WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2024
Bill Whitaker gets it wrong: Yesterday afternoon, we said that Bill Whitaker got something right when he interviewed Candidate Harris for 60 Minutes.
He asked her the world's most obvious question—a question about border policy over the bulk of the past four years. Because the candidate kept failing to answer his question, he asked it three separate times.
In our view, Whitaker got that right. Today, we focus on a puzzling matter when he seems to have gotten it wrong.
We refer to a question Whitaker posed several times about Harris's budget proposals. Below, we highlight the question to which we refer. Unless there's something we don't understand, we'd say that he's getting it wrong.
Warning! Socratic method ahead:
WHITAKER (10/7/24): You want to expand the child tax credit.
HARRIS: Yes, I do.
WHITAKER: You want to give tax breaks to first-time home buyers.
HARRIS: Yes.
WHITAKER: And people starting small businesses.
HARRIS: Correct.
WHITAKER: But it is estimated by the nonpartisan Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget that your economic plan would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade. How are you gonna pay for that?
HARRIS: OK, so the other economists that have reviewed my plan versus my opponent and determined that my economic plan would strengthen America's economy. His would weaken it.
WHITAKER: But—
HARRIS: My plan, Bill, if you don't mind, my plan is about saying that when you invest in small businesses, you invest in the middle class, and you strengthen America's economy. Small businesses are part of the backbone of America's economy.
WHITAKER: But— But pardon me, Madame Vice President. I— the— The question was, how are you going to pay for it?
HARRIS: Well, one of the things is I'm gonna make sure that the richest among us, who can afford it, pay their fair share in taxes. It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations.
WHITAKER: But—but—
HARRIS: And I plan on making that fair.
WHITAKER: But we're dealing with the real world here...
"We're dealing with the real world here," the triumphant newsman said. The comment has been widely cited as a telling putdown of Harris.
What was "wrong" with Whitaker's question? Let's start with what he got right:
It's true! According to the Committee for A Responsible Federal Budget, Candidate Harris's economic proposals would add $3.5 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years.
You can see that organization's report right here. For the record, Whitaker didn't mention the second part of that same report:
According to that same report, Candidate Trump's budget proposals would add more than twice as much—$7.5 trillion—to the national debt over those same ten years! Candidate Harris will add to the debt, but Candidate Trump will add to the debt a lot more.
That said, Whitaker's question dealt with Harris's proposals. In the face of the committee's projection, he wanted to know "how she planned to pay for it"—how she planned to pay for that $3.5 trillion in additional debt.
Is there something we're missing here? The answer to the question is simple—just like Candidate Trump, she isn't planning "to pay for it!" Just like Candidate Trump, she's planning to accept additional debt.
She isn't planning to balance the budget—to produce ten years of balanced budgets. Instead, she's proposing an array of plans knowing they'll add to the federal debt. Candidate Trump is doing the same thing, except to a larger extent.
Now for a quick bit of background:
As of 1999, the federal government was running annual budget surpluses—and the OMB and the CBO were projecting federal surpluses as far as the eye could see. For twenty months, the entire 2000 campaign turned on a basic question:
What did the four major candidates—Gore and Bradley, Bush and McCain—plan to do with the large federal surpluses which would be rolling in?
The current situation is different. The federal government is running large annual deficits, and neither candidate has proposed the kinds of plans which would balance the annual budget.
According to that committee's report, each candidate's budget proposals will continue to produce substantial deficits, thereby adding to the national debt.
"How are you going to pay for it?" Whitaker strangely asked. In fact, she isn't planning "to pay for it!" Neither is Candidate Trump!
Whitaker seemed to be confused by the logic of the situation. For obvious reasons, Candidate Harris may not have wanted to help him get straightened out.
Our major journalists are frequently bollixed by such elementary matters. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we aren't a nation of intellectual giants, as our press corps often makes clear.
Neither hopeful is "going to pay for it!" Insistent though he wanted to be, it looked like the sputtering scribe who kept saying "But" perhaps didn't quite understand!
Harris did say she was going to pay for it. She said (1) rich people and corporations would pay higher taxes to offset it, and (2) a stronger economy and middle class would offset it. Those are both reasonable approaches. Saying that Harris somehow evaded his question is a lie.
ReplyDeleteHere's how Harris 'somehow' evaded his question:
DeleteHer response was contradicted by the economists Somerby cited, whose opinion should take precedence over a candidate offering a voter-pleasing proposal.
Saying someone has lied when they haven't makes one a liar.
I want a new bicycle. My friends asks me how I will pay for it. I say, I will increase my household income because I can use the bike to get to a job. I also say that the cost of bicycles will be reduced after Christmas when there are sales. I have told two ways of paying for that bike, just as Harris explained two ways of coming up with the revenue to afford those encouragements to small businesses and first-time home buyers. The small businesses will pay taxes when they succeed. The home buyers will support a construction industry and also pay property taxes, as the people who buy the homes prosper and pay higher income taxes as well.
ReplyDeleteIn what way did Harris not answer the question? Is Somerby holding out for some explicit phrase, as a kind of gotcha? He does that sometimes, as if he were an autistic person who cannot be anything except excessively literal. Trump, in contrast, cannot argue that his proposals will stimulate the economy.
Wait, is Somerby suggesting that the government provides vital services, and those services are paid by taxes? And if we don’t collect enough taxes, then the government takes on debt? And the government taking on debt is better than citizens taking on private debt, since private debt is a destructive strain on society, whereas government services provide for a stable and productive society? And if we are worried about government debt we merely have to raise taxes on the ultra wealthy that have anyways been getting rich off exploiting labor?
ReplyDeleteHe must be some kind of genius to have uncovered such a system, what a revelation!
Harris could have said, "Mexico will pay for it", but since she's a Democrat the "liberal media" (LO-fucking L) would have called her unserious and said she isn't ready to be President.
ReplyDelete