“It’s Ryan’s Party”: Movement Conservatives Openly Control GOP At Last
I’m not sure I believe in Freudian slips, and Barack Obama made a similar mistake when he introduced Joe Biden four years ago, but what the hell: When Mitt Romney slipped up this morning and introduced Paul Ryan as “the next president of the United States,” he spoke the truth. The premise of my April profile was that Ryan had become the leader of the Republican Party, with the president himself relegated to a kind of head-of-state role, at least in domestic affairs. As Grover Norquist put it, the only requirement for a nominee was enough working digits to sign Ryan’s plan. Ryan’s prestige within the party is unassailable. If he doesn’t want something to happen, it won’t happen (say, several bipartisan deals to reduce the deficit that he squashed.) If he wants something to happen, however foolhardy (like putting the entire House GOP caucus on record for his radical budget plan despite a certain veto) it will happen. It is Ryan’s party.
The only real question left was how to handle the optics of this reality. The original operating plan of the Romney campaign was to run against the bad economy, and then implement the Ryan Plan, which of course is a long-term vision of government unrelated to the current state of the labor market. Romney’s campaign had been bravely insisting for weeks that the plan was working, or that it was due for a 1980-like October leap in the polls, but clearly Romney did not believe, or had come to disbelieve, its own spin.
So Romney is conceding that the current track of the campaign is headed for a narrow defeat and has decided to alter its course. Obama has successfully defined Romney as an agent of his own economic class, a ploy that was clearly designed to make the attacks on Romney’s policy agenda hit home. (Focus groups had previously found that undecided voters found literal descriptions of Romney’s plan so radical they didn’t believe them.)
Romney has made the risky but defensible calculation that, if he is to concur with most of his party’s ideological baggage, he might as well bring aboard its best salesman. And Ryan is that. During his rise to power he has displayed an awesome political talent. He is ambitious but constantly described by others as foreswearing ambition. He comes from a wealthy background but has defined himself as “blue collar,” because he comes from a place that is predominantly blue collar. He spent the entire Bush administration either supporting the administration’s deficit-increasing policies, or proposing alternative policies that would have created much higher deficits than even Bush could stomach, but came away from it with a reputation as the ultimate champion of fiscal responsibility.
What makes Ryan so extraordinary is that he is not just a handsome slickster skilled at conveying sincerity with a winsome heartland affect. Pols like that come along every year. He is also (as Rich Yeselson put it) the chief party theoretician. Far more than even Ronald Reagan, he is deeply grounded is the ideological precepts of the conservative movement — a longtime Ayn Rand devotee who imbibed deeply from the lunatic supply-side tracts of Jude Wanniski and George Gilder. He has not merely formed an alliance with the movement, he is a product of it.
In this sense, Ryan’s nomination represents an important historical marker and the completion of a 50-year struggle. Starting in the early sixties, conservative activists set out to seize control of the Republican Party. At the time the party was firmly in the hands of Establishmentarians who had made their peace with the New Deal, but the activists regarded the entire development of the modern regulatory and welfare states as a horrific assault on freedom bound to lead to imminent societal collapse. In fits and starts, the conservatives slowly advanced – nominating Goldwater, retreating under Nixon, nominating Reagan, retreating as Reagan sought to govern, and on and on through Gingrich, Bush, and his successors.
Over time the movement and the party have grown synonymous, and Ryan’s nominations represents a moment when the conservative movement ceased to control the politicians from behind the scenes and openly assumed the mantle of power.
By: Jonathan Chait, Daily Beast, August 11, 2012
“Romney’s Incredible Extremes”: Mitt Romney’s Tax And Spending Plans Are Irresponsible And Cruel
Mitt Romney’s tax and spending plans are so irresponsible, so cruel, so extreme that they are literally incredible. Voters may find it hard to believe anyone would support such things, so they are likely to discount even factual descriptions as partisan distortion.
The pro-Obama New Priorities PAC stumbled across this phenomena early in 2012 in its focus group testing. When they informed a focus group that Romney supported the budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), and thus championed ending Medicare as we know it while also championing tax cuts for the wealthy, focus group participants simply didn’t believe it. No politician could be so clueless.
Incredulity may complement what New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd dubbed Romney’s strategy of “hiding in plain sight.” Romney refuses to release his tax returns, scrubbed the records and e-mails of his time as governor and as head of the Olympics, keeps secret details of his Bain dealings and covers up the names of his bundlers. And then, he’s able to announce extremely cruel policy positions with impunity, because the voters just can’t believe that’s what he is for.
