“Active Inertia” Of A Dying Party: Intellectually Bankrupt, Republican’s Are Pyromanic’s In A field Of Strawmen
Take pity on poor Marco Rubio. You’d be reaching for a bottle of Poland Springs, too, if you had to spit out the dry-as-dust bromides and the well past their sell-by date Reagan-era platitudes that Rubio was forced to expectorate as the Republican Party’s designated responder to President Obama’s State of the Union address last Tuesday.
“More government isn’t going to help you get ahead,” said Rubio, doing his best Ronald Reagan “government-isn’t-the-solution-it’s-the-problem” impersonation. “It’s going to hold you back. More government isn’t going to create more opportunities. It’s going to limit them. And more government isn’t going to inspire new ideas, new businesses and new private sector jobs. It’s going to create uncertainty.”
Later on, Rubio wasn’t content to merely propose we reduce debts and deficits. He had to go all the way to balance the budget in ways that did not involve the choice between “either higher taxes or dramatic benefit cuts for those in need.” Instead, Rubio offered the oldie but goodie that we should “grow our economy so that we create new taxpayers, not new taxes, and so our government can afford to help those who truly cannot help themselves.”
Good grief! Could this speech have been given 30 years ago? Of course it could, says Andrew Sullivan, because it was not a political speech at all but rather a “recitation of doctrine dedicated to Saint Ronald.”
What Rubio gave us on Tuesday, says Sullivan, “was an intellectually exhausted speech that represents the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary Republicanism” — a series of “Reaganite truisms that had a role to play in reinvigorating America after liberal over-reach in the 1960s and 1970s,” perhaps, but offering little that was new or applicable today.
If reciting these platitudes in Spanish counts as what the GOP thinks it will take to restore the party to political or intellectual relevance, says Sullivan, then “they are more deluded than even I imagined.”
After listening to Rubio, I am in agreement with Josh Barro when he says the Republican Party’s problem isn’t the messenger but its whole economic message. And to fix that, Republicans need to show they are serious about policy — and for “smart government” on a case-by-case basis – and not just demagogues when it comes to government.
Michael Grunwald had the same thought when he said if Republicans really believe they lost the last election “because Romney was a boring rich white guy who alienated Hispanics” then in Rubio they got their chance “to see a charismatic Cuban-American with humble roots but otherwise indistinguishable positions on every issue except for immigration.”
And the result should have had Republicans reaching for drinks stronger than water.
I am not sure what to say when Rubio tried to pass himself off as a regular guy who went through college on federal student loans and has a mother who gets Medicare — but who then speaks for a party committed to cutting, if not eliminating, both.
At the same time, I am left speechless by Rubio’s assertion that Obama has no cause for blaming President Bush for the nation’s debt – at the same time Rubio insists the “real cause of our debt” is the $1 trillion deficit Bush left Obama when he took office — times four. And shame on Obama, says Rubio, that Obama did not immediately undo everything George W. did and reduce the deficit to zero in the middle of the second worst recession in 70 years.
But “that’s why we need a balanced budget amendment,” concludes Rubio, idiotically.
Rubio offered no compromise on gun control, nothing but border security on immigration, drill, baby, drill as an energy policy, not a word on gay equality, and nothing at all about the 60,000 Americans fighting and dying in Afghanistan. And as for climate change, he quipped: “No matter how many job-killing laws we pass, our government can’t control the weather.” Ha, ha, ha.
Rubio was also like a pyromaniac in a field of straw men insisting President Obama is hostile to the free enterprise economy, believes the economy collapsed because government didn’t tax enough and that the “solution to virtually every problem we face is for Washington to tax more, borrow more and spend more.”
At the same time, Rubio blames the 2008 financial collapse on a “housing crisis created by reckless government policies.”
I used to write speeches for Republicans, and so I suppose I should be indebted to Senator Rubio for providing such a perfect distillation of all the reasons I gave up on the thankless, potentially health damaging task of articulating ideas for Republicans who don’t have any.
