“Surprise! Republicans Aren’t Serious About Reform”: The GOP’s Lame Attempt To Blame Obama For The Failure Of Immigration Reform
This week, it became all too clear that House Republicans don’t really want to address immigration reform in any meaningful way this year. And if the reform effort does wither on the vine, Republicans know just who to blame: themselves.
Ha, just kidding. They’re going to blame President Obama.
A mere week after unveiling a list of immigration “principles” that the GOP would pursue, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that handling immigration this year would be “difficult,” because many Republicans don’t trust Obama.
“There’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws,” he said. “And it’s going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes.”
Of course, a bipartisan immigration reform package has already passed the Senate, which includes an eye-popping $40 billion for border security. Obama has even signaled that he would be prepared to sign into law a more modest package, including one that bestowed only legal status — as opposed to citizenship — to undocumented workers.
The obstacle to reform has always been in the GOP-controlled House, where hardcore conservatives have opposed any law that bears even a whiff of amnesty. That, in turn, has spooked potential reform supporters who are wary of a primary challenge.
Indeed, Boehner’s so-called principles can be seen as a trial balloon that was quickly deflated by members of his own party, including influential conservative writers like The Weekly Standard‘s William Kristol, who argued that the issue unnecessarily divided the GOP ahead of the 2014 midterms.
Boehner’s remarks were still notable, though, in that they are part of a ridiculous attempt to pin the blame on Obama, a strategy that Republicans have been testing out for months.
Back in October, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who helped author the Senate’s immigration bill before fleeing to chase down his lost conservative credibility, said Obama poisoned immigration reform by standing firm through the government shutdown and debt ceiling fight. By not agreeing to the GOP’s fantastical demands that he gut his health-care law, Rubio said, Obama made immigration reform “harder to achieve.”
“The president has undermined this effort, absolutely, because of the way he has behaved over the last three weeks,” he said.
To be sure, some on the right have charged all along that the White House can’t be trusted to meet tough border security and verification requirements, necessitating “specific enforcement triggers” before a path to citizenship or legal status could even come into play. What’s different now is that the claim has gone mainstream, a reflection of how desperate the GOP is to convey to Latino voters that they would do something on immigration were it not for Obama.
A sampling from the past week:
- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.): “Here’s the issue that all Republicans agree on — we don’t trust the president to enforce the law.”
- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): “There’s some real question of trust here and the White House continues to really thumb its nose up, if you will, at the Congress.”
- Rubio (again): “We just don’t think government will enforce the law anyway.”
As Slate’s David Weigel explains, the argument is pretty much bunk:
Say the Senate bill was passed in the House tomorrow, conferenced, and signed by the president. He’s got three years left in office. The legalization component of the Senate bill depends on a border security standard that’s going to be determined by a panel of state governors. They have five years to sign off. If you think about the timing of the Affordable Care Act — passed in 2010, implemented at the end of 2013 — there’s no real danger of Obama using a new immigration law to grant more amnesty. He could do that right now.
So, file these talking points under “Republicans Looking Busy.” [Slate]
But Boehner can’t spike immigration reform without first finding a scapegoat to blame for its failure. And since Senate Republicans are on board, who else is there to blame but the ultimate conservative bogeyman?
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, February 7, 2014
“When Tribalism Takes Over”: Republicans Are Being Driven To Identify In All Ways With Their Tribe
Pollsters have found that in the Obama era, the number of self-identified Republican voters who believe in evolution has dropped sharply. Similarly, in recent years, GOP voters routinely tell pollsters that the federal budget deficit has gone up, even as it drops quickly.
What drives results like these? It’s probably the result of the same phenomenon that drives attitudes like these, as reported by Greg Sargent yesterday, about the Affordable Care Act.
My Post colleague Sean Sullivan … points to a Gallup poll this week finding that only 19 percent of Americans say the law has hurt them or their family, while 64 percent say it has had no effect, and another 13 percent say it has helped.
But who are those 19 percent? It turns out those telling Gallup the law has hurt them or their family are very disproportionately Republican and conservative.
Of course they are. Greg got in touch with Gallup, which offered him a closer look at the details of the poll results. In all, a small percentage of Democrats and independents said the health care law has hurt them or their family directly, while 60% of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents said the ACA is doing them direct harm.
Similar results were seen along ideological lines: most conservatives said “Obamacare” is hurting them or their family, most moderates and liberals said the opposite.
Now, I suppose it’s possible that an extraordinary coincidence is unfolding on a national scale. By sheer chance, the very people who oppose the law just so happen to be the exact same people who are adversely affected by it. What a truly remarkable fluke! Who could have guessed?
Or maybe, as Greg put it, “some who already dislike Obamacare are more likely to tell pollsters they’ve been negatively impacted by it.”
It’s amazing what tribalism can do to public perceptions.
Are Republican voters really turning against modern biology in greater numbers? Probably not. Do GOP voters actually believe the deficit has gotten bigger during the Obama era? Maybe, but I rather doubt it.
