The Eternal Constant of a Negative Platform

If you're wondering why I keep viewing the Presidential Republican candidates as a massive field of wannabe Active-Negatives, let me make a few notes:

• We're talking about a Republican Party whose base economic platform is mass deregulation of everything, including safety regulations, education guidelines, health standards.  Even though there's been consistent evidence that mass deregulation doesn't help and in fact hurts most Americans.  As well as evidence that deregulation of education is rife with fraud and cheating.
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose base government budget platform is tax cuts for corporations and spending cuts for Medicare, welfare, food stamps, and Social Security.  Even though there's been consistent evidence that tax cuts don't work and that cutting social aid doesn't force Americans to "shape up".
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose base foreign policy platform is bomb anyone with a hijab and mock the French for surrendering to Germany one too many times.  And to not say much of anything about a torture regime that violated a ton of American laws and treaties.
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose immigration policy is publicly "voluntary deportations" where we're expecting migrant workers to happily turn about and drive back to Central America where the jobs are bad and the streets are (more) violent, and where the unspoken policy is to deport everyone who's not Anglo-Saxon via two out of four grandparents.
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose religious platform is to denounce Sharia law while insisting public schools teach Creationism and faith-based history, both of which imposes one Christian church's beliefs on everyone else (and not every Christian wants that crap taught).
• We're talking about a Republican Party that would punish women over private decisions on birth control and abortion, yet claim the national health care risks caused by anti-vaccination families (pushed by fraudulent/dubious science) is a "choice".
• We're talking about a Republican Party whose governance methods don't involve deal-making via compromise or shared sacrifices, but through domination, obstruction, and refusal even consider valid arguments against their positions.

It may look like I'm being flippant, but I'm not.  That IS what the modern Republican Party stands for.  And this is a crusade for them: the Far Right is utterly convinced - through a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and fear - that their way, their ideology is the one pure truth.  Over which they lie, fake, and cheat to defend.

It doesn't matter the temperament - Active or Passive, Positive or Negative - of whoever gets tabbed for the 2016 nomination.  A majority of Republican leaders buy into each part of that list - admittedly more on one topic than another - with no qualms about any of it.  Both because their voting base of Far Right wingnuts insist on it, and because their financial billionaire backers insist on it.

And the danger gets worse.  Because we're stuck with a two-party electoral system, with a 50-50 chance the winner in 2016 can be the Republican nominee.  Even with a platform as Negative as what the Republicans are pushing, they can still trick - there will be no other word to describe it - enough voters into backing their candidate.  God help us.

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Hostage Taking Cannot Fail, It Can Only Be Failed...

The Shutdown Showdown of 2013 is kicking into third gear as I type this, and it ain't pretty.

From The National Review and thence to other news sources like ThinkProgress, the GOP House leadership has crafted a list of demands for Obama and the Democratic Senate leadership to surrender to:

As the nation moves dangerously close to a government shutdown on Oct. 1, House leaders are shifting their focus to the next big fiscal fight: raising the nation’s $16.7 trillion borrowing limit by one year before Oct. 17. On Wednesday night, Republicans circulated an outline of demands, threatening to push the nation into default unless President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate agree to enact a wish list of Republican priorities.

Though Obama has repeatedly insisted that he would not negotiate over the must-pass legislation, leadership is hoping to satisfy conservative members by including every “major piece of the Republican agenda” save a “ban on late-term abortions — and some lawmakers who oppose abortion were arguing to add that,” the Washington Post reports...

Igor Volsky's ThinkProgress article - alongside Derek Thomspon's over at The Atlantic - proceeded to break down the demands, which I can summarize here as well:

1. Delay Obamacare by one year.  Rather than defund or eliminate outright, the Republicans would at least want Obamacare stopped from being enacted before more Americans find out the health care reforms might actually work.  At least until the 2014 midterms, during which the Tea Party candidates can indulge in more fear-mongering to scare up votes and campaign moneys.  Meanwhile, the delay will cut into elements of Obamacare that have already kicked in, causing even more confusion.
2. Weaken/defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Created as a response to the massive fraud that led to the 2007 Economic Crisis / Great Recession, the CFPB is a bogeyman agency for the Far Right who prefer to deregulate everything and let the uber-rich banks defraud everyone until there's another need for a massive bank bailout.
3. Approval to build the Keystone Pipeline.  This is a pet issue for Republicans who view this as "more oil more money" kind of thing as their energy platform (drill baby drill).  This also includes letting the Coal industry and offshore drilling companies getting everything they want.
4. Enact the budget and tax plan created by Paul Ryan.  It's basically the plan he campaigned for as Romney's Veep partner, and it basically disqualifies the fact that a majority of Americans voted against it by voting against Romney/Ryan.  Plus the simple fact the Ryan budget is evil.
5. Cut funding to health care and social safety net programs, and enact a method of "means testing" Medicare (what is "means testing"?  It's where they test a person's eligibility for Medicare, and the GOP can be mean about it.).  Means testing, my ass: Republicans want any excuse to cut people off Medicare, they just want to cover up what they're actually doing by hiding behind Orwellian wording.
6. Massive cuts to the federal employee pension fund.  Considering the massive number of people reaching retirement age, this is bound to not work out well.
7. Block recent federal regulations capping greenhouse gases.  Because we all know that greenhouse gases are vital to the functioning of our proud country.
8. Tort reform.  Like it was the lawyers' fault doctors commit malpractice or corporations commit fraud/failed safety standards.
9. Passing the Republicans' ideas of "jobs bills"... which are A) cutting safety regulations everywhere and with little to no evidence ending those regs would create more jobs, and B) massive tax cuts to corporations that won't require those tax savings go to actual job creation or wage growth.

