“What Was Our Republican Leadership Thinking?”: Pretending To Care, The GOP Has A Decision To Make
Republicans Sens. John McCain, Kelly Ayotte, and Lindsey Graham kicked off the first in a series of public events yesterday, intended to highlight the apparent dangers of deep, automatic defense cuts due at the end of the year. The first event was in Ayotte’s home state of New Hampshire, where the lawmakers spoke at BAE Systems, which stands to lose thousands of jobs from reduced government spending.
At the event, McCain said:
“This was generated by Congress, and the president has a legitimate point when he says, ‘Well, Congress is the one that came up with this cockamamie idea, and so,’ as he said the other day, ‘let them wiggle out of it.’ Well, I understand that logic and there’s something to it.”
Yes, actually, there is. In fact, Graham told reporters yesterday, “What was our Republican leadership thinking when they agreed to the concept of sequestration?”
I’ve been wondering the same thing. McCain, Ayotte, and Graham are traveling from swing state to swing state, railing against the proposed defense cuts, which many Republicans blame on President Obama. But as the tour continues, is it too much to ask that the political world remember that these cuts were the GOP’s idea?
As we’ve discussed, as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, policymakers accepted over $1 trillion in cuts that would be implemented if the so-called supercommittee failed. Democrats weren’t completely willing to roll over — they wanted to create an incentive for Republicans to work in good faith.
Republicans agreed: if the committee failed, the GOP would accept defense cuts and Dems would accept non-defense domestic cuts. The committee, of course, flopped when GOP members refused to compromise, which put us on the clock for the automatic reductions that Republicans contributed to the very process they insisted upon.
So why blame Obama? He’s not the one who came up with the debt-ceiling crisis; he’s not the one who recommended the defense cuts; and he’s not the one who refused to compromise during the supercommittee talks.
Indeed, the larger question now is what Republicans prioritize more: defense spending or tax breaks.
Greg Sargent had a good item on this yesterday.
Republicans such as John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been touring swing states to highlight the looming sequester cuts to defense spending that are set to be triggered by the deficit supercommittee’s failure. They have said such cuts will be devastating to our national security, and have blamed Obama and Dems for the imminent threat.
At the same time, House Republicans will vote this week against the Democratic plan to extend tax cuts on all income over $250,000, because it doesn’t extend the cuts on all levels, including income higher than that.
So here’s the question: If the looming sequester cuts are such a threat to national security, why doesn’t that undermine Republican leverage in the discussions over what to do about the tax cuts?
Right. The looming, automatic cuts are inching closer to reality because Republicans refuse to consider some tax increases as a solution to the debt problem they sometimes pretend to care about. If GOP officials accepted new tax revenue, a deal could come together and these large defense cuts would simply be taken off the table.
But Republicans, at least for now, won’t budge — they want a larger agreement that would eliminate the need for deep Pentagon cuts and they want a deal that doesn’t require any increases on any one at any time.
McCain, among others, pushed the argument yesterday that it’s up to Obama to “lead” by bringing policymakers together and working out a solution. That sounds nice, but it’s foolish — the president has tried this repeatedly, but Republicans won’t compromise. Indeed, even now, McCain is urging Obama to work towards a compromise while McCain’s party simultaneously says it won’t compromise.
And so it’s the GOP that has a decision to make. While they decide, if they could stop blaming the White House for the Republicans’ own idea, it’d make the conversation a lot less ridiculous.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 1, 2012
“Not Even Close”: Newsweek Gets It Wrong, Mitt Romney Is A Bully
Howard Kurtz, whose usual beat (for the last 20+ years) is media reporting, not politics, has a story in this week’s Newsweek claiming that John McCain is desperate to help Mitt Romney, but Romney is apparently not seeking the legendary maverick’s assistance.
The headline says McCain staged a campaign intervention for Mitt Romney, but that apparently happened months ago, during the primaries. (McCain and his BFF/sidekick Lindsey Graham called Romney and told him not to say “self-deport” anymore.)
McCain is I guess disappointed that Romney won’t take his advice on foreign policy issues (bomb everywhere forever) and immigration (be a little bit less anti-immigrant) and also no one invited McCain to speak at the convention.
We get another wonderful iteration of the “Obama failed to reach out to McCain” story:
The other glitch was his strikingly antagonistic relationship with Obama. Despite a fence-mending meeting at the White House last year, the president never called again. McCain contrasts Obama’s aloof approach to lawmakers with that of Bill Clinton, who “was remarkably good to me.” In fact, McCain told me that he and Clinton chatted about policy in occasional phone calls during his 2008 campaign, even as the former president was backing Obama.
