“Stop Me Before I Kill Government Again”: Republicans Tying Themselves Into Knots Yet Again
Happy as I am that a bipartisan convergence on sentencing reform just possibly could be in the works, it can’t obscure the more immediate spectacle of Republicans simultaneously trying to identify with and tamp down the “base’s” desire for a government shutdown (or debt default) over “defunding Obamacare.” Greg Sargent nicely diagnoses the malady after watching Reince Priebus tie himself into knots on a Sunday show:
After CNN’s Candy Crowley pointed out some Republicans are challenging the conservative demand for a government shutdown confrontation to force the defunding of Obamacare, Priebus actually responded:
“I think all Republicans are unified on one thing and that is defunding, delaying, getting rid of, eliminating Obamacare. So we have total unanimity on that issue and the question is what are the tactics? And you know, even if you take the position of a Ted Cruz or Mike Lee, basically what they’re saying is we actually are funding 100 percent of the government except for that small percentage of nondiscretionary — excuse me, discretionary funding the Obamacare.
“So Mr. President, if you want to shut the government down because you want to continue to fund this monstrosity that you’ve already admit is half broken, then go ahead. I mean the fact that it’s on the Republican Party I just think is spin from the Democratic Party that you ought not be adopting. I don’t know why you’re adopting that spin….”
[I]t’s not surprising that Republican officials have effortlessly internalized the framing of the coming Obamacare/government shutdown Priebus adopts above. Thanks partly to the GOP leadership’s willingness to lavish years of care and feeding on the base’s preoccupation with Obamacare repeal, large swaths of the party’s base appear to remain convinced that the law is entirely illegitimate and that they need not accept that the law is here to stay. It’s easy to get from here to the conclusion that Obama will be to blame for any catastrophic consequences that flow from the continued showdown over Obamacare; after all, this whole situation was created by Obama’s initial exercise of tyranny (Dems rammed the law through!!!) and is now being perpetuated by his continued tyrannical resistance to undoing it in the face of the popular will.
I’m guessing the next act for “adult Republicans” like Priebus will be to oppose a government shutdown confrontation on grounds that they are saving the country from Obama’s reckless behavior. The truth is that they would be acting to save their own party from the same kind of political disaster the GOP incurred with the same behavior in 1995.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 12, 2013
“We Did Something Constructive Today”: The New Republican Definition Of Constructive Is What You Can Block And Destroy
We talked at length yesterday about the failure of the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development (or “THUD”) appropriations bill in the House — a move that sent the Republican budget process into chaos — so it’s only fair to note what happened to the Senate version of the same bill.
In short, nothing good.
Early on Thursday afternoon, a few hours before the start of a month-long summer recess, the U.S. Senate held a doomed vote on a $44 billion package of transportation and housing funds. The vote was 54-43, six short of cloture, most Republicans making sure that the bill with the accidentally perfect name of THUD (Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development) went down in flames for now.
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, whose work on a gun control amendment this year gave him the temporary glow of a centrist, walked from the Senate to a special, open live-streamed meeting of the Republican Study Committee, all about the Obama administration’s scandals. Anyone watching the Tea Party Patriots-sponsored feed could hear Toomey tell a colleague that “we did something constructive today” in the Senate.
“We denied cloture on the THUD bill,” said Toomey. “I told you we’d kill it, and we did.”
We talk from time to time about the post-policy nihilism that’s come to define so much of Republican politics, and this is rather striking example.
The Senate’s THUD bill was expected to pass with relative ease. It had bipartisan support; it was pulled together responsibly; and it sailed through the committee process as non-controversial bills should. As Joan McCarter explained, “The transportation funding bill has always been a non-controversial, reliable bipartisan effort, because there was something tangible in it for every member of Congress to take home: jobs, infrastructure improvements, a display of federal dollars at work for their constituents. That’s all changed.”
And not for the better.
After the House Republicans killed their own version of the bill, GOP leaders feared a moderate, bipartisan THUD package would give Senate Dems the upper hand in a conference committee. What’s more, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was eager to prove how right-wing he is to conservatives back home, so he lobbied Republicans who supported the bill to change their mind.
