Once more since arriving on Capitol Hill, the new Republican dominated House of Representatives and the newly reinforced Republican Senate minority has equivocated on the topic of spending cuts. By now we are all well aware that the Republicans have abandoned the goal of cutting $100 billion dollars this fiscal year and likewise, they have failed to produce a pro rata spending reduction plan to address that shortened year. We all remember that taxes, debt reduction and spending cuts were in the forefront of the Republican agenda for the 2010 elections as these headlines from conservative sources show: "Tax, Spending Cuts Top GOP Campaign-year 'Pledge" or "Tax, spending cuts lead Republican campaign manifesto" Needless to say, You get the idea.
Okay so what then happened to all of the bold talk about taking on entitlements and spending? When faced with having to answer that question on national television Mitch McConnell echoed the reluctance that Speaker of the House John Boehner had previously stated. As if by magic, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appearing on "Meet the Press" danced around the question that Republicans seemed obviously reluctant to come out with bold measures to tackle deficit spending as the following exchange between Senator McConnell and host David Gregory reveals:
"MR. GREGORY: Well, that's very interesting because I've also detected a great deal of caution on the part of Republicans who, who campaigned on the idea of spending cuts. And yet, when it comes to a program like Social Security--it was Speaker Boehner who told a group of us this week, "Well, look, we need to spend more time defining the problem before we get in the boat with the president here and say that we've got to make long-term changes." Is that your view?
SEN. McCONNELL: Well, look, we have, we have two problems here. It's our annual deficit, completely out of control. We're going to send the president a lot less--we're going to allow him to sign onto a lot less spending than he recommended the other night and that he's likely to send us in the budget. Then with, with regard to long-term unfunded liabilities, the entitlements, Speaker Boehner's correct, you cannot do that on a partisan basis. President Bush tried doing that in 2005 with regard to Social Security's problems. And by the way, the announcement this week that Social Security's gone into deficit, it will run a $45 billion deficit this year and for as far as the eye can see. Look, entitlement reform can only be done on a bipartisan basis. It's happened before. Reagan and Tip O'Neill fixed Social Security in '83. Reagan and the Democratic House did tax reform in '86.
MR. GREGORY: So, but if the president were to say, "OK, Leader McConnell, if, if you're prepared to deal with some revenue increases, we can also deal with some benefit cuts. Let's take a balanced approach to Social Security," you could support that?
SEN. McCONNELL: Look, you know, you've tried this before. I, I'm not going to negotiate the deal with David Gregory. I'd be happy to negotiate it...
MR. GREGORY: I keep hoping you'll change your mind.
SEN. McCONNELL: I'd be happy to try to negotiate the deal, and Speaker Boehner would too, with the president and the vice president and others.
MR. GREGORY: But does the president have to go first before you'll take on entitlement reform?
SEN. McCONNELL: We have to go together. We have to go together. The American people are asking us to tackle these problems. I think the president needs to be more bold. We're prepared to meet--I've got a lot of new members, and Speaker Boehner does as well, who came here to tackle this big problem. We were waiting...
MR. GREGORY: But you're saying, "Be bold on entitlements and Republicans will meet you halfway"?
SEN. McCONNELL: We're happy to sit down and talk about entitlement reform with the president. We know Social Security is in trouble. It was just announced by CBO this week. We know Medicare is on an unsustained path. They took a half a trillion dollars out of it to fund this healthcare program that they enacted. Look, we need to get serious about this."
As the above commentary reveals, what we have before us is a Republican leadership cadre that has already deviated from the rhetoric of the campaign trail by putting the ball in Barack Obama's court by stressing that it is the duty of the President to come up with "bold" proposals on deficit and spending reduction as per Senator McConnell's commentary above. But wasn't that what the Republicans ran on in the first place? For all of the rhetoric of 2010 can't they showcase their own bold ideas on "Meet the Press", America's premier Sunday morning political talk show? Likewise, Speaker Boehner's comment that Republicans "need to spend more time defining the problem" also seems to ring hollow, coming from a guy who on this very show said before the 2010 elections that the G.O.P. had spent the past last year listening to "the American people."
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the Republicans present themselves as the people who had this problem figured out and who knew what to do to get this country back on the right track, which oddly enough they got us off of in the first place when they squandered a trillion dollar plus surplus and launched two wars while cutting taxes, a historical first for the United States? They had the opportunity to put that surplus into the Social Security system or to use it to pay down the national debt as they were advised to do by Alan Greenspan, yet they chose to do otherwise. Now when elected to produce bold public policy to address our fiscal problems they plead for "more time" and look a president much maligned by them for "bold" proposals!
What's also semi-comical is Mr. McConnell's new found affinity for bipartisan cooperation. Isn't it a bit curious that they very guy who said it was his goal to see that Barack Obama be a one term president, now openly solicits the President's support and cooperation? Is this borne of a realization that the Republicans can't possibly meet their agenda alone? Is this a maneuver concocted to throw a curve ball at the Tea Party crowd as there has been little beyond rhetoric on the part of the G.O.P. when it comes to deficit reduction specifics? We've all heard about Congressman Paul Ryan's "Roadmap for America" yet it's a document that few in the Republican Party had signed onto in the run up to 2010.
In the final analysis it seems that the bold rhetoric of the campaign trail has now faded in the harsh winter of political reality. Hence the old adage, "talk is cheap." Now that they are in a position of power in Washington, the Republicans will have to finally translate their rhetoric into policy, thus far they have done little but dance around the tough issues and meet tough questions with clever rhetorical replies. How long will that last before their constituents hit the streets and demand some form of accountability from those who went to Washington to turn back the tide of Obama "the Socialist."
