“Not Just For The Few”: A Government To Love, One That Works For Everybody
Rep. Steve King of Iowa told a local TV station a few weeks ago that “the best thing anybody can do” in Congress is not come up with positive solutions, but to “kill bad bills.” He wasn’t just speaking for himself. He was explaining the philosophy of today’s right wing.
Of course elected officials should oppose bills they disagree with. But King and his party have taken this to an extreme, opposing any efforts to use the power of government to fix problems that affect ordinary people. This anti-government strain of the Tea Party that is calling the shots in today’s GOP doesn’t represent just hands-off libertarianism, as many would like us to believe. The Tea Party does want government to work: but they only want it to work for a few of us.
This growing movement that claims to be anti-government has caught us up in almost daily skirmishes over federal programs and budget line items. But these battles have obscured the real issue. It’s not a big government vs. small government debate. It’s a debate about who the government works for.
It’s not enough for progressives to fight these selective battles. We must also go on the offense, envisioning and proudly defending a government that works. A government that works serves the needs of all Americans. A government that works provides a safety net that allows us to take reasonable risks. A government that works is one that helps make the American Dream possible for everyone.
It’s important to note that the bashers of big government aren’t really against government in any form. They’re fine with the government that they want; they just don’t want one that serves all of us. When the Ted Cruz wing of the Republican Party shut down the federal government for weeks on end last year with their bluster about cutting the size of government, not everyone was hurt equally. Hundreds of thousands of government employees were sent home without pay, and government agencies shut down many services for low-income people, veterans, pregnant women, and National Institutes of Health patients. Also on hiatus: yes, environmental and financial regulators.
When the Senate refused to confirm any of President Obama’s nominees to the influential Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, it wasn’t just a refusal to let government do its job and thereby limit the work of the court. It was an attempt to preserve a Republican-appointed majority on the court that had been consistently rewriting the law to favor the interests of large corporations — that kind of government, they like just as is.
When the House Republicans voted to make drastic cuts to food stamps and Senate Republicans filibustered an effort to extend unemployment insurance to the long-term jobless, they weren’t concerned with shrinking the size of government. Instead, they focused their “small government” rhetoric on the minor portion of federal spending that goes to helping everyday Americans get a chance.
Unsurprisingly, the right, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also favor “small government” when it comes to letting corporations and wealthy individuals give huge amounts of unaccountable money to political campaigns, drowning out the voices of individual Americans. Limits on campaign spending, some of which go back more than a century, are what allowed us to build our strong, vibrant government of the people — a government that is now under constant attack.
When President Obama said in his State of the Union address that “it should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy,” he wasn’t offering a platitude. He was outlining a clear vision of government that works. We must remain aware of what the government-bashers are really after and proudly stand for a government that works for all Americans.
By: Michael B. Keegan, President, People For the American Way; The Huffington Post Blog, February 7, 2014
“Holding A Blank Ransom Note”: GOP Had A Plan On the Debt Ceiling, But Now Have Absolutely No Idea What To Do Next
Last spring, House Republican efforts to hold the debt ceiling hostage quickly became a fiasco – Democrats refused to play along and Congress passed a clean increase. Last October, House GOP efforts to hold the debt ceiling hostage were arguably even worse – the debacle coincided with a humiliating shutdown, and ended with another clean increase.
Despite this recent history, Republican lawmakers once again said they expected some kind of major policy concession or they would once again push the nation towards a default. Say hello to Debacle #3.
House Republican leaders are at a loss on how to move a debt limit increase.
A GOP leadership aide told CQ Roll Call that after an informal canvas of the House Republican Conference through member meetings and phone calls over the past week, leaders concluded that the top two sweeteners could not attract enough Republican support to pass a debt ceiling hike.
Going into this week, House Republicans had narrowed their scope: they would refuse to pay the nation’s bills unless Democrats gave them either (a) the Keystone XL pipeline and its 50 permanent jobs; or (b) the elimination of risk corridors in the Affordable Care Act, which would add $8 billion to the deficit and risk higher premiums on consumers.
In reality, it was highly unlikely the GOP would get either concession – Democrats don’t see the need to pay a ransom if the hostage takers are bluffing – but Republicans seemed certain they’d seek one concession or the other.
