The Earth is Indeed Round!

Fareed Zakaia at Time:

Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes.

Holy Sensible Commentary Batman!  Are we finally getting through to the corporate media that the Republicans live in a magical world populated by pink unicorns and sprinkled with fairy dust?  Perhaps, but to heap praise on Zakaria for noticing that the Earth is round shows how far we've slipped in our belief that the GOP represents anything like a legitimate political party and not a band of mental defectives let lose upon the land to prey upon our nation.

What does it say about our damaged US democracy and its wounded 4th Estate (aka corporate media) that merely making an obvious assertion is news? Is it an event when an essential element of a functional democracy actually has the bravado to tell a significant political movement that “No, the earth is not flat.”

The right wing has long embraced magical thinking. You can see it across a spectrum of thought: It is a short hop from believing that Supply Side Tax Cuts are self funding to all other manner of nonsense. From denying Evolution to managing Health Care costs to Global Warming, it is a continuum. Making no-plan invasions of other countries is the natural progression of such magical thinking. If your beliefs are righteousness enough, then the outcome is assured by a munificent deity.