“It is fair to say that 2010 was the year of older, rich people.” That’s the conclusion of a new research memo from Project Vote, “An Analysis of Who Voted (and Who Didn’t Vote) in the 2010 Election,” by Dr. Lorraine Minnite. It finds that wealthier voters and Americans over the age of 65 surged to the polls in 2010, and increased their support for the Republican party, while young voters and minority voters (who strongly favor Democrats) dropped off at higher rates than in 2006.
Two years ago, African-Americans, lower-income Americans, and young Americans all participated in the 2008 presidential election in decisive numbers, making it the most diverse electorate in history. In 2010, however, these historically underrepresented groups were underrepresented again, as they (in common with most Americans) largely stayed home. Non-voters were the majority in 2010, a fact that “throws cold water on any victor’s claims for a mandate.”
This new memo analyzes exit poll and preliminary voting data to give the first comprehensive picture of the 2010 electorate. While this election largely followed patterns typical of midterms, Dr. Minnite found a few distinct features of the 2010 electorate that help explain the results. Absent a national race to galvanize new and minority voters, fewer voters turnout and the populations that do vote tend to be older. The racial composition of the population that voted in 2010 closely mirrored that of 2006: 80 percent of voters were white, 10 percent were black, eight percent Latino, and two percent Asian.
However, several distinct features of the 2010 voting population stand out, and contributed to the results on November 3:
1. Senior citizens turned out in force, with the number of ballots cast by voters over 65 increasing by 16 percent. While making up only 13 percent of the U.S. resident population, Americans in this age group constituted 21 percent of 2010 voters. This age group also significantly increased their support of Republican candidates, from 49 percent in 2006 to 59 percent in 2010.
2. The number of ballots cast by Americans from households making over $200,000 a year increased by 68 percent compared to 2006.
3. Relative to 2008, minority and youth voters dropped out of the voting population at higher rates than whites, undoing much of the gain in demographic parity achieved in 2008.
4. Women-already one of the most reliable voting groups-increased their share of the electorate, and significantly increased their support of the Republican Party.
5. Bucking the national trends, Latinos increased their share of the voting population in several states, saving at least three Senate seats for the Democrats.
“Perhaps the most significant point about voter turnout in 2010 is how many voters didn’t vote,” wrote Steven Thomma and William Douglas at McClatchy Newspapers on our study. “Some 38 percent of eligible voters didn’t vote in 2008, and this November, another 33 percent didn’t show up, which means that ‘nonvoters were the majority in 2010.'”
As we know from our recent poll (among others), the electorate as a whole is shifting away from the views and values of these older, wealthier white conservatives who dominated the 2010 election: “As in most midterm elections, the people who voted in 2010 were not really representative of the American people,” says Michael Slater, executive director of Project Vote. “This study raises serious questions about which constituencies candidates choose to court and engage as they look ahead to 2012, since the electorate, as a whole, is shifting away from the views and values of the older, wealthier white conservatives who dominated the 2010 election.”
Two years ago, a post-Bush Republican Party that couldn’t find itself on Google Maps was thoroughly thrashed for the second time in as many elections. The GOP had lost over 50 House seats over two election cycles, scores of state legislative chambers, governorships, US Senate seats, and the presidency to a guy named Barack Hussein Obama.
The latter, something most observers thought wouldn’t happen in the United States until some time between the next arrival of Haley’s Comet and when Kevin Costner evolves into a fish-humanoid hybrid to live on an Earth covered by H20.
It’s amazing what can happen, however, when you have a Democratic president who doesn’t live up to many of his core progressive promises, who blames his base for asking him to, and whose communications people, to quote Democratic National Committeeman and CNN Contributor Robert Zimmerman, “… couldn’t sell cocaine to Charlie Sheen.”
The results were on display this past Tuesday, when an American public tired of being unemployed, scared about their future, and looking for some kind of leadership, handed over the US House – in stunning fashion – to a coterie of cranks who have to put corks on the end of their forks not to jab their own eyes while eating. Think Steve Martin’s Ruprecht from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and you get the basic picture of some of the Tea Party proxies we elected to Congress last week.
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.
Steven J. Gulitti
11/5/10
Sources:
“Mitch McConnell: Rapid health repeal unlikely http://www.politico.com/news/s…
“Tea party winners take ambitious promises to DC”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/201…
“Tea Party Wins House for Republicans, Wants Rewards”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40…
Republicans have not even popped the corks of their celebratory champagne bottles yet and already there is a anti-Tea Party coup in the works the goal of which is to torpedo the presidential aspirations of Sarah Palin before her campaign even gets underway. A damming article from Politico which broke just yesterday revealed a concerted if uncoordinated effort taking shape among Republican leaders to see that Palin does not secure the 2012 Republican nomination for president. Quoting Politico:”Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s midterm campaigns…There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the Republican nomination, a prospect many of them regard as a disaster in waiting…”There is a determined, focused establishment effort … to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin,” said one prominent and longtime Washington Republican. “We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her.” Thus it would appear that the trains are already on the track for what will be the first train wreck between the G.O.P. esthablishment and the Tea Party Movement.You can add to this developing drama the existing controversy between Ms. Palin and Tea Party star Joe Miller, the current Alaska Senatorial contender whom Palin backed against Lisa Murkowski only to have Miller short change Palin when it came time to endorse her presidential aspirations. This G.O.P. esthablishment – Tea Party friction has been below the surface since the movement gained traction during the 2009 health care reform debates. Appearing on Fox News with Greta Van Sustern in the summer of 2009, Rush Limbaugh was nothing if not emphatic in his denunciation of the Republican leadership and the veiled contempt that they have for the Tea Party Movement generally and Sarah Palin in particular. Tensions only grew more intense as the Tea Party Movement knocked off several Republican veterans and hand picked contenders during primary season. Thereafter the movement went on to put a number of Republicans not currently running for re-election on notice that they too were in the movement’s cross hairs.