I'm with Andrew Sullivan on this: "why not ask for Obama's resignation while they're at it?"

What the sheer gob-smacking scale of these demands means is that the GOP effectively wants to nullify the last election entirely (except of course for their gerrymandered, no-popular vote House majority). The staggering thing about this party as it now exists is that it views the governance of the other party as always effectively illegitimate. Elections do not matter. Only their agenda matters. No compromise is possible, even when this kind of catastrophic default is hanging over our heads. In fact, the danger of catastrophic default is something they relish in order to undo the basic principles of democratic government.

This is not a bargaining position; they already voted for the budget that requires us to raise the debt ceiling. It is a bald attempt to reverse elections as the mark of a democracy and replace them with endless blackmail until they get their way. This isn't conservatism. It’s pure constitutional vandalism...

Sullivan later makes a question about American history where a party in the minority made such an egregious list of demands... and he quickly got an answer from readers who pointed out that yes this has happened before.  Back in 1860, when the Republicans were poised to elect Lincoln into the White House, the slavery-owner leadership of the Southern Democrats faction threatened secession unless Lincoln caved on all demands.  And when it became clear the South had little to threaten with, they seceded and forced the civil war (anyone calling it a War of Northern Aggression is selling you snake oil.  The South wanted a fight and by God they got one).

It shouldn't be a surprise that the end result of Nixon's Southern Strategy would have the southern conservative agenda seek another go at wrecking the nation.  We shouldn't be at all surprised that the Far Right - in the House, Senate, and wingnut media - want push this issue well over the cliff (no matter how much the party's own leadership is aware of the disaster that awaits them).  Their way or the highway.

This "negotiation" over the debt ceiling and the budget by having the Republicans demand this "We Get Everything WE Want" wish list is in my mind akin to a bank robber taking hostages during a heist... and then demanding that not only the cops let him go with all the cash from that bank, but that the cops help him rob three or four more banks right down the road because dammit he's in the right.  That's not negotiating.  That's not even practical hostage-taking.  That's batshit insanity. (pardon my Swedish)

There is no reason for Obama or Reid to answer this list at all.  The Republicans can scream all they want about who to blame when the debt ceiling crisis reaches the Defcon-1 level.  Insisting the majority party enact the worst elements of the minority party's agenda isn't democracy, isn't republican, and isn't sane.

And the polls are reflecting that, yes Americans know exactly who to blame if the shit goes down.

I want every voter to remember this by November 2014: The Republicans do not care to compromise, they do not care to govern, they do not care period.  They want it all.

Please for the love of God vote them out.

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The Post-Election Scenario Now

Before the election results, there were five scenarios - two for Romney and three for Obama - for how the President / Congress dynamic would look.  With Obama's victory, we're on the fourth one, what is basically the status quo we've had since 2010: Democratic Senate, Republican House, and Obama Democratic Presidency.

What I said then:

The only problem then will be dealing with a Republican House standing as the "last bastion" against an Obama-dominated regime.  If it was a job herding cats before, this will be like working as an alligator teeth puller operating without pliers and standing waist-deep in a swamp.  The fight to get anything resembling a budget will be close to impossible without the wingnut faction in the House getting everything they want (which in a sane world won't happen).  Obama may yet want to finish out a second term where SOMETHING got done for job growth and economic stimulus, but the House will fight that every inch of the way.  And some legislation HAS to start in the House, not the Senate.  Meaning something approaching compromise has to be done... and Lord knows what Obama may have to give up in order to get a jobs bill passed...

Is pretty much how the post-election dynamic is lining up with the early positioning on the lame-duck Congressional session to finalize a budget deal.

It's the Fiscal Cliff scenario: a combination of deals and laws are intersecting this winter that would pack a one-two whammy on the U.S. economy if Congress refuses to act.  The Bush the Lesser tax cuts of 2001-03 are set to expire, which would raise everyone's tax rates not to historic highs but to Clinton-era (i.e., manageable) rates.  There's the Sequester deal made last year, where automatic spending cuts in ALL government programs - including defense/military, AND social programs - will kick in alongside more tax increases when 2013 calendar rolls up.  The sequestration isn't a bad deal overall: it's that the cuts will be akin to using a sledgehammer during surgery where a knife would be more apt.

Separately, either situation wouldn't be too harsh: together, the bump up in tax hikes and severe spending cuts can very well lead to another deep recession at a time where the U.S. economy is still crawling out of the last one.  It's a Double-Dip Recession we're facing, and it definitely has global economic consequences that wouldn't get resolved for another decade...