I never get sick of hearing this. Obama’s legendary “aloof approach” forced John McCain to be a bitter, petty man who holds grudges forever after minor perceived slights! He only got one invitation to the White House!
I can’t even really figure out the point of this story. At least Kurtz got most of his sources — McCain and Steve Schmidt — to speak on the record, which is better than your average Politico non-story, but it doesn’t really strike me as odd or unusual that Romney is not making a man who lost badly to Barack Obama a major surrogate in his campaign to beat Barack Obama.
It’s especially unsurprising because Romney, a supremely self-confident man, doesn’t care to take advice from anyone not already in his inner circle. He thinks he and his hand-selected staff know best, and he doesn’t give a shit what anyone else thinks.
That analysis would seem to be contradicted elsewhere in Newsweek (on the cover), where we learn that Romney is actually a “wimp.” How is he wimpy? Well, Newsweek called another guy wimpy once and it got a lot of attention so Romney is also definitely a wimp.
Poor Michael Tomasky is forced to write a Romney analysis shoehorned into a desperate retread of one of the half-dozen Newsweek covers people still sorta remember — the one where they called George H.W. Bush a wimp. It was a silly cover, and one that presaged much of the worst aspects of modern presidential campaign coverage, like the elevation of some amorphous pundit-based “perception” of a candidate over the actual tangible facts of his story and positions. It’s remembered mainly because it made Bush mad (and it should have, the guy was a war hero!). What’s worse about this one is that it’s not even close to being accurate. Romney is indeed a stiff, rich twit, and a guy who was horrible at athletics as a kid, and a guy who says “gee whiz” or whatever, but he’s not a “wimp.” He’s a bully! He bullied other kids in school, he was arrested for mouthing off to a cop who dared to question him on a minor violation, he publicly berated a teenage volunteer traffic cop at the Salt Lake games and then refused to apologize, and he generally loses his temper at any time he’s challenged by anyone he considers a subordinate. And he considers just about everyone a subordinate!
Poor Newsweek! They’ll get this “weird blog that comes out once a week and is on paper” thing right one of these days.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, July 31, 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
McCain, Lieberman And Graham: The Three Amigos For “State Sponsored Violence”, Anywhere, Anytime
When John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman join forces, you can be sure of one thing: It will involve state-sponsored violence. Today, they want us to arm Syrian rebels. Though, you know, what they really wanted to call for was actually bombing the hell out of Syria, until there is freedom. They’re just taking it slow.
The Senate’s three most predictable and least credible warmongering “moderates” frequently join forces to publish joint Op-Eds or hold press conferences and the one thing they always, invariably want is for the United States to have just a little bit more war than it currently has, somewhere far away. Sure, we could draw down in Iraq … or we could listen to McCain, Lieberman and Graham and draw back up. We could draw down in Afghanistan … or we could stay the course and keep sending troops there until we win! Americans may be tired of endless war with no coherent goal, but on the other hand, “only decisive force can prevail in [whatever country John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman are talking about now].”
As the Hill recently explained in a story on how John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman were pushing for a resolution basically promising to make war with Iran, “Graham, Lieberman and McCain are considered some of the top foreign policy experts in the upper chamber,” because they always, invariably support military intervention everywhere for any reason, and that is invariably considered a sign of “seriousness” in Washington. If you don’t like waging wars everywhere, forever, you are a weird kooky hippie, and everyone laughs at you. If you believe that bombs and troops have the power to magically solve all problems, you are invited on all the Sunday shows every week to offer your sober analysis of the foreign situation.
You just never know which country these three will decide needs bombing next! One time the three amigos also took a trip to Tripoli to hang out with Moammar Gadhafi. (They invited Susan Collins along, though usually their sleepover parties are strictly “no girls allowed.”) Sadly, by April of last year, they were no longer friends with Gadhafi, and the three had decided that the United States should assassinate him. (That is not really legal but, you know, “war on terror” and “serious, muscular foreign policy” or something.)
One time Lieberman and Graham tried to hang out with a different senator and they all came up with an idea that didn’t involve bombing anyone but that made McCain mad and he yelled at them. Don’t hang out with John Kerry and try to solve climate change! Hang out with me and let’s try to convince everyone to bomb Russia or something!
Sadly, Joe Lieberman will be leaving the U.S. Senate soon, which means John McCain and Lindsey Graham will need to find a new fake-Democrat best friend to add a patina of “bipartisanship” to their endless demands for explosions and shooting and death.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, March 29, 2012
“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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