No More Civility: Bipartisanship In “Republican-Speak” Is Code For Tax Cuts For The Wealthy
Last week, President Obama offered a spirited defense of his party’s values — in effect, of the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. Immediately thereafter, as always happens when Democrats take a stand, the civility police came out in force. The president, we were told, was being too partisan; he needs to treat his opponents with respect; he should have lunch with them, and work out a consensus.
That’s a bad idea. Equally important, it’s an undemocratic idea.
Let’s review the story so far.
Two weeks ago, House Republicans released their big budget proposal, selling it to credulous pundits as a statement of necessity, not ideology — a document telling America What Must Be Done.
But it was, in fact, a deeply partisan document, which you might have guessed from the opening sentence: “Where the president has failed, House Republicans will lead.” It hyped the danger of deficits, yet even on its own (not at all credible) accounting, spending cuts were used mainly to pay for tax cuts rather than deficit reduction. The transparent and obvious goal was to use deficit fears to impose a vision of small government and low taxes, especially on the wealthy.
So the House budget proposal revealed a yawning gap between the two parties’ priorities. And it revealed a deep difference in views about how the world works.
When the proposal was released, it was praised as a “wonk-approved” plan that had been run by the experts. But the “experts” in question, it turned out, were at the Heritage Foundation, and few people outside the hard right found their conclusions credible. In the words of the consulting firm Macroeconomic Advisers — which makes its living telling businesses what they need to know, not telling politicians what they want to hear — the Heritage analysis was “both flawed and contrived.” Basically, Heritage went all in on the much-refuted claim that cutting taxes on the wealthy produces miraculous economic results, including a surge in revenue that actually reduces the deficit.
By the way, Heritage is always like this. Whenever there’s something the G.O.P. doesn’t like — say, environmental protection — Heritage can be counted on to produce a report, based on no economic model anyone else recognizes, claiming that this policy would cause huge job losses. Correspondingly, whenever there’s something Republicans want, like tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations, Heritage can be counted on to claim that this policy would yield immense economic benefits.
The point is that the two parties don’t just live in different moral universes, they also live in different intellectual universes, with Republicans in particular having a stable of supposed experts who reliably endorse whatever they propose.
So when pundits call on the parties to sit down together and talk, the obvious question is, what are they supposed to talk about? Where’s the common ground?
Eventually, of course, America must choose between these differing visions. And we have a way of doing that. It’s called democracy.
Now, Republicans claim that last year’s midterms gave them a mandate for the vision embodied in their budget. But last year the G.O.P. ran against what it called the “massive Medicare cuts” contained in the health reform law. How, then, can the election have provided a mandate for a plan that not only would preserve all of those cuts, but would go on, over time, to dismantle Medicare completely?
For what it’s worth, polls suggest that the public’s priorities are nothing like those embodied in the Republican budget. Large majorities support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy. Large majorities — including a majority of Republicans — also oppose major changes to Medicare. Of course, the poll that matters is the one on Election Day. But that’s all the more reason to make the 2012 election a clear choice between visions.
Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, April 17, 2011
Remember When The GOP Hated Medicare Cuts?
You’ve seen hypocrisy in politics before. But rarely have you seen the brazen kind Republicans just showed on the House floor, when they voted for Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity.”
Ryan’s budget calls for repealing most of the Affordable Care Act, including both the insurance coverage expansions and creation of an independent board to help restrain Medicare costs. But it would leave in place the rest of the planned reductions in Medicare spending, at least for the next ten years. Among those cuts are $136 billion in reductions to Medicare Advantage plans.
As you may know, Medicare Advantage plans are the private insurance alternative, already in existence, for seniors who prefer to opt out of the traditional, government-run insurance plan. About a quarter of all seniors now use them. The government pays insurers a fee for every senior who enrolls, but studies have shown the government is paying too much. That’s how supporters of the Affordable Care Act have justified the $136 billion reduction.
Throughout the health care debate, Republicans not only rejected these and other arguments for Medicare cuts. They made the cuts a centerpiece of their attacks on Democrats, as the Associated Press noted recently:
“The new law’s massive Medicare cuts will fall squarely on the backs of seniors, millions of whom will be forced off their current Medicare coverage,” the GOP wrote in their Pledge to America, an election-season manifesto. …
In addition to the Pledge to America, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and individual Republican candidates all criticized the cuts.