Thing is, a new bill out of Congress can kick both deadlines to the curb by overriding the sequestration and by re-working the Bush-era cuts into a more manageable tax hike.  So before December 31st rolls around, there are a good number of politicians in both the White House and Congress who want to get a deal done.

Problem is, on whose terms?

Obama wants to re-work the sequestration to reduce the amount of spending cuts to a more manageable level and combine it with returning the tax rates of the upper 2 percent of income to their Clinton-era levels.  The House Republicans would prefer keeping the spending cuts on all social programs, ignore cuts to defense spending, and keep the Bush-era cuts permanent if they could.

Worse of all, the Republican Party overall is reeling right now: their leadership AND voting base were so certain of a Romney victory - and some even thought they would gain control of the Senate - that their loss last Tuesday night really kicked their guts in.  All that hate and vitriol they spilled in Obama's direction, and still they lost.

The Republican Party hate-on for Obama is at unheard of levels: I remember the Republicans' disdain for Bill Clinton with all its conspiracy-laden what-the-hell alternate reality of America, and even THAT was mild compared to what they're hitting Obama with.  The closest historical I can think of is the hate-on the fiscal leaders of the GOP had towards FDR.

This is a party that has planned to obstruct Obama and his agenda - decried as socialist, un-American, anti-business - from Day One of his administration.  The use of Cloture and threat of filibuster has more than doubled.  Once the Republicans gained control of the House during the 2010 midterms based on paranoid-hate-fueled outrage, the House proceeded to ignore every Democratic attempt at a jobs stimulus bill and instead spent 31 useless votes on trying to overturn ObamaCare.  The Republicans have spent four years in an open attempt to make Obama a "failed" President akin to Jimmy Carter ("history's greatest monster!") and make Obama a One-Termer.  And they failed.

This does not mean the Republicans will give up the obstructionism.  They can well double-down on the obstruction.  They are still convinced that Obama is a failure: and they want history to reflect that belief.  They are NOT going to give Obama anything he wants.  I don't mean everything Obama wants: anything, at all.

That means if Obama comes calling with a deal on sequestration and ending the Bush-era tax cuts on just the upper 2 percent incomes, the House Republicans may well say NO in large unfriendly letters.  There may well be enough Republicans who will refuse to deal on anything and even allow the deadlines to pass, enacting that dreaded fiscal cliff.

Problem is what can happen: Obama can well live with Congress taking the country over the fiscal cliff.

Previous times negotiations had to happen to get budgets done, Obama was not in a position to negotiate much.  Facing re-election, he didn't want to overstep or fall into any traps the GOP may have laid out against him.  This time, however, Obama has little to lose: he's won re-election, he's got four more years to get something done with the economy and job woes.  And despite all protestations from the Far Right, Obama does have a mandate: the polling and the votes have shown that a solid majority of Americans back Obama on his plan to raise tax rates on the uber-rich.

It's the tax hikes that are the obvious sticking point for the Republicans.  They'll refuse to actively vote for any deal that raises them (the "no new taxes" pledge to Norquist overrides any obligation to the nation as a whole with these guys).  All Obama has to do, really, is let the Bush-era tax cuts expire, raising all taxes regardless.  And then the day after that, come back to Congress with deal to cut taxes back down close to Bush-era levels... with the exception of the upper 2 percenters.  This will catch the Republicans in a lose-lose situation: they'll be presented with a tax cut they CAN vote for which would be clearly for the middle-classes, but will give Obama a political victory they dare not allow... or they can vote against it on the excuse that the upper-classes need a tax cut as well, which is political poison in this economy and re-enforces the image of the Republicans as greedhead suck-ups to the billionaires.

As a result, there are some Republicans who see the benefit of getting a deal done now and make it look bipartisan in nature, giving them some of the credit... or they can obstruct some more, get caught with their pants around their ankles, and let all the credit go to Obama or all them blame to the House GOP.

It's all up the House Republicans right now: how they'll handle themselves this lame-duck session before 2013.  We'll see then if we'll have a working government or another round of Republican-led gridlock.  We'll see...

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Romney's Ever Fixed Mark

Gen. Chang - I AM AS CONSTANT AS THE NORTHERN STAR!
Dr. McCoy - I'd give real money if he'd shut up...
- Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country

It's not enough to point how just how often and how severe that Mitt Romney changes his story, changes his opinion, changes his political stance: how he, in fact, LIES on nearly every issue.

It's not enough to pile on to the observation of how Romney's currently best-known nickname got to be "Mr. Etch-A-Sketch".

It needs to be pointed out as often as possible how Mitt Romney is the LEAST-LIKED Presidential candidate in AGES, but that's not the point of this blog entry here.

The point of this article is to focus on what Mitt Romney REALLY WANTS if he becomes President.  It's kind of hard to do when he's got this well-deserved reputation for flip-flopping and pandering in such a way it's made other panderers - both Clintons come to mind - look like sagacious pillars of consistency.  But beneath all the bluster, behind all the constant "re-inventing" and "re-branding", at the base of EVERYTHING on Mitt's clouded and passed-over agenda (the one where he keeps saying "Trust me" as though that's always a good-enough answer): there is one consistent item on the agenda Mitt has NEVER renounced and ALWAYS persisted.

A massive tax cut.

