No. You do not need to be in denial to be a Leftist.
It helps though. If you don't have denial, you'd have to rely upon complete ignorance as a method to explain the policy prescriptions with which the Left comes up.
Here's the latest from one of my favourite Leftists, Oregon Democrat and House Speaker Dave Hunt;
“There is no magic wand to wave that will somehow provide us with hundreds of millions of dollars. There are no secret plans to balance the budget. There are no funny money schemes like long term borrowing to pay for today’s services that will pass this Legislature."
“The 2009 Legislature passed two very targeted and modest tax increases that raise the $10 corporate minimum and ask families earning over $250,000 to pay a bit more to help their fellow Oregonians through these rough times. But in the event these measures fail we must be prepared to enact these cuts in the February session."
“The path before Oregonians is as clear as I have ever seen it. Either we uphold these measures and emerge from this recession stronger than before or we plunge down into a cycle of cuts and despair like that facing California and other states."
“We’ve managed to avoid the devastating cuts facing other states because our approach balanced cuts, federal stimulus dollars, state reserve funds and targeted tax increases to protect core services. But it is a very delicate balance and putting too much weight on any one of the four components will lead us down a path that I believe most Oregonians want to avoid – deep cuts to schools, health care and public safety."
“In putting these lists out early, we want people to know what we are considering so there is plenty of opportunity to weigh in. But remember this – cuts of $733 million or more will have to be absorbed by every level of state government if the revenue measures fail. And while we will continue to do our level best to protect core services, remember that 94% of the state’s budget goes for education, health care and public safety services.”
Oregon has been on a frenzy of growth of government for years. We have grown our public sector faster than the private sector's ability to pay for that growth. Talk to a small business owner about that "recovery" thingy. That quarter of GDP growth.
Unless and until we're willing to cut the size and scope of our state government, we're simply on the Highway to Hell. We're like heroin junkies, looking for our next fix. And the fix is in the pocketbook of the Man. And we hate the Man. Taking from the Man is groovy.
This is the economic policy of the Left. Take it from the Man.
Look how well that policy has worked out in Detroit. (Oh, it turns out the Man left town.)
