“Purifying The Republican Party”: The Destructive Rise Of The No-Government Conservatives
Nine months after a decisive loss in the 2012 elections, the battle for the soul of the Republican Party—or whatever’s left of it—has begun.
I’m not talking about a battle between moderates and conservatives. The conservatives won that fight a long time ago. Our children may never believe that moderate Republicans once roamed the Earth, advocating policies that would limit carbon pollution and invest in scientific research, reform our schools and build new roads, promote national service, reduce the influence of money in politics, and require individuals who can afford health insurance to take responsibility for buying it. Soon enough, these politicians will exist only in the minds of ’90s-era pundits and Aaron Sorkin’s writing staff.
The conservatives have finally purified the Republican Party, dispatching moderate infidels in primary after primary, demanding fealty to their agenda of huge tax cuts and drastically lower spending. They have used their sizable numbers in Congress to help realize that agenda, with periodic assists from a president who has always been more fiscally responsible than his enemies would admit.
Today the tax burden on the vast majority of families is lower than it’s been in decades. Domestic spending outside of Medicare and Medicaid is the lowest it’s been in more than half a century. A public sector that has grown under the last four presidents has significantly contracted under Barack Obama. And deficits are falling at the fastest pace in 60 years.
Conservatives remain unsatisfied. They want more tax cuts. More spending cuts. And I’m picking up signals that they’re not entirely thrilled with the Affordable Care Act.
But here, a new divide has emerged within the Republican Party. On one side are the traditional small-government conservatives, who have a rough acquaintance with the rules of politics and basic math. They may want to reduce the size of government further, but they also want to preserve the institutions of government, understanding that a functional democracy is necessary to provide for the common defense, promote a common prosperity, and tackle problems we can only solve together, as a nation.
These are Republicans like Chris Christie, who has witnessed the vital importance of robust federal aid in the wake of a terrible storm. These are Republicans like Jeb Bush, who has tried to reform public education without completely dismantling it. These are Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the handful of senators who have sought compromise with Democrats over issues such as immigration reform and finally ended the historically exceptional blockade of perfectly qualified executive-branch nominees so that the president can fill the jobs his administration is required to perform.
None of these actions have endeared the small-government conservatives to their rivals for power, the no-government conservatives. No-government conservatives take their inspiration from Grover Norquist’s famous quote that government should be shrunk to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. These Republicans, who make up most of the House and a healthy portion of the Senate, are on an uncompromising mission to abolish most government services, benefits, regulations, and taxes.
The goals of no-government conservatives are not primarily economic. They will propose more tax cuts in times of surplus and times of deficit. They care little when the nonpartisan experts and economists at the Congressional Budget Office say sequestration will cost up to 1.6 million jobs next year, or that immigration reform will boost our GDP, or that Obamacare will reduce the debt over time. No-government conservatives are not compelled by the evidence that temporary benefits such as food stamps and unemployment insurance put money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it at local businesses that will grow and create jobs as a result. Their only jobs agenda, their only growth agenda, their only deficit agenda is eliminating government, no matter how many people it helps or how big a boost it provides the economy.
Nor are the goals of no-government conservatives primarily political. They have advisers, they can read polls, and most of them probably know that shutting down the government or forcing a default would be, among other catastrophes, highly unpopular. They realize that rampant hostage-taking and filibuster-abuse are the chief contributors to the obstruction and gridlock that Americans of both parties hate.
They just don’t care. Jonathan Chait has written about the recent embrace of “procedural extremism” among many congressional Republicans, who have “evolved from being politically shrewd proponents of radical policy changes to a gang of saboteurs who would rather stop government from functioning at all.”
But for no-government conservatives, this has been their primary policy goal all along. Their fundamental philosophy is purely ideological—the idea that since government can’t do everything, it should do nothing. So as long as the public continues to see Washington as a dysfunctional circus of petty children, the conservative philosophy of government is vindicated. That is also precisely why no-government conservatives view the successful implementation of Obamacare as an existential threat—because it would prove that limited government intervention in the market can still be an effective force for good. It is why some Republicans are threatening a shutdown unless Obama agrees to defund the Affordable Care Act—a step they know can’t even be achieved through the annual budget process.
In 2016, Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz seem to be the most likely champions of no-government conservatism, with Marco Rubio engaged in a delicate balancing act between purity and sanity. Whether Republican activists will still embrace traditional conservatives like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and others remains to be seen. But of one thing I am certain: while the single-minded pursuit of a no-government ideology may bring Republicans a fanatical sense of purpose, it will not bring them the 270 electoral votes needed to take back the White House, nor will it help our recovery gain the speed and strength it needs. The sooner the party faithful realize this, the better off the country will be.
