“Balking At Their Own Ideas”: The GOP Offers President Obama A Chained-CPI Off-Ramp
When Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee who’ll oversee his party’s 2014 midterm efforts, accused President Obama of waging “a shocking attack on seniors,” it took an enormous amount of chutzpah. At issue, of course, is a controversial proposal to change the way Social Security is indexed — the “chained-CPI” policy — that the White House does not like, but which Obama offered as a concession to congressional Republicans who demanded it.
In effect, Walden was condemning the president for his own party’s proposal. A day later, House Speaker John Boehner, one of the officials who demanded Obama put chained-CPI on the table, subtly rebuked Walden’s craven criticism.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Walden isn’t alone. Last week, Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) said he’s “not a fan” of the policy, and soon after, they had some company.
“The president is trying to say this draconian thing that no one likes is the Republicans’ fault,” Rep. James Lankford (Okla.), the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, told reporters on Friday.
“It’s not my plan,” Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) said about chained CPI. “This is the president’s plan.”
Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), a House Ways and Means Committee member, added, “I’m very sensitive to the fact that you’re impacting current seniors in particular. It’s something I’m very hesitant to jump up and down and support.”
The word “bullpucky” keeps coming to mind.
Yes, plenty of congressional Republicans, including members of the GOP leadership, have welcomed Obama’s offer — while refusing to point to any comparable concessions they’d accept, of course — so this isn’t a party-wide phenomenon.
But the larger point is that having even some congressional Republicans balk at their own idea offers the president an opportunity.
Remember, the White House doesn’t actually like chained-CPI. Obama freely admits he doesn’t want this policy, and only offered it because Republicans are such enthusiastic supporters of the idea. From the president’s perspective, he and his team are going to have to tolerate some measures they don’t like if there’s going to be a bipartisan compromise in which both sides accept concessions they would otherwise reject.
But over the course of just a few days, GOP lawmakers have called this policy — the one Republicans demanded — a “shocking attack on seniors,” a “draconian” policy, “the president’s plan.”
It is, of course, painfully absurd for the right to criticize Obama for doing exactly what Republicans asked him to do, but therein lies the point: there’s nothing stopping the president from simply walking away from the idea if the GOP has suddenly discovered they dislike their own proposal.
As I mentioned briefly last week, Obama, who doesn’t like chained-CPI anyway and realized his own party is furious, could credibly declare right now, “I thought Republicans wanted this policy. But if they consider this ‘a shocking attack on seniors,’ I’ll gladly drop the idea.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 15, 2013
“GOP Deficit Scolds”: By All Means, Cut Social Security, But Don’t Tax The Rich
If the White House’s political goal in calling for Social Security cuts in its budget was to reveal the GOP as the intransigent, uncompromising party in Washington, it’s having the desired effect.
The statements from Republican leaders today in response to the budget are noteworthy, though not surprising: They say we should proceed with Obama’s proposed entitlement cuts but not raise any new revenues by closing any millionaire loopholes. Oh, they don’t put it in those terms. But here’s John Boehner:
While the president has backtracked on some of his entitlement reforms that were in conversations that we had a year and a half ago, he does deserve some credit for some incremental entitlement reforms that he has outlined in his budget. But I would hope that he would not hold hostage these modest reforms for his demand for bigger tax hikes. Listen, why don’t we do what we can agree to do? Why don’t we find the common ground that we do have and move on that?
And here’s Eric Cantor:
If the President believes, as we do, that programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are on the path to bankruptcy, and that we actually can do some things to put them back on the right course and save them to protect the beneficiaries of these programs, we ought to do so. And we ought to do so without holding them hostage for more tax hikes.
In other words, let’s only do the thing where there’s common ground (entitlement cuts) and not do the thing where there is disagreement (tax hikes).
Now in one sense, this can be seen to validate some of the left’s worst fears about what would happen if Obama offered entitlement cuts. Now that he’s formally proposed cutting Social Security benefits, Republicans can describe that proposal as the one area of agreement between the two parties. And it’s true Obama will probably take a political hit for the proposal.