Sometimes there are simply no words to describe the behaviour of Mitch McConnell's band of merry misanthropes - also known as much of the US Senate Republican Caucus. The level of pathological callousness, a nihilistic streak that would make Friedrich Nietzsche blush, the willingness to put an AR-15 to the head of the nearest vulnerable group if they don't get every last dime of the mud-bath tax credit for the likes of Kim Kardashian.
You've seen these clowns in action. You know what I'm talking about.
They diagnose patients via Youtube. They block votes on everything that doesn't involve water boarding someone or gutting mine safety standards. They turn bathroom stalls in Minnesota airports into tourist destinations.
Yet, this latest stunt, well, this one even shocked me. Senator McConnell's boisterous brood decided that it was too expensive to fund healthcare for 9/11 first responders. That's right, the guys and gals who ran into cascading buildings, brick bonfires and smoldering ash, many of whom - the ones lucky enough to get out alive - developed respiratory illness and cancer for their troubles.
Sicknesses no doubt brought about by their sloth, atheism and at least occasional voting for Democrats.
So "offsets" had to be found to pay for $6 to $7 bn in life-saving funds. Yes, we just added $858 bn in red ink to our budget because somewhere a campaign contributor needed pocket change for the latest yacht shoe, but those in need of less than 1 per cent of that amount for the deleterious results of heroism?
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is asking the USDA to approve a pilot program that would prevent his city's residents from buying sugar-sweetened soda with food stamps. Some have called the proposal paternalistic. However, at In These Times, Terry J. Allen argues that Bloomberg's proposal makes sense.
Allen notes that New Yorkers may spend up to $135 million in food stamp benefits on sodas. Nationwide, the food stamp program funnels about $4 billion into the pockets of soda manufacturers. Sugary carbonated drinks are artificially profitable for Big Pop because they are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, a heavily subsidized by-product of our broken agricultural system.
There are already restrictions on what you can buy with food stamps. Nobody thinks it's patronizing that alcohol is off-limits, even though alcoholic beverage are a potential source of calories. A little discussed benefit of ending the soda subsidy within the food stamp program would be the incentive it gives to small storekeepers in poor neighborhoods to devote less floor and refrigerator space to carbonated drinks and more room to real food. Many low income New Yorkers struggle to buy healthy food in their neighborhoods. Soda subsidies only make the "food desert" problem worse.
Impatient to die
Prisoners on Death Row in Texas spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement. The death house in Texas is one of the most restrictive in the nation. Conditions are so bad that many inmates are actively looking forward to their execution day to put an end to the crushing isolation, Dave Mann reports in the Texas Observer. There is a growing consensus among psychiatrists that solitary confinement is a form of torture. Some experts, and many inmates, believe that solitary confinement is literally driving Texas death row inmates insane.
Daniel Lopez is in a hurry to die: "I don't see no point in waiting 20 years for them to finally decide to execute me." That's the first thing he tells me when I sit down to interview him. We are seated in the Polunsky Unit's visiting room. Lopez is encased in a small booth. We are separated by thick, soundproof glass and talk through phones. [...] [Lopez] says he has no desire to remain on death row. He says he's looking forward to execution day. He doesn't want to live much longer in his small cell. "I don't think that's a life for somebody," he says.
Health reform and the courts
Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones takes a closer look a the legal challenges to health care reform. Republicans in Virginia have been given the green light to challenge the constitutionality of the individual mandate in court. In October, a U.S. District judge in Detroit refused to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the implementation of health care reform in Michigan. On Monday, a U.S. District judge in Lynchburg, VA, dismissed Liberty University's anti-health reform lawsuit. Another Virginia judge says he will rule on a similar suit by the State Attorney General by the end of the year.
The current crop of politically motivated lawsuits challenging the individual mandate are legally tenuous at best. Aziz Huq wrote in The Nation: "Among constitutional scholars, the puzzle is not how the federal government can defend the new law, but why anyone thinks a constitutional challenge is even worth making."
As Columbia law professor Gillian Metzger explained to Chris Hayes of The Nation earlier this year, the constitutionality of the individual mandate is basically a "no-brainer." The way the Affordable Care Act is written, everyone who doesn't have health insurance from some provider has two options: Buy subsidized health insurance or pay a tax. The federal government obviously has the right to collect taxes. The case is expected to go all the way to the Supreme Court, but it seems unlikely to prevail. The real fear is that a lower court will paralyze the implementation of health care reform while the decision is pending.
Crisis pregnancy center bill
Shakthi Jothianandan of Ms. Magazine has the latest on proposed legislation that would force so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in New York City to disclose that they are not real reproductive health clinics. The New York City Council held a hearing on the proposed legislation in mid-November, which brought together officials from the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, Planned Parenthood, Concerned Clergy for Choice and staff from CPCs around the city. The representatives for the CPCs claimed that the bill violates their free speech rights, but the head of the New York Civil Liberties Union testified that requiring organizations to disclose that they are not real health care facilities and don't provide a full range of services does not infringe on any First Amendment right.
CeCe Heil, senior counsel with the Christian anti-abortion group American Center for Law and Justice, claimed the legislation was unnecessary because women are already smart enough to know that "abortion alternatives" means "alternatives to abortion." Many of the CPCs have "life" in their name, which should signal to potential clients that they do not provide abortion or abortion referrals. But if it's really so obvious that CPCs are just anti-choice ministries posing as reproductive health clinics, why oppose a law that simply requires all facilities to disclose the obvious?