By my counting, Rubio is now the third leading Republican (after Governor Bobby Jindal and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor) who’ve gone “over the top” like doomed WWI doughboys as they charge across their barren ideological No Man’s Land in a futile effort to reposition a Republican Party that wants no part of change.
One measure of the heavy lift facing Rubio and Company as they try to pour new wine into old bottles was the reaction of other Republicans to the President’s State of the Union address. Their collective message seemed to be: What a tragedy a perfect opportunity was squandered for the President to declare he’d become a Republican after winning reelection in a landslide.
“He seems to always be in campaign mode, where he treats people in the other party as enemies rather than partners,” said House Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who seemed puzzled Obama had not immediately embraced Ryan’s ideas.
“In the last election, voters chose divided government which offers a mandate only to work together to find common ground,” said Speaker John Boehner who seemed puzzled the President actually thinks like a Democrat. “The President, instead, appears to have chosen a go-it-alone approach to pursue his liberal agenda.”
But the response I loved best came from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who sounded like some slave-owning Southern Oligarch warning the President against offering “another litany of left-wing proposals” or throwing “red meat” to his base because, you know, “the campaign is over” and so the “Republican-controlled House” is back to calling the shots.
You’ve had your fun Mr. President, McConnell seemed to be saying. You won the election fair and square. But now it’s time to face facts. That’s a nice little democracy you’ve got there, Mr. President. But don’t forget, we’re still in charge.
Republicans like to think themselves connected to the disciplines of the free market, with its emphasis on competition, innovation and the relentless “creative destruction” of revolutionary change. Yet, it’s astonishing to me how Republicans at the same time exhibit the sclerosis of what author Chrystia Freeland calls the “active inertia” of dying organizations that fail to adjust to the imperatives of change because “they do what they always did — only more energetically than before.”
By: Ted Frier, Open Salon Blog, February 15, 2013
“Memory And Respect”: Sandy Hook, The Green Ribbon, And NRA Bullying
If a viewer wanted to tell who was a Democrat and who was a Republican at the State of the Union address, there was no need to match faces to facebooks or even to see where they sat in the House chamber. All that was necessary was to look for the green ribbon.
Democrats (and some guests) sported bright green ribbons on their lapels, symbolizing support for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School gun massacre. Republicans were largely ribbon-free. You can see the loop of green on the suit of Vice President Biden in photos of him standing behind President Obama at the speech. House Speaker John Boehner’s lapel is bare. It was like a live-action version of the Dr. Seuss tale about the Star-bellied Sneetches and the Plain-bellied Sneetches. But instead of being a thinly-veiled lesson on race relations, as the children’s book is, the ribbon divide displayed a force nearly as powerful in American politics: the National Rifle Association.
Now, in the plain-lapelled members’ defense, there is something a little irritating about the whole ribbon thing. There’s a ribbon for everything (if there isn’t a rubber bracelet), and not everyone wants or needs to wear a spot of color to express concern for an issue or disease. How many of us sided with Seinfeld‘s Kramer when he refused to wear the AIDS ribbon (even as he attempted to do the AIDS walk)? The social pressure to show solidarity by accessories can be a tad too much.
But congressmen and congressional politics are all about symbols. So why couldn’t the entire House and Senate just wear the damn ribbon? Sadly, the ribbon came to mean something more political than it was meant to be. It was supposed to be a symbol of memory and respect for the children gunned down in their elementary school. Instead, it became a symbol of being for gun control. And while there are indeed members who sincerely oppose any kind of gun control on Second Amendment grounds, there are others who are simply too afraid of the NRA’s power to take a stand—even a mild one—for even the tamest of gun safety proposals. Someone can be a strong Second Amendment supporter and still have compassion for the families of the Sandy Hook victims. The NRA shouldn’t frighten lawmakers from showing basic respect for innocent victims of violence.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, February 14, 2013
“A Nonpartisan No-Brainer”: Raising The Minimum Wage Is Beneficial For Individuals And Businesses
In Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, President Obama called on members of Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 an hour, something Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) supported during the 2012 election. The president said, “This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. It could mean the difference between groceries or the food bank; rent or eviction; scraping by or finally getting ahead.”