In an interview with the National Journal, Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” Is McConnell’s rhetoric aimed at placating the Tea Party or does he actually believe that in the depths of the Great Recession, this is the single most important goal for a victorious Republican Party? What happened to the never-ending Republican cry: “Where are the jobs?” What became of all of the talk of reducing the size of government, of tax policy and talk about how to “grow the economy.”? Now on the brink of victory the Republican elites have shown their hand and it consists first and foremost of political priorities aimed at winning the 2012 presidential election and making sure that Sarah Palin isn’t around to screw things up. What happened to the G.O.P’s big effort to “listen to the American people” this past summer? Thus we see just how important the dire state of the economy is to the elites who fashion Republican political strategy. Have McConnell and his lieutenants already misread the election’s outcome, taking it to mean that they have a mandate in spite of the fact that they are polling at lower favorability ratings then the Democrats that are about to be turned out of office? Have they misread a vote of protest for an endorsement of the Republican Party line which it can’t possibly be given the G.O.P.s historically low standing among voters? That said, how long would it be before the voters come down with that old sinking feeling of buyer’s remorse? Surely if the immediate follow on to the midterm elections is the out break of an intra-party civil war within the G.O.P. what else could a weary and disgruntled electorate feel but buyer’s remorse, dismay and disgust. The election’s outcome will certainly cause the Democrats to circle the wagons and try to regroup for 2012. But it already seems like the G.O.P. and the Tea Party are in the process of circling the rifles into a circular firing squad and that can’t be good at a time like this when the country is desperately in need of solutions to deep seated problems of long standing. The final question from all of this is: Has the Republican Party gotten more than it bargained for in its marriage of convenience with the Tea Party and is it too late to unwind the relationship before it tears the G.O.P. to shreds in an intraparty conflict that could end the Republican Party as we presently know it?
This appalling story of a woman MoveOn activist in KY being grabbed, pushed down to the cement, and having her head kicked by a Rand Paul supporter, as terrible as it is, only becomes the latest in a long line of political violence in the past few years. From relatively isolated incidents to ones even more violent and troubling, there’s a growing pattern here, and as someone who reveres American democracy, I find it quite frightening. Here’s just a few examples from the current era:
Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller hires a group tied to a paramilitary militia to do security for him, and his paratroopers assault and handcuff a citizen journalist just trying to get a question answered.
a bullet is shot through Rep. Grijalva’s campaign office window, and obscene threats are delivered to his ofc as well.
Rep. Perriello’s gas line to his house was cut.
Republican congressional candidate Allen West using a motorcycle gang known for violent criminal activity for security, and then gang members actually harassed and bullied a Democratic staffer trying to videotape a public event.
Vandalism and assassination threats occur at offices of Congressional members during the health care fight.
a doctor who performs abortions in KS is brutally murdered while coming out of his church on a Sunday morning.
a guard at the Holocaust Museum is murdered by an anti-Semitic racist stoked by listening to Limbaugh and Beck.
a lunatic also stirred up by Glenn Beck shows about the Tides Foundation is stopped on his way to murder people at the Tides office in San Francisco.
These are just the actual acts of violence. In the meantime, we have people coming to town hall meetings and Presidential rallies with assault weapons, Republican Senate candidates talking openly of having to use “Second Amendment means” in case regular politics doesn’t work, Republican Governors (both Rick Perry and Sarah Palin) meeting with secessionist groups with ties to racist leaders. Rand Paul’s wimpy statement about civility is only the latest in Republicans’ utter unwillingness to clearly condemn violent acts or rhetoric on the part of way too many of their supporters.
The sad thing is that all this violent talk and action, along with the cowardly acceptance of it by the political party benefiting, is a terrible reliving of American history too many times over. When lynchings and church bombings and the brutal murders and beatings of civil rights activists were going on in the South during the civil rights movement era, politicians in the South rarely said a word to condemn or even restrain their citizens. When an abolitionist Senator, Charles Sumner, was caned by a Senator Preston Brooks from South Carolina, he was cheered and congratulated throughout the South. When the staff at abortion clinics have been murdered several times over the years, “pro-life” politicians have fallen strangely silent way too often.
