{"id":14549,"date":"2016-05-12T02:53:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T02:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14549"},"modified":"2016-05-12T02:53:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T02:53:04","slug":"why-arent-we-cheering-this-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14549","title":{"rendered":"Why aren&#8217;t we cheering this news?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/federal-budget-2013.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-14551\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/federal-budget-2013-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"federal-budget-2013\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/federal-budget-2013-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/federal-budget-2013.jpg 490w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am a lousy psychoanalyst.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not educated in it. I&#8217;m not an expert at anything, truth be told. I just try to observe my surroundings and keep myself somewhat centered.<\/p>\n<p>Still, I am inclined to believe that human beings are drawn more readily to negativity than they are to positive news.<\/p>\n<p>That might explain the contents of this link:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/the-public-has-no-idea-the-deficit-shrinking\">http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/the-public-has-no-idea-the-deficit-shrinking<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The writer suggests that Americans don&#8217;t know that the budget deficit is shrinking at a greater rate under the Obama administration than at any time in recent history.<\/p>\n<p>Why don&#8217;t Americans know this? Why aren&#8217;t they cheering the news?<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s because the naysayers have won the argument. How is that? Because human beings are drawn to their message.<\/p>\n<p>Hey, I can relate to it. The TV Guide we get at our house has a &#8220;Cheers and Jeers&#8221; section in the back of the magazine. I am drawn instinctively to the &#8220;Jeers&#8221; the magazine gives before I read the &#8220;Cheers.&#8221; Do you know what I mean here?<\/p>\n<p>Deficit spending used to be Republicans&#8217; major bogeyman. They pilloried Democratic politicians in 1980 because the federal budget deficit exceeded <em>$40 billion<\/em> annually. Oh, to have a deficit that small these days.<\/p>\n<p>The deficit exceeded $1 trillion when Barack Obama took office in January 2009. It&#8217;s now down to less than half that amount. Remember when we actually balanced the budget during the administration of another Democrat, Bill Clinton? A failed Republican president candidate this year, John Kasich, played a big role in making that happen, but he never was able to parlay that positive record into votes among GOP base voters &#8230; who are too enthralled by the negativity being sold by Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n<p>The negativity proponents are winning the national argument about the federal budget deficit.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not the essence of their message. It&#8217;s that they&#8217;re outshouting those who know the truth, which is that it\u00a0is shrinking.<\/p>\n<p>How, then,\u00a0do we get past humans&#8217; instinct to embrace news that angers them?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am a lousy psychoanalyst. I&#8217;m not educated in it. I&#8217;m not an expert at anything, truth be told. I just try to observe my surroundings and keep myself somewhat centered. Still, I am inclined to believe that human beings are drawn more readily to negativity than they are to positive news. That might explain &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14549\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why aren&#8217;t we cheering this news?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14,1],"tags":[540,775,6210],"class_list":["post-14549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-budget-deficit","tag-tv-guide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14552,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14549\/revisions\/14552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}