The National Republican Congressional Committee featured them in ads attacking Democrats in numerous campaign commercials, and some individual candidates made use of the cuts as well.
Ryan and his supporters claim the Medicare reductions in the new Republican budget are different, because Democrats used their cuts to finance more government spending. And that’s partially true. Although Democrats bolstered Medicare drug coverage and arguably put in place policies that will lead to higher quality care, they used the bulk of the saved Medicare money to offset the cost of subsidizing insurance for working-age Americans.
But, by the same logic, Republicans are also diverting most of the Medicare Advantage money away from Medicare. They’re using that money to underwrite the cost of tax cuts for the wealthy.
So Democrats are cutting Medicare to make sure everybody has health insurance, while Republicans are cutting Medicare to make sure millionaires have tax cuts. This is really an argument the Republicans want to make?
By: Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic, April 15, 2011
Lucy, Charlie Brown And Football: The Politics Of Personal Grievance
Congressional Republicans all but dared President Obama to engage in a fiscal debate on their terms, demanding to know whether and how he’d tackle long-term debt reduction. The president agreed and presented a credible, realistic plan to cut $4 trillion from the debt over 12 years.
GOP officials obviously weren’t going to like his vision, but I’m a little surprised they’re still whining that Obama was mean to them.
The three Republican congressmen saw it as a rare ray of sunshine in Washington’s stormy budget battle: an invitation from the White House to hear President Obama lay out his ideas for taming the national debt.
They expected a peace offering, a gesture of goodwill aimed at smoothing a path toward compromise. But soon after taking their seats at George Washington University on Wednesday, they found themselves under fire for plotting “a fundamentally different America” from the one most Americans know and love.
“What came to my mind was: Why did he invite us?” Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said in an interview Thursday. “It’s just a wasted opportunity.”
Paul Ryan was reportedly “furious” and complained that the speech “was extremely political, very partisan.”
It’s worth fleshing this out, because there are some important angles to keep in mind.
First, the Republicans’ politics of personal grievance is based solely on their hurt feelings. They’re not saying the president lied or that his numbers don’t add up, but rather, they’re outraged that Obama was a big meanie. That’s kind of pathetic, and it reinforces fears that the House GOP majority is dominated by right-wing lawmakers with temperament of children.
Second, exactly what kind of reaction did Republicans seriously expect? Their fraudulent and callous budget plan, approved yesterday despite bipartisan opposition, eliminates Medicare. It punishes the elderly, the disabled, and low-income families, and rewards millionaires and billionaires. It calls for devastating cuts that would do widespread damage to the middle class and the economy. Were Republicans seriously waiting for Obama to politely pat them on the head and say, “It’s OK, you tried your best. I’ll give you an A for effort”?
Third, why is it Republicans expect one-sided graciousness? They expected a “peace offering” after pushing their own plan that was “deliberately constructed to be as offensive to Democrats as it’s possible to be,” and didn’t even bother with insincere “nods in the direction of bipartisanship.” I’ll never understand why Obama is expected to be conciliatory with those who refuse to do the same.
And finally, having a debate pitting two competing visions isn’t a bad development. Greg Sargent’s take on this rings true.
Throughout the first two years of Obama’s presidency, leading Republicans have regularly claimed that Obama is taking America towards socialism. Yet when a Democratic president stands up and aggressively defends his vision and worldview, and contrasts it sharply with that of his foes, something’s wrong. That’s not supposed to happen.
Obama’s characterization of the GOP vision was harsh. But so what? Politics is supposed to be an impassioned argument over what we all think the country should be. Is it possible to cross lines? Sure, but Obama didn’t cross any lines — in fairness, neither has Ryan — and no one was blindsided. No one was the victim of any sneak attack. We should want politicians who think their opponents’ worldviews are deeply wrongheaded to be free to say so in very vivid terms. Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?
I’d add just one last point. For two years, Obama pleaded with Republicans to play a constructive role, work in good faith, and compromise. They refused. Lucy doesn’t get to complain when Charlie Brown doesn’t want to run at a football that’s going to be pulled away anyway.