Everything else on the table - abortion, foreign policy, Medicare/Medicaid and health care reform in general, education costs, energy needs - Romney has flipped on at least once this year.

But the tax cut plan, despite the occasional "tweaks" to how it's presented, has pretty much remained the same.  And it's remained the core element of Romney's economic package, as though the massive tax cut will solve all woes, create all jobs, save all mankind.

Even though a majority of Americans ought to f-cking know better by now.  Considering we've had a Republican President pass a massive tax cut plan roughly 11 years ago, and we've had all this time to see what the results have been (first chart from Ezra Klein, second chart from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) :

The Tax Rate of the cuts for upper income clearly get bigger, doubling and tripling in size for the top three brackets.  What does this say about the tax burden for upper income Americans?  How regressive have these Bush tax cuts really been?

Note how most of the deficit causes shrink eventually: The Bush Tax Cuts NEVER SHRINK AND IN FACT GET BIGGER

And consider this: Romney wants his tax cut plan to go DEEPER than the Bush tax cuts ever went.  He's asking for a $5 TRILLION cut, ostensibly across the board except for the fact that he's scaling it more for upper income over middle-and-lower incomes.  Because hidden in his tax proposal, Mitt wants to kill off the Alternative Minimum Tax and the Earned Income Tax Credit (both of which benefit middle and lower class taxpayers).  Check this chart (from Klein's guest-blogger Dylan Matthews):

Everyone under $25,000 income has to pay MORE taxes by 1 to 2 percent, while the jump from $147,000 to $150,000 income from a 2 percent cut straight up to a 6 percent cut.

This is what Mitt Romney wants.  This is his obsession, his passion, his ever-fixed mark.  Everything else on his platform changes from day-to-day like the Etch A Sketch candidate he is.  He wants this massive tax cut.

Even though FOR THE LOVE OF GOD we have all seen that tax cuts - especially cuts that are NOT PAID FOR by targeted spending cuts to balance it out - DO NOT WORK.  Even though we've got economic experts - from the usual suspects like Krugman to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center to serious fiscal Republicans like David Frum - screaming how Romney's tax plan is IMPOSSIBLE.  Romney is insisting on this tax cut plan, claiming it will "create jobs," "create growth," "fix government."

Tax cuts are not job creators : direct investment into business expansion and start-ups are.  Tax cuts do not stimulate the economy.  Tax cuts do not help curb spending: not only did spending get out of control during the GOP-led Bush era by so-called fiscal conservatives, but even hardcore fiscal conservative Ben Stein is now noting that at the current tax rates - "they're too low" - there aren't enough spending cuts to flatten out the deficit.

And Romney wants to make the tax rates LOWER.  No matter the excuse or justification.  He just does.

This alone should be disqualifying Mitt Romney from even being a Presidential candidate, for God's sake.  But he's up there on the ballot, and GOD HELP US the polls are getting too close for comfort.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY.

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Balanced Budget Amendment Is a Bad Idea

As an amendment-suggesting blog, sooner or later I gotta write about this.  Especially since the House Republicans are obsessed with pushing this amendment idea during the recent "Let's Kill The Government And Blame It On Obama" negotiations.

The amendment is their old ideological card, The Balanced Budget Amendment.  The title makes it sound so sweet and simple, that the objective is to make the government balance their books every fiscal year.  Problem is in the details.

The current form, aka Cut Cap And Balance Act, requires that there be an amendment that spells out requirement of a balanced budget; imposes a spending cap of 18 percent percentage of Gross Domestic Product; and requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress to pass any tax hike.

The first part requiring the balanced budget seems simple but it's not.  One of the rules of government spending that was set centuries ago by Alexander Hamilton himself was that government needed to run on a certain level of debt that can be structured to force government to function towards collecting revenue and paying off portions of debt.  As long as the government operated with full faith and credit (that at some level it can pay off debts as needed), the system should work.  And the deal is, for roughly 200 years that system did work.  The problem came when the anti-tax proponents got in charge and started cutting off regular methods of revenue-gathering (i.e., taxes), forcing the government to borrow more than it had ever done before.  Under these anti-taxers, who promised that cutting taxes would magically generate more revenue because lesser taxation would create more income (it didn't by the by.  It just generated more income that was taxed less if at all), the national debt and massive annual deficits got worse.  But the problem still exists: without other revenue, the government is going to have to borrow and operate with unbalanced budgets.  Suddenly forcing the government to balance the books is going to create more havoc and chaos than ever before, and force future generations to pay for the damage done by this generation that would pass this amendment and then run for cover.

The second part of the amendment idea is even worse: it places a specific cap number percentage on how much government can work with.  GDP is Gross Domestic Product, the market value of all final goods and services produced by a nation... basically how much that nation is worth.  The United States is roughly $14.7 TRILLION as of 2010.  This amendment would cap government spending to 18 percent of that, which is... (breaks out calculator) ...I get $2.6 Trillion based on the 2010 numbers.  Now, the U.S. budget spending for 2010 was... $3.5 Trillion.  You get about $900 Billion you gotta shave off the 2010 numbers.  That's not something you can sneeze at in one year's budget.  And that's the problem you get with a specific cap number like 18 percent.  That gets to be a harsh cap, especially when it depends on an outside value (GDP) that doesn't remain constant, and in times of recession does not constantly go up in value.