Do these same partisans and ideologues genuinely believe the Affordable Care Act has hurt them or their families? Maybe some had to change plans or see a new doctor, but odds are, most of these folks are giving the pollsters an ideologically satisfying answer.
It’s not about dishonesty or ignorance; it’s about political tribalism in a period of stark polarization.
When the Pew report came out last month showing Republicans rejecting evolution in large numbers, Paul Krugman had a good piece on the broader dynamic.
The point … is that Republicans are being driven to identify in all ways with their tribe – and the tribal belief system is dominated by anti-science fundamentalists. For some time now it has been impossible to be a good Republicans while believing in the reality of climate change; now it’s impossible to be a good Republican while believing in evolution.
And of course the same thing is happening in economics. As recently as 2004, the Economic Report of the President (pdf) of a Republican administration could espouse a strongly Keynesian view, declaring the virtues of “aggressive monetary policy” to fight recessions, and making the case for discretionary fiscal policy too. […]
Given that intellectual framework, the reemergence of a 30s-type economic situation, with prolonged shortfalls in aggregate demand, low inflation, and zero interest rates should have made many Republicans more Keynesian than before. Instead, at just the moment that demand-side economics became obviously critical, we saw Republicans – the rank and file, of course, but economists as well – declare their fealty to various forms of supply-side economics, whether Austrian or Lafferian or both. Compare that ERP chapter with the currency-debasement letter and you see a remarkable case of intellectual retrogression.
In all likelihood, many on the right are choosing to stick with their “team” and answer pollsters’ questions accordingly. It’s probably best to look at all of these polls accordingly.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 7, 2014
“And Here We Go Again”: Republicans Are Really, Really Bad At Hostage Negotiations
For some time, I’ve been arguing that we should not just extend the debt ceiling but get rid of it altogether. It’s a weird historical anomaly that serves no practical purpose other than allowing the opposition party, should it be sufficiently reckless, to threaten global economic catastrophe if it doesn’t get its way. I assumed that your average Washington Democrat would share this view, but now I’m beginning to think that if you’re someone like Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama, the debt ceiling is actually quite helpful, and you’d be sorry to see it go.
Because here’s what keeps happening: The debt ceiling approaches. Republicans begin making threats to torpedo the country’s economy by not raising it, and thereby sending the United States government into default, if their demands aren’t met. We then have a couple of weeks of debate, disagreement, and hand-wringing. Republican infighting grows more intense, and their reputation as a bunch of radicals who are willing to burn down the country to serve their extreme ideology is reinforced. At the end of it, the Republicans cave, the ceiling is raised for some period, and we do it all again in a few months.
And here we go again. The debt ceiling is going to have to be raised in the next month or so. Since the deficit is now at its lowest point since Barack Obama took office, it’s hard for Republicans to say that slashing the budget is so urgent that it justifies threatening to send America off an economic cliff. So what will they demand as their price for assenting to a debt ceiling increase? The answer is…they can’t decide. Yesterday, the House leadership proposed that they demand either a repeal of the “risk corridor” provision in the Affordable Care Act, which protects against a “death spiral” in the individual insurance market (here’s a good explainer on that), or approval of the Keystone pipeline. As Jonathan Chait pointed out, “Republicans have decided that one of these policy demands is so vital that they can insist its fulfillment justifies the threat of global economic calamity. They’re just not sure yet which one.” But it turned out that they couldn’t even unite around one of those two things, and that proposal of the leadership’s is now dead.
So here’s where we are. The Republican position is that something or other, let’s call it the Policy Change To Be Named Later, is so urgent, so pressing, so essential to the future of this great nation that if they don’t get it, whatever it turns out to be, they will force the government into default. And as soon as they figure out what the PCTBNL is, they’ll let us know.
Meanwhile, the Democrats’ position is simple: the debt ceiling needs to be raised, without conditions. Period. And that’s just what’s going to happen. There’ll be some hemming and hawing between now and then, but Democrats are going to win this, and Republicans are going to lose, and look like fools. Given that, if you were Barack Obama, wouldn’t you be perfectly happy to go through this routine a few more times?
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, February 5, 2014
“Standing With The People”: Democratic Governors and Statehouse Candidates To Adopt Obama’s Minimum-Wage Message
Democratic governors and candidates competing in battleground states are planning to make a minimum-wage increase a centerpiece of this year’s campaigns, taking the baton from President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, according to a memo shared with National Journal.
Raising the wage was a core part of Obama’s larger theme of boosting “opportunity” for all, and it’s a policy that Democrats running for statehouses think will help them politically, according to the memo from the Democratic Governors Association.
“No issue better crystalizes the broader debate between 2014 Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates than that of a minimum wage hike,” DGA Communications Director Danny Kanner says in the memo.
This is a big year for the Democratic Governors Association, given the number of Republican governors swept in during the 2010 wave who are now up for reelection.
Republican governors from Florida to Wisconsin have consistently opposed efforts to raise the minimum wage, and Dems think that choice will come back to bite the GOP. The DGA points to a recent Wall Street Journal poll showing 63 percent of Americans support raising the wage and a separate Quinnipiac poll showing a plurality of Republican voters agree.