At the same time, though, it’s worth noting that this doesn’t put Republicans in the greatest political position, either. The GOP position — revealed with fresh clarity today — is that we should only cut entitlements but not raise a penny in new revenues by getting rid of any loophole enjoyed by millionaires. GOP leaders try to compensate for this by robotically repeating the phrase “tax hikes” as a negative, but polls show that majorities already understand that Republican policies are skewed towards the rich. The use of the phrase “tax hikes” to obscure what Dems are really calling for — new revenues from the wealthy — didn’t fare too well in the 2012 elections.
And so, if the White House budget was partly intended as a trap, Republicans walked into it, revealing themselves as the only real obstacle to compromise. Indeed, as Steve Benen points out, Paul Ryan helped underscore the point when he struggled to name anything Republicans could support that their base wouldn’t like.
Now, maybe you don’t believe that there’s much political value in staking out the compromising high ground in this debate, because the Very Serious Deficit Scolds in Washington won’t ever award Obama any real credit for doing this. And maybe you believe that offering Chained CPI will do nothing more than make it easier for Republicans to attack Dems for cutting Social Security in 2014 and 2016.
All I can say to that is that the White House views things differently. Obama advisers believe Republicans could just as easily attack him this cycle for cutting Social Security based on his previous support for Chained CPI. They think the lesson of 2012 (remember the failed “he raided Medicare to pay for Obamacare” talking point?) is that Dems can fend off this attack with relative ease. And from what I have been told, they are looking beyond just getting the approval of the Very Serious People. They want to establish a Beltway narrative that GOP devotion to protecting the wealth of the rich is what’s preventing a deal to replace the sequester, in hopes that it will seep into local news coverage of the cuts around the country as the pain of those cuts sinks in, weakening Republicans further.
Chained CPI is awful policy, and I oppose it. On the raw politics of all this, however, only time will tell who is right.
By: Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, The Washington Post, April 10, 2013
“Eyes Wide Shut”: GOP Representatives Now Realize Effects Of The Sequester They Voted For
Representative Renee Ellmers (R-NC) introduced a bill on Tuesday that returns sequester-cut funding to physicians to provide chemotherapy drugs to patients. The Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2013, H.R. 1416, restores sequester cuts made to Medicare Part B in order to provide cancer treatment and reimburse physicians for the costs of cuts already made.
Ellmers, who voted in favor of the Budget Control Act of 2011, called these cuts to cancer treatment “unintended consequences.” However, the cutback in funding wasn’t accidental, as Ellmers suggests—the Budget Control Act explicitly orders a sweeping two-percent cut to Medicare.
Despite her efforts to reverse its inevitable effects, Ellmers still defends the sequester. “I do believe it will start a very important process that will help our economy to start to grow,” she said. “The debt that we have at the federal level is our biggest threat for our country.”
Representative Blake Farenthold (R-TX) joins Rep. Ellmers in opposing elements of sequestration despite having voted for it. Farenthold, among others, was disturbed to hear of the closing of 149 air traffic control towers—especially those in Texas. The congressman sent a letter to FAA Deputy Administrator Michael Huerta, stating, “I am deeply troubled for your public statements and proposed actions regarding the effect of the sequester on smaller, local airports. These airports have long played a vital role in economies across the country.”
Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) was among the 269 representatives who voted in favor of the Budget Control Act, yet he too did not hesitate to criticize its effects. In Frelinghuysen’s district, children in Washington Township may be unable to enroll in Head Start programs due to lack of funding. Frelinghuysen said, “I view potential budget cuts to such an important program as another reason why sequestration is a bad idea.”
To date, sequestration has had significant effects on many Americans, and is expected to cause upward of $85 billion in cuts to communities across the country. The elderly have lost vital programs like Meals on Wheels; veterans may face difficulty accessing mental health, substance abuse, and job counseling services; and funding can be cut for medical research of illnesses like Alzheimer’s Disease.
