opinion | Tucker Carlson is no less dangerous than a hypocrite

gail: I love that you mention Jane. Even if you want to contradict me.

Bret: Ten years ago, federal spending was $3.45 trillion. Biden’s budget request is double that, and he has the chutzpah to suggest he wants to reduce the deficit — which will be achieved almost entirely through huge tax hikes rather than spending discipline.

gail: I refrain from referring extensively to a super-deficit exploder named Donald Trump. Who was, in some respects, very pro-his party’s program – pretending to be against the deficit without proposing anything difficult to reduce. Of course, the gang is fine if they cut childcare, for example. This makes it harder for single parents to go to work and create a better future for the whole family.

Bret: I, too, will refrain from commenting that as awful as Trump was, his last budget proposal before Covid 2019 was around $4.75 trillion, which is still $2 trillion less than Biden’s current proposal. I’m also not keen on Biden’s proposal for higher taxes, including a patently unconstitutional tax on the estimated wealth of the very wealthy. It won’t go through, which I think is the point, since the budget is less of a serious proposition and more of a campaign platform.

Speaking of platforms, what are your thoughts on the government’s reported decision to authorize an $8 billion oil drilling project in the Alaskan wilderness?

gail: I’m really appalled. We should be concerned about global warming, and Biden is approving a plan that, as our history has shown, will have an impact equivalent to adding nearly 2 million additional cars to the roads a year.

Bret: OK, now it’s my turn to cheer on Biden while you scoff. We’re going to need oil for decades to come, no matter how many electric vehicles we build, and the oil has to come from somewhere. Europe has discovered the price of depending on Russia for its energy, and I would much rather get our gas from a remote corner of Alaska, mined by American workers under American regulations, than from, say, Venezuela or Iran.

But I’m really excited to see how that plays out within the Democratic Party. To me it looks like a crucial test as to whether the party will revert to its old manufacturing base of workers or move further into the orbit of knowledge industry workers with, well, coastal values. What do you think?