While it’s not surprising that Democrats would echo the president on a central policy goal, raising the minimum wage has until recently been seen as the domain of the party’s progressive wing and an issue that candidates in battleground states might shy away from.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case when it comes to a handful of gubernatorial races, at least. In Maine, while Republican Gov. Paul LePage has vetoed legislation to raise the minimum wage, Rep. Michael Michaud, the presumed Democratic nominee, cosponsored a bill in the House to raise the wage nationwide.
Democrat Mark Schauer, who is hoping to oust Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, has proposed boosting the wage to $9.25 an hour and indexing it to inflation, and said he would make hiking it a top priority if elected.
In Iowa, Jack Hatch wants to go even further and raise the wage to $10.10, which would give the important political state the highest minimum wage in the country. Charlie Crist, the Republican-turned-Democrat former governor, who is running to reclaim his old seat in Florida’s statehouse, also supports setting the wage at $10.10.
Meanwhile in Illinois, where Democrats are hoping to defend Gov. Pat Quinn as he heads into a tough reelection battle, all four Republican challengers oppose Quinn’s proposal to boost the wage.
And Democrats think the message will resonate as well in redder states like Kansas, where they’re hoping to push aside Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
Kanner says Democrats will use the minimum wage to present a larger economic message.
“These are two starkly different economic philosophies, and the minimum wage debate makes that clear. In this case, Democrats are standing with the American people while Republicans, once again, thumb their nose at them,” he said.
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, The National Journal, January 29, 2014
“A Deliberate Coyness”: The Farce Of Paul Ryan, Serious Man
Like a phoenix risen from the ashes of Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is back.
The conservative budget guru is once again being hailed as the Ideas Man who will lead the GOP to electoral salvation. But this time, he’s supposedly toning down his idealism a bit and, as is his party in general, putting on a softer, gentler face.
From Politico’s Jake Sherman, we hear that Ryan “is sifting through the lessons of his political past to shape a new persona” and, after trying to radically redraw the federal budget toward his conservative vision in the past, now “betting that incrementalism — legislative half-steps toward conservative solutions is the best look for Republicans.”
“The brand Ryan is cultivating is deliberate, serious, and aims to be inclusive of other political parties and voters who haven’t considered Republicans,” he adds.
Ah, there it is, the “S” word: Serious.
Ryan is often portrayed as the lone adult in the room, the man with serious ideas when the rest of Washington is embroiled in partisan sniping. Whether or not he’s truly offering sound policy — and there have been many questions on the front — he’s incessantly framed as being above-the-fray, concerned only with making Washington work right. In a word: Serious.
The trouble is that the mystique is largely media-crafted. A quick Lexis-Nexis search of U.S. newspapers for “Paul Ryan” and “serious” returned more than 3,000 results from the past year alone.
To be sure, Ryan does offer up a lot of policy proposals, an anomaly in D.C., and especially for a party that has voted to repeal ObamaCare more than 40 times without offering, until now, any semblance of an alternative. Yet his policy ideas don’t always hold water. Sometimes, they’re deeply flawed.
His previous budget plans were widely criticized for relying on highly suspect data, and for following a formula along the lines of: Cut spending + pixie dust = economic growth.
“If Obama tried to claim that his policies would achieve anything like this,” the liberal Paul Krugman wrote of Ryan’s 2011 budget plan, “he’d be laughed out of office.”
As for Ryan’s big new anti-poverty crusade, the details there, too, are suspect. His ideas — placing work requirements on safety-net programs, tax breaks, and so on — are “supply-side policies that don’t change the overall level of poverty” says Ryan Cooper in The Washington Post, making them no more than “vague rhetoric and window dressing.”
Other thorough assessments of his anti-poverty campaign have been similarly harsh. Meaning, it’s not so much that Ryan has changed, but rather that he’s tucked his old ideas into new packaging and — voila! — become the serious man once again.
Consider it the Republican rebrand writ small.
Part of Ryan’s enduring “seriousness” is actually deliberate coyness, which allows pundits to hang the simple narrative on him. He’s deflected questions about his political ambitions with a “Who, me?” shrug, while insisting he’s just trying to do his job. It’s an effective though farcical facade. Ryan has a knack for shrewdly self-promoting his supposed quiet humility and wonkish credentials. As the economist Jared Bernstein wrote, Ryan “is the classic example of the adage that if you’ve got a reputation for being an early riser, you can sleep til noon.”
To be sure, Ryan did help craft the mini budget compromise that passed earlier this year to avoid another government shutdown. But absolutely no one — okay, maybe Ted Cruz — wanted another shutdown, especially the GOP leadership, considering how badly the last one hurt the party. In that sense, Ryan was merely ensuring the GOP didn’t self-immolate once again.
Ryan’s big rebrand doesn’t prove that he’s a “serious” lawmaker. It does, however, prove he’s serious about looking serious.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, January 30, 2014
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