For your further enlightenment, two news stories on page one of last Sunday’s New York Times. One begins a long report on California’s water problems, attributed to a drought rather than bureaucratic mismanagement. A list of past “catastrophes” that state has survived ends with “budgetary collapse that forced years of devastating cuts in spending.” The immediately following sentence describes that devastation, “These days, the economy is thriving, the population is growing, the state budget is in surplus and development is exploding from Silicon Valley to San Diego; the evidence of it can be seen in the construction cranes dotting the skylines of Los Angeles and San Francisco.” Forgive them, dear reader: they know not what they say. Or that the national economy might benefit from a dose of such devastating spending cuts.
Then there is Israel, whose democratically elected prime minister is coming between our democratically elected president and the somewhat less democratically chosen leaders he is courting in Iran. “G.O.P.’s Israel Support Deepens as Political Contributions Shift.” A brief reference to the fact that Republican support is “partly a result of ideology” is followed by citation to many Jewish contributors — “pro-Israel Republican billionaires and other influential American donors” — who seem to have bought support for Israel from such as Senators Tom Cotton and Lindsey Graham. That’ll teach these Republicans that they will face the wrath of the Old Grey Lady, and be charged with selling their souls for a mess of Jewish contributions if they follow the decades-long lead of Democrats and worry about the security of Israel.
No relief on Monday, when the editors bemoaned the fact that Colorado voters, beguiled by “the seductive argument that government needs shrinking”, have inserted into their constitution a provision prohibiting tax increases that “rigidly constrains taxes and spending” — note especially the “rigidly”, as if there is any constraint, rigid or otherwise, that the editors of the NYT would accept. When legalizing the sale and use of marijuana, legislators ignored this constraint, and are now faced with the prospect of returning the heavy taxes leveled on the industry. “But lawmakers don’t want to give the money back,” note the editors. No surprise there. Lawmakers and “concerned citizens”, say NYT editorial writers, want the unconstitutionally collected taxes to be “usefully spent” to “fund pressing public needs, like infrastructure and education, or to save for rainy days.” The only good news is that Colorado has made impressive gains in setting up a new industry and maintaining impressive support for it — no mention of Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s complaint that use of pot will reduce the IQs of the state’s youngsters, or suits by neighboring Kansas and Nebraska where about half of the pot sold in Colorado seems to end up despite the fact that it is illegal there. And, proving that liberal inconsistency has no limits, the editors go on to point out that Colorado’s accomplishment has come despite “the ominous threat of federal intrusion”. You know, the sort of federal intrusion that prevents states from controlling immigration and the behavior of illegal immigrants, or developing their own rules for access to the privilege of voting. Nothing ominous about those, I guess.