The result? A bill that was supposed to be approved easily was killed with a filibuster — which in Pat Toomey’s mind, is evidence of doing “something constructive.”
The larger point, of course, is that policymakers used to have a less ridiculous definition of what “constructive” means. Not too long ago, members of Congress used to think they did “something constructive” when they, you know, passed a bill. Or maybe reached a compromise. Or perhaps struck some sort of deal.
The hallmark of post-policy nihilism is the belief that policy outcomes and substantive governing are largely irrelevant. Officials have begun defining themselves solely by what they can block and destroy, rather than what they can accomplish, even if that means opposing what they support.
And that’s not good.
What’s more, as McConnell panics about his re-election bid, this dynamic is likely to become more common. Yesterday, for example, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) hoped to see the Senate pass the bipartisan bill, but quickly found herself on the losing side of a McConnell broadside.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the panel that wrote the $54 billion transportation bill, appeared to grope for an explanation for why Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) worked so hard to kill her legislation.
Asked if McConnell’s upcoming primary fight with a tea party challenger might have something to do with the pressure, Collins told POLITICO: “I can’t speculate on why. All I can tell you is he has never worked harder against a member of his own party than he did against me today.”
For context, note that Collins and McConnell have worked together for 16 years — and she’s “never” seem him work this hard to beat another Republican.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 2, 2013
“What Neocon Revival?”: The Illusion Of GOP Ideological Diversity
It’s a bit startling to see the New York Times‘ David Brooks pen a column headlined “The Neocon Revival,” which speaks confidently about “neoconservatism” as an internally consistent perspective on public life that once dominated the conservative movement and the Republican Party (and apparently should again!). In 2004, the self-same David Brooks contributed an essay to a book entitled The Neocon Reader that suggested the very label was more or less an anti-Semitic slur (“If you ever read a sentence that starts with ‘Neocons believe,’ there is a 99.44 per cent chance everything else in that sentence will be untrue.”).
If Brooks is now giving us all permission to talk about neoconservatism without raising a presumption of ethnic or partisan poison, I’d argue that his brief manifesto is curiously detached from both the historical and contemporary realities of conservatism and of the Republican Party. Brooks is right that “neoconservatism” (a term actually popularized by democratic socialist Michael Harrington to refer to thinkers and doers who were largely still on the ideological Left and/or affiliated with the Democratic Party) was originally “about” domestic as much as international policy. Its most recent identification with George W. Bush’s foreign policies, or with post-Bush advocates of an aggressive internationalism and often of Islamophobia, is hardly an accident, but also isn’t the whole story.
Having said that, Brooks commits an act of grand larceny in claiming for neoconservatism the legacy of Ronald Reagan, not to mention that of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, with whom he shoehorns RR in an unlikely triptych. At least that seems to be what he is doing; the column constantly shifts from politicians to writers ranging from Irving Kristol to Richard John Neuhaus and even George Will in defining the kind of conservatism Brooks identifies with “neoconservatism” and with the successful GOP of the 1980s, which happily accepted the modern welfare state and simply wanted to harness it to conservative social goals and to national greatness.
Reading this piece, you might well forget about Ronald Reagan’s deep roots in conservative rejection of the New Deal and Great Society (he opposed both Medicare and the Civil Rights Act), or his administration’s efforts (not ultimately very successful) to use the budget process and executive powers to unravel the social safety net. You might also skip over, as Brooks does, the conservatism of the 1990s (which is interesting insofar as Brooks cut his teeth at The Weekly Standard–itself often associated with “neoconservatism”–which proclaimed itself the tribune of a “Republican Revolution” that would roll back liberalism’s accomplishments in every direction). And only someone with a wildly exaggerated idea of “compassionate conservatism” would conclude that the George W. Bush era of the GOP was characterized by happy acceptance of the welfare state.
