Last Call

At the NY Times, Tom Friedman asks where President Obama's opinion on the Super Committee's budget planning is and "what his preferred outcome is".  Nobody seems to know, Friedman argues.  Why isn't the President leading by example?  Why is there no budget proposal from the White H...wait, what do you mean it's been out for months and Friedman's too lazy to Google it?

Helpful Yggy is helpful!

The answer is probably that few Americans do know the precise details of President Obama’s proposals for achieving long-term budget balance. One reason is that most people don’t really care. Another reason is that many more-engaged Americans rely on major newspapers to convey this kind of information to them. But those of us familiar with the world-flattening capabilities of the Internet are able to find such documents as “Living Within Our Means And Investing In The Future: The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction” (PDF) published by the Office of Management and Budget in September. As you might gather from the title, it contains a plan, endorsed by the president, for economic growth and deficit reduction. The details on the tax side are spelled out starting on page 43, with other sections dealing with mandatory savings and health savings separately. There are a bunch of summary tables in the back, too. Unfortunately the tables are too wide to be reproduced on the blog in a way that preserves legibility. But interested parties can and should download the document! My guess is that if Friedman phones up the OMB press office someone there would be happy to walk him through it. Barring that, here’s a four page fact sheet (PDF) and here’s video of OMB Director Jack Lew.

Apparently Friedman is the Village's version of Schroedinger.  He doesn't know if the long-term deficit reduction proposal exists or not until he opens the box.  There's lazy journalism, and then there's Tom Friedman.