Gail Collins, "The House Just Wants to Snack": What Isn't Gail Telling You?

What are those nefarious Republicans plotting now? Not to worry, New York Times columnist Gail Collins is always there to tell you.

In her latest op-ed entitled "The House Just Wants to Snack" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/opinion/collins-the-house-just-wants-to-snack.html?_r=0), Collins would have us know that the Republicans are seeking to delay providing food stamps to hungry Americans, while passing on subsidies to farmers. Collins writes:

"Lately, the House has begun chopping up big, complicated bills into what Speaker John Boehner once described as 'bite-sized chunks that members can digest.' No more legislative sausage-making. No more bipartisan trading. The House was going to stick to clean, simple ideas, more along the lines of Liver Snaps.

So the farm bill got divided. The two parts were not equally tidy. As Ron Nixon reported in The Times, the rate of error and fraud in the agricultural crop insurance program is significantly higher than in the food stamp program. Also, the agriculture part has a lot of eyebrow-raising provisions, like the $147 million a year in reparations we send to Brazil to make up for the fact that it won a World Trade Organization complaint about the market-distorting effects of our cotton subsidies.

And while food stamps go to poor people, most of the farm aid goes to wealthy corporations.

So House Republicans passed the farm part and left food stamps hanging."

Most of the farm aid goes to wealthy corporations? Surprise, surprise, surprise. Worthy of scrutiny? Absolutely.

But what isn't Collins telling us? As reported by Aimee Picchi in an MSN Money article entitled "More Americans than ever using food stamps" (http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=e9caf453-75ca-4ad6-ae9d-9b991cd6702f):

"A lot has changed about food stamps during the past few years. For one, the program is currently called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and it has made buying groceries much easier by providing debit-style cards.

. . . .

Enrollment in SNAP has surged 70% since 2008, reaching a record 47.8 million Americans in December. Even more shocking, that means 15% of the country receives the benefits, nearly double the rate as in 1975, when the U.S. suffered from soaring inflation, a recession and an oil crisis.

As a result, the U.S. spent a record $74.6 billion on food-stamp benefits last year, more than double what the program shelled out before the Great Recession. Remember, that downturn officially ended in 2009, and by many measures the economy has improved since the financial crisis and housing meltdown."

Hmm, a record $74.6 billion on food stamp benefits. Worth examining? Absolutely. But that would also reflect on Obama's failure to remedy America's economic malaise, and we wouldn't want to do that.

What else isn't a "pleasantly plump" Collins telling us? As reported by Reuters in an article entitled "Fat and getting fatter: U.S. obesity rates to soar by 2030" (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-obesity-us-idUSBRE88H0RA20120918):

"Using a model of population and other trends, a new report released on Tuesday by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation projects that half of U.S. adults will be obese by 2030 unless Americans change their ways."

Is it also worth scrutinizing the obesity epidemic in the US, which is responsible for numerous diseases, e.g., type 2 diabetes, which in turn cause medical costs to rise? Yes indeedy.

In short, before blaming only those nasty Republican troglodytes, Collins would do well to have a look at the bigger picture. As Mark Leibovich's new book, "This Town," would have us know, almost everyone in Washington is at the trough.

Paul Krugman, "Delusions of Populism": More Delusional Than Krugman?

"Occupy Wall Street is starting to look like an important event that might even eventually be seen as a turning point.

. . . .

It’s clear what kinds of things the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators want, and it’s really the job of policy intellectuals and politicians to fill in the details."

- Paul Krugman, "Confronting the Malefactors" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/krugman-confronting-the-malefactors.html), October 2011

Do you remember "Occupy Wall Street"? Do you remember how Krugman suggested that OWS would prove a "turning point" in a populist war against American financial institutions? Is there anyone more delusional than this Nobelist?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Delusions of Populism" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/12/opinion/krugman-delusions-of-populism.html?_r=0), Krugman rages against Republican delusional thinking:

"Have you heard about 'libertarian populism' yet? If not, you will. It will surely be touted all over the airwaves and the opinion pages by the same kind of people who assured you, a few years ago, that Representative Paul Ryan was the very model of a Serious, Honest Conservative. So let me make a helpful public service announcement: It’s bunk.

. . . .

Enter libertarian populism. The idea here is that there exists a pool of disaffected working-class white voters who failed to turn out last year but can be mobilized again with the right kind of conservative economic program — and that this remobilization can restore the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes."

Had I ever before heard about "libertarian populism"? No.

Do I care if "libertarian populism" can restore the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes? No.

Beset with scandals, economic malaise that does not want to go away, signature legislation that is earmarked for disaster, and pressing overseas challenges demanding weighty decisions, Obama has gone into hiding. No, Obama may be a narcissist, but he is not delusional. Meanwhile, Washington has become dysfunctional.

Democrats? Republicans? Mark Leibovich in his new book "This Town" explains how they're feeding from the same trough (see: http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-mark-leibovich-20130714,0,7643559.story).

And Hillary "What Difference Does It Make" Clinton, the hero of Benghazi, is making speeches for $200,000 a pop (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-keeps-busy-giving-paid-speeches-to-industry-groups/2013/07/11/94abdfc6-e9aa-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html?hpid=z2)? You go, girl!

I am again drawn to "Network," which, although almost 40 years old, remains as relevant as ever: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Ed Rogers, "The Insiders: Who’s in charge at The White House? The clear-eyed realists or the delusional Obamaphiles?": Certainly Not Obama Himself

"The Insiders: Who’s in charge at The White House? The clear-eyed realists or the delusional Obamaphiles?" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/07/06/the-insiders-whos-in-charge-at-the-white-house-the-clear-eyed-realists-or-the-delusional-obamaphiles/?hpid=z3) was the title of Ed Rogers Washington Post opinion piece on Saturday. Rogers wrote:

"Maybe in the Sunday papers and on the Sunday shows we’ll find out what school of thought has the upper hand in the White House: The group that convinced the president that the implementation of Obamacare was collapsing and that he needed to buy some time to live to fight another day, or the camp that believes in the laughable talking points memo about Valerie Jarrett that was revealed this week in Mark Leibovich’s new book, 'This Town.'  The jaw-dropping, tone-deaf Jarrett memo was not written by a capable Washington suck-up, but by a delusional Obamaphile. It is so starry-eyed and pathetic it will make your toes curl. It is alarming to think that advisers to the president of the United States would actually think that memo was effective guidance for those speaking on the record.

So who is in charge? The clear thinkers who bailed out Obamacare this week or the delusional Obamaphiles who wrote the Jarrett memo? Hopefully by Monday we’ll have a better indication."

Well, here it is Monday, and we still don't know. Nor are we ever apt to know.

All we do know is that the president himself, who learns of events from the newspapers like the rest of us (see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/obama-irs-targeting_n_3302449.html), is not in charge.

And this would not be a problem were it not for the fact that the economy and the world around us are collapsing.

How about another trip to Tanzania, Mr. President?