New England editorial roundup

The Rutland (Vt.) Herald, Feb. 4, 2015

"Mindless austerity" was the phrase President Barack Obama used in describing budget policies that have neglected the essential duties of government and hobbled the nation's ability to recover from the Great Recession.

Instead, he proposed what might be called mindful investments. He is seeking to shift the premises of the debate in Washington from "how much can we cut?" to "how much do we need to spend?"

"Sequestration" was the clumsy word adopted by Congress to describe the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts adopted in response to the misconceived notion that the gravest threat facing the nation was runaway spending. To the contrary, the clear and present threat facing the nation was its crumbling capacity for taking care of its fundamental obligations and the impoverishment of America.

Obama's budget is built around what he calls "middle-class economics," consisting of measures to help middle-class Americans halt their slide into poverty. He focuses on areas such as child care, education and job training, including his proposal to provide free community college education for qualified students.

In addition, he would reverse the years of neglect that the nation's infrastructure of roads and bridges has suffered as a result of Republican-imposed budget austerity. Indeed, public works programs have many benefits. First, the economy depends on a functioning and dependable infrastructure. Second, public works projects create jobs for thousands of construction workers and others. Third, spending on public works projects pumps money into the economy to prevent a slide toward recession like that under way in Europe and Japan.

Fear of deficits has forestalled this sort of measure in recent years, but as economists have shown, the lack of economic activity during a recession makes the recession and makes deficits worse. An infusion of money into the economy can provide the jolt needed to get the economy moving again, which helps generate the revenues needed to curb deficits. That is what Obama's stimulus program did in his first term, though in a constrained fashion, which is why deficits are coming down under Obama. That is what European policymakers have failed to do, which has prolonged a slump that in parts of Europe qualifies as a depression.

The states do not have the capacity that the federal government has to create money to stimulate the economy during a downturn, which is why austerity often bites hard at the state level. Vermont was forced to slash spending during the recession because it seemed like it would be a cruel blow to increase taxes on taxpayers already buffeted by the recession.

Now the state is emerging from the recession, and the state's many needs are becoming evident. These include bolstered human services and child protections, water pollution controls, energy conservation investments, and investments in higher education, especially the Vermont State Colleges, including Vermont Technical College.

Just as the nation cannot afford to neglect its roads and bridges, scientific research and education, the state cannot neglect essential human services. Mindless austerity creates poverty by shortchanging the engines of prosperity.

Obama proposes to pay for the budget priorities he has outlined by new corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. That is the direction in which the nation's wealth has been funneled in recent years so if we are to derive revenue from the nation's wealth, that is where we have to go to get it. Obama is betting that middle-class Americans will understand that the top sliver of the wealthiest Americans can stand to contribute a bit more, particularly since he has pinpointed the broad general economy as the beneficiary.

Republicans call it redistribution, and that is what it is - taking money from places where the taking will do little harm and investing it where it will do vast good. By framing his policy in this way, Obama is putting Republicans on the defensive, forcing them to stand up for the wealthy against everyone else and letting everyone see that that is what they are trying to do.

The Boston Herald, Feb. 4, 2015

As if to prove that there truly is no limit to their brutality, the terrorists of the Islamic State have reached a new low by burning alive the Jordanian pilot captured last December when his plane crashed over Syria.

The 20-minute video, which according to those with the stomach to view it, has the production values of a slick Hollywood short subject, shows 26-year-old Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh with his face clearly beaten and swollen, then in a cage, his orange jumpsuit doused with a liquid. Then there is slow-motion horror of the flame being lit, the sight and the sounds of death.

A spokesman for the Jordanian military confirmed the death and said, "While the military forces mourn the martyr, they emphasize his blood will not be shed in vain. Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians."

We can only hope they mean it, because the effort by the Jordanian government to negotiate with the terrorists over the possible trade of an al-Qaida prisoner responsible for the deaths of 60 people for a 2005 bombing of a hotel didn't work out so well.

Meanwhile, President Obama maintained his No-Drama Obama stance referring to ISIS as "this organization" as if it were the local Kiwanis club, adding, "Whatever ideology they are operating under is bankrupt."

Whatever ideology? Really!

Gosh, wouldn't want to accuse Islamist radicals of being Islamist radicals or anything.

What we do know is that more American citizens remain among their hostages and that "this organization" continues to spread its "bankrupt ideology" like the cancer that it is. Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues in its own policy-free zone of doing just enough to avoid international condemnation and too little to make an impact.