Will This Stupid Phrase Never Die?

In the midst of whining about the Republican “Pledge to America” (which I haven’t had time to read, and may not find it for a while), we get this email from a Pelosi aide:

“Congressional Republicans are pledging to ship jobs overseas, blow a $700 billion hole in the deficit to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires; turn Social Security from a guaranteed benefit into a guaranteed gamble; once again, subject American families to the recklessness of Wall Street; and take away patients’ rights.”

Emphasis mine.

I know it’s nitpickery, but it drove me crazy when Al Gore bellowed “blow a hole in the deficit” over and over a decade ago. A deficit is a hole. How do you “blow a hole” in a hole? Whenever I hear this expression, it results in at least a twenty-point drop in my estimation of the user’s IQ.

17 thoughts on “Will This Stupid Phrase Never Die?”

  1. turn Social Security from a guaranteed benefit

    Guaranteed to what? Shrink? Vanish altogether? Did they suddenly guarantee that you’ll live into your 70’s to claim it? The only guarantee anyone has for future consumption is saved production, not promises of future extortion.

  2. It is a nonsensical statement but what struck me most when I first heard this was the irony of it coming from a leader of the party that has just blown a $1 trillion “hole in the deficit”!

  3. Ah, a new mission for NASA! Studying the hole in the deficit. Is is getting bigger? What effect does it have on penguins and polar bears? I think the science on this one is far from settled.

  4. Maybe we can put water from the melting glaciers into this hole-in-a-hole.

    You have to laugh at this kind of hyberbole so as not to cry as what we have become.

  5. I thought the essence of “fire in the hole!” was that, in order to make a hole deeper, you were about to blow a hole in a hole. Which is the opposite of what Gore meant, I suppose, but at least it makes sense.

    And if Gore, like everyone else, graphs the deficit as a hill, it makes sense graphically and financially to try to blow a hole in it.

  6. No, wait, they did mean make a hole deeper, didn’t they? So, no upside down hill graph necessary. What’s the problem?

  7. Well, coming from a mathematical background, to my mind a “hole in a hole,” i.e. the absence of an absence — is a presence, a non-hole. So to blow a $700 billion hole in the deficit is to reduce the deficit by $700 billion.

    Those canny Republicans! They’ve gotten Nancy Pelosi to criticize them for good fiscal sense!

  8. No, no, I feel compelled to nitpick every nitpicky thing you say. I can’t keep up, but the compulsion is there. Feel flattered.

  9. Alternative answer: I’m a Democrat – what you find very stupid, I often find significantly less stupid. But I find it interesting that you said “I don’t do that with Republican.” It would be noteworthy if you’ve decided to identify yourself as a Republican. Maybe a Tea Party Republican?

  10. I dunno, I wouldn’t mind Republicans blowing a hole in the deficit if that means cutting the deficit by $700 billion. That ought to be the way Republicans spin that stupid meme.

    “Yeah, we want to put a $700 billion dent in the deficit. See, President Bush was derided for increasing the deficit, but under his administration, you couldn’t cut the deficit by $700 billion. It simply wasn’t that big. Now under Obama, cutting the deficit by $700 billion would be a start at solving the problem.”

  11. Look! A hole in a hole!

    That ain’t a hole, this is.

    Caption: On the right is the productivity of the American worker. On the Left is the outstanding public debt.

  12. Did they suddenly guarantee that you’ll live into your 70’s to claim it?

    Ssh! The Democrats are trying to appeal to poor people here; you’re going to mess it all up if you point out that they’re supporting a giant transfer program which takes money from demographics with lower life expectancy and gives it to demographics with higher life expectancy.

  13. Rystgnr, the life expectancy for a black man born in 1990 is 2 years less than SS retirement age. Where’s Jesse Jackson? Where’s al-Sharpton? Where are the usual race-baiting suspects?

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