Boehner meets with anti-choice extremist
Future Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) met with anti-abortion extremist Randall Terry, as Miriam Perez of Feministing reports. Terry is the founder of the radical anti-choice group Operation Rescue, which has a long record of advocating violence against abortion providers. After Dr. George Tiller, one of the country's last high-profile late-term abortion providers, was assassinated, Terry called Tiller a "mass murderer" who "horrifically, reaped what he sowed."
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For the better part of post 2008 election period, we have been deluged with an almost non-stop rant about the failures of "progressive" ideas in America. Some have been so bold, or naive if you will, to suggest that the rise of the Tea Party Movement and the 2010 election have spelled the beginning of the end for "Progressives" and all that they stand for. According to this premise Americans now want to do away with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, Disability and Workers Compensation, the 40 hour Week, Workplace and Product Safety, Weekends and Holidays Off From Work, Environmental Safety, Financial Reform, ad infinitum. The "people" now want to return to a world where you work 12 hours a day, six days a week for straight time wages, no overtime, no retirement plans and no employer provided healthcare. Moreover, you will be happy to do so and even happier to forgo all of the workplace health and safety standards that you have enjoyed for the past half century or more. The "people" will now look forward to consumer products that are less safe, water and air that is more likely to harm one's health and rivers and seashores that are far less inviting on a hot summer afternoon due to the higher levels of pollution. Oh and least I forget, the "people" will spend half of their day off so they can go to church and thank God for the end of "progressive" ideas in America and a return to the unrestrained "free market system" that brought you economic inequality and the Great Depression.
Of course, to some extent, I am being sarcastic in the above. But don't fool yourselves, there are those among us who have completely misread this historic election and are well along the way to furthering their self delusion in the process. What you have just witnessed is the biggest hustle job in American political history. The Tea Partiers are already being shunted off to the side as Boehner and his minions divvy up the committee chairmanships among seasoned and veteran politicos. And let's not forget all of the outside cash that flowed into the G.O.P. during the 2010 midterms, those donors will be up on Capitol Hill shortly looking for their payback. And this just out: "Michele Bachmann's Leadership Bid Gets Cool Reaction" -"Self-proclaimed tea party leader Michele Bachmann's bid for a top Republican post in the House received a cool reaction Thursday from Speaker-to-be John Boehner, an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners in Tuesday's elections."(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/04/michele-bachmanns-leaders_n_779290.html)
Thus, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Welcome to two more years of political gridlock, and it's brought to you by the folks who want to "take their country back."
I recently wrote that I believe a number of unavoidable "train wrecks" will occur between the Tea Party and the Republican Party. When it comes to these "train wrecks" it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The first of these are taking shape before anyone even arrives on Capitol Hill to take a seat in the new Congress. The first two issues of contention will be who gets the committee chairs and the attempt to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.
Tea Party-endorsed candidates accounted for almost half of the House seats picked up by the G.O.P. and members of the movement are expecting to play more than second fiddle to Republican veterans in the 112th Congress. A recent article on these newcomers and their expectations revealed: "The large number of incoming Tea Party-backed candidates has empowered Republicans aligned with the grass-roots activists to try to expand their power in Congress. Representative Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican and a favorite of the movement that seeks limited government, announced yesterday on Facebook that she will seek a leadership post in the party's House caucus." While committee chairmanships may be the expectation of the newly elected Tea Party backed members, the reality will be quite different. You see the incoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner is not exactly an ideologue or a fan of the movement. Moreover, the process for securing committee chairmanships takes place within the personal politics of the House and not on the set of Fox News or on the campaign trail, which is to say that the workings of Congress have not changed even if the Tea Party has come to Washington. As such, it's more than likely that the new occupants of the various committee chairmanships have already been selected and it's not likely that you will find too many Tea Party people among them. Representative Steve King, an Iowa Republican who is supporting Bachmann said: "party leaders want to pack the leadership team with their picks. That means there's not someone on the inside circle who's going to be the voice of constitutional conservatives. That would be a shame, since they are the ones who gave us this majority." If this in fact turns out to be the "new normal" on Capitol Hill, was the claim made that the Tea Party Movement has been used for its votes and its efforts farfetched or is it likely to be an accurate assessment of an unfolding reality?
The second stumbling block on the road to 2012 will be the issue of what to do about Obamacare. Many who ran as first time candidates and who received the Tea Party endorsement signed a pledge that states: "I pledge, if elected, to vote for all bills which seek to repeal the health care bill, HR 3590, signed into law on March 23, 2010." Likewise, existing Republicans who sought re-election signed a similar statement in order to obtain the movement's endorsement and support. In "A Pledge to America"; the G.O.P. committed to:" to "repeal and replace" Obamacare should their party gain control of the U.S. Congress." However, without control of the Senate and in the face of an Obama veto, this was an unrealistic aspiration to begin with. That unrealistic goal has already led Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to back away from any such idea. As McConnell said yesterday during a speech at the Heritage Foundation.: "We may not be able to bring about straight repeal in the next two years, and we may not win every vote against targeted provisions, even though we should have bipartisan support for some...But we can compel administration officials to attempt to defend this indefensible health spending bill and other costly, government-driven measures, like the stimulus and financial reform." Well, it doesn't take a seasoned political analyst to see that this will run right into what the Tea Party Movement's adherents want and expect. Just yesterday the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, Mark Meckler was on national television speaking on what he believes the American people want and what the Tea Party wants to deliver: a total roll back of the Obama agenda. "They are not in a mood for compromise", said Meckler of both the movement's rank and file and the larger electorate. Well as it may more than likely turn out, those who are unwilling to compromise may be the ones who are ultimately disappointed and not vice versa.
When Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was first transferred to New York from Guantanamo Bay last year, House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio called it "the first step in the Democrats' plan to import terrorists into America."
More than a year later, Ghailani remains the only detainee from Guantanamo Bay to be brought to the United States. He's scheduled to go on trial starting this week in lower Manhattan. Jury selection begins Monday.
Ghailani is a Tanzanian accused of helping to bomb two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 that killed 224 people. Like the September 11, 2001 attacks, those bombings have been attributed to Osama bin Laden.
In hundreds of legal charges filed with the federal court in New York, Ghailani is accused of having scouted out the American embassy in Tanzania before it was bombed, assembled bomb materials and escorted the suicide bomber to the site. After the bombings, prosecutors say he fled to Afghanistan and rose up the ranks of al Qaeda, forging documents for the group and working as a cook and a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.
When he was captured in Pakistan in 2004, U.S. authorities deemed Ghailani a "high-value" detainee and sent him to a secret CIA prison for interrogation, where Ghailani claims he was tortured. Indeed, a variety of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques," including waterboarding, were authorized for use by CIA interrogators on high-value detainees.
Ghailani was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. Last year, more than ten years after the embassy bombings, he was transferred to the New York prison. The same prison has safely held such notorious criminals as John Gotti and the blind terror leader Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.
Critics of Ghailani's transfer warned that his prosecution could be derailed by his abuse in prison and the long delay in bringing him to trial. But the federal judge hearing the case, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, has denied the defense lawyers' requests to dismiss the trial on those grounds.
Last week, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani insisted that it would be safer to try Ghailani in a military commission in Guantanamo Bay than in New York City.
Ghailani has already appeared in court for pretrial hearings, however, without incident. New York City police have said that while they will provide some extra security for the trial, the proceedings will not require any of the elaborate and costly measures that New York City officials had warned would be necessary for a trial of the 9/11 plotters. After receiving complaints from local business groups about the potential disruption that trial might cause, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced that he would take a range of extraordinary security measures, including a flood of uniformed police officers, checkpoints and thousands of interlocking metal barriers. Mayor Bloomberg estimated the cost at $200 million a year, and the Obama administration soon backed away from the plan.
Despite the huge costs and inconvenience predicted for the 9-11 plotters' trial, no such estimates have been made for the trials of any of those accused of carrying out al Qaeda's U.S. embassy bombing attacks.
Four other men have already been tried and convicted in the same New York courthouse for their roles in the U.S. embassy attacks. All were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
We constantly hear the monotonous refrain from the right that now is not the time to raise taxes, even for the richest Americans, citing that this will somehow threaten the weak and halting recovery. Yet a composite number of 59% of the American people either favor the expiration of tax cuts for the wealthiest or a roll back of the Bush era tax cuts entirely as per the latest Gallup Poll. But oddly enough, it's not just the folks on Main Street who feel this way; it's also the sentiment of a few prominent thinkers on the right hand side of the political spectrum.
Take former Reagan OMB Director and economist David Stockman for example. He has emphatically been critical of the gains made by the richest Americans of late: "I find it unconscionable that the Republican leadership, faced with a 1.5 trillion deficit, could possibly believe that good public policy is to maintain tax cuts for the top 2 percent of the population who, after all, have benefited enormously from this phony boom we've had over the last 10 years as a result of the casino on Wall Street." Stockman reinforced this point a few days later in an article entitled Four Deformations of the Apocalypse: "It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans - paid mainly from the Wall Street casino - received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent - mainly dependent on Main Street's shrinking economy - got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market's fault. It's the decaying fruit of bad economic policy." Not to be missed is the opinion of Alan Greenspan who likewise has been critical of the G.O.P's stance on eliminating tax breaks for those who need them the least. To wit: "Now Mr. Greenspan is wading into the most fierce economic policy debate in Washington - what to do with the tax cuts adopted, in large part because of his implicit backing, under President George W. Bush - with a position not only contrary to Republican orthodoxy, but decidedly to the left of President Obama. ... Asked whether higher taxes in 2011 could choke off the nascent recovery, Mr. Greenspan replied: "It is risky, but the choice of not doing it is far riskier."
Taking the above into consideration the next question is: Will it be a winning strategy for the G.O.P. to continue to support tax breaks for the richest Americans when the support for that policy is not supported by a majority of those polled? In the long haul, I believe it's a losing proposition for the G.O.P. to carry on about the well being of a relatively few in our society when so many are still having such a difficult time. There's also the undeniable element of partisan politics in all of this. One can only ask the following question: If the leadership of the Republican Party is so up in arms over the Obama Administration's proposal to adjust the tax level of the richest Americans back to levels in effect during the Clinton Administration, then were was their opposition to Ronald Reagan who presided over tax rates that were higher during his administration than those in existence during the Clinton Administration? Well, you can bet your bottom dollar that this is one discussion that neither Mitch McConnell nor John Boehner is going to be too anxious to have on the Sunday morning talk show circuit.
Tax policy and tax cuts in particular are elements central to the Republican Party's economic philosophy. Republicans have made tax cuts one of their primary tools for fighting the Great Recession and returning America to prosperity. When advocating cuts, many on the Right have waxed nostalgic for the Reagan era tax cuts and their supposed economic benefits. The "record" of those cuts is held up as a justification for extending the Bush tax cuts beyond their expiration date and likewise for cutting taxes generally. All of this as an ideological counterpoint to what the Obama Administration has done in addressing the current downturn. Thus when economists who describe themselves as free market advocates, Libertarians, Republicans and even conservatives call extending the Bush era tax cuts into question one can only take note and inquire further as to why those whom we would expect to endorse tax cuts count themselves among the opposition.
