The good news – no, make that great news – is that the Bush tax cuts have clearly boosted growth and so helped government revenues in the short term. The budget deficit has now shrunk far more than previously expected this year. But check out the other significant figure:
But Bush’s and Congress’s profligacy remains largely unchecked, with government spending in May hitting $188bn, up 5.7 percent from the same month of last year.
Spending increases amount to an extra $110 billion over last year; and the full impact of the Medicare entitlement hasn’t begun to be felt. Imagine what could have been achieved if we’d had a modicum of spending restraint from the Republicans. As I’ve said before. I’m a big supporter of Bush’s tax cuts (except the estate tax). But we need far greater spending discipline for fiscal health.
FRUM AND MARRIAGE: David Frum argues that the fact that gay and straight marriage rates in Canada are roughly comparable at this point means that gay couples don’t really want the right to marry. He would expect a disproportionately huge burst of marriages among gays, after decades of pent-up frustration. In fact, what happened was a more gentle entering into the mainstream, with rates almost indistinguishable from straights. Unlike David, I’m not sure you can infer a huge amount from this. People have very personal approaches to marriage and every couple is different. Some long-standing gay couples from older generations have defined their relationships, faute de mieux, as non-marital and it would take a big shift in their consciousness to change at this point. Others aren’t ready for the same reaons straight people aren’t ready: this is a personal, not a political decision. More important, there are no gay people in Canada yet who have grown up with the possibility of marriage as a moment in their futures. They don’t yet have family expectations or nagging mothers. All this is complicated, and it will take a generation or so to see how it ultimately shakes out. But let’s say David turns out to be correct, and marriage is less popular among gay men than straights or lesbians. If, as David believes, the fact of gays settling down, and building marital relationships will be so destructive for society, wouldn’t it be a good thing, from his perspective, that fewer gay couples get married? Shouldn’t he be thrilled that gays are staying away from stability and integration? My view is the opposite: that the option of marriage will transform gay lives, relationships and psyches in ways we will not know for years, but certainly for the better. It also seems to me that even if only a few couples want to commit to each other, they deserve our support. In any social movement, a few are in the vanguard, breaking old social habits and pathologies, forging new realities and opportunities. It beggars belief that conservatives would want to actually discourage gay couples from this kind of commitment. Conservatives should surely be celebrating this more than anyone else, as they rightly laud African-American couples who break historical patterns of family breakdown and build stable marriages. Rather than seeing the first wave of married gay couples and using them to dismiss the whole idea, why wouldn’t you find their example inspiring and do all you can to support them and help their example to spread?
The Dish 