“Social Safety Net In Hands Of The States?”: The GOP’s State Budget Disaster Is The Best Case For Big Government
The Republican Party is cutting a swath of destruction through state budgets.
In Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback’s experiment in income and business tax cuts has blown a $344 million hole in the budget for this fiscal year, and a projected $600 million hole for the next fiscal year. Part of his plan to close it is to cut $44.5 million from public schools and universities.
Illinois needs to cut over $6 billion to balance its books. So Gov. Bruce Rauner is calling for a $1.5 billion cut to the state’s Medicaid program, plus $600 million in cuts to local government finances and $387 million in cuts to higher education (though he may have trouble getting those ideas past the Democrats in the Illinois legislature).
Wisconsin’s state budget, meanwhile, faces a $238 million deficit, thanks in small part to tax cuts Gov. Scott Walker pushed through after taking office in 2011. That wiped out a $759 million budget surplus in 2013. Now Walker is looking to cut $300 million from higher education over the next two years, along with cuts to the state park system and its recycling programs, among other things, and to restructure about $100 million in debt payments the state already owes.
These three examples show the GOP’s “tax cuts now, tax cuts forever” ideology remains utterly unconcerned with economic reality. But more deeply, they’re a lesson in some bad choices America made in how to design its national social safety net, which set the stage for the current crises.
In not one of these three cases do the projected budget gaps rise above 1 percent of the income generated annually by the state’s economy. The idea that taxes couldn’t be raised, starting on high earners, to close these holes is risible.
On top of that, these tax cuts are often pitched as growth enhancers for state economies. That was the explicit case Brownback made for his tax cut package. But for such a policy gambit to have even a chance of working, spending must be held constant. If you start cutting spending on things like health care or education or transit or whatnot, you’re just pulling more dollars out of the state economy with one hand even as you leave more dollars in with the other.
In other words, you have to be able to deficit spend. But that can be hard for states. First off, most of them have balanced budget amendments in their constitutions, which means deficit spending is just a no-go. These restrictions generally don’t cover individual infrastructure projects and the like, which states can choose to borrow a set amount for from the bond markets. But covering shortfalls between general annual spending and revenue is much more difficult legislatively.
The other problem is that the bond markets might just not give you the money. Investors may consider a state a bad bet, which would drive its borrowing and interest payments up. That hasn’t been much of a problem in the aftermath of the recession, as investors have been desperate for safe places to park their money — which makes the refusal of state governments to borrow to cover their regular expenditures all the more absurd.
But the low rates won’t last forever, and the willingness of investors to take a bet on a state puts limits on state government borrowing.
What this all means is that state government spending is pretty pro-cyclical — i.e. it rises and falls with the economy. If the economy is doing well, state tax revenues go up. If the economy goes into recession, state tax revenues go down, forcing budget cuts in health, education, and elsewhere. And that’s before you factor in Republican governors and state legislators who are out to cut taxes willy-nilly.
But for spending on things like health care and education — two of the biggest drivers of any state’s budget — being pro-cyclical makes no sense. It’s not as if people just stop getting sick during recessions, or that children simply stop needing an education. These are public investments in the health and well-being of the American people themselves, and the need for them remains constant throughout all the ups and downs in the economy.
The only entity that can spend with impunity regardless of the state of the economy is the federal government. That’s because it can print money, which means it can always pay lenders back in a pinch. This does mean the federal government faces a different sort of threat — instead of being abandoned by investors, it could print so much money it drives up inflation. But that’s just really hard to do, historically speaking.
In short, these are programs that should be run through the federal government. But Medicaid is a joint state-and-federal program, meaning both the federal government and state government supply some of the money from their respective budgets. Meanwhile, education is funded by streams from the federal, state, and local levels at the same time.
That structure leaves these programs critically vulnerable to the whims of the economy — not to mention the whims of Walker, Brownback, Rauner, and their friends in the Republican Party.
By: Jeff Spross, The Week, February 24, 2015
“Who Defines Islam In America?”: Muslims Must Learn To Define Themselves
You may have heard by now about the event over the weekend where more than 1,000 Muslims joined hands and formed a “peace ring” around a synagogue in Oslo, Norway in sub-zero temperatures. Why? Because the Muslims in that city wanted to make it clear they oppose anti-Semitism. As one of the Muslim organizers, Zeeshan Abdullah, explained: “There’s still hope for humanity, for peace and love, across religious differences and backgrounds.”
So with the Muslims standing side by side with Jews, Norway’s chief Rabbi Michael Melchior sang the traditional song marking the end of the Sabbath. The head of Norway’s Jewish community organization, Ervin Kohn, added, “It is unique that Muslims stand to this degree against anti-Semitism and that fills us with hope… particularly as it’s a grassroots movement of young Muslims.”