Opposition to extending the tax cuts of the Bush Administration falls generally into two different schools of thought. In one camp you have people like Alan Greenspan and David Stockman the former Director of OMB during the Reagan years, both of whom argue that tax cuts are being supplemented by foreign borrowing and are as such unwarranted. In another camp you have people like Bill Gross of PIMCO and former Bush Administration economist Glenn Hubbard who support more federal spending due to the severity of the current downturn. Appearing on Meet the Press on August 1st Greenspan voiced opposition to the idea of tax cuts combined with continued borrowing. He reinforced this point in a New York Times interview the next week that stated: "Mr. Greenspan is calling for the complete repeal of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, brushing aside the arguments of Republicans and even a few Democrats that doing so could threaten the already shaky economic recovery." Greenspan went on to point out that tax cuts are appropriate when the government is running a surplus and that his original support of tax cuts was combined with other economic requirements that were ignored by economic policy makers within the Bush Administration. A far more scathing condemnation of the Republican Party, it's economic performance and it's fixation with tax cuts was voiced by David Stockman in two separate pieces: "Bush Tax Cuts Will Make U.S. Bankrupt" and "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse". Quoting Stockman: "Yes, there was a good idea that in certain circumstances, lower tax rates will encourage economic activity and savings. But when you make it a religion, when you make it a catechism and you say you cut taxes no matter what the circumstance, what the season, what the condition, then I think the whole idea has been perverted...I find it unconscionable that the Republican leadership faced with a 1.5 trillion deficit could possibly believe that good public policy is to maintain tax cuts for the top 2 percent of the population who, after all, have benefited enormously from this phony boom we've had over the last 10 years as a result of the casino on Wall Street." Stockman goes on to analyze the four deformations of the American economy that he says resulted from Republican policies that abrogated the Bretton Woods Agreement, the exportation of jobs overseas, the hyper-growth of the financial sector and the explosion of public debt. Yet it is in addressing the growth of public debt that Stockman is especially harsh in analyzing the Republican policies both during the Reagan era and beyond. Again to the author: "This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."
The alternate point of view is put forth by those who see the economy as being so structurally unsound that no amount of tax cuts will help and that only massive public works projects and spending on retraining will provide the necessary remedial aid the economy requires. Bill Gross the fixed income guru of PIMCO was interviewed for an article in the New York Times by Nelson Schwartz, "Jobless and Staying that Way" with the following takeaway: "Despite his long-held belief in free markets, smaller government and lower taxes, Mr. Gross said politicians must recognize that this time, "government is part of the solution." He added, "In the new-normal world, there are structural problems, which require structural solutions... Mr. Gross believes that it's time for the government to spend tens of billions on new infrastructure projects to put people to work and stimulate demand." Quoting Gross: "We think the coma will last for years unless government policy changes to restimulate the private sector and bring unemployment down," In the same camp is former Bush economic advisor Glenn Hubbard who stresses a new, expanded role for the government in addressing the problem of structural unemployment. He talks about a "new normal," where economic growth is too slow to bring down the unemployment rate which in turn requires the government to be more actively involved in mitigating problems that now emerge as the result of globalization. In Hubbard's words: "If there is a new normal, it's more about the labor market than G.D.P. "We have to help people face a new world."
In contrast, the Republican Party continues to talk about the current downturn as if it were a garden variety economic contraction that could be dealt with through tools and policies related thereto. It continues to advocate tax cuts as if they would somehow create consumer demand where it currently doesn't exist. Conservatives have repeatedly pointed to the Reagan era tax cuts as a prime example of the efficacy of such measures in stimulating demand and at the same time they have ignored the massive Reagan era stimulus provided by military spending. In a recent article titled "Unemployment: What Would Reagan Do? Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute talked extensively of Reagan's tax cuts but mentioned not a word of his spending. To paraphrase the source "Reaganomics" below: "Reagan very significantly increased public expenditure, primarily the Department of Defense, which rose from $267.1 billion in 1980 to $393.1 billion in 1988." That meant that "defense spending went from being 22.7% to 27.3% of total public spending. In order to cover new federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation." Beyond spending for military goods, Reagan expanded the size of the federal government creating a new cabinet level department and presiding over a federal workforce that was larger when he left office than it was when he arrived. Economist Robert Reich points out the fallacy of the Reagan era tax cuts as follows:" Unfortunately for supply-siders, history has proven them wrong again and again. During almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when America's top marginal tax rate was between 70 and 92 percent, the nation's average annual growth was 3.7 percent. But between 1983 and start of the Great Recession, when the top rate was far lower -- ranging between 35 and 39 percent -- the economy grew an average of just 3 percent per year. Supply-siders are fond of claiming that Ronald Reagan's 1981 cuts caused the 1980s economic boom. In fact, that boom followed Reagan's 1982 tax increase." An analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues that "history shows that the large reductions in income tax rates in 1981 were followed by abnormally slow growth in income tax receipts, while the increases in income-tax rates enacted in 1990 and 1993 were followed by sizeable growth in income-tax receipts." Specifically, the analysis calculated that the average annual growth rate of real income-tax receipts per working-age person was 0.2% from 1981 to 1990 and a much higher 3.1% from 1990 to 2001. Thus if you want to find the wellspring of economic growth in the Reagan era you won't find it in tax policy, ironically it can be found in simulative spending for military hardware and the growth in federal employment.