That is, until today, when House GOP leaders suddenly realized that rank-and-file House Republicans aren’t on board with either idea. And since these measures apparently don’t have 218 GOP votes, Republicans would need Democratic support to pull off their own hostage crisis, which isn’t going to happen.
So where does this leave the House of Representatives three weeks before Congress needs to act on the debt limit? Lost and directionless.
A leadership aide told Roll Call, “We are mulling other options and trying to figure out the best way forward on this.”
Or put another way, “We had a plan, but now have absolutely no idea what to do next.”
It’s not too tough to predict how this will play out.
That left Republican leaders with no clear alternative to addressing the debt limit, which the Treasury Department has said needs to be raised by the end of February.
Instead, it now appears that a combination of Republicans and Democrats will be needed to get a debt-limit boost through the House.
And that means a clean debt-ceiling increase, which was the inevitable outcome in the first place.
The lingering question isn’t why GOP leaders are struggling in this fight; it’s why GOP leaders agreed to launch this fight knowing in advance they’d lose.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 5, 2014
State Of The GOP: Misguided And Obsessed
Three years ago, obsession took hold of Republicans in Congress.
In the third week of January 2011, John Boehner’s newly-elected House held its first-ever vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act and go back to letting insurance companies do whatever they want. Fast forward to today — nearly 50 votes to repeal or undermine the law later — and it’s clear to the American people that Republicans in Congress aren’t on their side.
Pick an issue: Jobs. The economy. Education. Infrastructure. Minimum wage. Unemployment insurance. Immigration reform.
The list of failures, neglected issues and missed opportunities goes on and on — and shows without question that Republicans are on the side of special interests and the Tea Party, not the American people. No wonder poll after poll still shows House Republicans standing at record lows.
Boehner’s misguided agenda and one-note tenure have ignored what the American people want. In fact, independent, mainstream polls show that most Americans want to improve and fix the law, not repeal it. Americans know what repeal would cost them: giving the power back to insurance companies to discriminate, deny care, drop coverage, raise rates and drive hardworking Americans into bankruptcy.
On the Affordable Care Act and so many other issues that matter to the middle class, the message House Republicans have sent is clear: They are not on the side of hardworking American middle class families, and instead will do everything in their power to protect those who need help the least: the Washington special interests.
While House Republicans have obsessively voted to turn our health care system back over to insurance companies, that is far from the only damage they have inflicted on the people of this country. Their disastrous government shutdown — which they launched to oppose the Affordable Care Act — cost our economy $24 billion. They won’t extend unemployment insurance for struggling Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and who are looking for work — all while they make sure that Big Oil gets its $40 billion in subsidies. They refuse to raise the minimum wage, while seeking maximum tax cuts for the rich. They have yet to pass anything that remotely resembles a jobs bill.
Those wrong priorities will come back to haunt them in November.
A few Republicans are making the first motions to run away from this unpopular approach and to deny their repeal-only agenda. They’re hoping that voters will think that they’ve woken up and found some common sense — but voters won’t forget nearly 50 votes, and they won’t forgive them for turning their backs on hardworking people.
Republicans’ flawed priorities are hurting real families in this country. With every repeal vote, John Boehner might get a kick out of conservative news headlines and the talk radio echo chamber, but what regular Americans see is a politician who cares more about wealthy insurance company contributors than helping their families.
Voters will have a choice this fall between Republicans’ wrong priorities, and problem-solving Democrats who have dedicated their lives to helping middle class families get ahead. I believe that choice will be clear.
By: Rep Steve Israel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, CNN Opinion, January 28, 2014
“So Say The American People, And History”: Confirmed, This Is The Worst Congress Ever
Though millions of Americans received Christmas gifts Wednesday, none got the one thing just about everybody wanted. No, not a new iPhone: A new Congress.
Two-thirds of Americans in a CNN poll released Thursday said the current Congress was the worst one in their lifetimes. And it wasn’t just one party or demographic who felt that way.
“That sentiment exists among all demographic and political subgroups. Men, women, rich, poor, young, old — all think this year’s Congress has been the worst they can remember,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.
Three cheers for bipartisanship!