The effects of sequestration are tangible; millions across the country have faced cuts across a range of industries. Rather than criticizing the effects of the sequester and introducing legislation to obtain certain exemptions from these imminent cuts, perhaps members of Congress like Ellmers, Farenthold and Frelinghuysen should have weighed the consequences before even voting for the measure.
By: Allison Brito, The National Memo, April 11, 2013
“Defund Planned Parenthood”: Santorum Reveals His Plan To Save The GOP
Since Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus introduced the “Growth and Opportunity Project” in mid-March, the party has proven over and over and over again that it just isn’t ready to change.
The latest example of the GOP being intellectually and politically stuck in the 2012 presidential primaries comes courtesy of one of the stars of those disastrous contests: former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. According to Santorum, the Republican Party’s path to revitalization is not a new round of engagement with women, young voters, and other groups that delivered an electoral landslide to President Barack Obama in November. No, Santorum has a different plan for saving the GOP: defunding Planned Parenthood.
The Raw Story reports that Santorum presented his three-point plan to save the party in a fundraising email over the weekend: mobilizing “pro-family conservatives,” “refuting the lies and half-truths that our detractors in the GOP are spreading about us,” and attacking the women’s’ health care provider.
“[W]e are going to push Republican congressional leaders to defund the monstrosity that is Planned Parenthood,” Santorum wrote. “Too many in the GOP want to ignore the millions of innocent lives that have been extinguished by this vile organization. Defunding Planned Parenthood is a winning issue. The polls prove it.”
In reality, polls prove the exact opposite — Americans oppose cutting the organization’s budget, and there’s reason to believe that Mitt Romney’s insistence on attacking Planned Parenthood cost him dearly on election night — but it comes as no surprise that Santorum, who lost his last general election by 17 points, would ignore the numbers.
But Santorum’s plan could signal a serious problem for the Republican Party. Despite the RNC’s effort to moderate the GOP’s tone with an eye towards the 2016 election, it’s clear that extreme right-wing rhetoric will still play a major role as the party settles on a nominee. In fact, Santorum himself may be the messenger once again.
All of the rebranding efforts in the world — even the NRCC’s nifty new website, which features a BuzzFeed-style “13 Animals That Are Really Bummed About Obamacare” listicle (but almost no mention of the word “Republican”) — won’t make a difference as long as the party is represented by ambassadors like Rick Santorum.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, April 8, 2013
“Ideas That Work For Whom?”: A Not So Subtle Regressive Message From The GOP
Every Saturday morning, President Obama releases a weekly address, issued over the air and on radio, followed by an official Republican response. Ordinarily, they’re intended to reinforce the parties’ message of the week, or push some new initiative, and they’re not especially newsworthy.
But this week’s GOP address, delivered by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R), struck me as more interesting than most.
National party leaders selected Brownback so that he could tout Kansas’ new tax policies, which Republicans apparently now consider a model for the nation. The governor specifically called his tax agenda an example of “ideas that work.”
“They involve a more focused government that costs less. A taxing structure that encourages growth. An education system that produces measurable results. And a renewed focus on the incredible dignity of each and every person, no matter who they are.”
The next question, of course, is, “Ideas that work for whom?”
Brownback’s initial approach to tax reform was ludicrously regressive — sharply reducing tax rates for the wealthy, while punishing the poor. For his next phase of “tax reform,” the Kansas governor, with the help of a Kansas GOP legislature that’s been purged of moderates, intends to eliminate the state income tax altogether, while making matters even worse for families that are already struggling by raising sales taxes, eliminating the mortgage interest deduction, and scrapping tax credits for things like food and child care.
Did I mention that Brownback brought on Arthur Laffer, of all people, as a tax policy adviser? Well, he did.
Remember to keep the larger context in mind: Brownback’s agenda is awful for Kansas, but Republican Party officials at the national level chose the governor to deliver their weekly address, not just because they heartily endorse his tax policies, but because they want to see them implemented elsewhere. Indeed, with a debate over tax reform on the horizon, GOP leaders in Washington are sending a not-so-subtle signal: Brownback’s regressive vision is the kind of plan they have in mind.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, April 8, 2013
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