“Memo To Republicans, You Lost, Now Deal With It”: Third Graders Don’t Get Cupcakes For Threatening To Break Windows And Chairs
Imagine you’re a third-grade teacher, and the school announces that all the classrooms are going to be repainted, and the kids will get to choose the colors. You let your students each make a case for the color they’d like for their classroom, and it comes down to a choice between blue and green. The two sides give cute little speeches to the class about their favorite colors, and then you take a vote. There are 20 kids in the class; 12 choose blue and 8 choose green. Blue it is.
But then the kids who wanted green insist that the color has to be green. They go to the principal’s office and make their case that blue sucks and green rules. The principal tells them that the class chose blue, so the walls are going to be blue. Then the pro-green kids return and say that since there was a new kid who joined the class since the vote, we have to have the vote again. Another vote is held; it’s still blue. Then the pro-green kids announce that because anyone can see that blue is sucky, they’re going to write in green magic marker on any wall that gets painted blue. Then they announce that if the walls get painted blue, they’re going to break the windows in the classroom, smash the chairs, and fling the contents of everybody’s cubby on the floor.
When they’re told they can’t do that, they say, “OK, tell you what: we’ll refrain from breaking the windows and trashing the class, but only if you give us pro-green kids cupcakes every day, excuse us from homework for the rest of the year, and let us choose all the games we play at recess. It’s either that, or we start smashing.” Would you respond to these children, “Well, what if we just give you the cupcakes?” Of course not. You’d say, “Listen, you psychotic little turds. The goddamn walls are going to be blue. YOU LOST. Now suck it up.”
Okay, so if you were a third-grade teacher you wouldn’t actually say that. But you’d think it. And that’s where we are today. Republicans argued against the Affordable Care Act when it was moving through Congress. A vote was held, and they lost. Then they went to the Supreme Court and asked for the law to be overturned. They lost. Then they tried to defeat the president who passed the law and replace him with a guy who promised to repeal it. They lost. Now they’re saying that if they don’t get what they want, they’re going to trash the place.
And now we come to the part about the cupcakes and homework. The latest idea from Republicans is that in exchange for not trashing the American economy with a debt default, just defunding the Affordable Care Act isn’t enough. What they want as the price for standing down is the entire Republican wish list. Get a load of this:
According to a document obtained by CQ Roll Call, that “wish list” contains 20 “additional options” for the debt limit bill, on top of four principles in the “Core Package” — a one year debt limit increase for a one year delay of Obamacare, the agreement of tax reform instructions and the Keystone pipeline.
The 20 additional options, according to the document, are:
Economic Growth
1. Offshore Energy Production
2. Energy Production on Federal Lands
3. Pipeline Permitting Reform
4. Coal Ash
5. Prohibit EPA from Regulating Greenhouse Gases
6. REINS Act
7. Regulatory Process Reforms (APA)
8. Consent Decree Reform
9. Regulatory Flexibility Improvements
10. Block Net Neutrality Regulations
Non-Health Care Reforms:
1. Federal Employee Retirement Reform, which Republicans estimate will save $20 to $84 billion.
2. Eliminate Dodd-Frank Bailout Fund, which they estimate will save $23 billion.
3. Eliminate Mandatory Funding for CFPB, with estimated savings of $5 billion.
4. Require SSN to Receive Child Tax Credit, with estimated savings of $7 billion.
5. Eliminate Social Service Block Grant, with estimated savings of $17 billion.
Health Care Reforms:
1. Increase Medicare Means Testing, which Republicans estimate will save $56 billion.
2. Reduce Medicaid Provider Tax Gimmick, which Republicans estimate will save $11 billion.
3. Medical Liability Reform, with estimated savings of $49 billion.
4. Disproportionate Share Hospitals, with estimated savings of $4 billion.
5. Eliminate Public Health Slush Fund
I’m sure that if you asked them the logical question—Are you people insane?—they’d respond that this is an opening position for negotiations, and we can go from there. Sure, maybe we won’t get everything on the list, but maybe we could bargain it down to, say, delaying the ACA for a year, handcuffing the EPA, the Keystone XL pipeline, and cutting money for public health. In other words, we might be willing to not smash the windows if you give us the cupcakes.