The third part is the most unfair: it forces a supermajority to vote for any tax increase.  Ever.  We're talking about government voting habits now.  When you make something next to impossible to vote for, you essentially make it meaningless to even try for it.  The opposite has its own problem.  The amendment does not to make it harder to vote for tax cuts, meaning that in a system where Path Of Least Resistance is the norm you're making it more likely that elected officials will vote for tax cuts more than anything else.  This part of the amendment makes it next to impossible for government to create ANY kind of revenue system to keep its coffers even half-full.  Considering that government pays for, oh, our national defense, our parks, our national highway and rail and airway networks that businesses use to ship goods and perform services, our farm subsidies, a ton of corporate tax credits and subsidies, money that goes to the STATES to pay for such things as schools, clean water and air, state roads and bridges, and a few other things... well, this is going to force the federal government to borrow even more debt to pay the bills. 

Lemme link to Ezra Klein on this one (snippage for space, go read the whole thing):

This isn’t just a Balanced Budget Amendment. It also includes a provision saying that tax increases would require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress — so, it includes a provision making it harder to balance the budget — and another saying that total spending couldn’t exceed 18 percent of GDP. No allowances are made for recessions, though allowances are made for wars. Not a single year of the Bush administration would qualify as constitutional under this amendment. Nor would a single year of the Reagan administration. The Clinton administration would’ve had exactly two years in which it wasn’t in violation.
Read that again: Every single Senate Republican has endorsed a constitutional amendment that would’ve made Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy unconstitutional. That’s how far to the right the modern GOP has swung. But the problem isn’t simply that the proposed amendment is extreme. It’s also unworkable.  ...This amendment includes no provisions for recessions, meaning that when the economy contracted, the government would have to contract as well. That is to say, we’re still not out of one of the deepest recessions in American history, and every Senate Republican has co-sponsored a constitutional amendment to make future recessions worse. It’s just breathtaking.  A world in which this amendment is added to the Constitution is a world in which America effectively becomes California. It’s a world where the procedural impediments to passing budgets and raising revenues are so immense that effective fiscal management is essentially impossible; it’s a world where we can’t make public investments or sustain the safety net; it’s a world where recessions are much worse than they currently are and the government has to do more of its work off-budget through regulation and gimmickry. I would like to say something positive about this proposal, say there’s some silver lining here. But there isn’t. This is economic demagoguery, and nothing more. It’s so unrealistic that it would’ve ruled all but two of the last 30 years unconstitutional, which means it’s so unrealistic that there has not yet been a Republican president who has proven it can be done.

One more caveat: the Republicans who push this balanced budget proposal never really seem to push for it very hard when their party has control of the White House.  And when they've also got Congress under their belt, they spend like drunken teenagers with their parents' credit cards.  But when there's a Democrat like Clinton or Obama running the executive branch, all of a sudden a BALANCED BUDGET IS A DAMN NECESSITY.

The Balanced Budget Amendment does nothing but force the federal government to either borrow like mad or drown itself in Grover Norquist's bathtub.  Either way, the nation is screwed.

There are better amendment ideas out there.  This one is a disaster.

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Personal Reaction to Obama's Speech

1) Obama did seem to go out of his way to shred Paul Ryan's tax-cut, social-service-cut budget proposal for 2012.  Which in my mind was the right thing to do.  Ryan's budget is not brave: it panders HARD to the Far Right's need to destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and it attempts to add even MORE tax breaks to corporations already swimming in massive profit margins (just how much a burden are the taxes on them anymore?).

2) Obama still played the game being played in the Beltway (and owned by the Far Right): the idea that cutting the deficit is paramount, and not the need to focus on job creation (which could add to the deficits in the short term, but should reduce said deficits in the long term).  So as a result, the possibility of more austerity measures (which ARE NOT WORKING in the European countries already playing this game) are there.

What the hell happened to discredit Keynesian economic policies at this time?  There's no way the Austrian or Chicago schools of thought should remain this dominant, and you'd think after the massive catastrophes of the 2000s that the libertarians would be even more discredited than Keynesians.

3) I was not at all surprised that the Republicans and their media enablers and brown-nosers dismissed Obama's speech, or accused him of making "personal attacks" (which in Ryan's case could be truth).  Outside of admitting he was born on Krypton and then resigning the Presidency to return to complete his Jedi training on Dagobah with Master Yoda, there is nothing Obama can do to convince the teabagger Far Right wingnuts (I know, redundancies) of anything.

4) The speech reads well, and Obama did a decent job presenting it.  Most important, Obama seems to be drawing a line in the sand here: that he will not accept any further extensions of the Bush tax cuts for the extremely wealthy (the top two percent, the ones earning millions of dollars), for example.  For the most part, this is Obama's opening salvo for his re-election campaign.  But it's also a promise he made on camera and one he's going to have to stick to for the far left base - and the Democratic Party in general - to hang their hat on.  It's kind of his Bush the Elder "Read My Lips" moment: if he fails to live up to the promise, if the Republican House gets him to back down again on what Obama promised this week, then Obama's support (which is decent but not overwhelming) fades.