If Republican politicians don’t strongly condemn the thuggery of way too many of their followers, they share in the blame. When they ratchet up their own rhetoric, and talk about second amendment solutions and the President being friends with terrorists, they share in the blame. Democracy is premised on us being able to freely and vigorously debate the issues, and on those who win elections governing the way they believe, but our entire democracy is at risk if violence becomes just another standard operating procedure and isn’t swiftly and strongly condemned. Republicans who welcome paramilitary militia members and people with ties to violent racist organizations do so at not only their own peril, but our entire way of government.
The modern Republican Party has certainly had its share of flaming hypocrites over the years: Newt Gingrich calling for impeachment over an affair while having one himself; closeted gays like Mark Foley voting against gay rights while trying to seduce 16-year-old pages; holier-than-thou Christians like Tom DeLay happily taking Jack Abramoff’s ill-gotten cash. The list is long and keeps growing. But in this year’s election, I think you have to give the award for the paragon of Republican hypocrisy to one other Joe Miller, who apparently has never met a public welfare program he hasn’t (a) been a recipient of; and (b) is now trying to get rid of.
Check out this great new story from Alaska:
Joe Miller says he received Medicaid
U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller said today that in the past his family received assistance from federal Medicaid and Denali KidCare, the state low income health care program. His write-in opponent, Lisa Murkowski, called him a hypocrite for taking the assistance while now saying federal entitlement programs are unconstitutional.
The Miller campaign for the past week-and-a-half did not answer when asked what low income assistance he received. But Miller today answered the question when asked by reporters after a debate, saying he considers it a distraction but people are entitled to know.
“I have the same sort of struggles in my past that other people have had. There is a proper role for government. The question is, who controls the power, is at the federal level or the state level? It’s our perspective that the state is the best arbiter, the state is the best point at which we make those decisions,” Miller said.
Miller said he hasn’t been on government assistance “for years.” He didn’t provide a timeline but campaign spokesman said he believes he stopped receiving the benefits in 2002.Miller, who has eight children, said his family received Denali Kid Care, the state program that includes federal Medicaid money.
Miller criticized Murkowski in June during the Republican primary for supporting Denali Kid Care, some money of which funds abortions.
“As you are aware, just last week the Anchorage Daily News reported that the Denali KidCare Program funded 662 abortions last year. Senator Murkowski has been a champion of this program, voting against the majority of her Republican colleagues for CHIPRA (HR 2) in January of 2009,” Miller wrote in a fundraising letter.
Miller said today he was critical of expanding the program, not the program itself. “We’ve also got a federal government today which is in completely different conditions than it used to be. At the time, I don’t know what the deficit was but it certainly was less than half I believe than what it was today,” he said.
Miller, when asked what other federal or state low income assistance he received, noted that he received a low-income state hunting and fishing license in 1995.
“That was contingent on two things. That you have low income or that you have a program. That was before Denali KidCare, I think at the time we had three children and one on the way, and I believe it was probably some form of Medicaid program we were on at the time,” Miller said.
Murkowski said there was nothing wrong with using government “safety nets.”
“What I find so hypocritical about Miller is he has stated repeatedly his opposition to these programs, stating that they are unconstitutional. So if you believe they are unconstitutional then why would you avail yourself of these safety nets.you either walk the talk or you don’t.”
Miller said what he’s talking about is state control of the programs. “That doesn’t mean we cut off the programs, that is ultimately a state decision. And I think there is a use, in fact the most effective use is probably those programs that help transition the populations from more of a situation of dependency to one where you can be independently economic.
A friend in Alaska tells me he also may be late in paying his property taxes.
I love this guy. He reminds me of the folks at the Tea Party rallies who want to keep the government out of their Medicare, or the man who said that yeah, he was on Social Security and Medicare, but some people didn’t deserve welfare, dammit.
Like his on-again, off-again buddy Sarah Palin, I think investigative bloggers in Alaska can probably have a field day with this guy. He will be the gift that keeps on giving.
The Democratic Party is spending nearly 100 million dollars raised in part from foreign contributions to help elect more immigration reform minded men and women to Congress.
If you happen to be a conservative of the Grand Old tea Party variety, how does such startling “amnesty” related news make you feel?
Suspicious? Fearful? Angry? Perhaps even more xenophobic than usual?
Each of those emotional responses would be expected from tea partiers had the Democratic Party actually taken this foreign money — it has not.
The “U.S.” Chamber of Commerce however, is a different story entirely.
Say what you will about the tea party but it has been remarkably effective at pushing select fringe candidates to electoral victories.
In late 2009, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone in Washington who would have believed that a Republican would soon fill the Senate seat held for decades by the late Ted Kennedy.
Brown — a state senator at the time of his election — was the first in what would become a long line of tea party endorsed candidates with rather colorful pasts.
Democrats don’t believe in their own policies, and don’t want to talk about them.
Republicans do.