This was truly an inspirational event. One that helps define Islam accurately, as opposed to the way ISIS and al Qaeda are striving to define the faith.
This story, happily, did end up going viral. But another story about Muslims this weekend made bigger headlines and top-lined media websites across the country. That was the threat made by the Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab that it was targeting shopping malls in North America, including the Mall of America in Minneapolis. The Norway event got loads of play in social media, and to some extent the traditional media. But the mall threat was top-of-the-hour news everywhere.
And that is a perfect example to explain who defines Islam in America: The media. The adage, “If it bleeds, it leads,” can be updated to “If threatens to cause bleeding, it leads.” So a story about Muslims doing what Islam calls for doesn’t hold a candle to one where Muslims act in violation of the faith is glorified.
We constantly see wall-to-wall coverage of the tiny percent of bad Muslims. Keep in mind that if ISIS is truly 30,000 fighters that means it represents .02 percent of the 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. We are talking less than a third of 1 percent of Muslims.
Yet our media barely covers the stories about the other 99.98 percent of Muslims. How often have you seen segments in the news about the interfaith work in the United States, such as the efforts of Rabbi Marc Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali? Or Muslim groups denouncing terrorism, or even stories about the millions of other Muslims simply living their lives?
Here’s another example of the media defining Islam more than the faith does. Last week, The Atlantic ran a front-page story telling readers: “The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.” The article’s conclusion was based on interviews with a handful of extremist Muslims, including Anjem Choudary, a person with no following of note and who has been continually denounced by mainstream Muslim leaders.
This would be the equivalent of relying on the Christian pastor in Arizona who in December called for the mass killing of all gays, which he claimed is mandated by the Bible, as revealing what Christianity is truly about.
Still the Atlantic story was extensively covered in media in the framework of being accurate. However, when over 120 Islamic scholars and clerics released a letter in September detailing in specificity how the actions of ISIS—such as beheading aid workers and forcing conversion to Islam—violated the principles of Islam, that received far less media attention.
Same goes for when Muslims are killed by terrorists. In the Charlie Hebdo attack, the police officer we saw shot and killed while lying wounded on the sidewalk was Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim who gave his life defending freedom of expression. While some media outlets covered that angle, it was a minor part of the story. The result is that the two terrorists defined Islam far more than Merabet.
And while our media rightly covered the recent despicable murder of 21 Egyptian Christians by ISIS, why don’t we see similar coverage of the literally daily slaughtering of Muslims by ISIS? The media’s failure to cover the Muslim men, women, and children killed by ISIS furthers the narrative that this is a war by Islam against the West, as opposed to what it truly is: ISIS versus everyone, Muslims included (and indeed on the front lines), who won’t submit to them.
While we hear other minority groups in the United States also bemoan the media’s obsession with covering their worst examples, the Muslim American community is unique. We are far more dependent upon the media in defining who we are since we are tiny, clocking in at about 1 to 2 percent of our nation’s population. And only 38 percent of Americans, per a Pew poll released last summer, actually know a Muslim.
So what can be done to change the media’s coverage? Well, complaining might have a slight impact, but I doubt it will change much.
But I did learn a valuable lesson this weekend. I tweeted out the article about the Muslims in Oslo, which ultimately made its way to Rush Limbaugh’s younger brother, David. (He’s also conservative.) He then tweeted out the link to the story with the words: “Bravo. Credit where credit is due” and included the link to the story. In turn, others shared the story.
The lesson is that to change media coverage, we, Muslims, need to strategically plan how to attract media coverage in a way that enables us to tell people what we are truly about. To date, we have focused on denouncing terrorism perpetrated by Muslims. But that isn’t working. First, not many people hear it because the media barely covers press events of Muslims condemning terrorism.
But more importantly, simply focusing on telling people what we are not does little to define who we are. Consequently, many of our fellow Americans don’t know what Islam is truly about and have no way of knowing that the terrorists are the exception, not the norm. We must change that.
True, it’s unlikely we can eclipse the coverage of the terrorists given the business model of the media. But perhaps we can at least create a counter narrative that chips away little by little at the inaccurate image created by the terrorists. I know that is a tall order, but it’s better than simply complaining and hoping things will change for the better.
By: Dean Obeidallah, The Daily Beast, February 24, 2015
“Rudy Giuliani’s Raging Bull”: Another New Yorker Who Held Onto The Spotlight For Too Long
So here we are at the start of a week after the country witnessed Rudy Giuliani doing a backstroke through the gutter of American politics. Apparently desperate for attention, the former mayor of New York jumped out of his seat at a gathering of wealthy Republicans who had assembled at the 21 Club in Manhattan in order to do a loud, please notice me, clown act.
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say,” Giuliani began his wrecking ball speech, “but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country.”