And there's already two major battles just this year alone: the debt ceiling vote due in May/June and the Paul Ryan budget showdown.  The budget issue is the easier of the two: The Democratic-led Senate is in decent position to insist on stopping the more harsh elements of the Ryan plan from passing the whole Congress.  But the debt ceiling vote is different altogether: it can fail in the House if enough Republicans (and even some psycho Democrats) vote against raising the ceiling, and the whole system collapses.  There's more at stake with the debt ceiling, more possibility that the House GOP will hold it hostage to negotiate for everything they want (including pony rides at the circus!).  And even though Obama is calling on Democrats to insist on a "Clean" bill for the debt ceiling (meaning no deals with Republicans who will try to add their pet projects to it), this is too scary a situation to be playing chicken with the global economy.

The trick is making damn sure the Republicans swerve first.  It's doable, especially since the latest vote on the overdue 2011 budget still couldn't pass with enough Republican votes (meaning Boehner is facing a sizable faction revolt... the same faction that's eager to vote against that debt ceiling...)

Obama's given his speech.  He's made a good number of promises.  But now he's got to live up to them...

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Things I Want To Hear From Obama During This Afternoon's Speech

I originally posted this at Ta-Nehisi's house.  Hope he doesn't mind.

"If we want to be serious about reducing the deficits and reducing our debt, we NEED to look at how our government gets its revenues."

"We need to raise the taxes on those who can afford it: the millionaires and billionaires who still profited during these last three years of hardship while the middle class struggled to stay out of poverty. Not to raise such taxes as a putative measure, but to ensure that every American is paying their fair share into fixing our financial problems."

"We need to begin closing tax loopholes for corporations. Especially any tax loophole that benefits too few companies at the expense of the nation. And especially any loophole that does not hamper or prevent corporations from generating honest profit."

"Also, you all should really buy a copy of Paul Wartenberg's ebook. He needs the moneys. And some of the stories in that collection are pretty funny. Word."

"Also, I strongly suggest that every American hugs a puppy or kitten today. If you're allergic, perhaps a Pokemon action figure."

"One last thing. I wasn't born in Hawaii. I was born on the planet Krypton, sent here by my true father Marlon Brando to... wait, I already did this joke, didn't I?"

To dream the impossible dream...

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Damage Done: December 2010 Florida Update

That Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott and the GOP-majority state lege would go after our state's educational system (all to destroy the teachers' unions, never mind the damage done to our kids) was pretty much a given.

It's how they're going to go about doing it that ought to make state residents regret their votes.

Not ONLY will Scott and the Pork Barrel GOP go after massive property and corporate tax cuts that will hinder school systems' ability to PAY FOR ANYTHING (just remember, parents, this was the year the schools started asking you to provide all supplies for your kids, including toilet paper!), they will pursue the most radical attempt ever on pushing their wingnut obsession with school vouchers.  They will make vouchers universal (from the St. Pete Times' opinion section):

It is clearer than ever that Republicans intend to mount a frontal assault next year on Florida's public schools. Legislators show no interest in building consensus on efforts to abolish teacher tenure and create a merit pay system. Gov.-elect Rick Scott also pledges to slash school property taxes even as declining property values and tax revenues have forced deep spending cuts in education. But those misguided approaches are small potatoes compared with their pursuit of a radical plan to give all students tuition vouchers. 

The whole thing about vouchers is that it's a feel-good proposal by conservatives: a means of introducing "choice" into a public educational system they despise.  Vouchers are meant to give parents money to afford sending their kids to different schools outside of walking distance that can provide better opportunities (say, if your kid is gifted in fine arts but the best art school is on the other side of the county).  But vouchers are an illusion of choice: schools are still limited by how many students they can enroll, and there's no guarantee your kids will get into the school they need or you prefer because - guess what - everyone else is trying to enroll there too.  The push for Vouchers is also a con game: the proponents want them available for private (read: Christian) schools as well, meaning they want tax-funded moneys to pay for something that violates the rules of Separation of Church And State.

To refer back to the Times' article:

It is unclear how much universal vouchers would cost the state and how they would be financed. Taking a portion of the per student funding for public schools and allowing families to spend that amount as they wish would not leave enough money for public education. And presumably, the hundreds of thousands of students already in private schools would receive public money as well.The state already faces a budget deficit of more than $2.5 billion. On top of that, Scott wants to cut school property taxes 19 percent and eliminate the corporate tax. That would be the same corporate tax that companies can avoid paying now by earmarking the money for vouchers. How does this possibly add up?

Again, take a good look at the con game.  The REAL OBJECTIVE here by Scott and the Pork Barrel GOP is to cut corporate taxes ALTOGETHER.  Never mind that 19 percent cut to your property tax, citizen: home owners will still be stuck paying a bill with whatever is left of your millage rate, while corporates get to pay NOTHING toward our state and our families.  And again, no guarantee that all that money saved to the corporations will go back into their workers, their businesses, or anywhere else that would help our depressed economy.