But the oddest thing about Brooks’ column is its headline, to which he should have objected violently if he did not suggest it himself. If “neocons,” defined as people who look fondly on TR and FDR as well as that sunny welfare state advocate Ronald Reagan, are enjoying some sort of “revival,” where is it? Brooks himself says “[t]he Republican Party is drifting back to a place where it appears hostile to the basic pillars of the welfare state: to food stamps, for example.” It’s pretty hilarious to call that a “drift,” or to attribute it to some long-lost pre-Reagan impulse. The Reagan administration tried to dump the food stamp program on the states as a way station to its elimination, even as it sought to “cap” federal responsibility for Medicaid, much as Paul Ryan is trying to do today. Beyond that, who among major Republican politicians is resisting this supposed “drift,” and where is the “revival” of a tradition opposing it?
In this as in other respects, Brooks resembles other “conservative reformers” (notably his New York Times colleague Ross Douthat) who regularly lay out policy prescriptions that would get them tarred and feathered in any gathering of rank-and-file Republicans, but then more or less loyally follow the party line anyway, creating the illusion of ideological diversity. Douthat and Reihen Salam wrote an interesting book in 2009 prescribing the same sort of welfare-state-accomodation strategy that Brooks seems to be endorsing. It became associated by rhetorical osmosis with Tim Pawlenty, because they used his motto of “Sam’s Club Republicanism.” T-Paw promptly ran for president in 2012 and staked his candidacy to a failed effort to become an electable right-wing alternative to Mitt Romney. Was he a “Sam’s Club Republican” happily arguing for a more family-friendly welfare state? Probably not on the day that he signed onto the vicious “Cut, Cap, Balance” pledge that represents a death sentence for the New Deal and Great Society.
The trouble is that the conservative movement and Republican Party that Brooks and Douthat like to talk about has never existed in living memory, and isn’t likely to exist in the foreseeable future. Perhaps they have other reasons for affiliating with a political movement that so routinely ignores their advice (in Douthat’s case, I suspect his RTL self-identification is the crucial factor).
With respect to the column at hand, the very slim case for a “neocon revival” now depends on politicians like Chris Christie and Marco Rubio who are almost certainly about to spend the next couple of years snuggling up to the Tea Folk and disagreeing with Rand Paul or Ted Cruz mainly on the foreign policy grounds Brooks tells us don’t actually define neoconservatism. But by 2016, I’m reasonably sure David will have found in Christie or Rubio or someone else the flickering flame of an ideology that he mistakenly remembers as Ronald Reagan’s and mistakenly projects as the wave of the future.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 3, 2013
“You Made Your Bed, Now Sleep In It”: Hey Republican “Grown-Ups”, Ted Cruz Does Not Care About You
A small contingent of the more Tea Party-ish Republican senators has decided to shut down the government unless “Obamacare” is “defunded.” (Or, at least, they plan to threaten to shut down the government.) Defunding Obamacare is not really as simple as it sounds. The ACA involves a lot of “mandatory” as opposed to “discretionary” spending, so you can’t really effectively repeal the program through the Continuing Resolution. (Here’s Karl Rove explaining the issue.) The plan was Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) idea, but its current most vocal proponent is Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a very smart man who purposefully talks like a very crazy man, because he understands how to become a celebrity in the modern conservative movement.
Cruz doesn’t care if the plan makes sense, either as policy or even as political tactics. If he cared about passing conservative legislation, he wouldn’t spend all of his time purposefully angering his Republican colleagues. If he cared about the Republican Party’s national image and reputation, as opposed to his own image within the conservative activist community, he would have offered rhetorical support for immigration reform, as Rand Paul did. Cruz is in it for himself and himself alone. A majority of Americans want the GOP to be more conciliatory and moderate. A majority of Republicans strongly believe that the party must be even more conservative.
So if all the “grown-ups” — the respectable, professional Republicans — tell Ted Cruz not to do something, he is going to be even more dedicated to doing that thing. This week, all the respectable, professional Republicans told Ted Cruz not to try to shut down the government over Obamacare.
Karl Rove said it, in a Fox News editorial. His argument is that no matter how awful Obamacare is, a shutdown will hurt the party. He is correct. (The important point about Rove is that he is a professional liar, but he is one whose motivation — helping the Republican Party win and hold on to as much power as possible — is sincere.) But Cruz doesn’t care about the party.
Jennifer Rubin — who has clearly detested Cruz for a while now — has been relentless in her attacks on Cruz and his shutdown caucus. This has actually been a tad inconvenient, because one of Rubin’s favorite pols right now is Marco Rubio, who supports the Lee/Cruz plot. Rubin has done her best to dissuade him.