In their constant baying "Where are the jobs?" the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill has ignored the fact that the present downturn is far more severe than their rhetoric would allow. In analyzing the current downturn Sara Murray points out:" GDP was revised down in seven of the 12 quarters of 2007, 2008 and 2009, primarily because consumer spending grew more slowly and home building fell more sharply than previously estimated...The overall depth of the latest recession surpassed that of any other downturn since the late 1940s. GDP fell by 4.1% from the fourth quarter of 2007, when the recession officially began, to the second quarter of 2009, when many economists believe it ended. The previous estimate for the peak-to-trough decline was 3.7%...The new data show that the worst of the recession came in the last quarter of 2008." With economic utilization rates down by 30% across much of the economy and manufacturing output off 28% in the U.S. and 23% worldwide and with services down significantly as well, it was more than evident that tax cuts could not restart the world economy and that is why they were not a major element in the initial policy response in any major economy. The value of government action has been outlined by Jon Hilsenrath as follows: "Most mainstream economists agree on some points: The U.S. economy needed some kind of fiscal help in 2009 as the financial system teetered and the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates near zero. The deficit has to be reined in eventually, in part by restraining the growth of spending on health and other benefits. And developing a long-term plan to do so now would reduce risks of a future financial market calamity and help hold interest rates down... But today, neither side can say with certainty whether the latest stimulus worked, because nobody knows what would have happened in its absence...One big issue: Lessons about fiscal policy in normal times aren't necessarily applicable to today, when the Fed has cut interest rates to zero and unemployment remains high. Skeptics of fiscal stimulus traditionally argue that government borrowing crowds out private investment and pushes up long-term interest rates. True, says Obama adviser Lawrence Summers, but not at times like these...When private-sector lending was drying up and the credit markets froze, "government investment and creation of demand for consumers was a form of alternative financing, not a threat to private investment," Likewise, David Wessel author of "In Fed We Trust" notes: "Government, which did fail to head off the crisis, saved us from an even worse outcome... But we know now that the economy was imploding in late 2008. We know now with detail how paralyzed financial markets were, and how rotten were the foundations of some big banks. We know now that even after all the Fed has done, we still risk devastating deflation... So the short answer has to be: Yes, it would have been far worse had the government failed to act." The factors that affect unemployment predate the Obama Administration as the economic downturn started roughly a year before he took office and you can see unemployment starting to rise in the last quarter of 2008. One could make the argument that the stimulus has been far less effective in getting people back to work than one would hope, but there is little reason or historical evidence at hand to lead to the conclusion that we would have done better by employing tax cuts. Some conservatives would point to Calvin Coolidge's tax policies in fighting the 1920-1921 downturn as evidence that these policies work, but in doing so the avoid the influence of sharp tariffs that were also part and parcel of his response and the negative chain reaction that ensued worldwide as a result. Besides, what was the follow on act to the Roaring 20s, the Great Depression.
In analyzing the effect of the controversy surrounding stimulus verses tax cuts on the recessionary economy, Jon Hilsenrath states:" Tax cuts haven't been a cure-all. President Bush tried $168 billion of tax rebates in 2008, and a recession ensued anyhow. Economists note that households tend to save temporary tax cuts or use them to pay down debt, so they don't provide much short-term stimulus." Hilsenrath goes on to point out that one third of the Obama stimulus was in the form of tax cuts. This fact has also been pointed out by Steve Weisman of the Petersen Institute for International Economics who has stated that the tax cuts included in the stimulus have had zero simulative effect. There is now evidence that business is starting to spend money on capital goods regardless of the specifics of tax policy. Nomura Securities economist David Resler calculates "that businesses didn't spend enough in 2009 on new equipment to offset the wear and tear on their existing equipment...Mr. Resler estimates that even with the recent sharp increases in capital spending, the total capital stock is still $100 billion less than it was two years ago. That suggests that capital spending could continue to grow strongly the rest of the year." Mr. Greenspan himself added that the relationship between taxation and growth was still not well understood. "I don't think anybody can know exactly what the impact of these taxes is on G.D.P.," he said, referring to gross domestic product, the broadest measure of output. "We put them through econometric models that have a very poor record forecasting recession. Conclusions based on such models must be suspect." The fact of the matter is that companies spend money on replacement and expansion when they see an economic reason to do so, not primarily as a result of tax policy. While tax incentives for plant and equipment can be helpful, they alone are not enough to give rise to business spending if there is a perceived lack of demand for a firm's goods or services. After all, companies still have to lay out millions of dollars in expenditure and why would they do so if they have idle capacity to the tune of 30%?
So the question is this; if so many influential people are pointing to the lack of effectiveness of tax cuts in this particular economic environment, why do Republicans cling so desperately to the idea? As I have said in earlier articles, I believe that, in a large part, the G.O.P. is at the point of ideological exhaustion and is sorely lacking when it comes to new and compelling ideas. It is basically, with few exceptions, pushing old wine in old bottles. Their one big exception is Congressman Paul Ryan's " A Roadmap For America's Future", which contains a number of tax reform ideas and advocates for a privatization of Social Security, a tall order to fill in this environment and one that Republicans could not pull off during the Bush Administration when they had control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. Ryan's plan has been picked apart by Economist Paul Krugman for what he claims are its faulty assumptions. One is Ryan's claim that based on OMB estimates; his policies would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020. Krugman's critique is as follows: "But the budget office has done no such thing. At Mr. Ryan's request, it produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts - period. It didn't address the revenue losses from his tax cuts... The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has... Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers... you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion. And that's about the same as the budget office's estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration's plans...The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan's total tax cuts... Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population...Finally; let's talk about those spending cuts. In its first decade, most of the alleged savings in the Ryan plan come from assuming zero dollar growth in domestic discretionary spending, which includes everything from energy policy to education to the court system. This would amount to a 25 percent cut once you adjust for inflation and population growth. How would such a severe cut be achieved? What specific programs would be slashed? Mr. Ryan doesn't say."