By: Steve Benen, Washington Monthly, Political Animal, April 16, 2011
Courage Of Convictions: The Tax Collector And The Republican
Congressional Republicans constantly remind us that principle is more important than principal. They are willing to shrink government at all costs. The latest example comes from the new budget agreement that has an impact on the IRS and tax collections.
Tax collection is one of the IRS’s principle functions as we are all reminded this time of year. There are some who not only refuse to cheerfully pay what they owe but actively take steps to avoid paying taxes they owe. As a result, some IRS employees have as their main job, identifying those people and taking steps to encourage them to pay what they owe.
In 2006, Republicans in Congress came up with a whole new approach that provided employment to the non-governmental sector, a group that is always favored by Republicans. (That is because Republicans know that those who work for the government tend to be lazy and inefficient whereas those in the private sector are hard working and productive. That is, of course, something of a generalization, since occasionally someone in the private sector will disappoint and prove to be lazy and/or unproductive.)
Because of the Republican belief in the virtues of the private sector (which is almost as fervent as its belief that in taking funds from programs for children and the poor it is doing God’s work), in August of 2006 it was announced that within a couple of weeks the IRS would turn over to private collection agencies 12,500 delinquent tax accounts of $25,000 or less. According to the New York Times, this new way of collecting taxes was thought up and put in place by the Bush administration. The plan had, like many plans do, an upside and a downside.
The upside was that the debt collectors were part of the private sector. Under the private debt collection system the collectors would collect $1.4 billion each year of which they could keep $330 million, thus lining the private sectors’ pockets by that amount instead of having it go into a government pocket where it would, in all likelihood, get lost. Although that seems like a win-win, in 2002 Charles Rossotti, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, had told Congress that if it hired additional IRS employees to handle collections, it could collect more than $9 billion each year at a cost of only $296 million, considerably less than the cost if the same work was done by private collection agencies. That came out to a cost of $.03 per dollar collected. According to the NYT, his testimony was correct but Congress didn’t want to swell the size of government by authorizing the hiring of additional personnel for the IRS. Charles Everson, IRS Commissioner in 2006, when the private debt collection program was implemented, agreed with Mr. Rossotti and said it was more efficient to hire more IRS personnel but Congress would not appropriate the funds it needed to do that. Congress’s reluctance is a perfectly sensible approach since if you want to shrink government you have to make sacrifices and in this case, the sacrifice is increased revenue.
In 2008 Democrats took control of both houses of Congress and in March of 2009 it was announced that the IRS had determined that IRS employees could do collection work more efficiently than the private debt collectors, just as Rossotti and Everson had said some years earlier, and there was no reason to continue the program. Senator Grassley, who was the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, was outraged. Ignoring the fact that the government would have more money if the IRS were responsible for collections, he said the IRS was caving in to “union-driven political pressure.” He would have rather seen the federal government lose money than take away business from the private sector. The last chapter in this saga, however, has not been written.
Now that the budget compromise had been reached here is one of the things that has happened. The White House had requested an increase in the IRS budget of approximately 9% which would have enabled the agency to hire an additional 5000 personnel. Many of those could have been used to collect taxes which would have helped reduce the deficit. Echoing what Messrs. Rossotti and Everson had said years earlier, Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who testified before Congress in March, said: “Every dollar invested in IRS yields nearly five dollars in increased revenue from non-compliant taxpayers.”
Republicans have refused to authorize the hiring of additional personnel at the IRS in order to collect taxes. A release from John Boehner’s office said increased funding for the IRS had been denied as part of the budget agreement. This shows that the Republican majority has the courage of its convictions. The rest of the country can enjoy the benefits of living off the fruits of its follies.
By: Christopher Brauchli, CommonDreams.org, April 16, 2011
Teaparty Republican Governors Seek Big Cutbacks To De-Regulate The Environment
Gov. Paul LePage wants three million acres of North Woods forests opened to development. Weeks after he was sworn in as governor of Maine, Paul LePage, a Tea Party favorite, announced a 63-point plan to cut environmental regulations, including opening three million acres of the North Woods for development and suspending a law meant to monitor toxic chemicals that could be found in children’s products. Mr. LePage said workers’ and businesses’ interests should be defended “with the same vigor that we defend tree frogs.”
Another Tea Party ally, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, has proposed eliminating millions of dollars in annual outlays for land conservation as well as cutting to $17 million the $50 million allocated in last year’s budget for the restoration of the dwindling Everglades.