This is what comes to mind with the publication of a study on the effects of the Romney tax policy by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center and the Brookings Institution.
The study took its assumptions from Romney’s tax agenda on his Web page — where he promises to cut tax rates by 20 percent, sustain all the Bush tax breaks, keep the reduced rate for capital gains, eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminate capital gains taxes on married families earning less than $200,000 (or as Gingrich noted, on those that don’t have any capital gains) and eliminate the estate tax (a small boon to his strapping sons).
Romney then promises to make these cuts without losing revenue by eliminating tax loopholes. Only he refuses to identify which tax breaks or loopholes he would eliminate.
Under the best (and most improbable) of circumstances — that the Congress decided to completely eliminate tax expenditures for those making over $200,000 before reducing any of the benefits to those making under that amount — the study found that Romney’s tax plan would transfer a staggering $86 billion in tax burden from those making over $200,000 to those making under that amount. Millionaires would pocket an average tax cut of $87,000 while everyone else would suffer a tax hike of $500 a year.
That’s because to make up for the lost income, Congress would have to cut the mortgage deduction, the deduction for gifts to charity, the deduction for employer based health care, the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credit that goes to middle- and lower-income earners. But simply eliminating these and other tax breaks for the rich doesn’t generate enough revenue. So the people who really take it in the teeth are middle-income earners — small business people, middle management and professionals. It is, the study concluded, “not mathematically possible” to lower tax rates as Romney proposes without giving the rich a tax break and working and middle-income people a tax hike.
But will people believe that Romney really is for that — more tax breaks for the rich paid for by tax hikes on working families? Most of course will never learn about the Romney tax plan. But even those that do, could they ever accept the incredible truth?
Last month, the Democracy Corps, led by Stan Greenberg and James Carville, released a survey arguing that Obama and Democrats benefit greatly when the election is framed as a choice on the Republicans’ Ryan plan, the extreme budget passed by the House of Representatives, that exacts deep cuts in education, programs for poor children and turns Medicare into a voucher that pushes more and more costs on seniors.
In their survey, Obama’s margin over Romney “more than doubles” when the election is framed on the two candidates’ position on the Ryan budget. That of course, assumes that the election can be so framed, and that the voters will accept the assumption. But as the Priorities crowd discovered, voters have a hard time believing any politician could be supporting 20 percent cuts in education, an elimination of the refundable tax credit for children or dramatically changing Medicare. That is simply too extreme to be believed.
Ironically, of course, if Romney is elected and Republicans keep the House, the tea party right will claim a mandate. As Grover Norquist says, the House will drive the agenda and Romney will sign anything that emerges from the Senate. And sadly, given that the millionaires on the Democratic side of the Senate aisle aren’t nearly as united as those on the Republican side — and many are dependent on funding from some of the same special interests that now dominate Washington — we’re likely to see less Senate obstruction and more “bipartisan cooperation” on an agenda that Americans consider literally incredible.
The only hope is that voters take another look before they decide to vote for a change. In the case of Romney, the Republican really does support a budget plan that would scrap Medicare and give tax breaks to millionaires. He really is planning to eliminate Wall Street safeguards and take away health-care benefits from millions. He really believes the country will be better off if more teachers and police officers are laid off and foreclosures continue unabated.He really does want to deregulate Wall Street again, and gut the protections the EPA provides for clean air and clean water, to say nothing of global warming, the existence of which he now denies.
This isn’t a liberal caricature based on election-year demagoguery; this is Mitt Romney’s policy agenda. That is truly incredible — incredibly true.
By: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 7, 2012
“Romney’s Olympic Tax Myth”: Like A Designer Drug For The Fox News Set
More than catnip, this latest conservative tax myth is like a designer drug for the Fox News set, tailored perfectly for maximum impact at a time when Americans are hungry for anything Olympics-related. The offense: According to Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist’s anti-tax outfit, President Obama’s IRS will tax Olympic winners up to $9,000 after they return home victorious from London. Conservative blogs are having a field day and Republican politicians are clamoring to capitalize on news. Darling Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida introduced a bill to exempt Olympians’ winnings from taxes and an adviser to Mitt Romney told reporters today, “He believes that there should be no taxation of the type you are describing.” They’re calling on Obama to support the plan.