The Republicans are really only interested in one thing when it comes to fiscal policy: Tax Cuts.  Everything else - balancing a budget, paying for social services, KEEPING PEOPLE ALIVE, ALERT AND HEALTHY - is meaningless to them.  They want their tax cuts.  They don't want to pay for anything, and all the while they'll take all the public money they can in state-level pork barrel projects, corporate payouts, and everything else they can get away with because YOU VOTERS DO NOT PAY F-CKING ATTENTION TO WHAT HAPPENS IN TALLAHASSEE.

Please, Floridians.  Please for the LOVE OF GOD.  Try to get this into your heads.  Tax Cuts is just another phrase for Snake Oil.  You are getting conned by political hacks and corporate criminals into buying a product that does not work.  Please, please, learn this now.

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From Balloon Juice, All You Need To Know About Our Corporate Overlords

This is from a comment posted on a thread at Balloon Juice.  The bold text was my addition:

The last election cycle demonstrated that even if you allow Wall Street and the corporations dictate a large portion of the policy, they will still fund campaigns to destroy you because they don’t want their share or ten times their share, they want it all, all the time.They are never going to stop going after social security. They want every single dollar of the education budgets. They do not want to pay any taxes for anything. They do not want any regulation that ties their hands with respect to their workers, the environment, or any other external costs imposed upon the public by their business activities. Oh yeah, and if they screw up and take the economy down, they want the government to bail them out.

I concur.

Until the Greedheads responsible for all the disasters we've suffered over the last three eight thirty years are held accountable and shipped to jail... until all the goddamn Supply-siders get sued for Fraud and selling snake oil to the nation... we are well and truly fucked as a country.

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The Republicans' New Contract On America

I thought about titling this blog entry "The GOP Lemon Pledge" but dammit I think Olbermann beat me to it.

(Mixing the "Pledge to America" with the "Lemon Pledge" furniture cleaner, with the underlying pun of "Lemon" being a poorly-patched product for sale that no sane customer should ever buy.  Okay, now that's been explained...)

The recently-released "Pledge to America" by the current Republican congressional leadership is, of course, an attempt to re-capture the success of the 1994 "Contract With America."   The Contract was viewed at its release as a gimmick (The Left still considers Newt Gingrich's ploy the "Contract ON America"): however, it galvanized the GOP base and gave their congressional candidates a platform to run on.  As such, when the Republicans were victorious that midterm - winning control of both House and Senate for the first time since the early 1950s - the Contract was cited as the key to victory.

Even though half of that Contract never saw the light of day under Newt's years as House Speaker.

So... what of the Pledge?

The current Republican leadership is thinking the Pledge can replicate the earlier success.  However, there are severe problems with that Pledge:

• It wants to extend ALL the tax cuts created under George W. Bush back in 2001-2003 to permanent status (those cuts are set to expire this January anyway).  The problem: nearly every chart graphing the massive government deficit we're living with shows that most of that deficit is caused simply by those tax cuts.  Keeping those cuts intact would simply make the deficits WORSE.
• It wants to hold all unspent funds from the TARP stimulus package.  The problem: most of those funds have been spent out, making this an empty gesture.  Whatever IS left in the stim package could affect the states' collective budgets crises: blocking that could force local governments into drastic and destructive actions...
• It wants to place a spending freeze on all domestic spending, except anything that would affect seniors such as Social Security and Medicare.  And also, no spending freeze on our defense budget.  The problem: The biggest spending portions of our annual federal budgets ARE the Defense, the Social Security and the Medicare, meaning this won't do anything about the biggest parts of the federal bureaucracy in the first place!  And the stuff that will get affected?  Item one: the Unemployment benefit extensions.  Item two: social programs.  Item three: pretty much everything the federal (and even states) budget provides to keep the majority of this nation out of poverty, hunger, and despair.
• It wants to repeal the 2010 Health Care Reform bill.  The problem: The Pledge - and the GOP itself - offers no alternative to the Reform bill that would resolve the ever-growing and ever-threatening health care costs that can kill our economy within the next 10 years... if not sooner.
• It wants to place a permanent ban on federally-funded abortions.  The problem: most Americans actually don't even consider Abortion a Top-10 Problem anymore.  If the Republicans push this, they might run into the problem that a majority of Americans may not like abortion as a practice but they want the choice of it, meaning that the GOP can and will lose even more voters in the long term.
• It wants to place a requirement for all congressional bills to be posted online for review during a three-day period before voting.  The problem: This is the only sane thing in the bill.  The problem is that this feels like a gimmick the Republicans will easily overlook the second they seize control of the House and/or Senate this midterm.
• It wants to make it a requirement for legislation being voted on to cite the specific constitutionality that allows the bill to be voted on in the first place.  The problem: The Republicans want to have evidence of which parts of the Constitution - the Commerce Clause, the 14th Amendment, the 4th Amendment, the 8th, the 9th, etc - they will later want removed.
• It wants to spend millions on a missile defense system.  The problem: This is a hangover from the Cold War when we were planning to fight the likes of Soviet Russia and Red China.  Guess what?  WAR'S OVER!  Yay Capitalism!  The odds of Russia or China launching against us are remote to the point of laughable: China's not about to start a war (too much internal security issues) and Russia can't afford one.  The next closest threat to American soil - North Korea - can barely reach Alaska for any target, and they don't have enough arsenal or political backing to do anything so foolish (if North Korea DOES try to launch nukes on anybody like Japan for example, the international condemnation would be so overwhelming it would make the coalition into Afghanistan look like a autumn bake-off).  Our national threats are no longer missile launchers by air but mad bombers on the ground. We don't NEED a missile defense system anymore!  Especially one that's been proven over the years to be a massive boondoggle run by the Defense industry.
• It wants to place a hiring freeze on federal jobs not pertaining to National Security.  The problem: WE'RE IN A RECESSION YOU GOP ASSHOLES.  A recession defined completely by the largest, and longest, unemployment crisis this nation has had since 1933!  And the Federal government (www.usajobs.gov) is pretty much the ONLY institution in this jobless economy THAT'S CONSISTENTLY HIRING!  The banks aren't helping with business loans!  The private sector shows no sign of massive upticks in hiring people!  And you REPUBLICAN BASTARDS WANT TO BLOCK US UNEMPLOYED FROM GETTING ANY JOBS WITH THE GOVERNMENT?!  Dear God, if you ever deign to send me a Messenger, can you PLEASE assure me that 99.99 percent of all unemployed people are aware that the Republicans are trying to destroy us?  And that those 99.99 percent of the unemployed are registered voters who are going to vote ANYBODY BUT REPUBLICAN?  grrrrrr.