And in North Carolina, where Republicans won control of both houses of the Legislature for the first time in 140 years, leaders recently proposed a budget that would cut operating funds to the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources by 22 percent.
In the past month, the nation’s focus has been on the budget battle in Washington, where Republicans in Congress aligned with the Tea Party have fought hard for rollbacks to the Environmental Protection Agency, clean air and water regulations, renewable energy and other conservation programs. But similar efforts to make historically large cuts to environmental programs are also in play at the state level as legislatures and governors take aim at conservation and regulations they see as too burdensome to business interests.
Governor LePage summed up the animus while defending his program in a radio address. “Maine’s working families and small businesses are endangered,” he said. “It is time we start defending the interests of those who want to work and invest in Maine with the same vigor that we defend tree frogs and Canadian lynx.”
When Republicans wrested control across the country last November, they made clear that reducing all government was important, but that cutting environmental regulations was a particular priority. Almost all state environmental budgets have been in decline since the start of the recession, said R. Steven Brown, executive director of the Environmental Council of the States, which works with environmental agencies across the country. What has changed this budget season is the scope and ambition of the proposed cuts and the plans to dismantle the regulatory systems, say advocates who are already battle-hardened. “Historically, we’ve taken pride in being a leader in environmental quality in the Southeast,” said Molly Diggins of North Carolina, director of the state chapter of the Sierra Club. “But there is now such fervor to reduce the size of the environmental agency. The atmosphere is the most vitriolic it’s ever been.”
David Guest, the managing attorney for the Florida office of Earthjustice, a national environmental law firm, said Governor Scott’s budget was “the most radical anti-environmental budget” he had seen in two decades of environmental work. Comparing Mr. Scott’s proposed changes with those of Florida’s previous Republican governors, including Jeb Bush, he called them “a whole new world.”
The strategies have been similar across the affected states: cut budgets and personnel at regulatory agencies, prevent the issuing of new regulations, roll back land conservation and, if possible, eliminate planning boards that monitor, restrict or permit building development.
In New Jersey, for example, Gov. Chris Christie, another favorite among Tea Party loyalists, has said the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, which preserves more than 800,000 acres of open land that supplies drinking water to more than half of New Jersey’s residents, is an infringement on property rights. Mr. Christie has moved to shift power from planning boards and government agencies to administrative judges, political appointees who, environmentalists say, tend to rule more often in favor of developers’ interests.
In Florida, Governor Scott has asked to cut staff members to 40 from 358 at the Department of Community Affairs, which regulates land use and was created to be a control on unchecked urban sprawl. Lane Wright, a spokesman for Governor Scott, said the cuts would enable businesses to grow again in Florida. The governor “does care about the environment,” Mr. Wright said, “but feels it is more important to get people back to work.”
In the first round of federal budget fights, Republicans appear to have won some of what they sought: $1.6 billion in cuts from the E.P.A. and $49 million from programs related to climate change. But they fell short in other areas. Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington policy group, said that by his calculation the Republicans had sought nearly $10 billion in cuts related to efficiency and renewable energy but got less than $3.7 billion. “The Democrats successfully defended investments in clean energy,” Mr. Weiss said.
The eventual outcome at the state level is much less clear. Florida and North Carolina’s budget battles are in the early stages. In New Jersey, where Governor Christie has been in office since 2010, he has held up stricter drinking water standards, saying he is waiting for further research by the E.P.A. And yet, in Maine, Governor LePage’s agenda has engendered such an angry response that the newly elected Republican majority in the State Legislature seems to be backpedaling from many of its strongest components. Mr. LePage’s proposal to open the woodlands has not yet been introduced as a bill. And this month the Legislature made a point of enacting a ban on a chemical detected in sippy cups. All but three legislators voted for it. (Mr. LePage has questioned whether the science is strong enough to support such a ban.) Adrienne Bennett, the governor’s press secretary, acknowledged that Mr. LePage had not gotten everything he wanted, but pointed to some victories. The governor just signed a law that will reduce restrictions for building on sand dunes, and his proposal to provide incentives to businesses to police themselves on a variety of environmental regulations is still in the Legislature. “‘We will continue to move forward,” Ms. Bennett said.
By: Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times, April 15, 2011
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