By: Jon Favreau, The Daily Beast, July 30, 2013
“And Then There Were 40”: The Madness Of The GOP Is The Central Issue Of Our Time
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters yesterday that President Obama and congressional Democrats are “in denial.”
Yeah, denial’s just awful, isn’t it?
Capping a legislative work period more noted for what it failed to pass than for what it completed, the House voted for the 40th time on Friday to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care reform law before heading home for a five week recess.
The GOP-controlled House voted to approve a measure to prevent the IRS from enforcing “Obamacare” in a 232-185 vote.
The legislation faces virtually no chance of advancing in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
How many House Republicans voted for repeal? All of them who were on the Hill this morning.
If we include the Senate, the total number of votes held by congressional Republicans to repeal all or part of the federal health care law is 68.
We’re talking about a group of folks who are very slow learners.
At this point, what more can be said about such ridiculous congressional antics? Perhaps just this: with each one of these repeal votes, Republicans reinforce the impression that they’re not a serious governing party. On the contrary, they’re becoming rather pathetic.
Paul Krugman noted in passing last night, “[N]either you nor I should forget that the madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time.” This wasn’t in response to health care, but it might as well have been.
Whether GOP leaders are reluctant to do unglamorous work or not, Congress has an enormous amount of work it should be doing right now. This is especially true in the House, where lawmakers are supposed to be passing appropriations bills, working on the farm bill, negotiating on a budget, and if we’re really lucky, avoiding a debt-ceiling crisis in the fall.
Indeed, in the not-too-distant past, this was one of the more productive weeks of the year on Capitol Hill — before a four-week break, lawmakers traditionally scrambled to meet deadlines and get some work done so they’d have something to boast about during the August recess.
But that was before Republicans decided governing was for saps. Why get real work done when there are talking points to repeat, partisan stunts to execute, and “message votes” to push?
GOP lawmakers have already wasted months championing culture-war bills they know can’t pass and obsessing over discredited “scandals,” so there’s something oddly fitting about voting 40 times to take away Americans health care benefits, not because they expect their legislation to pass, but because vanity exercises like these make Republicans feel warm and fuzzy.
It’s as if Americans elected children to control half of the legislative branch of government.
Indeed, it’s been interesting of late to see President Obama give a series of speeches on the economy, and in nearly all of them, he takes time to mock congressional Republicans for these votes. Every time, the audience laughs — because in a way, this really is funny.
When lawmakers make fools of themselves, I suppose Americans should laugh at them.
It’s a shame Republicans aren’t in on the joke.
Update: Americans United for Change released a new video this afternoon, driving home exactly what the House GOP voted for (all 40 times).
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 2, 2013
“A One Trick Pony”: The Tea Party’s Unhealthy Obsession
Bipartisanship is a four letter word to the tea party zealots in Congress.
This week, Congressional Republicans dismissed President Obama’s proposal for corporate tax cuts out of hand. Last year, the president proposed the American Jobs Act, which House Republicans didn’t even consider despite the inclusion of tax cuts for businesses that hired new employees.
The president generously proposes and the House GOP caucus automatically disposes. Corporate tax cuts are the holy grail of the Republican Party, so the GOP’s resistance to the president’s proposals makes me think that House Republicans would automatically reject any proposal from the White House. I’m sure that Republicans would even find a reason to reject a plan initiated by Obama to build a memorial on the capital mall dedicated to conservative hero Ronald Reagan.
The president has given up on congressional Republicans, but he hasn’t given up on the American people.
In a series of speeches and proposals, Obama has discussed the urgent need to invest in projects that will put Americans back to work and rebuild our sagging infrastructure of bridges, water systems and transportation. The president has also explicitly denounced the politics of austerity as a road to prosperity. The sequester budget cuts have already slowed the economic recovery and the additional cuts that the tea party wants will reverse the fragile economic recovery.
The president has said that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s package of budget cuts, his so called Path to Prosperity, is really the path to austerity, which runs directly into the road of recession. Besides austerity, the only thing that congressional Republicans have to offer is the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would, in turn, repeal the new restrictions against predatory health insurance company rip offs.
The public worries about jobs and the economy. Congressional Republicans have not only rejected the president’s constructive economic proposals, but they have an unhealthy obsession with destroying the progress created with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. House Republicans have voted 38 times to repeal the new health care reform law. Now, Tea Party zealots like Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, want to force repeal of the law with the threat of a government shutdown.
The GOP would be a lot better off if it would bet the farm on a key economic issue. Playing chicken with a government shutdown to repeal Obamacare is a risky wager. Voting 38 times against the health care law makes it seem like the GOP is a one trick pony racing in the wrong direction.
The president is also trying to move his own party away from the politics of austerity. Democrats can’t beat Republicans in a battle of green eyeshades. Eyeshades have their uses, but mostly they limit vision.