The Contract WITH America was relatively tame compared to this crap.  The Pledge is literally THE Contract ON America.  Broken down into its three basic components, the Pledge wants to extend tax cuts, curtail federal spending (that won't piss off the hawks and the elderly voters that make up the GOP base), and basically rewrite the first two years of Obama's administration.  In the particulars however lie the devil's details.  The Republicans' obsession with tax cuts will do just one thing: enlarge an already massive deficit.  Lemme add that chart showing the current deficit projections (from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities):

Everyone should look at this chart.  The big clay-brown color in the middle of the chart?  That's the deficit created by Dubya's tax cuts.  Just by themselves.  I've lived through two massive tax cuts programs: Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and Bush the Lesser's 2001-2003 tax cuts.  Both times, we were promised that A) the tax cuts would pay for themselves by generating more taxable revenue (repeat after me, wha?), B) the tax cuts would create jobs (both tax cuts were followed by massive unemployment: job creation under both Reagan and Dubya were weak compared to other administrations) and C) it would force government to cut wasteful spending (Reagan included massive military spending during his term; Dubya mismanaged two wars and signed off on GOP budgets especially a big Pharma buyout that made LBJ look like a penny-pincher).  Both times, I witnessed only one thing: MASSIVE DEFICITS.  Tax Cuts CREATE Deficits.  That's ALL they do.  That's ALL we need to know.

And yet, this Pledge by the current Republican leadership seems to continue this fantasy-based belief that Tax Cuts Can Solve All Ills.  Even AGAINST tons of evidence to the contrary (even in opposition to other governments like Great Britain, where they are facing their deficit issues with a strict program of spending cuts AND tax hikes: and that's a CONSERVATIVE-led coalition over there).

My supervisor back at my last employ kept telling me "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."  The Republican party leadership is obsessed with the idea that tax cuts will work and that their plans on Social Security (kill it) and Unemployment Benefits (kill it) and Government regulatory oversight (kill everyone in mines, on oil rigs, and eating poisoned eggs) and Defense Spending (kill the rest) will create their heavenly laissez-faire utopia.  And yet each time these tax cuts don't create the Promised Results, the Republicans act all surprised and then blame it on those damn libruls who are stopping them from committing EVEN BIGGER tax cuts.  Each time a Democrat gets elected into the White House the last 20 years - first with Clinton, now with Obama - the Republicans amp up the Fear that ZOMG Commie-Hippie-Controlled Evildoer Democrats are gonna destroy this country and that we need to return the Republicans back to power so they can continue The Grand Reagan Revolution That Will Save Us All (Except for, you know, the Poor and Middle Class and Ethnic Minorities and Women Who Will ALL Be Shit Out Of Luck).

I'd said it before here and elsewhere: Utopias are flawed because their creators keep ignoring complex human conditions.  The Republican Utopia of their 100-Year Era of Reagan is flawed because tax cuts alone do not create jobs (investment in business growth does).  It is flawed because Social Security and Medicare are not massive government boondoggles (privatizing either one would actually RAISE costs of each service: and tying Social Security into risky investments like the stock markets would have literally destroyed millions whenever those markets can (and do) collapse).  It is flawed because THEY, like nearly every other human that ever lived (well, except for that one guy) are flawed.  And they won't admit it.

If we're lucky, this Pledge will backfire: already it's proving to be more gristle for the Democrats' campaigning efforts than impressing the more vocal tea-bagger crowds.

But this is a crazy midterm election, and I still can't understand why enough of my fellow voters across this nation are even giving the crazed Republican party a serious look (yes, the Democrats may be cowards, and they may be incapable of aggressive campaigning, but for the love of God they're not the ones stymieing government it's those damn Republicans!).  If the Republicans do win, there is every conceivable chance they will take this Pledge seriously.

And that would be the WORST thing the Republicans could do.

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