Former Republican Senator: The GOP Presidential Field Is ‘Embarrassing’
Republican John Danforth, who served as a senator from Missouri for nearly 20 years and later as George W. Bush’s ambassador the United Nations, is not happy with the slate of Republican presidential candidates. “I’ve been watching some of these Republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible,” he told KTRS in St. Louis yesterday. “It’s embarrassing for me as a Republican to watch this stuff,” he added, calling out audiences for applauding the candidates’ morbid boastings. Via Fired Up Missouri:
DANFORTH: What have been the big applause lines in these debates? Well, a statement that the governor of Texas is responsible for killing 234 people on death row. Or that we favor torture. Or that we’re creating a fence on the Mexican border that electrocutes people when they try to cross it. Or when people show up at the emergency room at hospitals and they’re not insured don’t treat them. And that, I mean these are the big applause lines, people just hoop and holler when they hear all that. […]
It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people. We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.” They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.
Danforth is an ordained Episcopal priest.
Since leaving public office, Danforth has often publicly criticized the Republican party, of which he remains an active and influential member, for drifting father and farther to the right. A year ago, he said that if Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) — the “most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy” — “is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.” As it goes, Dick Lugar is already facing a “tough primary challenge” from state Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), and several other Republicans are also thinking of entering the race.
By: Alex SeitzWald, Think Progress, December 1, 2011
Does GOP Really Want To Increase Taxes On The Middle Class?
As the Senate considers an extension of the payroll tax holiday, the big question is: why in the world would Republicans in Congress consider raising middle class taxes by $1,000 to $1,500 per household in the midst of an economic downturn and an election year?
This is a particularly vexing question when you recall the ardor with which the GOP has campaigned against raising the taxes paid by millionaires and billionaires by even one dime.
At the beginning of the week it appeared that virtually every Republican in the Senate was prepared to vote no on a Democratic proposal to extend and broaden the current payroll tax holiday.
Now some are beginning to get cold feet. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has now reportedly “opened the door” to considering the possibility of a payroll tax cut extension.
But the real question is why Republicans would contemplate voting against extension of the payroll tax holiday in the first place?
Voting no would be like leaping off a political cliff — taking an iconic vote that would no doubt become emblematic of the fact that they are willing to sacrifice the interests of the 99% to protect the fortunes of the wealthiest people in America. John Paulsen — the Wall Street hedge fund manager who made $5 billion last year (that’s $2,400,000 per hour!) — might consider this a courageous stand. But the everyday worker — who will take 48 years to make as much as Paulsen makes in one hour — might not be so charitable.
Perhaps, you might say, it’s because Republicans are taking a strong principled stand against raising the deficit. But that would not be the case, since the Democratic proposal is entirely paid for by a small increase in the taxes of millionaires.
What on earth could drive Senate Republicans to consider taking such a stupid vote? Four possibilities jump to mind.
1). Possible Reason Number 1: They claim the extension of the payroll tax holiday will undermine Social Security and Medicare.
Republican Senator Jon Kyl made this argument on the weekend talk shows. We can dismiss this talk as a complete smoke screen.
First, Senator Kyl and the Republicans have never given a rat’s rear about Social Security and Medicare in the first place.
Second, the payroll tax holiday that was passed last year does not remove one dime from the Social Security or Medicare trust funds. In fact, the lost payroll tax is replaced dollar for dollar from the Federal general revenue fund.
The payroll tax holiday itself is simply a means of putting money directly into the pockets of working people that is then replaced with money from the much more progressive overall Federal tax structure.
2). Possible Reason Number 2: Some Republicans really don’t believe that taking $1,500 out of the paychecks of everyday consumers will hurt the economy.
There are apparently some Republican lawmakers who have drunk the “Keynesian Economics Doesn’t Work” Kool-Aide. They actually believe that the only way to stimulate economic growth is to shovel more and more income into the hands of the top 1% — the “job creators” — and watch that money “trickle down” on the rest of us.
The problem is that there is absolutely no evidence that “trickle down” economics works — or ever worked.
We had an actual experiment with “trickle down” economics during the Bush Administration. The Republicans cut tax rates for the wealthy. The rich got a lot richer, and the median income of everyday families actually dropped. In fact it was the first decade in modern history that the economy did not create one net private sector job.
But — the Republicans say — two and a half years ago Congress passed a huge stimulus bill, and we still don’t have enough jobs.
Of course, they forget to mention that at the time, the economy was shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs because the financial system had collapsed as a result of the very same policies they are now advocating once again. And there is the inconvenient fact that since the stimulus worked its way through the economy, we have had 20 straight months of private sector job growth — whereas during the last twelve months of the Bush Administration we lost massive numbers of private sector jobs.
Of course a good deal of that private sector growth has been offset by the Republican refusal to continue the stimulus bill’s aid to state and local governments. That resulted in layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers — and other public service workers who they must presume do not hold “real jobs.”
