I often talk on the radio about how politicians in both parties are able to say and do certain things that aren't 100% true without the voters really grasping what's going on.
The same could be said about how politicians can play the news media as well, as the press doesn't fully grasp the cunning of lawmakers either.
I am reminded of this truism by stories (and accompanying Democratic attacks) in recent days over a $61 billion GOP budget cutting plan, with charges that Republicans were pushing deep cuts to a Pacific tsunami warning system.
This is just like an earlier flurry of stories about cuts to the National Weather Service in the same measure that was approved a few weeks back in the House.
But the issues aren't so clearcut.
"Showing the recklessness of the GOP's budget, proposed cuts would gut funding for Hawaii's tsunami warning system," said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), joining Democrats in trying to tie GOP budget cuts to threats posed by the recent Japanese earthquake.
But if you go through the GOP budget cutting bill, you won't find any mention of cuts in tsunami warning funding, or in the National Weather Service, which has also been getting a lot of media attention about budget cuts as well.
The cuts - which right now have no chance to get through the Senate - would be in the budget of NOAA, the parent organization to both the tsunami and weather forecasting organs.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration would suffer a cut of 7% in its budget. If that was actually put into law, NOAA (and the Obama Administration) would be responsible for determining what gets cut, since the GOP did not detail what departments should get what amount of money.
If NOAA officials decided to cut across the board, then yes, there would be cuts to all parts of that department.
But that part of the story isn't getting much play.
Pushing hard against the cuts in NOAA is the union that represents workers at the National Weather Service, which charges that Republicans "would set back weather forecasting decades."
"Our organization firmly believes any effort to defund and dismantle our nation’s early warning system for all natural disasters is very unwise," said union President Dan Sobien.
Sobien is doing what anyone organization might do in this situation, warn of deep cuts, layoffs, furloughs, degraded forecasts and equipment and raise the specter of people dying as a result.
Democrats are playing their role perfectly, eating up such information and putting it to use, skewering Republicans for their proposed cuts in the National Weather Service and for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.
But - as I wrote above - you can't find anything specific on cutbacks in those departments in the GOP plan, just a cut to the parent organization of NOAA.
Therein lies the beauty - or the terrible part of these budget arguments. The voter doesn't have the time to dig into the actual details of a budget proposal. They just take what the politicians offer, whether it has a lot of truth, or just a few grains.
Reporters also like good stories, so for the most part, they just take what gets offered to them, too. And digging into the actual pdf file of a bill probably doesn't rank high on the agenda for most of my colleagues, even those who cover the Congress.
So, when you hear people talking about proposed cuts in the National Weather Service or the Tsunami Warning Center, it might not really be the full story either.
We'll probably hear more about this today in a news conference by House Democrats, which features freshman Rep. Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, who in recent days labeled the GOP cuts in the tsunami warning program "reckless."
If it were only so clearcut.