Rachel Maddow from last night:
Republicans continue to prove over and over again they are not at all embarrassed by stuff like this [Running on Democratic legislation they’ve opposed]. Democrats, on the other hand are proving themselves to be afraid of their own shadows. they’re essentially refusing to campaign. that’s a surefire way to win. What could they campaign on? Well, Republicans apparently think that democrats could be campaigning on reforming the health care system in this country, because a ton of the stuff that Democrats did in the health care bill Republicans put in their new “Pledge to America” and are running on that as if it is their own record, as if they’re not talking smack about health reform. They’re running on those ideas, because they think the American people will like those ideas. Democrats, on the other hand, actually implemented those ideas and they’re refusing to run on them. With the stimulus, it’s the exact same thing. Republicans are trying to bring home to their constituents all the economic benefits of the stimulus plan, all of the jobs that it will create. while talking all sorts of smack about the stimulus saying it doesn’t work, it’s a waste, trying to take credit for the fact it does work. Republicans have no problem running on the Democrats’ record. But Democrats apparently will not. As we said on this show last night, Democrats have a weird inferiority complex when it comes to campaigning. They like their own ideas better, but they like the way Republicans run for office better. Well, The way they’re fronted for office this year is running on the achievements of this year. Democrats, if you don’t believe enough in yourself, just copy what the Republicans are doing, because they’re running on your record.
There seems to be a growing sense of buyer’s remorse among both members of the Tea Party Movement and Republican Party regulars surrounding the primary win of Christine O’Donnell. Buyer’s remorse is a condition that arises after people have bought something or bought into something with a feeling of personal comfort that then disappears after the purchase. The buyer is then left with a sense of remorse over having made the purchase in the first place. Questions surrounding O’Donnell’s ability to get elected and her past personal history have caught the attention of prominent Republicans like the head of the Delaware GOP, Tom Ross, Karl Rove, or Congressman Mike Pence, (R-IN). Pence recently said that while a verdict on O’Donnell’s political future is up to the voters in Delaware, he also said that she has an obligation to explain past public statements. One should not be too surprised by the fact that more and more Republicans are uncomfortable with O’Donnell considering the controversy stirred up within the G.O.P. regarding how to accommodate the Tea Party Movement. Republicans officer holders and the G.O.P. leadership may pay lip service to the fact that is up to the Delaware voters to decide who will be their next Senator, but don’t fool yourself in thinking they would not have preferred Mike Castle and along with him a chance at retaking the Senate.
Likewise her election has given rise to anxiety within the organization of the Tea Party Movement. The discomfort within the movement is evident in the commentary of heavy weights like Dick Armey right down to the level of rank and file operatives. While it’s not surprising that established Republican office holders and operatives would be dismayed and at odds with the Tea Party movement, what is interesting to note is the degree of controversy that Ms. O’Donnell has created within the movement itself. Tea Party money man, Dick Armey, former House Minority Leader and head of FreedomWorks, the powerhouse advocacy group which has poured millions into the campaigns of Tea Party candidates declined to back O’Donnell and has yet to endorse her. Armey was reluctant to support O’Donnell in the primary, “largely because of concerns over her electability. Armey has been leery of social conservatives like O’Donnell, who is far more Christian Coalition than tea party. In fact, he has spent the past few years bashing social conservatives for trying to use government to impose their moral agenda on the rest of the country.” according to Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones.The remorse over O’Donnell’s election is more than evident among many of the movement’s foot soldiers as well as the following representative quote shows: “Andrew Ian Dodge is the Maine state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest tea party umbrella groups. TPP doesn’t endorse candidates, but that hasn’t stopped Dodge from expressing his own opinion about O’Donnell. He thinks she’s a bit of a nutter. “Everything I’ve seen about her has made me laugh my ass off,” he says. “What the hell do you say? First you have Alvin Green, and now you have her.” His concern is that if she loses in the general election to Democrat Chris Coons, the defeat will be widely regarded as a reflection on the tea party movement-and he doesn’t want that….Dodge also takes issue with O’Donnell’s status as an “outsider.” He explains: “Alvin Green is an outsider. Carl Paladino, who has never run for anything, is an outsider.” O’Donnell has run four times for national office and lost. “She’s not an outsider,” he says. “She’s a loser.” Dodge notes that while it hasn’t made national headlines, there is a reasonable and healthy discussion inside the tea party movement about whether O’Donnell deserves national support…There’s video of her saying masturbation leads to AIDS. O’Donnell is on record attacking masturbation as sinful, decrying the costs of AIDS prevention and research, and criticizing the “lifestyle which brings about this disease.” Further examples of rank and file discontent with the O’Donnell election can be found in the sources below.