There are some basic notions that undergird the operation of a democracy. When there’s an election, the candidate who gets more votes is the one who takes office. When a bill is passed through Congress and signed by the president, it’s now the law. And when you lose, you don’t get to demand that your agenda be enacted, for no reason other than that you’d prefer it that way. If you want a bunch of policy changes, you have to win an election, then pass that agenda through the legislative process. That’s how it works. Baseball players who strike out don’t get to just demand that they be given a triple or else they’re going to set fire to the stadium. And third graders don’t get cupcakes for threatening to break windows and chairs.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, September 27, 2013
“Hostages Are A Pre-requisite”: Coming To Terms With The Normalization Of Republican Extortion Politics
President Obama spoke yesterday to the Business Roundtable, and used some language to describe Republican tactics that raised a few eyebrows — not because he was incorrect, but because his word choice was provocative.
In his remarks, Mr. Obama accused what he called “a faction” of Republicans in the House of trying to “extort” him by refusing to raise the nation’s debt ceiling unless the president’s health care plan is repealed.
“You have never in the history of the United States seen the threat of not raising the debt ceiling to extort a president or a governing party,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s irresponsible.”
Mr. Obama called upon the business leaders to try to convince lawmakers to avoid the kind of “brinksmanship” that would lead to promises of “apocalypse” every few months. “What I will not do is to create a habit, a pattern whereby the full faith and credit of the united states ends up being a bargaining chip to make policy,” he said. “I’m tired of it,” he added. “And I suspect you are too.”
For the president to publicly reference Republican “extortion” tactics struck some as excessive. That’s a shame; Obama’s right.
Let’s step back for a moment. A traditional, transactional method of governing was in place in Washington for generations, and it worked fairly well. In some cases, policymakers would rely on intra-policy cooperation (“I’ll go along with some of the provisions you want if you go along with some of the provisions I want”), and in other cases it’s been inter-policy cooperation (“I can help move that bill you like if you help me move this other bill that I like”).
The transactional model was never easy, of course, and parties that were supposed to disagree usually did, but governing happened. Bills passed. Policymaking and compromises existed. The nation did not simply bounce from one self-imposed, manufactured crisis to the next.
In the wake of the radicalization of Republican politics, the system broke down, largely because GOP officials came to believe they can no longer accept concessions on anything, and anyone who dares compromise with those they disagree with deserves to lose in a Republican primary.
What matters, of course, is what’s replaced transactional politics.
I tend to describe it as extortion politics, which we may be getting used to, but which has no modern precedent in the American system of government.
Consider an example from earlier this year. House Republicans approved a budget plan and challenged Senate Democrats to do the same, assuming they’d fail. The GOP miscalculated and Senate Dems approved their own budget plan in the spring.
From there, lawmakers were supposed to enter bipartisan, bicameral negotiations, which is what always happens when the House and Senate approve competing budget blueprints. But a funny thing happened — Republicans refused to enter the budget talks they said they wanted.
It hasn’t generated much attention, but it’s important to understand why. GOP lawmakers couldn’t go to the negotiating table because that would mean … negotiating. Republicans weren’t prepared to compromise on anything, so why bother with budget talks? What GOP officials wanted instead was to wait until the fall when they might at least try to claim leverage in an extortion plot.
In other words, hostages have become a prerequisite to Republican governance.
We’ve actually reached the point at which the GOP seems genuinely and literally confused about the meaning of the word “compromise.” Consider this item from a week ago:
One group of conservatives on Thursday pressed what they called a compromise: a one-year stopgap spending bill that would raise the debt ceiling for a year, delay all aspects of the health care law for a year, and give back some of the Pentagon cuts as a sweetener. Backers insisted on Thursday that it was a package Mr. Obama should be able to accept.
Got that? In this approach, Republicans would get the health care delay they want and the spending levels they want. What would Democrats get? Nothing except the relief that comes with knowing that the hostage the GOP was threatening would live to see another day.
This, in the delusional minds of congressional Republicans, is not only a “compromise,” it’s the kind of deal the White House might actually go for.
This has become the norm in every major legislative fight since January 2011. Faced with a challenge, Republicans won’t compromise or consider possible concessions; they’ll instead reach for the nearest hostage and start making threats. The nation shifts from one crisis to the next, not because we have to, but because Republicans have made it their m.o. In the last Congress, Republicans created a debt-ceiling crisis and three separate shutdown threats. In this Congress, we’re only nine months in and we’re already facing a shutdown crisis this month and a new debt-ceiling crisis next month.
In each instance, the GOP approach is the same: so long as our demands are met, and we don’t have to compromise, we won’t have to hurt anyone on purpose.
So before the Beltway gets too bent out of shape over Obama using the word “extort” in a speech, I have a question: can anyone think of a more apt description of what’s tragically become the new status quo in Washington?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 19, 2013
“Overwhelmed With Madness”: House Republicans Beat John Boehner Into Submission
Following up on an earlier item, it’s not official — House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his members at their weekly conference meeting that he’s prepared to abandon his own plans and try things their way. As such, with a government-shutdown deadline just 12 days away, the House will vote on a spending bill that defunds the Affordable Care Act, just like the far-right demands.