Who could argue with that?
Two Republican leaders have voiced their opposition to the president’s proposal. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) agree that raising the minimum wage hurts businesses, claiming that increasing the cost of employment makes it difficult for businesses to sustain themselves and deters them from hiring employees.
A study released yesterday by the Center for Economic and Policy Research suggests otherwise. John Schmitt, who authored Why Does The Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on Employment?, argues that raising wages actually has little to no effect on employment. Schmitt offers 11 “channels of adjustment,” ways in which businesses could respond to a raise in minimum wage. These include raising prices on goods and services (offset by higher demand), increase in worker efficiency and effort, and less difficulty in recruiting and retaining employees which “may compensate some or all of the increased wage costs, allowing employers to maintain employment levels.”
Based on the results of this study, small businesses have everything to gain in paying their employees a wage they can live on. Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman addressed the myth behind cutting minimum wage during a time of recession back in 2009. “In reality, reducing wages would at best do nothing for employment; more likely it would actually be contractionary,” Krugman said. “Proposing wage cuts as a solution to unemployment is a totally counterproductive idea.”
Larger corporations such as Walmart and McDonald’s that employ 66% of low-wage workers are rewarding their top executives in profitable years with raises, while their low-wage employees are still making minimum wage — a pay level that is not sustainable for many American families. In fact, if minimum wage matched inflation, it would be $10.58 per hour.
As stated in a Huffington Post article, “This would guarantee that workers on the lowest rung of the economic ladder don’t lose purchasing power, but it would also mean fast-food companies and other low-wage employers would have to pay higher wages just about every year, except in rare cases of deflation.”
This type of proposal was already favored in 2010, when the Public Religion Research Institute conducted a poll and found that 67 percent of respondents were in favor of increasing the minimum wage to $10.00 an hour—that includes a majority of respondents who identified as Republicans.
In 2007, President Bush signed the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which easily passed in the House 315-116, including bipartisan support from 82 Republicans. It passed the Senate — with the help of Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — by a 94-3 vote before making it to the president’s desk.
Studies clearly point to the profitable effects on individuals and businesses if earnings per hour are raised to a level where low-wage workers are actually able to support themselves and their families. If Republicans like Boehner and Rubio are truly advocating for their middle-class constituents, then supporting the president in ensuring that workers earn what they deserve — and can live on — ought to be a nonpartisan no-brainer.
By: Allison Brito, The National Memo, February 14, 2013
“The New GOP”: More Of The Same, This Time In Spanish
Congressional Republicans are boldly forging a new anti-Obama path that sounds depressingly familiar to the anti-Obama path they’ve been on since retaking the House in 2010. But now it’ll be done in Spanish.
In the Senate, the Republicans’ minority status could force them to play defense in an effort to respond to an agenda that is controlled by the Democrats and usually an extension of policies being pushed by the White House. But in the House, where Republicans run the floor, the party plans to shift gears, spearheading a series of bills designed less to land on the president’s desk than to communicate to Americans what the GOP stands for.Given the outcome of the 2012 elections and the increasing importance of Hispanic and younger voters, it also is likely no accident that Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky selected the 41-year-old Rubio, an ethnic Cuban, to deliver this particular Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union address. Rubio is not just a rising GOP star and potential 2016 presidential contender, but a key Republican leader on immigration changes.
“Marco Rubio is the right guy to talk to Hispanics about work ethic and economic growth as a counter to deficit spending,” said a Republican lobbyist with relationships on Capitol Hill. The implicit suggestion of many Republican operatives is that Rubio is an important GOP messenger to spotlight in the aftermath of the party nominating a 2012 presidential candidate who garnered a mere 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.
