“Erasing W”: Republications Want To Obliterate Any Trace Of The Administration That Created This Mess
As Bill Clinton is resurrected by the Democrats, George W. Bush is being erased by the GOP — as if an entire eight years of American history hadn’t happened.
While Bill Clinton stumps for Obama, Romney has gone out of his way not to mention the name of the president who came after Clinton and before Obama.
Clinton will have a starring role at the Democratic National Convention. George W. Bush won’t even be at the Republican one – the first time a national party has not given the stage at its convention to its most recent occupant of the Oval Office who successfully ran for reelection.
The GOP is counting on America’s notoriously short-term memory to blot out the last time the nation put a Republican into the Oval Office, on the reasonable assumption that such a memory might cause voters to avoid making the same mistake twice. As whoever-it-was once said, “fool me once …” (and then mangled the rest).
Republicans want to obliterate any trace of the administration that told America there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and led us into a devastating war; turned a $5 trillion projected budget surplus into a $6 trillion deficit; gave the largest tax cut in a generation to the richest Americans in history; handed out a mountain of corporate welfare to the oil and gas industry, pharmaceutical companies, and military contractors like Halliburton (uniquely benefiting the vice president); whose officials turned a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans that led to the worst financial calamity since the Great Crash of 1929 and then persuaded Congress to bail out the Street with the largest taxpayer-funded giveaway of all time.
Besides, the resemblances between George W. Bush and Mitt Romney are too close for comfort. Both were born into wealth, sons of prominent politicians who themselves ran for president; both are closely tied to the nation’s corporate and financial elites, and eager to do their bidding; both are socially awkward and, as candidates, tightly scripted for fear of saying something they shouldn’t; and both presented themselves to the nation devoid of any consistent policies or principles that might give some clue as to what they actually believe.
They are both, in other words, unusually shallow, uncurious, two-dimensional men who ran or are running for the presidency for no clear reason other than to surpass their fathers or achieve the aims and ambitions of their wealthy patrons.
Small wonder the Republican Party wants us to forget our last Republican president and his administration. By contrast, the Democrats have every reason for America to recall and celebrate the Clinton years.
By: Robert Reich, Robert Reich Blog, August 10, 2012
“Taboo Ideas”: Regular People Could Use A Bailout Every Bit As Much As Wealthy Elites
Via Atrios, I see that the idea of just printing money and handing it out is gaining some elite traction. Here’s Anatole Kaletsky in Reuters:
Last week I discussed in this column the idea that the vast amounts of money created by central banks and distributed for free to banks and bond funds – equivalent to $6,000 per man, woman and child in America and £6,500 in Britain – should instead be given directly to citizens, who could spend or save it as they pleased. I return to this theme so soon because radical ideas about monetary policy suddenly seem to be gaining traction. Some of the world’s most powerful central bankers – Mario Draghi of the European Central Bank last Thursday, Eric Rosengren of the Boston Fed on Monday and Mervyn King of the Bank of England this Wednesday – are starting to admit that the present approach to creating money, known as quantitative easing, is failing to generate economic growth. Previously taboo ideas can suddenly be mentioned.
The nice thing about this is it wouldn’t rely on some second-order effects through the expectation channel. With a big cash windfall a major fraction of the population are sure to spend it or use it to pay down some debt. When you’re in a depression, as we are, that’s just what the doctor ordered. This is as opposed to normal quantitative easing, which relies on pushing on the economy through the rotten banking system. Like a sponge, the banks absorb most of the money before it seeps out into the real economy.
Probably the biggest obstacle with this is how ridiculous it sounds. “The money has to come from somewhere,” people say. Actually, no it doesn’t. That’s the whole idea behind fiat money. Nothing behind it. “It’ll create hyperinflation,” conservatives will say. Nope. Right now we’re in a depression: we have very low inflation from too few people with jobs and money buying not enough goods and services to run the economy at potential.
Therefore, more spending will just pull in more idle people and resources. Only when the economy is at capacity is serious inflation a possibility. If it starts to happen, the Fed can easily act to restrain it.
The least convincing counterargument is the moral hazard one. “Can’t give people free money,” people say, “otherwise they’ll lose their moral fiber. Success must be earned.” I suppose all other things equal that’s the case, but that argument sure didn’t stop the Treasury from stuffing $700 billion down the rotting throats of the banks back in 2008, and it hasn’t stopped the Fed from stuffing God knows how many more trillions in cheap loans after it.
