Hence, among modernist Catholics there is a corrosive myth that Catholics who believe in the creeds and the Church's magisterium are both narrow-minded ignoramuses who self-righteously cling to the letter of the law and mean-spirited bigots who fear Protestants and fail in charity toward their neighbors...
...All very confusing, but they can be simplified down to something easily understood...
...Perhaps it has to do with the fact that in one, I think the Vandenberg theory applies...
...According to a source who prefers anonymity, Al Hunt's shop "has worked hand in glove with Darman" throughout this whole exercise...
...The "$500 billion deficit reduction package" will be relabeled, aptly, the "1990 Bush tax increase...
...There is a tenacious myth among Americans generally that says Catholics are stupid, lazy, and superstitious...
...SMOKE, MIRRORS, AND THE ADVERSARY PRESS by Tom Bethell resident Bush's performance in the 1 budget talks perhaps even surpasses conservatives' worst suspicions about his lack of political convictions or even political common sense...
...Thus readers had no way of knowing that the reported "$34.4 billion spending cuts and tax increases" actually entailed a $100 billion spending increase...
...not so much as golfers as caddies: Caddies to the Democrats...
...But that doesn't explain why they weren't published at least once...
...As Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, in the decade 1981-91, federal revenues increased by 90 percent, but spending increased by 107 percent...
...Subtract one number from the other, and you will find that there is an increase of $100 billion from one year to another...
...On October 6, the Washington Post reported that a "long-time Bush associate" said of Bush: "He didn't like it [domestic policy] when he first ran for President, he didn't like it when he was vice presiTom Bethel...
...I phoned the OMB to find out just two numbers: the overall government spending totals, or "outlays," for fiscal year 1990 (just ended...
...rather, we are content to be living witnesses to the truth about Catholicism and the falsehood of all the myths...
...That's true—and the numbers do change constantly...
...His mistake was trying to persuade "them...
...The older Republicans, almost without exception, are unable to think of themselves as the initiators of winning policies...
...Time and Newsweek didn't even come close in three consecutive issues...
...It then calls for a further decline of $38 billion, to $1,343 in 1994...
...The unreported numbers likewise hide the massive increase in federal spending since President Reagan became President...
...Right there, you can see smoke and mirrors...
...once said that prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church is "the deepest bias in the history of the American people...
...Then he made two careless moves...
...The damage to the Republican party will be considerable, and Bush himself is unlikely to recover fully from it...
...The final two weeks before the midterm elections he will spend campaigning for massive tax increases...
...But not before George Bush has signed on to the "deficit reduction" deal, which in reality is a big tax increase to pay for a big spending increase...
...In abandoning his tax pledge, Bush showed that he never understood how potent it was...
...The projected decline in spending would mark a striking change...
...Again, the aggregate totals were not there...
...He will soon find himself looking back nostalgically to July 1990 as a time when his position was seemingly unassailable...
...A few weeks later, he abandoned for good his pledge not to raise taxes...
...The point is: if you want a Roman Catholic magazine that confounds the conventional stereotypes, then the NEW OXFORD REVIEW is for you...
...More typical was the page one headline on October 1, over a story by David Rosenbaum: "And the Victor Is: Bush...
...Spoken like a Republican who remembers the Depression and thinks of government in World War II terms: Let's make it bipartisan—bestof all a national unity government...
...Bush's political judgment does seem to be that weak...
...The tax-rate reductions did produce big revenue increases, but insufficient to feed the giant appetite for spending on Capitol Hill...
...Actually, we at the NEW OXFORD REVIEW don't waste much time fretting about the myth-makers...
...To some people, it seems almost like two Presidents...
...ne day, elected leaders in Washington will understand that by drawing battle lines they can win battles...
...The relevant budget numbers are put out by the Office of Management and Budget, presided over by Dick Darman—the man primarily responsible for leading Bush into this domestic policy morass...
...Then, there is the abiding myth that Catholics can't really explain why they are Catholic, that when Catholics are challenged their convictions crumble, and hence Catholics fear democracy, the open circulation of ideas, and freedom of religion...
...Taking Punches Now May Help Him Later...
...But they didn't mention the outlays...
...For the next three weeks, these numbers continued to be ignored by the Journal's news department, although Paul Craig Roberts did list the projected outlays and receipts in a box on the editorial page on October 3, and Jim Miller, the former Budget director, drew attention to the huge spending increase in 1991 in a short piece on the same page...
Vol. 23 • December 1990 • No. 12