There is a curious lack of candor and directness among Republican leaders making the rounds on the political talk show circuit when it comes to detailing specifics. Appearing on the Bloomberg network, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) declined to outline what comprised the G.O.P.'s political or economic platform for the 2010 election cycle saying he "did not want to scoop himself". A week later in an August 8th Meet the Press interview, John Boehner (R-OH) would not provide specifics on the same topic choosing to talk around the issue by saying that the G.O.P. was "still listening to the American people." That's a sharp contrast to Mr. Boehner's comments on Meet the Press this past January when he said: "Leadership is about standing on principles and offering alternative policy solutions" The fact of the matter is that if they were in power now, they would most likely have favored simulative spending as well as there is no historical evidence that tax cuts alone, or as a primary strategy, has ever pulled an economy out of a downturn as deep as this one. They certainly can't harken back to the business friendly 19th century America as taxes then were low or nonexistent on economic activity as well as personal incomes. And interestingly enough, Senator McConnell appearing again on Meet the Press, 22nd of August, was unwilling or unable to come up with an answer as to how to pay for extending the Bush era tax cuts as well as answer the question of the viability of Congressman Ryan's Roadmap. As per the moderator, David Gregory's take on the Ryan plan: "it lays out some Draconian steps to balance the budget, to cut spending in both Social Security and Medicare. I'm wondering why it is if Republican leaders are so serious about cutting the deficit and cutting spending, why there aren't more than 13 cosponsors in the United States Congress for this plan?" Somehow the new found fiscal rectitude of the G.O.P. seems to ring hollow when you consider that much of the present Republican leadership on Capitol Hill are the same culprits who took this country from surplus to deficit and endorsed a military misadventure that has by now cost over one trillion dollars that would have been better spent here fighting the downturn.
Perhaps it is this lack of compelling new ideas in the midst of the worst downturn since the 1930s that has led the G.O.P. to basically avoid policy specifics and let the far right media fringe do much of the talking for the Party. Perhaps that is why so little is known about the ideas of a Paul Ryan, he can't be heard over the roar and din of the fanatics on the far Right and the political theater of people like Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the rest of the entertainers on the right who pawn themseleves off as legitimate news analysts. Perhaps that is why many of its leading figures have been so enmeshed in the Ground Zero Mosque controversy or perhaps why they have let the "Birther Mania" run wild and unabated. After all, if you don't have compelling ideas to offer voters in general, you're left with having to rile up the base and keep them engaged no matter what the method or the reasoning. Columnist David Brooks addresses this as part and parcel of the lack of civil public discourse currently gripping the nation in his latest op-ed "Case of Mental Courage":"Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable...There's a seller's market in ideologies that gives people a chance to feel victimized. There's rigidity to political debate. Issues like tax cuts and the size of government, which should be shaped by circumstances (often it's good to cut taxes; sometimes it's necessary to raise them), are now treated as inflexible tests of tribal purity." While the Republican Party will surely make gains in the 2010 election cycle, it will be a function of the natural progression of electoral cycles rather than the start of a renaissance. We are now in a brave new world of globalized economic competition where military power may very well play a diminished role. No amount of tax cutting will help us in combating the cost of production in China and the Far East. We are in need of bold new ideas and to date, the Republicans have largely offered an agenda of obstruction and out of date economic concepts that proved lacking in the 19th Century as well as in 2008. Generally the voters still blame the Bush Administration for the current economic disaster and the G.O.P. remains at historic lows in favorability ratings. In spite of the fact that some 30% of the voters identify as conservative, the long term demographics are trending against the G.O.P. and its core philosophy and at some point it will either have to redefine its reason for being or it will have to accept a role as the default party of American politics.
AUGUST 11, 2010.Grim Voter Mood Turns Grimmer: Pessimism Rises on Economy and War; Bad Reviews for Both Democrats and GOPhttp://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704901104575423674269169684-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwMTExNDEyWj.html#articleTabs%3Dinteractive
In case you haven't seen it, the ad from Blue America PAC targeting John Boehner for his out of control golf habit is just brilliant.
In "honor" of Boehner's every-third-day golf habit (paid for by corporate lobbyists), I've created a golf-themed ActBlue page where you can 'buy' a golf item, with your money going to Blue America PAC to fund more spots for this awesome ad.
Two things that have taken a lot of heat lately is the Economic Stimulus and the Social Security insurance for America. In front of the federal budget deficit commission he argued that deficit spending is the best way to reduce and stabilize the national debt by stabilizing the economy and creating jobs. Meanwhile, others are defending Social Security against those who would continue to eliminate or privatize it.
Brighton, Colorado (FNS)-Attorneys from the Republican Study Group (RSG) descended upon the 17th Judicial District courtroom of Judge John T Bryan today to present an amicus brief and associated oral arguments in order to prevent a settlement in a lawsuit related to an automobile accident in this Colorado city.
The intervening attorneys claim the settlement reached between the two parties to the accident is a "shakedown" because the plaintiff had not yet exhausted all possible legal remedies when the agreement was finalized, and because the agreement was executed in the presence of the plaintiff's brother, a well-known local attorney.
They hope Judge Bryan will decline to approve the settlement in today's hearing, and that he will order the parties to move forward to trial.
"What we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on preexisting laws but on decisions by one man, a car czar", said Crush Mimbaugh, attorney for the RSG, "and we are here today to protect all Americans from this legally sanctioned rape of an innocent driver."