When reporters asked whether he had lost control of his conference, Boehner replied, “The key to any leadership job is to listen.” That’s a generous way of saying he’s being told what to do by those he ostensibly leads.
What’s more, the woefully weak Speaker seemed eager to punt the whole mess to the upper chamber, in the hopes that he won’t take all of the blame for the fiasco he and his caucus created: “[W]e’re going to send it over to the Senate, so our conservative allies over there can continue the fight. That’s where the fight is….. The fight over here has been won. It’s time for the Senate to have that fight.”
And when Boehner said the fight in the House “has been won,” the Speaker is referring to the victory of the extremists he hoped to lead in a more responsible direction, but who blew him off.
The Obama administration, meanwhile, doesn’t have a lot of choices, and can’t force congressional Republicans to be less foolish. It can, however, prepare for the worst.
The White House told federal agencies on Tuesday to prepare for a government shutdown.
President Obama’s budget director Sylvia Matthews Burwell in a memo to agencies said they should set their plans in case Congress fails to pass a funding measure by the end of the month. The government would shut down on Oct. 1 without action by Congress.
While there is time for Congress to act, Burwell wrote that “prudent management” requires agencies to prepare for a shutdown.
It’s tempting to think the White House would be scrambling to figure something out right now, but there’s just not much President Obama and his team can do. They can’t negotiate with Republican leaders because rank-and-file GOP lawmakers aren’t listening to their leaders anyway, and they can’t focus on common ground because Republican demands are too ridiculous.
So what happens now?
The House will almost certainly approve their stopgap spending measure this week, marking the 42nd time House Republicans have voted to gut the Affordable Care Act. The bill will then go to the Senate, which will swiftly reject it, before passing a bill of its own.
The House will then have to decide whether to approve the Senate bill or shut down the government. All of this will have to happen within the next 12 days.
Also keep in mind, the new House Republican strategy not only pushes Washington closer to a shutdown, but also raises the possibility that conservatives are acting against their own interests — if the Senate spending measure is to the left of Boehner’s original plan, the right may have to swallow a bill that’s friendlier to Democrats than the one they could have had just a week ago.
It would have been quite easy to avoid this showdown, if only Boehner were a more effective Speaker and his members weren’t so overwhelmed with madness.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 18, 2013
“Nothing Short Of Everything”: The Republican Leaders Vs The GOP’s Neanderthals
House Republicans, perhaps tired after working for four days after a six-week absence, will wrap their work week today around noon, leaving just five more days in September in which the chamber will be in session. And as House members depart this afternoon, they’ll leave increasing odds of a government shutdown in their wake.
Part of the problem is simply a matter of logistics: the government will run out of money on Sept. 30, and House leaders haven’t left themselves much time to get their work done.
But just as important is the fact that Republican leaders have absolutely no idea how they intend to govern. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the GOP leadership team thought they’d worked out a viable solution, which House Republicans rejected less than a day after it was introduced. Party officials are looking for someone to blame.
It’s not hard to find frustration with Heritage Action and the Club for Growth among senior Republicans, who believe the groups’ demand that they include Obamacare defunding language on any spending bill keeping the government open will ultimately empower Democrats in a series of fall battles over spending. They believe it’s part of a pattern of pushing untenable demands that have no chance of becoming law.
“Heritage Action and Club for Growth are slowly becoming irrelevant Neanderthals,” one senior GOP aide said.
Neanderthals, of course, is a subjective term — draw your own conclusions — but characterizing the right-wing activist groups as “irrelevant” is plainly incorrect. The House Republican leadership spent weeks carefully crafting a plan to avoid a government shutdown; Boehner & Co. unveiled their scheme on Tuesday; and by Wednesday morning, Heritage Action and Club for Growth had convinced Boehner’s caucus to reject Boehner’s plan out of hand.
I can appreciate why the Speaker’s office is frustrated, but which side of this equation sounds “irrelevant”?
Regardless, Republican leaders are left with an unsettling set of circumstances, which makes the odds of a government shutdown far more likely than they were 24 hours ago. Indeed, GOP lawmakers oppose their leaders’ plan, and the leaders don’t have a backup plan.
Consider just how brutal this is.
A clearly frustrated Boehner seemed to realize that he leads a conference where no plan is quite good enough. There are frequently about 30 Republicans who oppose leadership’s carefully crafted plans — just enough to mess things up. A reporter asked him whether he has a new idea to resolve the government funding fight. He laughed and said, “No.”
