Time to update the deficit talking points

It must be tiresome to have to update political talking points. Partisans go to a lot of trouble to write, poll test, memorize, and repeat them, and when the talking points are no longer accurate, it must be terribly inconvenient to come up with new ones.

For example, Republicans were heavily invested in arguing that the unemployment rate was "above 8 percent of x months," which was fine until the unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent, forcing the right to come up with new talking points.

The same is true on deficit reduction. Conservative condemnations of "trillion-dollar" deficits made more sense right until the point the deficit shrunk below $1 trillion.

Alas, some folks stick to their old talking points, even when they're now wrong.

Now, this is ordinarily the point at which I note that China owns only a small portion of U.S. debt; large deficits are wise under the economic circumstances; and if Sen. Paul is really eager to reduce the deficit, he should endorse some tax increases.

But putting all of this aside, Rand Paul is using out-of-date math. "We are borrowing $4 billion a day"? Let's see -- there are 365 days in a year ... multiplied by 4 billion ... carry the one ... that means we'll have annual federal budget deficit of over $1.4 trillion.

Except, we won't. The latest CBO estimate says this year's deficit will be $642 billion, down $400 billion from last year, and nearly $800 billion from when President Obama took office. Paul's argument, in other words, isn't even close to being accurate -- we're not borrowing $4 billion a day; we're borrowing less than $2 billion a day.

If the right wants to argue that's still too much, fine. I disagree, but we can at least have a debate. But to use talking points from 2009, as if we have haven't already seen the fastest deficit reduction in modern U.S. history, is absurd. What Rand Paul is telling his followers is simply and demonstrably wrong.

Updating talking points may be annoying, but when the facts change, politicians' rhetoric needs to change with them.