LBJ: "Watch that carpet, fella .. . "
It’s wonderful how National Catholic Reporter can make a moral issue out of an economic one, that is, one that depends on economics and lots of data. Amazing, I mean, to be marveled at. Until you see how they do it in this remarkable sentence in its latest editorial, “Radical individualism and the poverty rate”:
Substantively, as most any economist worthy of the name will attest, tax cuts for the wealthiest are among the least efficient means to promote the economic growth that produces desperately needed jobs. [italics added]
See where the required prestidigitation takes place? That “worthy of the name.” Once an editorial writer has a laser-accurate phrase like that at the ready, no problem.
An earlier item in the same editorial might lead to (not beg) further questions:
More than 43 million Americans — the highest number ever recorded — are officially “poor.” That’s one in seven of us. Forty-two years after Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty,” it appears poverty is winning. [italics added]
Such as if Johnson’s war wasn’t won, why do they think more of the same will win? Maybe because it’s a bad strategy, rather than a “national disgrace,” as the editorial avers. Which exemplifies another facet of ideological argument that brooks no opposition: use of colorful language that begs the question (and I do not mean raises or prompts it).
