TIM CAVANAUGH: How Can Spending 30 Percent More Be “Austerity?”

A: It can’t, of course.

But in a nearly fact-free 4,000-word thumbsucker in The Nation, deep thinker Ari Berman manages to avoid any mention of how much the Federal government is actually spending. Instead, Berman draws on comments from some of the most discredited retreads in government to make the case that a vaguely defined “austerity class” is in control of the U.S. capital.

If only that were true. Cavanaugh notes, however, that truth has little to do with political-class talking points: ‘Do I expect the anti-austeritists to be persuaded by these facts? I do not. I predict the ‘austerity class’ will become a popular trope, repeated with knowing nods among the 99 Percent.”