The problem with the stimulus bill was not that it didn’t work. The problem was that it wasn’t big enough. Republicans remind you of a guy who uses a hose to put out half of a house fire, turns off the water and then contends that water doesn’t put out fires because the entire fire hasn’t been extinguished. The obvious answer is to get more water. Not only do the Republicans want to stop pouring on the water of stimulus — they want to pour on the gasoline of austerity — just the opposite of what is needed to put out the bad economic flames.
When an economy is in recession the problem — by definition — is too little demand to absorb the goods and services that the economy can produce. The way to solve the problem is to generate more demand to jump-start the economy. This is not just a matter of opinion — it’s a matter of mathematics.
Republicans who run around claiming that economic stimulus — money in consumer pockets — isn’t what’s needed to stimulate economic growth are like people in the middle ages who refused to believe that the earth circles the sun. If the evidence doesn’t support their ideological frame, they throw out the evidence — not the ideological frame. They ignore the facts. It makes no more sense for them to vilify “Keynesians” than it did for an earlier generation to vilify “Copernicans.”
There is complete economic consensus that eliminating the payroll tax holiday today will be a disaster for the economy. In fact, economists like Mark Zandi — who advised John McCain’s campaign — argue that if the payroll tax holiday is not extended, it will shave 1.7% off the gross domestic product and throw the economy into a double dip recession.
3). Possible Reason Number 3: The Republicans oppose extending the payroll tax holiday, because President Obama is for it.
That’s certainly their knee-jerk response. They believe that anything that makes Obama look effective hurts Republican chances in 2012.
But they have some big problems here. First, many Republicans supported a payroll tax holiday in the past — and many voted for the original holiday last year. If they form a solid wall of opposition, they will look like hypocrites who changed their position simply to hurt their political opponents.
And, second, the entire issue puts them in political box canyon — with no escape. If they oppose extension they look like they are obstructing something that is good for the economy — and very palpable to everyday voters. If they support an extension, they give the President a victory.
4). Possible Reason Number 4: Republicans actually understand that ending the payroll tax holiday will hurt the economy — and that’s exactly what they want to do.
There are clearly some Republicans in Congress who actually believe that ending the payroll tax holiday won’t hurt the economy. But there are a lot of Republicans who know exactly what will happen and would be perfectly happy to hurt the economy.
In fact, the Republican leadership has laid a bet that if the economy continues to stagnate they are that much more likely to defeat Democrats next fall. They know that no President in a hundred years has been re-elected when the economy was not materially improving. And they are certainly right that a major issue in next year’s election will be who is responsible for the lousy economy.
Their problem is that by supporting an increase in the payroll tax that takes $1,500 out of the pockets of every middle class family, they create an iconic example of why the real problem is the “do-nothing Republican Congress.”
Sixty-seven percent of Americans believe that Congress is completely controlled by Republicans. And even though the Senate leadership is Democratic, the Republican willingness to stop action using the filibuster means that they are, in fact, entirely responsible for preventing action to create jobs.
That’s good news for Democrats, since in some polls only 9% of Americans have a positive view of Congress and overwhelming numbers believe the country is on the wrong track.
That means that Democrats in Congress can run as outsiders who want to break the log jam in Congress and take action on jobs — take action to defend the middle class. It means that the President can lay the blame for the lousy economy directly at the doorstep of the Republican Party – and its nominee.
The battle over the extension of the payroll tax holiday plays right into that narrative. It is a huge problem for the Republicans in Congress. Bad enough that the “do-nothing Republican Congress” is doing everything it can to oppose President Obama’s agenda to create jobs. Taking $1,500 out of the pockets of everyday Americans gets downright personal.
That’s why, when the chips are down, the odds are good that the Republican leadership will fold its hand and support extension of the payroll tax holiday.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post, November 30, 2011
The GOP “Wet Blanket” Fetish
The six Republicans from the failed super-committee, in an op-ed today:
The 2001 and 2003 changes to the tax code reduced marginal rates for all taxpayers as well as the rates for capital gains, dividends and the death tax. For technical reasons, all of these provisions expire at the end of next year — meaning that if Congress does not act, Americans will face the largest tax increase in our history. This prospect has put a wet blanket over job creation and economic recovery.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), three weeks ago:
“I think the budget deficit and our debt serves as a wet blanket over our economy.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), in late September:
“Business owners are reluctant to create jobs today when they’re going to need to pay more tomorrow to comply with onerous new regulations. That’s what employers mean when they say that uncertainty generated by Washington is a big wet blanket on our economy.”
Former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), seeking a comeback, in mid September:
” [T]ax hikes that President Obama has been pushing since he was elected and they will put a heavy, wet blanket on an economy.”
So, to review, Republicans believe the possibility of potential tax increases, regulations, the debt, the deficit, and uncertainty are all a “wet blanket.” I can only assume some focus group somewhere told pollsters they like this metaphor, which is why it’s being used so incessantly.
Let’s make this plain, shall we? The laws of supply and demand are not subject to a Republican filibuster. The economy is struggling because businesses don’t have enough customers. We have high unemployment and depressed wages, which lead to less demand, slower growth, and fewer new jobs. It’s really not that complicated.
