The Gray Lady's Ideological Bankruptcy

As John Hawkins writes, “The New York Times has a novel theory. It seems that conservatives actually WANT states to go bankrupt so that we can implement our nefarious agenda!”

As opposed to Paul Krugman, the clip art-obsessed Timesman who wants to bankrupt the federal government by implementing New Deal/WWII-sized spending plans every other week. Or even further to the left, Frances Fox Piven (she of the riot-themed rhetoric) and her late husband, Richard Cloward:

The two became the ideologists of a group formed to implement their strategy, called “The National Welfare Rights Organization,” or NWRO. As Stanley Kurtz explains in Radical-in-Chief: “the idea was to flood state and local welfare systems with more applicants than they could possibly afford to carry. Cloward and Piven believed that this ‘break the bank’ strategy would force President [Lyndon B.] Johnson and a liberal Democratic Congress to bail out overburdened state welfare systems with a federally guaranteed annual income.” This experience of activism by the poor would create a new anti-capitalist sentiment, and would stoke the poors’ “sense of entitlement and rage.” Later, the group’s mission would be carried on by ACORN, whose leaders endorsed and built upon Cloward and Piven’s strategy.

The idea was to consciously create a fiscal crisis of the state. ACORN’s chief strategist, Peter Dreier, explained this in an article, “The Case for Transitional Reform,” which appeared in the journal Social Policy in February 1979. Dreier called for injecting “unmanageable strains into the capitalist system, strains that precipitate an economic and/or political crisis,” producing a “revolution of rising entitlements” that “cannot be abandoned without undermining the legitimacy of the capitalist class.” Once a “fiscal crisis in the public sector” occurred, the movement could push for creation of “socialist norms” being advanced as the only possible solution.

Or the president:

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Or heck, the Gray Lady herself:

Related: “Paul Ryan demolishes Democrat: Beware of Washington politicians who use the word ‘investment:'”

CNBC’s Squawk Box turned to comedy on Tuesday as Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D., N.Y.) parroted President Obama’s call for more stimulus-style “investments.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan chewed Maloney up and spit her out like a piece of bad kielbasa at the White House Super Bowl party. “When a politician in Washington says ‘investment,’” Ryan noted, “that means more government spending. That is a problem.”

And it went on from there.

Enjoy.

Click here to watch.