St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 21
Predictably, Republicans hint that tax-plan deficit justifies entitlement cuts
So it begins. As congressional Republicans ushered in last year’s big tax cuts, saying they would pay for themselves with economic growth, analysts predicted they would instead spike the deficit, giving Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Now that the deficit has in fact spiked, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is testing the waters for entitlement cuts.
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In a Bloomberg News interview last week, McConnell said it’s those decades-old programs for the poor and retirees - and not the new GOP tax cuts - that have caused the deficit to suddenly jump to its highest level in six years. He indicated cutting back those programs is the answer. He didn’t announce a GOP push for such cuts, but instead bemoaned how, politically, it can’t be done without Democratic buy-in.
On that point, he’s probably correct. But Democrats shouldn’t bite. Just because Republicans have undermined funding for important safety-net programs with their reckless tax cuts doesn’t mean Democrats have any obligation to help them throw those vulnerable populations overboard.
Entitlements do represent a huge portion of the federal budget, and how to keep them solvent is an issue that will always have to be debated. That’s what the nation took on when it decided, starting in the era of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to treat care of the poor and elderly as governmental responsibilities. But underlying these ever-present fiscal debates is the fact that conservatism, as a political philosophy, has never made peace with that decision.
Still, no Republican in politics today who wants to stay there will openly attack Social Security or Medicare on ideological grounds; both programs are too popular. So couching attempts at cuts strictly as a fiscal necessity is a popular go-to.
So it was that on Tuesday, just a day after the Treasury announced the deficit had jumped to its highest level since 2012 in the wake of GOP tax cuts, McConnell told an interviewer that the “real drivers of the debt” are - you guessed it - entitlement programs.
“It’s disappointing, but it’s not a Republican problem,” McConnell said of a problem that has, almost inarguably, been exacerbated by the tax cuts the GOP forced through last year. He complained of bipartisan resistance to “doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future.”
The trial balloon has been officially floated. McConnell is saying more subtly what Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said bluntly last year, before the tax cuts were even passed, that cutting safety-net programs “is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.”
Here’s another way of tackling the deficit: Don’t increase it in the first place with unnecessary tax cuts at a time of full employment. And if you do, don’t expect the poor and retirees to pay for it.
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The Kansas City Star, Oct. 19
Project Veritas’ undercover videos and lies have no place in Missouri Senate race
A right-wing group called Project Veritas Action has released an undercover videotape of Sen. Claire McCaskill and her campaign staff, claiming it reveals misstatements by the Missouri Democrat and supporters.
The tape is worthless. It reveals nothing voters do not know, or assume, about any candidate for office. Voters should ignore it.
More concerning is the use of undercover video to capture this nonsense. While all the facts remain unclear, an activist posing as an intern apparently infiltrated McCaskill’s office to capture the images and audio.
So we’re clear: Project Veritas Action began its work by lying, directly and unequivocally. It might be prosecutable fraud. No candidate should endorse this kind of activity.
It also violates the ethics policies of every reputable news organization. “Deception is a form of lying and is to be avoided in news-gathering,” The Star’s ethics policy states.
“People being interviewed for news stories should know they are speaking to a reporter and their comments may be published,” our policy says. “Using deception to gather news, whether by lying or misrepresentation, is inappropriate under virtually all circumstances.”
Hidden-camera exposés are more common in television news. Except in the most unusual circumstances, they are equally objectionable.
We’re uncomfortable with tapes of candidates collected surreptitiously, then aired publicly. That includes Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment at a fundraiser and Barack Obama’s “bitter” comments also recorded secretly. In both cases, though, there’s no indication the renegade tapers lied to gain access to the room, as is apparently the case in Missouri.
The Project Veritas Action videotape is far from compelling or useful in any way. We have no way of gauging the group’s editing practices, or whether the quotes were used out of context.
The tape purports to show financial backing from McCaskill donors who support abortion rights. That is hardly breaking news.
It suggests candidates sometimes tone down their rhetoric to attract moderate voters. That practice is as old as politics. Josh Hawley repeatedly suggests he supports health care coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions. That misleading rhetoric is meant to attract moderate voters as well.
Project Veritas insists there is no link between the Hawley campaign and the videotapes. Perhaps. But the publication of the tapes reflects a desperation from right-wing provocateurs who appear worried Hawley’s election is jeopardy.
Why else would you lie to gain access to McCaskill’s campaign, then release misleading videos just a couple weeks before the election?
In the tapes, Project Veritas uses the word “journalist” to describe its undercover operative. In a second video, posted online, founder James O’Keefe defends the work and criticizes McCaskill’s reaction to it.
“What is lying to the voters?” he asks. “What is that called?”
Missourians know the answer, and it isn’t journalism. It’s called Project Veritas Action.
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The St. Joseph News-Press, Oct. 14
New day for port in St. Joe
The year is far from over, but progress at St. Joseph’s Missouri River port almost certainly ranks among the biggest economic development stories of 2018 - and the best is yet to come.
During a formal opening of the port this month, this nugget surfaced: the Union Pacific Railroad is within a month of completing modifications to a switch track that will enable rail transport of freight to be added to the port’s capabilities.
Already, we have witnessed a barge delivery of steel coil - two barges’ worth - that arrived in St. Joseph after a journey that is difficult to fathom. The steel product came from Turkey and traveled by ocean and river before coming ashore here.
The product was off-loaded to dock facilities for transfer to trucks to complete the final leg of the journey to a regional industrial customer, Atchison Tubular Services in Atchison, Kansas.
Add in the ability to service those companies that would benefit from rail shipping and deliveries, and the potential for the port seems unlimited. True, this has been a long time coming, but it’s here now and something that merits celebration.
It also is notable what this means for Atchison Tubular Services. Late last year, nearly two years after the former Northwest Pipe Co. disclosed plans to idle its operations, a new owner stepped forward to restart the plant.
Tex-Tube, a Houston, Texas, company that has manufactured steel pipe for customers around the world for more than 70 years, coordinated the acquisition of the facilities with the participation of Almacenadora Afirme, a Mexican corporation and a Tex-Tube affiliate, as buyer. The price tag was reported to be $37.2 million.
The ability to receive cost-efficient delivery of barges of steel coil figures into this investment and the economic revitalization of an important regional industry and employer.
The global economy is a reality. So, too, is the fact that local jobs and commerce are dependent on our ability to be a participant in trade. This applies no matter whether our partners are across the state, the country, the continent or the world.
Over the past eight years, various government entities have spent at least $4 million developing the capabilities of the St. Joseph Regional Port Authority. Transport 360, a newly formed division of MK Minerals Inc. in Wathena, Kansas, is the facility’s operator, with former LifeLine Foods CEO Bill Becker at the helm.
Many supporters - current and past port authority board members, government investors and the hands-on operators - deserve credit for this success and what it means for the future.
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