Much is made about the fact that the Tea Party Movement is so decentralized, that it is a truly grass roots “peoples movement”, this being the explanation given for the wide variations in the quality of the candidates that the movement produces. Whether or not the movement is truly “grass roots is debatable, but herein rests an essential question: If the Tea Party Movement is to morph into a viable component of, or a replacement for the GOP, can it do so given its current diffuse method of organization, operation and candidate selection? To what extent is the movement undermining its own credibility and emerging “brand name” by allowing candidates of dubious and questionable quality to represent it in high profile races such as the ones in Delaware and Nevada. If its candidates are seen as too extreme, to bizarre or just plain farcical, who will take the movement seriously outside of its own rank and file? And based on the polling from the conservative Rasmussen Reports; the number of voters who identify as Tea Party members is still relatively small. Rasmussen’s August poll showed: “national telephone survey finds that 13% of voters say they themselves are Tea Party members. Thirteen percent (13%) more say they have close friends or family members who are part of the Tea Party movement… Sixty percent (60%) say they have no ties to the movement, but that’s down nine points from late May.” Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure. Prior polling by Rasmussen had shown identification with the Tea Party to be higher at 24%. That said the real challenge for the Tea Party Movement is to convince the independent voters that their candidates are worth voting for. There is more than ample polling to show that independents view the Tea Party in a less than negative light, but I suspect that most of that polling represents the proverbial generic and generalized type of question, one in which the respondent does not have to voice an opinion about a particular candidate that holds specific positions that the respondent may or may not endorse. And therein lays the root of all of the consternation surrounding the primary win for Ms. O’Donnell. She is the product of a system that has no apparent quality control and that lack of control has produced a candidate that raises more questions than answers as to whether or not she is fit for the office of U.S. Senator. The byproduct of this controversy is a host of questions as to the inherent logic, or lack thereof, of the present form of organization of the Tea Party Movement and its overall staying power on the American political scene. Is it as Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said: “a fad” or is it an emergent political force to be reckoned with? Only time will tell. In the interest of full disclosure I have twelve members of my own extended family who are active in the Tea Party Movement.
Steve Gulitti
9/24/10
Sources:
Christine O’Donnell’s Victory in Delaware Shifts Senate Expectations; http://politics.usnews.com/new…
Christine O’Donnell’s Candidacy Leaving Some Tea Party Members With Buyer’s Remorse?
Rasmussen Reports August / 2010: 26% Say They’re Part of Tea Party Movement Or Know Someone Who Ishttp://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2010/26_say_they_re_part_of_tea_party_movement_or_know_someone_who_is
Rasmussen Reports June / 2010 :46% Say Tea Party Good for America, 31% Disagreehttp://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/may_2010/46_say_tea_party_good_for_america_31_disagree
Politico’s article today is the latest in a string of articles about the massive edge in money pro-Republican outside groups have over pro-Democratic groups. The article cites a $23 million to $4 million dollar ratio in advertising so far. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that outside groups tend to be trusted more than political party advertising.
The article makes pretty clear that some Democrats on the Hill want to blame the outside groups on our side for not doing enough, and we will see more of that kind of blame game in the coming weeks. It is certainly understandable that individual members who take tough votes are frustrated when big corporate interests dump money on their districts for ads that in many cases are just blatant lies, and no one comes to their defense. I know the party committees are pulling their hair out with the barrage of corporate money being thrown into targeted races everywhere. But here’s the deal: congressional leaders need only look down the street, Pennsylvania Avenue to be precise, to find the answers as to why there isn’t more money going into independent expenditure efforts on the Democratic side.
This is in part a historical problem, a pattern in the party leadership that I sometimes refer to as the curse of the control freaks. Republicans for many years have understood far better than Democrats that outside issue and ideological groups ought to be empowered, not discouraged. Haley Barbour, Karl Rove, and other top Republicans have for years happily worked hand in hand with Grover Norquist, the NRA, the Christian Coalition, the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch Industries front groups, and the entire right-wing infrastructure. Republicans came to their strategy meetings, attended their fundraising dinners, signed their direct mail pieces and emails and Tweets and text messages. Republican operatives have for decades understood that conservative organizations with well-known brands had more credibility with key blocs of voters than either political party and most candidates.
The same is true with progressive groups and key voting blocs as well, but the Democratic Party has never paid these groups much attention. Polling shows quite clearly that many swing suburban voters find ads or mailings from Planned Parenthood, the League of Conservation Voters, and groups like them far more credible than ads from the Democratic Party. Union members are far more likely to read and respect a mailing from their union than a partisan mail piece.
These trends are even bigger in an election cycle like 2010, when both parties’ brands are in the mud. Independent group messages have far more credibility and clout than those from party and candidate committees- even groups with generic-sounding names no one has heard of. Republican strategists like Rove got this early, and went about methodically organizing a network of corporate money to get involved in independent expenditure ads in swing races all over the country. But the Obama White House, sure of its fundraising ability and organizing genius, has consistently sent the signal to Democratic donors to not support outside efforts. They did it after they won the primary in 2008; they did it when they set up OFA to operate solely inside the DNC in 2009; they did it during the health care fight when they felt HCAN was being a little too independent in pushing for a public option, sending a clear signal to donors not to give to them at crucial times during the fight; they did it when ACORN had some bad publicity, very quickly making the decision to distance themselves and let them die even though no group has registered more voters or turned out more people in the last 10 years than ACORN.