Charles Krauthammer called the Lee and Cruz plan “nuts” and “yet another cliff dive as a show of principle and manliness.” Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, who has an opinion column in the Washington Post for some utterly unfathomable reason, is similarly opposed.
To all these critics, the only reasonable response is, hope you enjoy this bed you made for yourselves. Ted Cruz is the right man for the decadent decline stage of the conservative movement, which has always encouraged the advancement of fact-challenged populist extremists, but always with the understanding that they’d take a back seat to the sensible business interests when it came time to exercise power. The result has been a huge number of Republican activists who couldn’t figure out why the True Conservatives they kept voting for kept failing to achieve the creation of the perfect conservative state once in office. That led to an ongoing backlash against everyone in the party suspected of anything less than perfect ideological purity. Meanwhile all the crazies got rich simply for being crazy. There’s no longer any compelling reason, in other words, not to act like Ted Cruz, and the result is Ted Cruz.
And if Ted Cruz is reading, all of these columns are only going to strengthen his resolve. Just look at this amazing conservative Facebook image macro shared by Gawker’s Max Read: Cruz is in the company of batshit far-right folk heroes like Allen West and Oliver North, people revered as much because of the disdain they inspire in both liberals and professional conservatives as for their actual beliefs or accomplishments.
Ted Cruz just won the Colorado Christian University 2016 straw poll and he will be a featured guest at Erick Erickson’s “RedState Gathering.” It’s working. Your “logic” won’t interest him.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, August 2, 2013
“A Very Cynical Strategy”: Having Never Tried, Republicans Want Jobs To Stay Anemic
Job-growth is sputtering. So why, exactly, do regressive Republicans continue to say “no” to every idea for boosting it — even last week’s almost absurdly modest proposal by President Obama to combine corporate tax cuts with increased in spending on roads and other public works?
It can’t be because Republicans don’t know what’s happening. The data are indisputable. July’s job growth of 162,000 jobs was the weakest in four months. The average workweek was the shortest in six months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has also lowered its estimates of hiring during May and June.
It can’t be Republicans really believe further spending cuts will help. They’ve seen the effects of austerity economics on Europe. They know the study they relied on by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff has been debunked. They’re no longer even trying to make the case for austerity.
It could be they just want to continue opposing anything Obama proposes, but that’s beginning to seem like a stretch. Republican leaders and aspiring 2016 presidential candidates are warning against being the “party of ‘no.’” Public support for the GOP continues to plummet.
The real answer, I think, is they and their patrons want unemployment to remain high and job-growth to sputter. Why? Three reasons:
First, high unemployment keeps wages down. Workers who are worried about losing their jobs settle for whatever they can get — which is why hourly earnings keep dropping. The median wage is now 4 percent lower than it was at the start of the recovery. Low wages help boost corporate profits, thereby keeping the regressives’ corporate sponsors happy.
Second, high unemployment fuels the bull market on Wall Street. That’s because the Fed is committed to buying long-term bonds as long as unemployment remains high. This keeps bond yields low and pushes investors into equities — which helps boosts executive pay and Wall Street commissions, thereby keeping regressives’ financial sponsors happy.
Third, high unemployment keeps most Americans economically fearful and financially insecure. This sets them up to believe regressive lies — that their biggest worry should be that “big government” will tax away the little they have and give it to “undeserving” minorities; that they should support low taxes on corporations and wealthy “job creators;” and that new immigrants threaten their jobs.
It’s important for Obama and the Democrats to recognize this cynical strategy for what it is, and help the rest of America to see it.
And to counter with three basic truths:
First, the real job creators are consumers, and that if average people don’t have jobs or good wages this economy can’t have a vigorous recovery.
Second, the rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly-growing economy than their current big share of an economy that’s hardly moving.
Third, that therefore everyone would benefit from higher taxes on the wealthy to finance public investments in roads, bridges, public transit, better schools, affordable higher education, and healthcare — all of which will help the middle class and the poor, and generate more and better jobs.
By: Robert Reich, Robert Reich Blog, August 3, 2013
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