Friday, May 27, 2011

How Not To Criticize Bad Policy

Think Progress on Pawlenty and the destruction of Medicare:
GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said yesterday that he would sign the Medicare-ending Republican budget into law if elected president. “If that was the only bill that came to my desk, and I wasn’t able to pass my own plan, I would sign it,” he said of the hugely unpopular plan.
The plan is, it's true, hugely unpopular, but that really isn't the most salient point. It is wasteful, destructive, counter-productive, and generally anti-human. Think Progress has, I think, mentioned all of those points in other articles etc; however, it needs to make the most important point every single time.  The debate isn't on popularity, which might make sense if we were electing the prom king and queen, but rather on the outcome. Tax cuts are "popular," in the sense that people like them but actually hate the policy outcome: reduced service. Let's make an attempt to stick to the important stuff.

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