Our New Year's Resolution: You Shut Up and Do What We Say

For its New Year's editorial the Las Vegas Sun once again handed the writing assignment to Harry Reid's staff, who responded with a plea for the country to "turn a new leaf" that was, in reality, an explicit call for conservatives and Republicans to set aside their principles and just do what Democrats want.

After a grammatically-challenged headline and a lament of the state of the economy both nationally and in Nevada, Reid's staff, er, the Sun quickly identifies the culprits.

One of the problems in the past year was that Washington became bogged down due to the all-or-nothing approach that took root among Republicans in the House of Representatives.

A variety of important measures and legislation stalled because they wouldn’t negotiate or compromise. They held out for tax cuts for the rich and major corporations but showed little concern for the middle class. Consider the most recent example of that type of behavior with the extension of the payroll tax break. House Republicans balked at a compromise and were willing to let the tax bill of average Americans go up just so they could get their way and be “right.”

Let's see, House Republicans passed a year-long extension of the payroll tax holiday, rather than the worthless two-month version Reid's Senate passed, which Reid rejected. Nevertheless, the Sun accuses the Republicans of wanting to let this holiday expire.

Oh, and, of course, there is absolutely no mention of the fact that this holiday weakens Social Security. The Sun also completely ignores the fact that many of these contentious battles could have been avoided if Reid's Senate would simply fulfill its Constitutional duty to pass a budget.

Reid has not passed a budget in nearly three years even though the budget is not subject to a filibuster so it is impossible for Republicans to "obstruct" it. Because a budget has not passed the Senate during this time the government has been forced to run on a series of continuing resolutions, which must be passed every few months and which have sparked many of the partisan battles.

Wouldn't help Reid to publicize those things, though, so they don't make this editorial.

They say their obstruction is aimed at preventing things from getting worse. That’s laughable. Putting aside the hypocrisy of that statement — they scoffed when Democrats correctly pointed out that the stimulus measure prevented things from getting worse

This is just asserting a Democrat talking point as a fact. Even the CBO director stated that the long-term impact of the stimulus will be to shrink the economy and, even at the high end, any short-term economic benefit came at extremely high cost ($100k+ per job "created" and spending 8% of GDP to create 2% of additional growth). This doesn't even include the economic drag that increased taxes and borrowing exert on the economy, so the negative effects are even greater than advertised.

[H]ow, exactly, did the Republicans make things better? By protecting the “job creators” and their lucrative tax breaks, even though they haven’t been creating jobs?

Yes, a reference to Reid's disdainful reference to "job creators" because, just like Reid, the Sun also believes that only the government can create jobs.

Any hope that the New Year would bring a change in the Sun and that its editorial board would no longer act as a mouthpiece for Harry Reid and the DNC, alas, has proven to be too much to ask for.