This new “voter-focused” agenda was previewed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his big, rebranding speech last week. That was the speech presented the same old Republican ideas on the budget, on education, and on health care, but with a smile. And now, apparently, in Spanish.
So to recap: the GOP still hates Obama; they aren’t changing any of their policies; they’re still going to focus on legislation that will never go anywhere; and they think having Rubio deliver this message will solve all their problems with Hispanic voters.
BY: Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, February 12, 2013
“With Friends Like This”: Michele Bachmann Still Has Access To Our Nation’s Top Secrets
Here are just a few of the people who have publicly condemned Rep. Michele Bachmann’s work on the House Intelligence Committee in the past year — from her own party: The GOP’s most prominent voice on foreign policy, the speaker of the House, the party’s leading 2016 presidential candidate, and the chairman of that very committee.
Then there was the epic eye roll that White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennnan, who was recently tapped to lead the CIA, delivered when asked about Bachmann. “I’m not even going to try to divine what it is that sometimes comes out of Congress,” he said with a laugh.
The rebukes followed Bachmann’s neo-McCarthyite witch hunt against Muslims in the federal government, for she feared “deep penetration” by Muslim Brotherhood agents. One suspect included Huma Abedin, a top aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who it turned out was not a terrorists and happened to be beloved by members of both parties.
While the witch hunt was surprising, the fact that Bachmann would use her perch on the Intelligence Committee to do something stupid was entirely predictable. This is Michele Bachmann, after all, who sees conspiracy theories everywhere and for whom the word “intelligence” is rarely used in the same sentence without the addition of a negative qualifier.
And yet, Bachmann has now officially been reappointed to her seat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. On Friday, House Republicans released their list of committee members for the nascent 113th Congress, and Bachmann’s name is on it. The post gives her access to classified information and the power to oversee the country’s intelligence agencies, including the use of drones and efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear program.
And if that’s not enough, two of her co-conspirators, Reps. Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Rooney, will retain their seats on the committee as well. Westmoreland and Rooney, along with Reps. Louie Gohmert and Trent Franks, signed on to Bachmann’s letters to the inspectors general of five national security agencies demanding investigations into alleged Muslim Brotherhood penetration.
(Incidentally, security breaches are not really the domain of inspectors general, who deal more with budgetary and administrative impropriety. Counter-intelligence agents would be the more appropriate choice if Bachmann were actually concerned about infiltration and not using the campaign to boost her fundraising and reelection bid.)
That means that most of Bachmann’s anti-Muslim cabal remains on the Intelligence Committee, representing a quarter of the 12 GOP members of the group. The only new member, Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, replaces Rep. Sue Myrick, who had one of the most notoriously anti-Muslim records in Congress before resigning last year. Pompeo may not be much better.
Why is Bachmann getting another round on a committee she probably has no business being on? We can’t know for sure, but probably because immediate domestic political concern trumps foreign policy competence every time, especially if you’re John Boehner.
In July, the National Review’s Robert Costa reported that “many senior House GOP aides were wary of elevating” Bachmann to the Intel Committee at the time of her appointment, but “Boehner assured them that it was an appropriate gesture.” After losing her presidential race, the seat was “a political lifeline” for Bachmann and it was all thanks to Boehner, Costa explained.
The uproar over the Abedin affair threatened to undo all of that, but apparently was not enough. Either Boehner is scared of taking on Bachmann and her vast grass-roots network of admirers, or he’d rather appease her and tap into that political power. Either way, he’s choosing to keep her in a position of power over national security, despite calling her views “dangerous” only a few months ago.
And it’s all the more surprising considering that Boehner had no problem culling a number of other high-profile Tea Party members from plum committee posts last month, in what became known as the “Tea Party purge.”
BY: Alex Seitz-Wald, Salon, February 11, 2013
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