(Let’s pause right here in this off-the-cliff assault by the former mayor to remind everyone of something Obama’s loudest critics always insist is the case: This is not about race because it’s never about race when it comes to nut-boys attacking the President of the United States. Sure!)
“Going after patriotism is one thing,” Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary, was saying, “but the really, really bad stuff is, ‘He wasn’t raised the way you and I were.’ There’s only one connotation for that kind of stuff and that’s directly out of what some people were saying in the Alabama of the 1960s.”
From mid-morning September 11, 2001, and for many days to follow Giuliani was an admirable figure. He provided his city and his country with a wall of courage, resolve and determination to stand straight and move forward through the shock, the death and the ashes of what terror had done to America’s most visible city.
He behaved nobly. Attended hundreds of funerals for the fallen. Stood like a sentry, a permanent reminder in those awful days of that awful Fall that America would not–could not–be defeated by a cult of religious zealots who prayed for the death and demise of the United States.
Now, all these years later, he has evolved into a pathetic, political version of Jake La Motta.
La Motta, another New Yorker out of an earlier time, was “The Raging Bull” who fought his way to the world middleweight championship. He lost his middleweight title to Sugar Ray Robinson in 1951 after one of the great prize fights of all time.
So La Motta decided to jump up one division in the hope of greater success. He joined the light heavyweight ranks. He was out of his league, out of his class and, soon, out of the ring completely.
But he loved the lights, the publicity, the attention, the fleeting fame that still surrounded him in New York. With some of the money he made with his fists, he bought a couple bars and ended up entertaining friends at bar-side and acting as both owner and bouncer too.
Punch drunk and clinging to a sad celebrity, he tried to be a stand-up comic but his act was sad, stale, and simply not funny. He was married seven times. He was a grifter, his best days all in history’s rear-view mirror.
Now, in this corner, wearing completely contemptible trunks, from the village of his own mind and memory, we have Rudy Giuliani wallowing in a bucket of resentment. He too is out of his league, punching way above his class.
In the other corner, we have the President of the United States, who emerged in the big ring on the evening of July 27, 2004. Then, Obama had been chosen to give the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention held in Boston.
“Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, “ Obama told the crowd, “America, that’s shown as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before him.”
“…My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ‘blessed,’ believing that in a tolerant America, your name is no barrier to success.”
“…I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”
Four years later he won the presidency and four years after that he was re-elected President of the United States. His judge will be history. The verdict of his daily fight against constant opponents named global terror, fear, economic inequality, global warming, inequitable tax codes, inadequate health care, an incompetent Congress and a claque of politicians determined to destroy rather than simply defeat him will be rendered on some day down the road.
The clock on Rudy Giuliani’s end of days began ticking as soon as he walked out of City Hall. He ran for president once, his candidacy going up in flames nearly the moment he first opened his mouth. Now he’s opened it again and all that emerges is bitterness and a contempt that borders on hate. What a brutal end; a self-inflicted TKO.
By: Mike Barnicle, The Daily Beast, February 22, 2015
“Four Days Til Stupidity Erupts”: Contradicting The Narrative That The GOP Was All Grown Up And Muzzled Its Tea Party Faction
So the expiration of appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security approaches in just four days, and there’s no sign yet that Republicans are going to be able to figure out how to back down from their demands for cancellation of the President’s executive actions on immigration without looking weak to the Almighty Base.
This is all kinds of stupid for a number of reasons, including (a) the conflict with GOP Chicken Little rhetoric over homeland security threats; (b) the fact that the portion of DHS that actually enforces immigration laws would be largely unaffected since it operates on fees rather than appropriations; (c) as of the moment, the offending 2014 immigration executive order has been suspended pending judicial review; and (d) this gives Democrats a huge, huge political gift while contradicting the dominant media narrative of 2014 that the GOP was all grown up and had muzzled its Tea Party faction.
Point this out to your average conservative activist and you’ll generally hear mumbling about the Constitution, various forms of denial that anyone will care, and/or the classic ex post facto argument that being stupid on a government shutdown didn’t keep Republicans from doing very well in 2014. I guess the prospective argument would be that Republicans can and should keep doing egregiously stupid things until they lose an election, which could happen in a little over nineteen months. What you won’t hear are many predictions this strategem will actually work to change public policy. So it’s all about posturing, and that’s never a good sign for a serious political party.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, February 23, 2015
“When A ‘Gotcha’ Question Is More Than A Gotcha”: When It Reveals Something Worth Knowing About Scott Walker
I’m no fan of John McCain’s (to say the least), but there was at least one moment in his 2008 presidential campaign in which he did the right thing by standing up to the crazies in his party, even if it might have meant some political risk. At an event just before the election, a voter stood up and said “I can’t trust Obama…he’s an Arab,” to which McCain replied, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man, a citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with.”