I have been fighting this battle inside Democratic strategy circles for 15 years now, but the problem is worse with the current team at the White House. The folks running the Obama political operation have always believed they could control the message and the resources of the party better than anyone else, and that they didn’t need or want to empower outside progressive groups. Now embattled House and Senate candidates are paying the price, and it is a bitter price to have to pay. The groups that do have resources that are pro-Democratic- labor, MoveOn, Emily’s List, the trial lawyers- are doing their best to stem the tide. But corporate money in the post-Citizens United era is swamping us, and unlike in some cycles in the past (2004, 2006), wealthy progressive donors were sent signals not to engage, or just not cultivated at all, and the result is that we are being badly outspent.
One final note on all this: the irony of outside progressive groups being blamed for not doing enough to help the Democrats when the White House has been complaining about the “left of the left” and the “professional left” for many months- and de-motivating donors the whole time- should not be lost on anyone. You can’t attack progressives for being too strident and then wonder why they aren’t doing more and still have much credibility.
As I have written in recent days, I still have hopes that Democrats can do better this cycle than the conventional wisdom suggests, especially if the Democrats use a pro-reform populist message that is actually effective. But the curse of the control freaks is not helping anything.
In two previous articles, “Maintain Tax Cuts for the Rich? Americans Don’t Seem to Buy the Conservative Argument” and the “Efficacy of Tax Cuts Is now Questioned” I laid out two basic premises. One was that a majority of the American people did not buy into the conservative argument that tax cuts had to be maintained for the richest among us. The second was that the use of tax cuts in this type of economic downturn had been called into question by some very prominent economists and that those same economists just happen to be on the right side of the political spectrum. The notion that tax cuts are of little use in this particular economic environment received further support last week with the publishing of the findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office from which the following conclusions were drawn: ” The concept of lower taxes is so appealing to voters that many embrace them as an economic cure-all… But economic research suggests that tax cuts, though difficult for politicians to resist in election season, have limited ability to bolster the flagging economy because they are essentially a supply-side remedy for a problem caused by lack of demand.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this year analyzed the short-term effects of 11 policy options and found that extending the tax cuts would be the least effective way to spur the economy and reduce unemployment. The report added that tax cuts for high earners would have the smallest “bang for the buck,” because wealthy Americans were more likely to save their money than spend it….Neither of those options, though, would do as much to stimulate the economy as offering direct payments to the unemployed and Social Security recipients or reducing the payroll taxes of workers, the study found…So while the decision on whether to extend the tax cuts will have a lasting impact on the deficit and on how the nation’s tax burden is distributed, economists and tax experts say it is unlikely to offer much immediate relief for high unemployment and sluggish growth… It may have some small impact along the margins, but firms don’t hire based on tax breaks; they hire based on demand,” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “So a lot of the tax breaks are likely to be rewarding people and companies for what they were going to do anyway.”
As a footnote to the above, it’s also of note that another prominent conservative has come to criticize the notion that tax cuts would be economically effective today. David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and Fellow at the ultra conservative American Enterprise Institute, in an interview on NPR’s Marketplace said the following:” The recession began when all the Bush tax cuts were fully in effect. And yet, it’s suggested that re-enacting the tax cuts will somehow cure the crisis that those same tax cuts failed to prevent.” Don’t get me wrong, Frum is not endorsing the Obama Administration or its economic policies, not by a long shot. What he is saying, that is relevant to my premise is that those who are banking on tax cuts to pull us out of the current predicament are sadly mistaken as to their usefulness. Many would argue that tax cuts can only work if they are coupled with spending cuts, but to think that the government could reign in spending in the midst of this type of downturn requires a quantum leap of faith that would come with the notion that removing one of the only simulative elements remaining in the economy would somehow not cause the recession to worsen. This point was further underlined recently on Meet the Press. When pressed by moderator David Gregory, the Republican Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, declined to commit to spending cuts if the GOP took control of Capitol Hill. The bottom line is this: those on the far right fringe who parrot 18th and 19th Century economic concepts seem to strangely factor out the social chaos that would result from an ideology that was better suited for the world of Charles Dickens than the globalized world of today. The Republicans who hope to capture Capitol Hill in a few short weeks know this as well that’s why they are reluctant to go on the record and say otherwise.
A corollary argument that is used to support the extension of tax cuts to those families earning over $250,000.00/year is that idea that if this tax break is eliminated, that job creation will suffer. Here again there seems to be little in the way of empirical evidence to support this claim. A recent article; “Tax Increases Would Hit Few Small Businesses”; summarized the findings of the IRS and it’s Joint Committee on Taxation as follows: “Despite that emotional appeal, Internal Revenue Service statistics indicate that only 3 percent of small businesses would be subject to the higher tax, and many studies of previous tax increases suggest that it would have minimal impact on hiring… According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 97 percent of all businesses owners do not earn enough to be subject to the higher rates, which would be levied on income of over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families…But much of the research over the last two decades has found that increases in top tax rates can lead to an increase in the formation of small businesses, as wealthy individuals apparently begin start-ups to avail themselves of the more generous tax breaks offered to businesses… Higher taxes may lead individuals to seek self-employment because the opportunities for tax evasion and avoidance are greater,” according to a report released this month by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which surveyed more than 20 studies on the effects of taxes on hiring.”