The only problem: It’s not really true. In addition to their medals, American winners are given prize money from the U.S. Olympic Committee: $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. Their medals are also worth about $675, $385 and under $5, respectively. ATR says this all gets taxed at 35 percent, meaning a gold medalist owes $8,986, silver winners owe $5,385, and bronzers owe $3,502.
First off, the medals aren’t subject to taxes. Mark Jones, the communications director for the U.S. Olympic Committee told Salon in an email, “There is no ‘value’ to medals and there is no tax associated with it.”
As for the prize money, according to Politifact, ATR’s claim is “mostly false.” Consulting accountants who have worked with athletes, the fact-checking website noted that while the money is certainly taxable, athletes could deduct all the expenses that went into getting them to the podium, including travel costs, equipment, training and coaching fees from the previous year. Those are all considered business expenses, and could lower or even eliminate an athlete’s tax liability, depending how much they spent. Moreover, the 35 percent rate assumes athletes are in the highest income bracket, earning over $380,000 a year. While some Olympians certainly make millions, the majority of athletes probably do not. Many are barely scraping by, lacking sponsorship deals and unable to work full-time due to training demands. (We wrote yesterday about marathoner Guor Marial, who works from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m. at a home for mentally disabled adults every night so he can spend his days training.) This would put them in a lower tax bracket where they would pay far less, or even nothing, on their winnings, even before deductions.
A quick Nexis search revealed zero stories from 2004 and 2008 about Olympians being taxed for their winnings. One would think, judging by how much attention the story is getting today, that there would have been articles written then about disappointed athletes who returned home to find a hefty tax bill. We did find several stories like that, but they were all from Canada.
Moreover, while it may be politically popular to exempt Olympic winnings, there’s no real reason why they should be treated any differently from, say, the prize money that comes with winning a Nobel or Pulitzer Prize, or even the lottery, all of which are taxed like any other income. Past Nobel laureates have complained about being taxed for their prize, which at about $1.4 million, would produce a much larger bill than the gold medalist’s winnings.
“There is no principled basis to tax Olympic prizes any less than Nobel prizes, earnings or lottery winnings. If Congress wants to give Olympic winners more money, it should transparently give them more money rather than create an obscure tax expenditure to do exactly the same thing,” David Miller, a tax attorney with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP in New York, told Salon.
So Rubio and Romney, are Nobel laureates any less deserving than Olympians of special treatment?
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, August 2, 2012
“In Pursuit Of Partisan Aims”: What’s The True Meaning Of Patriotism?
Recently I publicly debated a regressive Republican who said Arizona and every other state should use whatever means necessary to keep out illegal immigrants. He also wants English to be spoken in every classroom in the nation, and the pledge of allegiance recited every morning. “We have to preserve and protect America,” he said. “That’s the meaning of patriotism.”
To my debating partner and other regressives, patriotism is about securing the nation from outsiders eager to overrun us. That’s why they also want to restore every dollar of the $500 billion in defense cuts scheduled to start in January.
Yet many of these same regressives have no interest in preserving or protecting our system of government. To the contrary, they show every sign of wanting to be rid of it.
In fact, regressives in Congress have substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above loyalty to America.
The GOP’s highest-ranking member of Congress has said his “number one aim” is to unseat President Obama. For more than three years congressional Republicans have marched in lockstep, determined to do just that. They have brooked no compromise.
They couldn’t care less if they mangle our government in pursuit of their partisan aims. Senate Republicans have used the filibuster more frequently in this Congress than in any congress in history.
House Republicans have been willing to shut down the government and even risk the full faith and credit of the United States in order to get their way.
Regressives on the Supreme Court have opened the floodgates to unlimited money from billionaires and corporations overwhelming our democracy, on the bizarre theory that money is speech under the First Amendment and corporations are people.
Regressive Republicans in Congress won’t even support legislation requiring the sources of this money-gusher be disclosed.
They’ve even signed a pledge – not of allegiance to the United States, but of allegiance to Grover Norquist, who has never been elected by anyone. Norquist’s “no-tax” pledge is interpreted only by Norquist, who says closing a tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes and therefore violates the pledge.
True patriots don’t hate the government of the United States. They’re proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.
But regressive Republicans loathe the government – and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing much of anything. Tea Partiers are out to gut it entirely. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”
When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes, wealthy regressives claim “it’s my money.” But it’s their nation, too. And unless they pay their share America can’t meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means paying for America.
