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Kelly McParland: Here’s an angry letter I got from a peeved reader about recent blogs on the debt mess in the U.S.:
Dear Editor:
What is happening to your newspaper’s Editorial page? Was it sold to the New York Times?
In column after column Kelly McParland is savaging the U.S. Republican Party and inventing excuses for President Obama’s ineffectiveness than not even Wolf Blitzer could come up with. As for John Moore’s anti-conservative rants – isn’t one Toronto Star enough for this country?
I’d hate to see the National Post turn into another Globe and Mail.
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I’ve been expecting that. Here’s how I’d reply:
Anyone who expects Full Comment (or the National Post itself) to slavishly parrot whatever official line is the Republican (or Conservative) flavour of the day should probably stay away from newspapers altogether and get a direct feed from Teaparty.org (Latest headline: “Communist party endorses Obama”). Confirming prejudices is not what we’re about, nor is pretending that an embarrassment like we’ve been watching in Washington over the past month is good, sound political leadership.
None of the columns I’ve written have savaged the Republican Party. They have (I hope) savaged the shallow and simplistic thinking of the Tea Party movement, which has persuaded itself that lining up like a group of parrots chanting “No to taxes! No to taxes” qualifies as a solid economic policy. The Wall Street Journal compares them to hobbits thinking they can defeat Mordor. The Economist says they’ve squandered the reputation of the party as the leading source of innovative economic thinking. Neither of these is a lefty organization.
I’m no huge fan of Barack Obama’s performance to date. He could have handled the health care issue far better, and he could have avoided the debt crisis furor altogether. But trying to blame him for the mess the U.S. is in is fantasy. As David Frum (also no lefty) points out, Obama’s only tax increases don’t take effect for three more years. The costs of the healthcare bill are all down the road. Frum writes:
Personal income tax rates and corporate tax rates are no higher today than they have been for the past decade. The payroll tax has actually been cut by 2 points. Total federal tax collections have dropped by 4 points of GDP since 2007, from 18+% to 14+%, the lowest rate since the Truman administration. If so minded, you could describe Barack Obama as the biggest tax cutter in American history.
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Neither is the debt his fault. As the chart I posted yesterday illustrates, the vast bulk of the mammoth U.S. debt was piled up by the last three Republican presidents. Every Democrat president since Truman has left office with a lower debt/GDP than when he started. Obama may yet change that, but he hasn’t even equalled George W. Bush yet. much less the two Bushes plus Ronald Reagan.
Obama inherited a collapsed economy when he took office. He hasn’t done much to help it, but he didn’t make the mess. Figures now show that the real extent of the collapse was far worse than anyone knew on Obama’s inauguration day. What I’ve been arguing is that if a reasonable Republican like Speaker John Boehner had been allowed to continue negotiating a debt deal with the White House, without the disruptive and unconstructive intrusion of the Tea Party, he would likely have been able to produce a far better agreement than was reached in the end.
It may feel good to rail on about Obama being a commie and the Democrats ruining the economy, but unfortunately it’s not true. It was a group effort, with plenty of blame to go around. Pretending otherwise just delays the time it will take to repair it.
National Post
CKA Uber 
