Slight of Hand

It hasn't been much commented on, but have you noticed that the Republican position on debts and deficits has changed? Even John Boehner now admits that we don't have a short term debt problem. My friend Bob Peterson recently sent me an op-ed column by Peggy Noonan saying we don't have a debt problem, we have a jobs problem (and, of course, it is Obama's fault).

Where is the admission that this is a reversal of everything the party leaders and media mouthpieces have been saying for the last four years?  Not only have they been saying it, they have been killing programs that tried to address the jobs problem because we supposedly had this immediate debt crisis that needed to be attended to.

Now the message has changed. We don't have a debt crisis, but it is "looming." And, of course, the Republicans are extremely concerned about the economic situation we leave for the next generation. But when Obama proposed public-private cooperative spending on infrastructure improvements, the forward- thinking Boehner actually said  " It's easy to go out there and be Santa Claus and talk about all the things you want to give away, but at some point somebody has to pay the bill."

And this is the Republican party leader who is supposedly thinking about the next generations?! Jeez.

For a party that has supposedly discovered the value of creating jobs, this willful blindness to the immediate advantage of infrastructure spending as well as it's future economic dividends is really almost mind boggling.