Again, I agree that moral hazard should be a consideration, especially for the richest and most powerful people and corporations, but we recognize in a crisis sometimes it’s more important to keep the system from collapsing than make sure every person gets exactly what she deserves. When we had a banking crisis, everyone agreed on this. Elites everywhere panicked, and swooped in with “incredible speed and force to bail out the financial sectors in which creditors are invested, trampling over prior norms and laws as necessary.” We’re now in the fourth year of an unemployment crisis, and it’s high time we found some similar urgency.
Nothing I haven’t said before, and still probably little chance of happening, but here’s hoping. Regular people could use a bailout every bit as much, if not more, than wealthy elites.
By: Ryan Cooper, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 9, 2012
“Benjamin Franklin Would Gag Today”: If Congress Can’t Fix The Postal Service, It Can’t Fix Anything
Most Americans know that the U.S. Postal Service is a mess. What they also ought to know is that Congress is largely responsible for this once-competent institution’s bad rap.
This is the same Congress that is going to have to bring Medicare back from the brink of insolvency, find a way to fund Social Security as it becomes top-heavy with retired baby boomers, and pay down trillions in federal debt without short-circuiting the whole economy. Compared with all that, fixing the Postal Service is easy. Yet Congress dithers, cultivates decline and allows festering problems to become worse.
The Postal Service has been making headlines again because it just defaulted on a $5.5 billion payment due to the U.S. Treasury to fund healthcare costs for future retirees. Another such default is likely at the end of September. The details are technical and boring, and for now, the mail will still show up in the mailbox. So the members of Congress perpetrating the default—mostly House Republicans—act like it’s no big deal.
But it is a big deal because the recalcitrance of political leaders shows an alarming willingness to dismantle the basic machinery of the economy. The Postal Service isn’t some dispensable outpost doing research on cow pies or freshmen mating habits. It’s an elemental part of the government that has been around since before the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, the seminal American, was the first Postmaster General. He’d gag at today’s handling of the Postal Service.
Here’s the basic background: In 1971, Congress reorganized the USPS as an independent agency that’s supposed to pay for its operations through stamp sales and other forms of revenue, like a normal company. But the catch is that Congress still holds sway over strategic decisions, and most Postal Service employees are treated as members of the federal workforce. So at best, the Postal Service is a hybrid organization that’s as vulnerable as ever to political meddling.
That’s what is holding up reform plans now. The Postal Service itself has detailed a plan to eliminate Saturday delivery, consolidate processing centers, close underperforming post offices and make other cuts to adapt to a technology-driven economy that is obviously less dependent on physical mail delivery than in the past. Hundreds of regular companies have changed their business models and made similar adjustments to survive. Those that didn’t—Eastman Kodak, Borders, Lehman Brothers—paid a brutal price.
The Senate has even passed a bill that would fix some of the Postal Service’s problems and buy time to sort out others. That brings us to the House, where sensible legislation goes to die. There is a House bill meant to fix the Postal Service, but House leaders won’t bring it up for a vote. Nor will they vote on the Senate bill. House leaders like Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor won’t say why, exactly.
Most likely, there’s not enough support in the House to pass any bill, so holding a vote would be an embarrassing setback for the GOP leadership. Opposition to reform seems to come from some usual suspects, such as rural lawmakers who don’t want postal facilities in their districts closed. Others (including Republicans) object to provisions that would allow the Postal Service more freedom to lay off unionized postal workers. Then there are Tea Party types who would prefer to privatize the agency, or who seemingly want to starve it of cash, so that … well, it’s not clear what purpose that would serve. What makes this standoff infuriating is that there are plenty of proposed solutions, including studies by at least three well-known consulting firms that execute corporate turnarounds for a living. There’s no need for further analysis, there’s only a need to make a decision and do something.
But the problem can be put off for a little longer, even if that makes the ultimate solution more expensive and encourages big mailers like Amazon and other retailers to look for other delivery choices. So Congress does less than the bare minimum and the Postal Service drifts toward ruination. Maybe the House will get to it in the fall, after their customary six-week August vacation. Maybe next spring. Maybe never, in order to show those impudent postal employees and their arrogant customers who’s really in charge around here.
