Democrats Have to Make the Argument For Government

The proof of repug political power is the way Democrats let them get away with blatant, obvious, easy-to-refute lies.

Repugs: "Government spending kills jobs!"

Democrats, knowing this is false, but thinking that since repugs said it, voters believe it: "We've cut government spending more than they have!"

Brilliant, geniuses: you've just eliminated any reason for people to vote Democratic.

Steve M:

Well, of course Romney treats "debt" and "spending" as if they're interchangeable terms -- ordinary Americans struggle to understand the national debt and budget deficits, and, being a Republican, Romney's certainly not going to make understanding these concepts any easier, is he? Much better for the GOP if Romney takes advantage of the fact that the public already confuses debt and spending; it's much better for the party if Romney reinforces that sense of confusion, which the GOP has spent years trying to induce. The right has the American people just where it wants them -- misunderstanding these things in precisely this way, and thus blaming all debt and deficits on the spenders. Romney's just carrying on the right's existing work, which has borne great fruit for the party.

Democrats compound the problem because they're afraid to say that there are good government programs that voters clearly want, and therefore those programs need to be funded, and therefore taxes are necessary, which means the important thing is to take in an appropriate amount from an appropriate mix of taxpayers, not to just look for spending cuts. Democrats will never, ever say this outright -- even though everyone now knows that the public wants the rich to be taxed more, and even though people often say they'd pay more in taxes to pay for popular programs -- because Democrats never want to remind voters that government exists.

So Mitt deceives voters on how budgets work, even though we know he (unlike a lot of Republicans, including officeholders) knows better. But we knew he was a cynic, didn't we?