Meanwhile, three-fourths of respondents said lawmakers had “done nothing to address the country’s problems” through the first year of the 113th Congress. That gets at what’s primarily to blame for Congress’ horrible image: Lawmakers didn’t do much of anything this year, and the few things they did do were spectacularly infuriating. Heck, one of Congress’ most notable actions was failing to pass a bill to fund the government and, as a result, shuttering Washington for two weeks.
It’s not just a skewed, subjective view of congressional inaction either. The 113th Congress is statistically on track to be one of the least productive in history.
The 113th Congress passed only 66 laws in its first year, according to GovTrack. That was the lowest tally in four decades, or as far back as GovTrack has reliable data. Worse, only 58 of those bills became law, and many of them did nothing more than name post offices.
Meanwhile, many enormously popular bills fizzled. Nine in ten Americans supported tougher background checks for gun purchases, though Congress spiked gun control legislation. Two-thirds of Americans supported the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill, but the House refused to take it up this year.
So yes, people aren’t too thrilled with how Congress has been functioning, a sentiment that’s been made clear throughout the year. Polls have found Congress less popular than dog turds and cockroaches, and in November, Congress’ approval rating fell to an all-time low of nine percent, according to Gallup.
Don’t count on that trend turning around any time soon either. Sure, Congress just passed a bipartisan budget agreement before fleeing Washington for the holidays, but that compromise was relatively tiny, and there are other major showdowns looming, including yet another one over the debt ceiling. Oh, and 2014 is a midterm election year, which should make lawmakers even more tepid toward major action.
In other words, the 113th Congress is already one of the most unpopular and least-productive in history, and it’s probably only going to get worse.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, December 26, 2013
“We Don’t Want Nothing Out Of This Debt Limit”: Paul Ryan Says He Isn’t Done Holding The Economy Hostage
In the spectacular Republican burnout at the end of the October government shutdown, it was easy to miss that America came within just hours of a full economic meltdown.
The brinksmanship over the demand to defund Obamacare or at least completely maim it lasted for 16 days and cost an estimated $24 billion. But if the standoff had gone on just another day longer, the debt ceiling would have been breached, causing economic chaos.
It’s difficult to predict what kind of damage the economy might have suffered, because no Congress had ever been stupid enough to default on our debts on purpose. The debt limit crisis of 2011 cost the stock market thousands of points and stunted job creation for months. There wasn’t a similar effect in 2013 because Wall Street assumed the GOP was crying wolf, and they were right.
But one mistake, one procedural error, one coup against a congressional leader could have sparked the beginning of a default. And many economists believe the results would have resembled the 2008 financial crisis — but worse.
As she’s sold the budget deal she negotiated with House Republicans that doesn’t extend the debt limit, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) has said, “We have brought certainty and stability.”
And the economy does seem to be more stable since the GOP capitulated in October. “The volatility of the U.S. dollar in the last 90 days fell to 4.93 percent on Dec. 13 from a yearly high of 7.34 percent in September as a shutdown and debt ceiling crisis loomed, according to the Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Index that represents 10 major currencies weighted by liquidity and trade flows,” Bloomberg‘s Derek Wallbank and Kathleen Hunter noted.
But Murray’s partner, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), seems intent on disrupting that stability.
“We don’t want nothing out of this debt limit,” he told Fox News Sunday.
In other words, House Republican demands are forthcoming. The last time they put together a list of such demands, it was an insane laundry list of right-wing wishes cribbed from the Koch Brothers’ letter to Santa. Somehow being the party held responsible for the greatest financial crisis in a half-century has given Republicans the freedom to boldly threaten a return to such a crisis again and again, without fear of destroying their party.
The president offered, in return, nothing. Obviously regretting setting the precedent that the economy could be held hostage, President Obama has vowed never to negotiate over the debt limit again.
With Republican factions warring with themselves and everyone in Washington seeing their approval ratings shrink, would they dare play chicken with the economy as the midterm elections rapidly approach?
Paul Ryan knows he can’t afford not to at least seem as if he’s willing to do so without losing the Tea Party support that makes him such an asset to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). And the president knows he can’t afford to give in.
The result is that another crisis has been averted, but a far worse one looms.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, December 16, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 