Meanwhile, at the end of this year, Congress needs to come up with a deft way to forestall billions in tax hikes and spending cuts that will induce another recession if allowed to fully go into effect. By early next year, it will have to come up with a way to extend the government’s borrowing limit while also weaning Washington off its desperate borrowing habit. Then come some huge decisions about how to reform Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the long-term defense budget. If the handling of the Postal Service is any indication, we all ought to be terrified.
By: Rick Newman, U. S. News and World Report, August 1, 2012
“Sham Plan For The Privileged Elite”: Mitt Romney’s Cruel Joke On The Middle Class
The Republican presidential nominee has stopped trying to hide his allegience to the wealthy and privileged.
In response, it seems, to criticism of his economic plan—which will raise taxes on the vast majority of Americans in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest taxpayers—Mitt Romney has released a one-page “plan for a stronger middle-class.” The provisions are what you would expect:
- Increase domestic drilling, reduce regulations on the coal industry, and complete the Keystone XL pipeline.
- Sign new trade agreements and “curtail the unfair trade pracices of countries like China.”
- Devolve federal programs, like Medicaid, to the states, cut spending on an existing agencies and social programs, and institute a larger, long-term cut by capping federal spending at below 20 percent.
- Cut taxes, repeal the Affordable Care Act, reduce regulations, and make it more difficult for unions to organize.
Romney’s cuts to Medicaid, Pell Grants and other social services—the inevitable outcome of capping federal spending while drastically reducing revenue—would shred the social safety net and make financial security an impossible prospect for millions of Americans. His promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act would deprive countless people of health insurance, and force them to shoulder the burden of an expensive and dysfunctional health care system. His promise to drastically reduce regulations would allow unscrupulous corporations to mislead consumers, and pollute our air, water, and soil with dangerous chemicals. His promise to take on unions—which are already in decline—would make it even harder for workers to negotiate and stand up for themselves.
It’s a cruel joke to describe this as a plan to strengthen the middle class, when in reality, it would destroy opportunity, eliminate security, and place vulnerable Americans at the mercy of employers who lack a commitment to anything other than profits.
Even more galling than the plan itself is the fact that it’s wrapped in a promise to create 12 million jobs over the next four years. As Greg Sargent points out at the Washington Post, the economy is already projected to create 12 million jobs.
In other words, Romney is peddling a sham plan that does nothing for the economy and nothing for ordinary people. Instead, it drains our shared resources, and diverts them to “job creators”—the privileged elite that has jettisoned any and all concern for the public good.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, August 3, 2012
“Romney Unveils Agenda”: His “Five-Point Plan” Is Vastly Less Specific Than His “One-Point Plan”
Ask and it shall be given, Mitt Romney’s campaign seems to be saying today to critics Left and Right. Need a positive campaign message? Want an agenda? Well, here you are, per Byron York:
[O]n Thursday, the campaign rolled out “Mitt Romney’s Plan for a Stronger Middle Class,” which boiled down nearly every domestic policy proposal Romney has made to just five points: energy independence, education, trade reform, deficit cutting and a plan to “champion small business.”
And on Thursday afternoon, there was Romney, addressing supporters in Golden, Colo., in front of a giant banner that said ROMNEY PLAN. In his remarks, Romney criticized Obama; nothing wrong with that. But he laid out his larger purpose at the very beginning. “Today, I come to talk about making things better,” Romney said, laying out his plan. “If we do those five things, those simple five things … you’re going to see this economy come roaring back.”
“This is the path to more jobs and more take-home pay and a brighter future for you and your kids,” Romney added. “And I know that because I’ve seen it.”
Romney was clear, sharp and focused. If he stays that way, he’ll likely quiet some of his GOP critics, at least for a while.
Well, that’s nice, and clearly more substantive than just touting his own success and rugged good looks as a sufficient agenda. But Lord a-mercy, this five-point plan raises a few follow-up questions, eh? I mean, would Barack Obama dispute any of these five goals? I don’t think so.
The funny thing about this “five-point plan” is that it’s vastly less specific than what you might call his “one-point plan:” the Ryan Budget, which shows in detail how Romney and a Republican Congress would go about achieving those five goals. Until Romney is willing to talk about that, then he can call his vague talking points a PLAN all he wants, but it’s about as accurate as taking photos of a city from an airplane window at 40,000 feet, and proclaiming it all neat and pretty.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 3, 2012
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