Falling downer

As we go to press Tuesday, the U.S. Senate is poised to approve a deal that avoids the calamity of default by raising the nation's debt ceiling. But the legislation that President Barack Obama is expected to sign before the midnight deadline only adds to the dread we're feeling when it comes to America's economic outlook.

Everyone — right, left and in between — agrees that we have to get our national debt under control. We wonder, though, where the calls for fiscal austerity were when President George W. Bush rammed though tax cuts that mainly benefited the wealthy and then pushed this country into two unnecessary wars that were paid for using a credit card?

Now, with the nation still trying to recover from the Great Recession that erupted while Bush sat in the Oval Office, the far-right radicals of the Tea Party movement, using the threat of default as if it were a gun pointed at the president's head, has forced a deal that got them exactly what they wanted: plenty of hurtful spending cuts without any corresponding increases in revenue.

How is that any sort of compromise?

In addition to making cuts, there could have been bipartisan support for closing corporate tax loopholes and tearing down tax shelters that benefit companies such as General Electric, which earned $14.2 billion in profits last year but, as ABC News (along with many others) reported, "paid not a penny in taxes ... In fact, GE got a $3.2 billion tax benefit."

Why aren't the deficit hawks on the right screaming about that? The answer is simple: Because those same corporate powers are calling the shots. They are also doing their best to cloud public perception, and shift the focus of our attention.

In a piece posted on the web site Politico last week, Kenneth P. Vogel reported about efforts by the right to shape public opinion through "a sharply edged media campaign."

"While it's impossible to precisely measure ongoing ad buys, anecdotal information, combined with interviews of operatives, media buyers and trackers, suggest that avowedly conservative groups and candidates are spending between five and 10 times more than their liberal counterparts on TV and radio advertising related to the debate over debt ceiling negotiations," Vogel reported.

"Lapping the field in debt-related ad spending is Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (or Crossroads GPS, for short), the nonprofit group conceived last year by Karl Rove, which is spending a total of $20 million in July and August on hard-hitting ads attacking Democrats on the debt, urging viewers to 'take away Obama's blank check,' and hitting a range of congressional Democrats it considers vulnerable for supporting 'skyrocketing' and 'crushing debt' and 'reckless spending.'"

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