So when regressives talk about “preserving and protecting” the nation, be warned: They mean securing our borders, not securing our society. Within those borders, each of us is on our own. They don’t want a government that actively works for all our citizens.
Their patriotism is not about coming together for the common good. It is about excluding outsiders who they see as our common adversaries.
By: Robert Reich, Robert Reich Blog, June 25, 2012
“Agog At His Magesty”: Grover Norquist Delivers The GOP’s Marching Orders
All hail Grover Norquist!
Bow down, Lindsey Graham. The Republican senator from South Carolina dared to say he might consider supporting a tax increase — but then Norquist paid him a visit on Wednesday. “Every once in a while you have somebody with an impure thought like Lindsey Graham,” Norquist told me. But after their talk, Norquist could report that “Graham will never vote for a tax increase.”
Kneel before him, Tom Coburn. The Republican senator from Oklahoma had toyed with the idea of supporting a deficit-reduction deal that includes some tax increases, before Norquist conquered him. “He had a moment of weakness where he thought you had to raise taxes to get spending restraint,” Norquist said. “He now knows that’s not true.”
Prostrate yourselves, House Republicans. On Thursday, a day after Republican senators hosted Norquist on their side of the Capitol, GOP House members opened up the Ways and Means Committee room so that he could counsel them on The Pledge, an anti-tax edict written by Norquist and signed by all but four House Republicans, most Republican senators and Mitt Romney.
Lawmakers leaving their private audience with Norquist were agog at his majesty. “I agree with him tremendously,” reported Rep. John Fleming (R-La.).
But Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on Ways and Means, had a less favorable view of the spectacle as he stood in the hallway while Republicans in the committee room kissed Norquist’s ring.
“They’re in this committee room to hold royal court for the person who has asked people to take a pledge . . . not their constituents,” Levin complained. “Essentially, Norquist is here to hold feet to the fire when we need open minds.”
Norquist doesn’t dispute that. The tax-pledge effort he began a quarter-century ago is now the defining mantra of the party: no tax increases, no how, no way, no matter the consequences. With the possible exception of Newt Gingrich, Norquist has done more than anybody to bring about Washington’s political dysfunction.
Since he began, the federal debt has increased roughly eightfold. But Norquist still believes that as soon as next year victory will be his — all because of his pledge.
“Because almost all the Republicans took it, it became, actually, the branding of the party,” Norquist told me Thursday.
Although I think Norquist’s approach has been disastrous for the country, I am awed by his success with the pledge. Now Senate Democrats are trying to turn him into the GOP bogeyman of this election cycle.
“The leader of the Republican Party is up here today on the Hill. . . . You know who it is: It’s Grover Norquist,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said at a news conference Thursday, a couple of days after charging, with some validity, that Norquist “has the entire Republican Party in the palm of his hand.”
Norquist didn’t quarrel with the charge, as Fox News’s Chad Pergram put it to him, that he’s giving Republicans “their marching orders.”
“The modern Republican Party works with the taxpayer movement,” he replied, satisfied that “post-pledge, post-tea party, they’re not going to raise taxes.”
That’s probably because Norquist has convinced them that the long-sought victory is just months away. He predicts that Republicans will keep control of the House, take over the Senate, elect Romney president and promptly enact the Ryan budget. “It would be nice if some Democrats join, but it’s not necessary,” he said, arguing that the plan crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) could clear the Senate with only 50 votes as part of the budget “reconciliation” process.
This seems unlikely. Even if they could use the procedure Norquist favors (anti-deficit rules make this difficult) Republicans would have to make their plan temporary, like the George W. Bush tax cuts. And the backlash is likely to make the Obamacare rebellion look tame. We’d quickly be back in the stalemate.
But Norquist’s loyalists in Congress are holding their ranks, dutifully coordinating talking points with him after their private tutorial Thursday on “how the pledge should be communicated.”
“We have a spending problem, and the taxpayer pledge helps us focus on the problem,” House conservative leader Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told reporters as he departed.
“The problem in Washington is spending,” echoed Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
Finally, out came the 55-year-old Norquist, all of 5-foot-6 with a graying beard. He spoke expansively to reporters for more than half an hour, waving off the notion that he might be becoming a PR problem for the party.
“There are significantly more Republicans in Congress since they started taking the pledge,” he said. “The advocates of spending more and taxing more are losing.”
Losing? Or just locked in an unending blood feud?
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 22, 2012
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