“Waste, Fraud, and Abuse”

Lew, Christine O’Donnell also used the odious phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse” instead of specifying budget cuts.

There are several layers of dishonesty and fallacy embedded in the phrase. First, it’s a PR term to con the masses into thinking there will be cuts without actually specifying a real cut and losing votes. Second, it assumes that waste, fraud, and abuse are not inherent features of government programs. Third, it obscures the fact that most of the things people mean by “waste, fraud, and abuse” are really market forces asserting themselves within the context of government programs whose very purpose is to eliminate such market forces.

That being the case, instead of conservatives such as O’Donnell calling for the abolition of the various New Deal and Great Society programs that have failed, they pretend that they, the conservatives, can make these failed programs work where the liberals who invented them have failed. In the end, conservatives become cheerleaders for failed liberal programs.

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10:46 pm on October 14, 2010