Meet the Press 5/20/2012 -- Two visions of America

On Meet the Press today David Gregory started the program interviewing Dick Durbin and Paul Ryan. It was a predictable discussion with Durbin characterizing Paul Ryan's budget plan as severe austerity which will target the middle class and cause unnecessary financial pain, and with Ryan defending his plan by saying it's hardly austerity and certainly not severe when all it does is curb government spending by a small amount.

This is where we've come to, defending small curbs in spending against charges of ruinous austerity, so Tax and Spend policies appear to be winning, although the Left is screaming that Republicans are going to enforce drastic measures on a sick economy at any moment now. Republicans are trying to compromise on taxes by promoting tax reform and elimination of subsidies and tax loopholes rather than tax hikes. Democrats give lip servive to tax reform because they fear that reform will not bring in the revenue they desire like straight-up confiscation of wealth will. It remains to be seen what will happen after 2012, but if the future is like the past, spending will increase along with taxes.

Gregory made the point that if both sides are telling the truth, no matter who wins in 2012 there will still be gridlock because there are two very different versions of America and government's role in the economy. I will write a longer post later today discussing these two visions of America.

The Meet the Press panel focused on the faux-controversy surrounding the proposed ad to use Rev Wright as a weapon against Obama. If Gregory or Meet the Press had any integrity, they would have dismissed this faux-controversy as a media ploy to attack Romney, but since neither have integrity, they rode it out hoping to smear Romney just because his name is in the story. Romney rejected the ad quickly and that's the end of the story. Regardless what you think about Romney, the way media sources are dealing with him is indicative of the liberal bias that gives most major media outlets like NBC and the NYT no credibility at all.