Thus it seems that the hue and cry about the dangers to job creation at the level of small business may in fact be greatly exaggerated after all, yet one more political football flying about amidst all of the misconceptions that relate to the issues of tax policy and it’s applicability in the midst of the worst downturn since the 1930s. It’s important to note that I am not against tax cuts per se; it’s just that they are not and never have been a cure all too economic ills. That said; the monotonous reiteration of the sanctity of tax cuts in this particular environment seems to amount to nothing more than the political posturing of those who are at a loss for good ideas as to what we need to do to repair the damage done over the past thirty years of deregulation and bubble economics.
With regard to the fact that most Americans don’t support extending tax cuts to the wealthiest, the latest New York times/CBS poll supports what the last Gallup Poll showed: “The poll found that 53 percent of Americans say Mr. Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on households earning $250,000 or more is a good idea, and 38 percent say it is a bad idea.” Thus once again as was previously pointed out, the disappointment and anxiety of rank and file Americans does not translate into empathy for the woes of the most fortunate among us.
Steven J. Gulitti
9/20/10
Sources:
1)News Analysis: Tax Cuts May Prove Better for Politicians Than for Economy ; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09…
2)New York Times/CBS News Poll September 15, 2010http://documents.nytimes.com/new-york-timescbs-news-poll-new-york-timescbs-news-poll-mood-of-the-country-as-midterms-approach?ref=politics 3)
3)Tax Increase Would Hit Few Small Businesses; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09…
4)Old assumptions equal a stagnant economy; http://marketplace.publicradio…
5)Meet the Press 8/22/10
http://thepage.time.com/detail…
As a perfect snapshot of the brain rot affecting America’s ruling class, consider the following juxtaposition:
TPM reports:
Gingrich Calls For Federal Ban On Shariah Law In US
Evan McMorris-Santoro | September 18, 2010, 12:05PM
The second morning of speeches at the Values Voter Summit here in DC was dominated by a man who is swiftly becoming the nation’s spokesperson for Islamophobia — former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Fresh off the release of his Islam-focused film “America At Risk,” Gingrich told the crowd at VVS that it’s time to take federal action to prevent Shariah Law from infiltrating courtrooms in the US.
“We should have a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States,” Gingrich said to a standing ovation from the audience. The law will let judges know, Gingrich said, that “no judge will remain in office that tried to use sharia law.”
Gingrich made a not-so-subtle reference to the right wing meme about freshly-minted Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan which claims that Kagan is “sympathetic” to Shariah and — as some suggested during her confirmation hearings — might allow it to be recognized as law in the United States.
But beyond the Kagan hit, Gingrich’s anti-Shariah talk inserted him directly into the most extreme end of the Islamophobic push-back against mosque projects all over the country.
Opponents of Islamic building projects in New York City, Tennessee and Temecula, California and Florence, Kentucky have often raised fears that the goal of Muslims seeking to build new houses of worship is to slowly make America comfortable with Shariah before using political power to allow it to become the law of the land.
Of course, there is zero evidence of sharia law having any influence on American law. And zero chance that it could have any such influence, not least because of the First Amendment, and the separation of church and state. But that’s not the point. As the above report makes clear, the purpose of this absurd meme is to “justify” the bigoted attacks on American Muslims exercising there First Amendment rights. As a matter of history, religious minorities have always been the staunchest opponents of imposing religious doctrines on others, for a very simple reason: They’re the minority, stupid!
OTOH, global warming–which could wipe out entire low-lying countries and whose reality is supported by the entire peer-reviewed scientific community–is not a problem according to all the GOP Senate candidates, according to Think Progress:
GOP Senate Candidates Oppose Climate Science And Policy
by Brad Johnson, ThinkProgress Wonk Room Climate Editor
Updated September 14. View the original version here.
A comprehensive Wonk Room survey of the Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate finds that nearly all dispute the scientific consensus that the United States must act to fight global warming pollution. In May, 2010, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that “the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change” because global warming is “caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for – and in many cases is already affecting – a broad range of human and natural systems.”
This finding is shared by scientific bodies around the world. However, in the alternate reality of the fossil-fueled right wing, climate science is confused or a conspiracy, and policies to limit pollution would destroy the economy.
Remarkably, of the dozens of Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, no one supports climate action, after climate advocate Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) lost his primary to Christine O’Donnell. Even former climate advocates Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now toe the science-doubting party line.
Many of the Senate candidates are signatories of the Koch Industries’ Americans For Prosperity No Climate Tax pledge and the FreedomWorks Contract From America. The second plank of the Contract From America is to “Reject Cap & Trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.”
