Cavuto Gives Imus 'Wide Latitude' to Call Him Names; Imus (Sort of) Takes the High Road

When he wasn’t thinking about his brother Fred last week, and the wonderful tribute Neil Cavuto broadcasted on his Fox News program, Imus was pondering the amount of money he was losing as the stock market went haywire. But was it really as bad as it seemed?
 
“To go by the Dow, after getting whipsawed, I think we finished down 175 points,” Cavuto reported today. “So, stepping back from the week, you’d say, ‘Gee, it really wasn’t that bad a week.’”
 
Besides, as Cavuto always says, “You don’t lose money until you formally cash out.” Therefore, if Imus did not cash out last week, he did not lose any money, did he?
 
“I don’t know!” Imus shot back. “That’s why you’re on.” And appearing in studio, no less, an admirable deed for which Cavuto was criticized. “It looks like you slept in your clothes,” Imus observed.
 
Acting like the grown-up he is, Cavuto granted Imus “wide latitude” this morning in his remarks, knowing his friend is still grieving. Thus, an unfortunate referral to Cavuto as “dumpster-head” came and went with little fanfare.
 
Last week, as the markets reacted to Standard & Poor’s reacting to the debt ceiling debate, Cavuto marveled at the virtual lack of overall progress. “Think of it this way,” he instructed Imus. “In all the back and forth on this, $4 billion a day, or roughly that, is what we’re adding to the debt—everyday, day in and day out.”
 
The best and only way to balance the budget, as Cavuto sees it, is to encourage growth. “You can cut your way only so much,” he said, adding, “But in the end, you really have to pick up business, and when this country picks up business or improves its GDP, these problems go away.”
 
S&P’s downgrade of U.S. debt from AAA to AA+ was no big surprise to Cavuto, who has always been amazed it didn’t happen sooner. “It’s really making a statement about the way we conduct business,” he said. “It’s not just the political infighting, back and forth, because even when push comes to shove we don’t do anything dramatic.”
 
For instance, the debt ceiling deal still adds $7 trillion to the deficit over ten years. Were Cavuto running the show, he’d cut everything—everything—by two percent, right now.
 
“But we demonize it, we make it a big ol’ statement about how we don’t care about the elderly, we’re throwing granny off the cliff, and away we go,” he said. “And nothing ever gets done.”
 
Raising taxes would do little, he explained, because there’s no point paying more for a “crappy” product; also, raising taxes gives legislators “an easy way out” to avoid making necessary cuts. Only when the U.S. government proves itself a valuable investment should anybody consider the prospect of increasing revenue, but as Cavuto noted, “We are nowhere near that.”
 
Kind of like how Rep. Michele Bachmann is nowhere near getting the Republican nomination for president in 2012, even though she won the GOP straw poll in Iowa over the weekend. “It’s impressive,” Cavuto conceded, and pointed out Rep. Ron Paul’s strong showing as well. “He is a force to be contended with. If you listen to some of the stuff he said ten years ago that has come to pass, it’s spooky prescient.”
 
As opposed to Imus, who is spooky looking.
 
-Julie Kanfer