Quote of the Day: The Bane of the Magic Asterisk

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December is make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and in "No Cute Headlines or Manipulative BS," we hope that giving it to you as matte-of-fact as we can will work to raise the $350,000 we need to raise this month. Donations make up 74 percent of our budget this year, and all online gifts will be matched and go twice as far until we hit our goal.

Brad DeLong on the debasement of budget policy since the Reagan era:

Ever since the start of 1981 and the miseducation of David Stockman, the bane of a sensible American fiscal policy has most often been the magic asterisk: the implicit claim that some policy that the politician dares not name or some magical Budget Fairy will fly down from above and make everything OK. When this magic asterisk is found, by my guess 90% of the time it is in budget “plans” from Republicans—but a good 10% of the time it is found in plans from Democrats (yes, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Gene Sperling, I am looking at you).

This has reached its zenith in the budget “plans” of Paul Ryan and his fellow tea partiers. I can’t remember the last time I saw a budget plan from a Republican that was even remotely honest.