And, of course, it’s not just the Senate, as Think Progress identified “The Top Climate Races This November”
Seven key climate races in the Senate (with the 538.com estimated likelihood of a Republican pickup):
(92%) PA: Joe Sestak v. Pat Toomey
(72%) CO: Michael Bennet v. Ken Buck
(52%) NV: Harry Reid v. Sharron Angle
(42%) CA: Barbara Boxer v. Carly Fiorina
(33%) WI: Russ Feingold v. Ron Johnson
(30%) WA: Patty Murray v. Dino Rossi
(20% Democratic pickup) NH: Paul Hodes v. Kelly Ayotte
Eight key climate races in the House:
(76%) NM-2: Harry Teague v Steve Pearce
(63%) IA-3: Leonard Boswell v Brad Zaun
(63%) IL-14: Bill Foster v Randy Hultgren
(62%) CA-11: Jerry McNerney v David Harmer
(58%) IN-9: Baron Hill v Todd Young
(43%) FL-22: Ron Klein v Allen West
(26%) NM-1: Martin Heinrich v Jon Barela
(26%) IL-17: Phil Hare v Bobby Schilling
The pervasive disconnect from reality wxhibited by this juxtaposition indicates that today’s GOP is operating more like a cult than a traditional political party.
Americans to some degree and particularly those on the Right are now beset by a true conundrum. Is Barack Obama a Christian or a Muslim? According to the latest Pew Research polling: “nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about one-third of adults (34%) say Obama is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009. Fully 43% say they do not know what Obama’s religion is.” Well, it’s no wonder people are so confused, especially when two of the most prominent talking heads on the far right differ as to what is the actual religion of the President. If Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh aren’t on the same page on this, how can we expect the lowliest schlep to know what’s the truth?
In a recent anti-Obama rant, Mr. Limbaugh intoned: “Imam Hussein Obama is probably the best anti-American president we’ve ever had.” Limbaugh has been at center stage in railing against the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque’ while trying to somehow insinuate that Obama’s defense of the constitutional right to religious freedom somehow proves that the President is an Islamic. Meanwhile just this past Sunday, in a follow up to his Lincoln Memorial Rally, Mr. Beck appeared with Chris Wallace of Fox News to proclaim that Obama is in fact not a racist after all, but a practicing Christian who just happens to be enamored with Liberation Theology. This brand of Christian thought is defined: “as a movement in Christian theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions.” According to Beck himself: “he misunderstood Obama’s philosophy and his theology…which is liberation theology… he didn’t understand, really, his theology his viewpoints come from liberation theology. That’s what I think as in — at the gut level I was sensing. And I miscast it as racism. And really, what it is liberation theology.” Thus, its now official, according to Glenn Beck, Barak Obama is legitimately some sort of Christian. Well fancy that, one of the most prominent forces in the American right has reaffirmed that the President is in fact a Christian while the other is still working overtime to convince Americans otherwise.
So what is really going on here? Is there a genuine question as to Barack Obama’s faith or are we in fact looking at a garden variety witch hunt perpetrated from two different angles in a crass and unvarnished attempt to undermine a legitimately elected president through the propagation of falsehoods? Do Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh really believe what they are publicly saying or are they and their followers just unable to face up to the fact that their idea of what America should be just does not comport with what people voted for in 2008. Is that truth just too much to bear? And where is the leadership that we should be seeing from responsible and respectable Republicans in opposition to this political falderal and farce? Perhaps the leaders of the G.O.P. are just too cowed by the far right to stand up for political decency or perhaps they just don’t have the requisite courage. In a recent op-ed on this very topic, Paul Krugman opined: “What we learned from the Clinton years is that a significant number of Americans just don’t consider government by liberals – even very moderate liberals – legitimate. Obama’s election would have enraged those people even if he were white. Of course, the fact that he isn’t, and has an alien-sounding name, adds to the rage. And powerful forces are promoting and exploiting this rage…Meanwhile, the right-wing media are replaying their greatest hits. In the 1990s, Limbaugh used innuendo to feed anti-Clinton mythology, notably the insinuation that Hillary Clinton was complicit in the death of Vince Foster. Now, as we’ve just seen, he’s doing his best to insinuate Obama is a Muslim. And where, in all of this, are the responsible Republicans, leaders who will stand up and say that some partisans are going too far? Nowhere to be found.” That said, it’s more than evident that the time for the truly patriotic to stand up for political decency and honest debate is now and that’s especially true for the leadership of the G.O.P. How can they legitimately ask for our votes when they allow this type of anti-democratic demagoguery to take place right under their noses and in plain view? Perhaps this is what you get from a political party that may be on its way out of business in the long run. Then again, maybe it’s what you get when there is just a lack of courage in a party that has for so long prided itself as the repository of “real American values.” At any rate every American voter has to ask himself this question: If the leaders of the Republican Party lack the courage to take on Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, where will they find the courage and stamina required to get us out of the Great Recession or face down Al Qaida or any other threat that will surely emerge in the brave new world of this new century? Failing that courage, do they really deserve our votes?
Steven J. Gulitti
New Haven, Ct
8/31/10
Sources:
Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim; http://pewforum.org/Politics-a…
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.
Steven J. Gulitti
New Haven CT 8/25/2010
Sources:
Meet the Press 8/1/10; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38…
Greenspan Calls for Repeal of All the Bush Tax Cuts: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08…
Paul Krugman: The Flimflam Man;
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08…
Meet the Press 8/22/10
http://thepage.time.com/detail…
David Brooks: Case of Mental Courage
New York Times; Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Reuters/Ipsos poll: Obama approval hits new low, but Republicans catch blame too.
http://blogs.reuters.com/front…
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
