Neil Cavuto totally lost his temper as guest Austan Goolsbee, an economic advisor to President Barack Obama, called the Trump administration’s budget an accounting fraud and more.
The discussion began with Cavuto repeating his disingenuous claim that the budget cuts nothing from Medicaid, it’s just a slowing of its growth. But unlike the friendly chat on Tuesday's show about the budget cuts, Cavuto could not handle this no-nonsense critique.
First off, Goolsbee rejected the “not a cut” baloney. “You know, Neil, that it’s very misleading to say that it’s not a cut, it’s only growing at a rate that’s slower than inflation when you know that health care costs are going up over time,” Goolsbee said.
Cavuto interrupted. “You know that Medicaid was growing at a 9.7% clip. … If we bring that down to still something approaching double the inflation rate, that is something that’s dire? Come on.”
Goolsbee pointed out that the general inflation rate is much less than the rate of inflation for health care. “If this were comparable on the defense budget, if we simply made the same argument about the defense budget, you know perfectly well that every Republican that is currently saying this is not a cut would howl and say it was a horrible cut to defense.”
That got Cavuto’s ire going. He interrupted and talked over Goolsbee. “I’m not playing politics,” he snapped. “I’m for looking at everything in the budget, defense included, so I don’t want to play the political game with you, I want to play the math game with you … I want you to tell me when people are bemoaning something growing at a clip that is triple the inflation rate…”
Goolsbee stood firm. “No, that’s half the medical cost inflation. You’re comparing the inflation of groceries to the inflation of health care,” he reiterated.
Cavuto seemed to become more perturbed as the discussion went along.
But Goolsbee remained calm. As Cavuto railed about the rising costs of Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps), Goolsbee needled him: “You sound like my grandpa!“
Probably Goolsbee’s best line was, “Neil, you’re worked up because you know that they’ve tried some accounting gimmicks and borderline fraud in this budget and I would be worked up in your position, too.”
Cavuto really came unglued after that. “We are hosing the American people, Austan, and you should be ashamed of yourself!” he shouted. Fortunately, he was half kidding.
“I am not. I am not,” Goolsbee replied.
Well done, Mr. Goolsbee.
They parted on friendly terms.
The New York Times has a good rundown of the winners and losers of the budget (not mentioned by Cavuto, of course).
Meanwhile watch Goolsbee’s Top Dog showing below, from the May 24, 2017 Your World.
Gee another old white guy watches Fox. What a surprise.
That approach starts with making a ridiculous, untenable statement. Such as “The new Trump Budget really doesn’t have ANY cuts and it’s great for taxpayers and everyone else, isn’t it?” Which is of course a complete whopper, just like the rest of the statements regularly made on Fox News about the Pence White House. It’s along the same nonsensical lines of “Trump is a VERY successful President!” and “Berkeley has no right to ever talk about free speech again!” All lies, and all designed to put anyone left of the Far Right completely on the defensive in trying to discuss even the simplest of issues. So Cavuto starts with that nonsense right away, hoping that Goolsbee will fall for that bait and meet him on his own turf.
Goolsbee, to his credit, doesn’t fall for the bait and doesn’t accept the false premise Cavuto is using. He brings the conversation back to reality. Had he simply accepted the premise, Cavuto could have followed the flowchart to the usual Right Wing conclusion of gloating about how much better everything is under Trump and about how stupid Democrats have been to supposedly mismanage the economy so much under President Obama. (Don’t worry about the actual history of what happened under W, or that Obama spent 8 years fixing with no help from the Right, which was hoping to keep the economy mired to get themselves back into power or at least to completely obstruct Obama from accomplishing anything.)
So Cavuto takes the flowchart to the usual 2017 Right Wing place if the other party says “No” to the false premise – he begins screaming and shouting incoherently, as though he had any kind of moral standing to be doing so. The line “You should be ashamed of yourself!!!!” is a standard retort in this approach, as it’s meant to shame the other party into suddenly recanting their views or at least doubting their own beliefs. I’ve encountered this too many times in the last 6 months, all from the same Right Wingers who are incapable of having a reasonable discussion without suddenly losing their temper and screaming and shouting. This was the case under President Obama, but since Trump squeaked into office, it’s become almost sinister at times.
And these guys are taking their cues from the childish behavior of the Pence White House’s chief spokesman and Tweeter, who seems to think that “I know you are, but what am I?” constitutes intelligent discourse. Never forget – this is the Year of the Bully. The Right has no interest in having a real conversation with you. They just want to kick their opponents in the face and then tell them to get over it.
I fully expect the Right Wing in Congress to pass a fairly draconian budget that will cause misery for millions in this country, just as I expect the Congress to pass a gutting of the ACA this year that will leave over 20 million people who had coverage without it. And when these things happen, Fox News and AM Radio will act as if this wasn’t nearly enough of a cut to either idea – while everyone knows that the Right is getting exactly what they wanted.
None of this will be fixed until the Dems retake the Senate in 2018, and until this corrupt bunch is swept out of the White House in 2020. At least by 2019, we have some hope that Pence will not be able to do further damage to the Supreme Court or the judiciary in general. But the Tweeter in Chief will be generating embarrassment after embarrassment for the next 3 years and 8 months.