I for one am not surprised at the reports surfacing over the last twenty four hours that there have been attacks, threats and vandalism aimed at Democrats who voted in favor of health care reform. As of this morning there are ten such reported cases, including one that suggested Congressmen (D-MI) should drown himself. Congresswoman Giffords (D-AZ) had the windows of her hometown office broken by some unidentified projectile. There has also been a report of an attack on a Congressman's family member that if accurate, would constitute a federal crime. Having witnessed Congressmen and Senators being spit upon and subject to racial and homosexual slurs by anti-government fanatics this past weekend, why would anyone be surprised by this latest display of incivility?
Shortly after the inauguration of Barack Obama the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that an increase in domestic anti-government violence was a distinct possibility. This report was the subject of much derision from the Right at the time but consider what has happened since then. Since the election of Barack Obama we have had a guy in Pittsburg kill policemen because he was angry that the government was now "Run by Jews" and that it would "take his guns away". We had a guy kill a doctor who performed abortions and then try to frame himself as a patriot in so doing. Sorry but murder is not patriotic. We had a murder at the Holocaust Museum by an individual who when captured said: "This is how you'll get my guns from me". Another anti-government zealot crashed his plane into the IRS building in Austin Texas as if that would in some way actually contribute to the abolition of the agency. In reality, all that this action accomplished was the killing of an innocent man. Only the Pentagon subway stop shooting can legitimately be classified as the work of a mentally incapacitated person, regardless of his anti-government rant. All summer long we had to watch the farcical spectacle of Tea Party patriots playing minuteman by bringing loaded weapons to rallies while holding signs that suggested it was time for a second American Revolution. There are many who will read this and try to make an argument that political violence is now somehow justified, alluding to some sort of Revolutionary War fantasy. There has been all manner of infatuation with ideas of an armed "citizens revolt"; a military coup, even talk of an attempt on the life of the President, all of it being nothing more than the pipe dream of people who have now become political dead enders. It is to be noted by all that these far right fanatics have been aided and abetted in their dangerous fantasies by the reckless rhetoric of Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the professional political entertainers on the far right who masquerade as legitimate political commentators.
The Republican Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH) has already issued a statement condemning violence on the floor of the House of Representatives. That is surely commendable as no informed observer of American politics would for a moment believe that the G.O.P. is in favor of such a thing. But I would also urge Congressman Boehner to direct his comments to some in his own party, like Michele Bachmann (R-MN) or those like her who have a history of incendiary anti-government rhetoric in their political track record. When an elected official engages in blatantly reckless and inflammatory behavior it only serves to stoke up the sentiments of those on the far right fringe and can serve, in their minds, as a "call to action." In his assessment of the Republican debacle that has arisen from the passage of health care reform, the veteran conservative commentator David Frum observed: "We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible... So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, its mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, its Waterloo all right: ours." The degree to which increasing levels of political violence detracts or derails the message of the Republican Party in the future is unknowable at this time. But for an organization that is polling the lowest favorability numbers in its history, it is just one more reason for people to disregard the G.O.P. message on Election Day and one more problem the Republican Party can do without.
There will be those on the Right who will issue the counter argument that all one need do is to look back to the sixties and you will find plenty of violence perpetrated by the left. Some will conjure up the various red scares of the past and say that there has been more than on instance in American history where Communists in labor unions and among university professors sought to overthrow or subvert the American way of life. But you can tally up all of the left wing violence in the history of this country and you won't put a dent in the death toll from the Oklahoma City Bombing, an act perpetrated by a violently anti-government fanatic. It is for that reason that it is now the patriotic duty of every American to stand up to the fanatics on the far right, be it at political rallies, on the streets, in the blogs, by calling in to talk radio, by text messaging the Glenn Beck show, etc., or by writing to the media organizations that sanction such programming and registering you opposition to this virulent rhetoric that only serves to fuel politically driven violence and intolerance. The next time some right wing crackpot tells you that he and his compatriots are going to "take back their country" ask them from whom, the people who voted in the majority for change. It is time for Progressives to stand up to thugs and fanatics of any stripe, be they far to either the left or right, and to no longer tolerate threats of violence on the part of those who having lost out in the political arena, have chosen to attempt change through extra legal means.
In an interview following the attack on her office, Congresswoman Giffords said that America was a beacon around the world because we create change via the ballot box and not through political violence and intimidation. In thinking back upon much of the rhetoric from the right that has surrounded the advent of the Obama Administration, I can not help but to recall the warning that Sinclair Lewis made back in the 1930s: "If Fascism ever comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the flag and borne upon a crucifix". In spite of the fact that the country was in a far more perilous position then than it is now, Lewis' words were as relevant today as they were in the midst of the Great Depression and they should be on the minds of every true American patriot.
Also, last week, when bankers swarmed Capitol Hill to influence backing legislation, John Boehner told them: "don't let those little punk staffers take advantage of you." Since then, some staffers are taking the term "little punk staffer" back. Barney Frank made buttons!
Here is one from the "negotiating in good faith" files.
On February 8th, Republican House leader John Beohner sent a letter to the White House, demanding that the White House post online any health care proposal it wished to discuss at the health care summit:
If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand?
So, four days later, the White House accepted this demand, and announced it would post a legislative proposal online more than 72 hours before the summit:
Since this meeting will be most productive if information is widely available before the meeting, we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package.
So, naturally, the next day, Boehner attacked the White House for giving into his demand:
"A productive bipartisan discussion should begin with a clean sheet of paper," Boehner said in a statement.
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