I understand why many people do not expect much from most of the traditional media–particularly The New York Times. People don’t get the sense that the traditional media can get out of its own insular thinking to do hard, independent reporting about the facts.

   The newest drumbeat being pushed by the traditional media is the great "fiscal deficit" scare. Today’s headline in the Times is emblematic:

Senator Even Bayh’s comments this week about a dysfunctional Congress reflected a complaint being directed at Washington with increasing frequency, and there is broad agreement among critics about Exhibit A: The unwillingness of the two parties to compromise to control a national debt that is rising to dangerous heights.

After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep recession that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs.

   The problem, in my opinion, is not that the two parties do not want to compromise. It is that actually they hold the same view–that the fiscal deficits are a great danger and that "painful" cuts await us. If you argue over the same terrain, of course, you can’t compromise

   But, they aren’t dealing with the facts.

   THE FISCAL DEFICIT IS NOT AN ISSUE. The problem is what we view as our set of priorities and what we spend money on and how each of us contributes to society’s welfare.

   The greatest challenge right now–the greatest crisis–is jobs. Period. We should not be holding back from spending more money to make sure people have work. I’d say we need another one trillion dollars for that task. Now.

   And the fiscal deficit? It would disappear pretty easily, and certainly be manageable, if we did two simple things:

   1. Reinstitute an ethos in America that people have to pay their fair share, not as a penalty, but as a cost of having a decent society. That means that the wealthiest people have to pay more–and Wall Street has to pay a transactions tax on its business because it cannot have a thriving business without a decent society with roads, education and all the infrastructure that makes Wall Street a profitable business ("profitable" should mean not obscenely greedy and outrageous pay).

   2. End the wasteful, immoral, tragic waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on foolish wars, with the most recent example Afghanistan. There was not a serious debate–by either party–over the $700-plus billion defense budget proposed by the president. Have we gone mad?