Republicans, who should be able to understand these basics, are eager to make matters worse, undermining demand when we should be doing the opposite. And that’s the real wet blanket we should be talking about.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly, November 26, 2011
No Amount Of Obama ‘Leadership’ Could’ve Saved The Super Committee
Despite what you might have heard, Barack Obama is not to blame for the failure of the so-called “super committee” to reach a debt deal. That the president should have exercised greater “leadership” has become a standard talking point both on the right and among the “everyone’s to blame for a broken system” commentariat. But that line of criticism simply isn’t connected to political reality.
Part of the problem is a belief that has developed in recent decades in the omnipotence of the president and the bully pulpit.
As my colleague Ken Walsh notes,
Americans expect their president to push the system into action and, through persuasion, cajolery, threats, intimidation or personal diplomacy, get things done on Capitol Hill.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg got it right when he told reporters, in reaction to the committee’s collapse, “It’s the chief executive’s job to bring people together and to provide leadership. I don’t see that happening.”
But that presupposes that all policy gaps are bridgeable. Some simply aren’t. In this specific instance, the chasm was too wide. As the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has neatly summarized it, the super sticking point was: “Democrats wanted the rich to pay more in taxes towards deficit reduction, and Republicans wanted the rich to pay less in taxes towards deficit reduction.”
When Republicans finally allowed for some increased tax revenues, they were conditioned on making permanent the Bush tax cuts. In other words the GOP was willing to close around $300 billion in loopholes in exchange for adding $4 trillion to the deficit in the form of enshrining the Bush tax rates.
Mother Jones’s Kevin Drum has a helpful set of four questions any critics of Obama’s leadership here should answer. The second one is the key: Critics should “explain whether they think Republicans would ever, under any circumstances, have accepted a deal with a net tax increase.”
No one who is both sentient and has watched politics in recent years thinks that they would. So the leadership that Bloomberg and others would have Obama exercise would involve him either talking the GOP into becoming Democrats or himself capitulating to their demands. (This latter option would, of course, have set many of the same commentators off on a round of exposition about what a weak leader Obama is for having surrendered to the GOP, again.)
The utter hollowness of the GOP position is underscored by the fact that Republicans who criticize Obama for not taking a more direct role in the super committee’s deliberations attacked him for undermining the committee when he released his deficit reduction proposal (h/t Sargent).
The belief that presidential “leadership” would have somehow bridged this divide is especially pernicious because it plays into the hands of GOP hardliners. So long as pundits insist that any policy chasm can be bridged with just an application of presidential leadership, it removes all incentive for the side opposing the president to do anything but hold a hard line. What else should they do when he gets the blame for their intransigence?
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, November 22, 2011
“Spending Cuts”: GOP Demands An End To Their Own Idea
Remember the “triggers” in the debt-ceiling agreement? Let’s take a moment to refresh the political world’s memory.
Congressional Republicans, in a move without precedent in American history, were holding the economy and the full faith and credit of the United States hostage. Democrats, fearful that the GOP wasn’t bluffing and that the nation would pay a severe price, was willing to cut a bad deal: $900 billion in debt reduction, on top of another $1.2 trillion agreement to be worked out by a so-called super-committee.
But Dems weren’t completely willing to roll over — they wanted to create an incentive for Republicans to work in good faith on the $1.2 trillion in savings. Democrats proposed the threat of automatic tax increases to push GOP officials to be responsible, but Republicans refused and offered an alternative: if the committee failed, the GOP would accept $600 billion in defense cuts and Dems would accept $600 billion in non-defense domestic cuts.
Remember, the point was to create an incentive that the parties would be desperate to avoid. Pentagon cuts were Republicans’ contribution to the process. These cuts were their idea.
And wouldn’t you know it, Republicans don’t like their idea anymore.
Failure by Congress’ debt-cutting supercommittee to recommend $1.2 trillion in savings by Wednesday is supposed to automatically trigger spending cuts in the same amount to accomplish that job.
But the same legislators who concocted that budgetary booby trap just four months ago could end up spending the 2012 election year and beyond battling over defusing it.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., say they are writing legislation to prevent what they say would be devastating cuts to the military. House Republicans are exploring a similar move.
This isn’t exactly surprising, but it is kind of amusing. Republicans, in effect, said in August, “If we fail, we’ll accept these cuts we don’t want.” The same Republicans, in effect, are now saying, “It turns out, we don’t like our idea anymore.”
In the bigger picture, Republicans were never working in good faith. Even putting aside the inherently disgusting debt-ceiling crisis they created over the summer, GOP officials were willing to offer the defense-cut trigger precisely because they knew they’d try to kill it after the super-committee inevitably failed.
Republicans started this fight demanding debt reduction, then offered massive spending cuts to a part of the government they care about. They’re now demanding less debt reduction and more government spending — and if Democrats balk, these same Republicans will spend an election year accusing them of being anti-military.
I often wonder what our discourse would be like if the general public knew what GOP officials were up to in Washington.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, The Washington Monthly, November 21, 2011
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