“A History Of Bad Ideas”: Bobby Jindal’s Shallow Rhetoric Re-Embraces Dumbed-Down Conservatism
The week after President Obama was re-elected, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) insisted Republicans need to “stop being the stupid party.” He added that he and his party have “had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”
The Louisianan added that his party should “stop reducing everything to mindless slogans, tag lines, 30-second ads that all begin to sound the same.”
It all sounded quite nice, actually. Even if Jindal made a poor messenger, the message had the potential to serve as a wake-up call for a party that badly needs one.
This week, we were reminded of just how shallow Jindal’s rhetoric really is, and why he’s not the Republican to lead the GOP away from “dumbed-down conservatism”; he’s the Republican who can’t let go of “dumbed-down conservatism.”
Many of us have argued that “fiscal cliff” is a wildly overwrought metaphor to describe the contractionary effects of fiscal tightening that will be phased in gradually. Bobby Jindal, in an op-ed today, seems to think the metaphor is not overwrought enough (“Today it’s the fiscal cliff, but that surely will not be the end of it; next year it will be the fiscal mountain, after that the fiscal black hole, and after that fiscal Armageddon”). But it also appears that Jindal lacks any understanding of what the fiscal cliff is or why economists think it’s bad.
Jindal’s op-ed is a truly sad display. The governor who seems eager to blaze a new intellectual trail for the Republican Party has an agenda that includes a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution (one of the worst ideas in the history of bad ideas); an 18 percent cap on federal spending (the other worst idea in the history of bad ideas); an arbitrary mechanism that would make it all but impossible for policymakers to raise taxes for any reason (which would make policymaking even more impossible); and just for the heck of it, term limits, as if having inexperienced policymakers would make our problems go away.
Taken together, Bobby Jindal, the guy who wants his party to “stop reducing everything to mindless slogans,” “stop being simplistic,” and start “trusting the intelligence of the American people,” is rolling out old, tired cliches that don’t work, crumble under scrutiny, and don’t even relate to the ongoing fiscal debate.
Indeed, Paul Krugman, lamenting the “fiscal ignoramus factor,” lamented, “You really have to wonder how someone who’s a major political figure could be this uninformed — but you have to wonder even more about the state of mind that induces you to write an op-ed about a subject you don’t comprehend at all.”
I realize Jindal has a reputation with the D.C. establishment as being a serious guy and intellectual heavyweight. It’s time for the establishment to reevaluate those assumptions.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, December 7, 2012
“A Shell Of Her Former Self”, Olympia Snowe Keeps Falling
With time running out, President Obama used his weekly address yesterday to call on Congress to approve an extension of the payroll tax cut. Economists project a significant economic hit if lawmakers fail to act, and the president said, “Now is the time to step on the gas, not slam on the brakes.”
Then there was the Republican address, delivered by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
…Snowe put her emphasis on a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, saying ,”We have no greater duty than to once and for all obligate the government to live within its means and spend no more than what it takes in.”
Snowe argued that, among other things, the balanced budget amendment would enforce the mandatory spending cuts that are supposed to take effect in 2013 because of the failure of the super committee to reach agreement on an alternative deficit reduction plan.
“The bottom line is, the real reason many lawmakers don’t want a balanced budget amendment is the exact reason why it’s so essential,” Snowe said. “They don’t want their hands tied; they want to continue to spend without restraint. Their way has been to break budgets and amass more and more debt, all the while promising Congress will one day balance the budget. Well, as we sadly know, the promises were empty, the debt is astronomical and their way hasn’t worked. Now, it’s time for our way.”
Even for Republicans, this is ridiculous.
For one thing, the Balanced Budget Amendment is already dead. The House, dominated by far-right Republicans, brought the proposal to the floor two weeks ago, and it failed miserably. Why on earth would the official GOP response tout an already-defeated measure related to the debt when the focus should be on the economy?
For another, the BBA is a spectacularly bad idea. It would devastate the economy and make responses to future crises effectively impossible. Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and Bush administrations, explained recently that this is a “dreadful” idea and the Republican proposal “is, frankly, nuts.”
And finally, what has gotten into Olympia Snowe? In October, she partnered with a right-wing Alabama senator to push a plan to make the legislative process even more difficult. A week earlier, she demanded the administration act with “urgency” to address the jobs crisis, only to filibuster a popular jobs bill a day later. The week before that, Snowe prioritized tax cuts for millionaires over job creation. Shortly before that, Snowe tried to argue that government spending is “clearly … the problem” when it comes to the nation’s finances, which is a popular line among conservatives, despite being wrong.
It’s tempting to think the fear of a primary challenge is pushing Snowe to the far-right, but the truth is, the senator’s GOP opponents next year are barely even trying. She may fear a replay of the Castle-O’Donnell fight that played out in Delaware, but all indications are that Snowe really doesn’t have anything to worry about.
And yet, she’s become a shell of her former self. It’s rather sad to watch.
There is some prime real estate in the political landscape for genuine GOP moderates who could have a significant impact. Instead, Congress has Olympia Snowe, who now bears no resemblance to the centrist she used to be.