Seven years later, Republican voters are still convinced that Barack Obama is The Other, an alien presence occupying an office he doesn’t deserve. He might say that he was born in the United States, he might say that he’s a Christian, he might say that he loves the country he leads, but they know better. And if you want their favor, so many Republican politicians think, you’d better indulge their fears and resentments and bigotries.
In order to do so, it isn’t necessary to actually agree with them on these matters. You can just admit to uncertainty, say you aren’t quite sure who Obama is and what he believes. That’s the path Scott Walker took over the weekend when he was asked by the Washington Post about Obama’s religion:
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a prospective Republican presidential contender, said Saturday he does not know whether President Obama is a Christian.
“I don’t know,” Walker said in an interview at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, where he was attending the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
Told that Obama has frequently spoken publicly about his Christian faith, Walker maintained that he was not aware of the president’s religion.
“I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that,” Walker said, his voice calm and firm. “I’ve never asked him that,” he added. “You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
Barack Obama has been president of the United States for six years. He talks about his Christian faith quite regularly. He sometimes goes to church. As you might recall, there was quite a controversy back in 2008 about his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Are we supposed to believe that Scott Walker is genuinely unsure of Obama’s religious affiliation? I guess it’s technically possible for a politically aware and active person in 2015 to not know the answer to that question, in the same sense that it’s technically possible for a lifelong and ardent basketball fan to be unsure what position Shaquille O’Neal played. It could be true, but the person would have to be suffering from some unfortunate brain disorder, perhaps involving having had a metal spike penetrate their skull.
So let’s not bother pretending that Scott Walker doesn’t actually know that Obama’s a Christian. Walker could have said, “He’s a Christian, of course. We all know that. Now let me tell you what I think he’s done wrong.” But Walker also surely knows that had he said that, he’d be showing a willingness to puncture at least one prejudice held by an alarming number of GOP primary voters. That might win him some plaudits in Washington, but it probably wouldn’t get him too many votes in Iowa.
After his interview, a spokesperson contacted the Post reporters to clarify, saying: “Of course the governor thinks the president is a Christian.” Not that I want to read too much into one word, but the fact that she said her boss “thinks” Obama is a Christian would put Walker in line with what has become a tradition among Republican politicians when it comes to these questions. Whether it’s Obama’s religious affiliation or his American citizenship, Republican after Republican has treated the question not a matter of fact but of belief. As John Boehner said in 2011, “I believe that the president is a citizen. I believe the president is a Christian, I’ll take him at his word.” In other words, he might be an American and a Christian, he might not be, there’s no way to know for sure, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. By sheer coincidence, Mitch McConnell said not long before, “The president says he’s a Christian. I take him at his word.”
To understand how weird this formulation, imagine you heard Boehner or McConnell say, “I’ll take Chuck Schumer at his word that he’s Jewish,” or “Jeb Bush says he was born in Texas, so that’s what I’ll believe.” But you’d never hear them say that.
I’m sure that Walker and his supporters think this was an unfair “gotcha” question to ask. About that, they’re half right. On one hand, there are many more important topics to query Scott Walker about than this one, and we can hope that we’ll get to as many as possible over the course of the long campaign. On the other hand, this isn’t the kind of inane question so many candidates are subjected to, like whether they prefer Elvis to Johnny Cash or deep dish to thin crust—actual questions CNN’s John King asked Republican candidates at a debate in 2011. This question does actually reveal something worth knowing about Walker, because it’s rooted in today’s Republican Party.
It tells us that Walker is (as yet anyway) unwilling to stand up to the Republican primary electorate’s ample population of lunatics, the people who think Barack Obama is a Mooslem Marxist foreigner enacting his secret Alinskyite plan to destroy America. Depending on which poll you read, those people may constitute a majority of Republican voters. Walker is either afraid to alienate them, or perhaps he genuinely shares many of their beliefs. This isn’t about whether you’re a “real” conservative; you can be emphatically right-wing on every policy issue but still be tethered enough to reality not to get seduced by conspiracy theories and fantasies of Obama’s otherness.
Many knowledgeable people thought Scott Walker had great potential as a presidential candidate even before he began his recent rise in the polls. Perhaps more than any of the GOP contenders, he looked like a person who could bridge the party’s key divide, between the pragmatic establishment that supplies the money and the decidedly less reasonable grassroots that supplies the troops. Walker is both an enemy of labor unions and an evangelical Christian himself (if he becomes president, Walker will be the first evangelical in the office since Jimmy Carter; contrary to popular belief, George W. Bush is not an evangelical). While he’s still unfamiliar to most of the country, Walker is the the kind of candidate that the Koch brothers and the tea party protester with a sign accusing Obama of being a communist can both get excited about.
So it’s important to know just how much he represents each of those groups, both in policy and in spirit. He just offered us one important clue. It won’t be the last.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect, February 23, 2015
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