The Grand Old Party’s obsession with the Affordable Care Act not only ignores the public concern about the economy, but it has created an internal Republic party crisis. This week, Cruz laid into Republicans who don’t want to play a game of chicken with ACA repeal and a government shutdown. The battle between the Tea Party radicals and establishment Republicans will be prime time TV for the next few months.
Gridlock has the economy in a headlock. Hopefully President Obama can use his bully pulpit to move Republicans off the dime.
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, August 1, 2013
“The Mitch McConnell Strategy”: The Republican “Just Say No” Approach To Governing
As David Firestone wrote yesterday, the standards for cooperation in Congress have fallen so low that Senators pat themselves on the back whenever they manage to pass legislation. If it seems like an achievement when the Senate does its job — wow! A farm bill! — that’s probably because some of its members are committed to making it as dysfunctional as the House.
Take Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who is warming a seat held with distinction by Kay Bailey Hutchison. In about six months in office, Mr. Cruz has devoted himself to opposing everything President Obama wants. (The Mitch McConnell strategy of 2009.)
Mr. Cruz tried to block the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, for example, by demanding that he prove that he wasn’t taking money from America’s enemies. He’s one of several Republicans who’ve tried to nullify agencies they don’t like — such as the National Labor Relations Board or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — by simply refusing to allow votes on Mr. Obama’s nominees.
This week, according to Robert Costa of the National Review, he’s been in Iowa, where he attended a meeting with conservative pastors. “Per pastors/attendees, Cruz told Iowa group this morn that conservatives must not fund the govt — ‘any CR’ — unless O’care ‘fully’ defunded,” Mr. Costa said on Twitter.
In other words, Congress shuts down the government, and presumably defaults on its debts, unless the Democrats agree to kill health care reform.
I presume Mr. Cruz thinks this is a winning strategy — at least among the Tea Party folks and other people on the far right. (Here’s a scary thought: Was he in Iowa because he’s thinking of a presidential run?)
But I’m not sure it’s going to play well with the rest of America, where contempt for Congress, and Congressional Republicans in particular, is evident in every poll. Some staunch conservatives are arguing that “just say no” is not working.
Jennifer Rubin, the right-wing commentator for the Washington Post, wrote on her blog yesterday that the House GOP has to come up with ideas of its own, starting with doing more than trying to delay or repeal “the noxious provisions” of the Affordable Care act:
“Without a GOP alternative to Obamacare, their complaints are empty and their votes unlikely to be taken seriously by voters. It is long, long past the point at which Republicans should have begun crafting and selling their alternative. To be frank, other than the budgets, when it comes to complex legislation (the details of tax reform, health care, education) this House has been weak. Where is the tax plan? Where is the market-based health-care plan? And of course we know they’ve been sitting on the sidelines in the immigration debate.”
Well put.
By: Andrew Rosenthal, Opinion Pages, The New York Times, July 19, 2013
“Antonin Scalia And His Argle-Bargle”: He Doesn’t Want To Be Seen As The Bigot He Is
Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent (pdf) in U.S. v. Windsor, the ruling that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, is not subtle in its anger. The conservative Supreme Court jurist refers on page 22, for example, to the “legalistic argle-bargle” the court majority uses as its rationale.
And as Paul Waldman explained, the dissent goes downhill from there.
Scalia is outraged at the majority’s contention that the core purpose of DOMA was to discriminate against gay people, and this, he asserts, means that they’re calling everyone who supports it a monster. “To defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution,” he writes.
And more: “It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race.”
Yes, apparently Scalia is feeling a little defensive, so much so that he believes those who disagree with him are calling him an enemy of humanity. One gets the sense reading his dissent that he doesn’t want to be seen as a bigot, just because he’s on record describing homosexuality in his Lawrence v. Texas dissent as “a lifestyle” that should be seen as “immoral and destructive.”
But let’s also not overlook this curious argument from the beginning of his DOMA dissent:
“This case is about power in several respects. It is about the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law. Today’s opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the predictable consequence of diminishing the former. We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. “
Really? When it’s the Voting Rights Act and the Affordable Care Act on the line, Scalia doesn’t hesitate to take an axe to “democratically adopted legislation,” approved by the elected representatives of Americans who are able to “govern themselves.” But when it’s the Defense of Marriage Act, Scalia suddenly remembers his affinity for restraint?
Exactly one year ago yesterday, following some of Scalia’s partisan antics, a constitutional law professor at UCLA said the conservative jurist “has finally jumped the shark.” At the time, that seemed like a reasonable assessment, and yet, Scalia somehow manages to get worse.
Update: Sahil Kapur takes the next step, listing “the top 10 quotes from the staunchly conservative jurist — a mix of rage-filled metaphors and legal punches.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 26, 2013
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