“Do you have an idea?” he asked the reporters. “They’ll just shoot it down anyway.”
That sounds terribly sad, though it also happens to be true. The party is out of control, and its most powerful leader has no power.
A significant, outcome-changing contingent within the House GOP caucus is driven by such irrational hatred of the Affordable Care Act that it won’t accept anything short of everything. Party leaders realize this approach would trigger a shutdown that the public would blame on Republicans. But if Boehner crafted a far-right spending measure to make extremists happy, this would quickly be rejected by the Senate and White House, again leading to a shutdown that the public would blame on Republicans.
The best way out is for the Speaker to give up on the radical wing of his party and strike a deal with House Democrats by scrapping the destructive sequestration policy. The shutdown would be averted; the economy would get a boost (remember when Congress occasionally thought about the economy?); and the Speaker would win plaudits for bipartisan cooperation and governing.
This, of course, won’t happen.
What’s likely to be the way out is Boehner will promise the extremists that if they support his idea of a temporary spending measure, he’ll hold the debt ceiling hostage over “defunding Obamacare.” The right-wing will probably see this as good enough and the nation will spend the next five or six weeks dealing with yet another Republican-imposed crisis.
Buckle your seat belt.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 12, 2013
“Count On It”: Will The Ghost Of Trayvon Martin Haunt Rick Scott?
Floridians aggrieved by George Zimmerman’s acquittal might get some succor from a federal civil rights charge, or maybe at some point a civil suit. But the one thing for sure they will have at their disposal in a 2014 election in which the case and the concealed-carry and “Stand Your Ground” laws that affected it will be an inevitable issue. At National Journal, Beth Reinhard takes a look at the post-trial politics of the case, and suggests it could be a real problem for Rick Scott, who has been slowly recovering from the intense unpopularity he earned in his first couple of years in office.
Rick Scott couldn’t do much worse among black voters than in 2010, when only 6 percent backed him for governor.
Or could he? African-American leaders outraged by the not-guilty verdict in the death of teenager Trayvon Martin are assailing Scott for supporting the “Stand Your Ground” law that arguably helped Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, go free. Students protesters are camping out in the governor’s office, musician Stevie Wonder has announced a boycot,t and Attorney General Eric Holder denounced the law at the NAACP convention in Orlando earlier this week.
If black voters turn out in force against Scott in 2014, they could swing a race as close as his last, which he won by only 61,550 votes. Black voters comprised between 11 percent and 14 percent of the vote in recent gubernatorial elections, and their share of the electorate is on the rise. Racial and ethnic conflicts, such as the bitter debate in 2000 over custody of Cuban rafter Elian Gonzalez, have a history of shaping elections in the nation’s largest swing state.
To be exact, the African-American percentage of the Florida electorate dropped from 13 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2010 and then went back up to 13 percent in 2012. This represents a relatively normal dropoff in minority voting from a presidential to a midterm election; anything that provides an unusually powerful incentive to high midterm voting by minorities is a big deal in a state like Florida.
Scott’s likely Democratic opponents on Thursday joined the criticism of his leadership after the racially polarizing trial. “I’m troubled that we don’t have a governor that can bring people together after such an emotional and personal public debate,” said Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor who switched parties and is expected to challenge Scott. “No law is perfect, and it seems to me that Trayvon’s tragic death provides an opportunity for a real dialogue on how we can improve our laws to ensure that we are protecting self-defense while not creating a defense for criminals.”
Democratic Sen. Nan Rich, who’s struggling to gain traction in the polls after running against Scott for more than one year, mocked him for being out of town during the sit-in in his office, though he returned to Tallahassee late Thursday and met with protesters. “I think he’s afraid to come back,” Rich quipped. “Leadership is lacking, and we need leadership from the governor to change this law.”
Crist, Reinhard notes, did about three times as well as Scott did among African-American voters when he was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2006, and improved his reputation in that community significantly by supporting a restoration of voting rights for ex-felons and expanded early voting opportunities in urban areas in 2008. And even before the Zimmerman verdict, Crist was leading Scott in a June poll by 10%.
A wild card for Scott in 2014 will be fallout from his failure to convince Republican legislators to support the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, after his own flip-flop from opposition to support. If he were to submit to pressure to call a special legislative session to act on the expansion, he could attract a primary challenge. If he does nothing, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Florida, leaving many thousands of low-income Floridians ineligible either for Medicaid or for Obamacare tax credits to buy insurance on the new exchanges, could become a pretty big deal in 2014.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Editor, Washington Monthly Political Animal, July 19, 2013
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