If I had to guess, I’d say most mainstream voters in Maine have no idea of the extent to which Snowe has moved to the right, which is a shame. I wonder how those who supported her in the past would even recognize her anymore.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly, December 4, 2011
Partisanship: Blame Grover Norquist, Not The Founders
Everyone recognizes that Washington is not working the way it should. This has led some on the left, like Harold Meyerson, to question whether the Founders “screwed up.”
Many on the right, meanwhile, are promoting radical changes to our constitutional system. They talk about a version of a Balanced Budget Amendment, which would require a super-majority for most changes in financial policy. This would enshrine in our Constitution the right’s do-little government philosophy.
But the Constitution is not the problem. If we want to get Washington working again, we should listen to the Founders — not blame them for problems of our own making or change the ground rules of the system of government they bequeathed to us.
True, the Founders established a deliberative democracy, with a series of checks and balances designed to prevent the majority from running roughshod over the rights of political minorities. But these checks and balances have served our nation well.
The problem is not the democratic system bestowed upon us by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. The problem is the additional obstacles to action – the filibuster, hyper-partisanship, and special interest pledges – that our Founders would have found abhorrent.
Our Founders struck a delicate balance between the promotion of majority rule – the essential predicate for a democratic government of “We the People” – and the desire to protect minority rights and prevent the “tyranny of the majority.” The Constitution is designed to delay and temper majority rule while allowing a long-standing majority to get its way.
So, for example, the Constitution staggers the election of senators so that only one third of the Senate can change hands in any one election. As a result, it usually takes more than one election for any one party to gain a governing majority.
Modern politicians have placed layer after layer of lard on this deliberative system of government, ultimately producing the gridlock now plaguing Washington. The Senate Republicans now use the filibuster rule as a virtual requirement. Every piece of legislation must enjoy a super-majority of 60 votes in the Senate — meaning a determined minority can permanently stop the majority from getting its way.
President George Washington, in his farewell address to the nation, warned about just such “alterations” to our constitutional system. He said this would “impair the energy of the system.”
Washington also decried political parties. He passionately warned the nation against any effort “to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party.”
While political parties were forming and solidifying even as Washington uttered these words, our modern politicians have enshrined hyper-partisanship through tricks like the “majority of the majority” rule, whereby the House speaker will only bring to the House floor legislation that has the support of the majority of his political party.
It is hard to imagine a more powerful example of the precise party-over-country danger Washington warned us about.
Washington may have had the likes of Grover Norquist in mind when he warned that some men “will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
Even anti-tax Republicans, like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Rep, Frank Wolf, have now decried the oversized role Norquist’s no new taxes pledge played in forcing the debt ceiling showdown and helping to prevent any solution that would have included new revenues. Coburn and others have warned their colleagues against putting Norquist’s “no–tax” pledge over their oath to support the Constitution and to serve “we the people” – not Norquist or any other special interests.
Washington today has serious problems, but we should not blame the city’s namesake for them. Rather, politicians of both parties should support a reform agenda designed to remove from our political system the modern procedural obstacles that have produced our current gridlock.
Maybe even in these divided political times we can all agree that when casting blame for what ails Washington, the fault it not with George Washington and our other Founding Fathers. It’s with the causes of our current gridlock – including figures like Norquist and his no-tax pledge.
By: Doug Kendall, Opinion Contributor, Politico, October 22, 2011
Populist Sen Mitch McConnell: “I Think Everyone Should Pay Their Fair Share, Including The Rich”
Today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) named three Republicans to the fiscal super committee that was created by the debt ceiling deal. All three have taken the Americans for Tax Reform anti-tax pledge and support a cockamamie constitutional balanced budget amendment. “What I can pretty certainly sayto the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with this, with the appointees that John Boehner and I are going to put on there, are pretty low,” McConnell has said.
But McConnell has not always been so virulently anti-tax. In fact, in a 1990 campaign ad, McConnell said that “everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich,” prompting the Associated Press to say that he sounded like a “populist Democrat”:
“Many Republican candidates are, in fact, holding fast to the no-new-taxes position that Bush embraced and then abandoned, even as they try to portray themselves as friends of senior citizens and the disadvantaged. Others are sounding more and more like populist Democrats. ‘Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich,’ Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says in a campaign ad.” [Associated Press, 10/28/90]
“A twist of untraditional Republicanism is added to McConnell’s message when he says, ‘Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich. We need to protect seniors from Medicare cuts too,’” wrote Roll Call reporter Steve Lilienthal. “After proclaiming his independence from the President and Congressional leaders, McConnell reassures voters that he will back a ‘fair deal for the working families of Kentucky.’” [“Democrats Flood Airwaves Charging GOP Party of Rich,” Roll Call, 11/5/1990]
If McConnell truly believes this, he should be appalled by current conditions. Tax rates on the richest Americans have plunged in recent years, and millionaires today pay tax rates that are 25 percent lower than they were in 1995. Meanwhile, income inequality is the worst its been since the 1920s, with the top 1 percent of Americans taking home 25 percent of the country’s total income. Just the richest 400 Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined, and the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the country’s net worth.
From the sounds of it, once upon a time McConnell would have found this troublesome. It’s a shame that he doesn’t any longer.
By: Pat Garafalo, Contribution by: Sarah Bufkin; Think Progress, August 10, 2011
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