“A Deliberate Political Calculation”: Mitt Romney Is Betraying The Tea Party
Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, journalist most likely to echo their talking points Jennifer Rubin, talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh, conservative movement favorite Charles Krauthammer, and usually sensible right-leaning policy wonks Yuval Levin and Avik Roy are all doing something extraordinary, given their avowed beliefs: They’re attacking a Democratic president for a spending cut, or else defending Republican challengers who want to reinstate hundreds of millions in spending.
The spending isn’t part of the defense budget.
They’re attacking President Obama for cuts to an entitlement program passed as party of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. And they’re insisting that the funds be restored to the program.
Why would right-leaning folks do that?
Cuts to Medicare are unpopular with voters — and Republicans care more about winning elections than cutting entitlements, something last demonstrated when they passed Medicare Part D during the Bush era, a budget-busting vote that supposed fiscal conservative Paul Ryan joined.
Attention, Tea Partiers: What we’re seeing right now is another instance of political calculation trumping spending discipline. Republicans tell themselves that they need to win now to better advance their agenda later, a process that just repeats itself with each election cycle, the deficit reduction never actually coming. The tactics that Romney and Ryan are employing make the chances of GOP led entitlement reform grow dimmer by the day. Yes, President Obama was going to attack Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan for wanting to cut Medicare. And this preemptive attack by Team Romney may prove effective. But ponder its consequences for a moment.
Medicare cuts are central to Ryan’s plan to get America back on sound fiscal footing, and health-care reform that addresses Medicare costs is widely regarded as necessary to any serious deficit-reduction plan, given the rapid pace at which the program’s costs are increasing. Says Avik Roy, after observing Team Romney’s latest attacks, “The dream scenario is possible: that the 2012 election gives Medicare reformers a mandate to put the program on permanently stable footing. One might even call it the audacity of hope.”
That is almost exactly wrong. What voters are hearing from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is that Barack Obama cut their Medicare, and the Republicans will reinstate it. That message does not produce a mandate to reform Medicare. It produces a mandate to preserve the status quo, and to oppose future cuts. Thanks to Romney and Ryan, it’s likely down-ticket Republicans will be using the same talking points.
Thus Medicare cuts will be an even less likely GOP accomplishment.
A lot of right-leaning pundits are getting deep in the weeds about the attacks and counterattacks flying back and forth. Team Romney is right about X! Team Obama is wrong about Y!
They’re ignoring the incoherent elephant in the room. As Josh Barro puts it:
What Romney and Ryan are up to is simple: They want to have it both ways on Medicare. They are for Medicare cuts, because Medicare is expensive and the federal budget needs to be controlled. And they are against Medicare cuts, because Medicare cuts are unpopular.
The political impulses behind this strategy are clear. Why any policy experts would try to offer a substantive defense of it is not.
Scott Galupo at The American Conservative makes a related point: that there’s no coherent reason to think that the relatively small cuts implemented by President Obama are an affront to seniors and their care, while the relatively deeper cuts that would be implemented ten years hence under the Romney-Ryan plan would be unobjectionable. “Never asked, let alone answered … if Romney’s Medicare reforms are so painless, why not demand that current beneficiaries accept them?” he writes. “Why is it necessary to spare them from structural reforms that are so self-evidently ‘sensible’?”
Take a look at Ryan’s response:
“We’re going to have this debate, and we’re going to win this debate,” Ryan said. “It’s the president who took $716 billion … from the Medicare program to spend on Obamacare. That’s cuts to current seniors that will lead to less services for current seniors. We don’t do that. We actually say end the raid and restore that, so that those seniors get the benefits today that they organize their lives around.”
Whether or not you buy his fairness argument, the political truth is that it gets harder to pass Medicare cuts every year, because the necessity of cuts is partly a function of the fact that America is aging, and the demographic of Medicare recipients is just going to keep on increasing. Even the presumption that you can pass a law now calling for cuts beginning 10 years in the future, and that successive Congresses will sustain the arrangement, is dubious. It’s just typical politician “pain for others later, not for us now” responsibility evasion. All the more reason why, from a deficit hawk’s perspective, it’s insanity to reinstate an entitlement cut Obama already made.
They should celebrate it.
That’s the one part of Obamacare that Republicans should want to keep if they have the courage of their convictions. But the point is actually that they never have and don’t now have the courage of their deficit convictions, and are very unlikely to ever pass anything like the Ryan plan the Tea Party fell in love with. Reihan Salam sensibly suggests that it would be better to get Medicare savings sooner than a decade from now. It’s telling that the conservative movement and the GOP are presently campaigning against that proposition. Why anyone trust them to cut the deficit at this point is beyond me, given the fact that they find a way to fail every time.
But promising to repeal cuts that were already passed is taking it a step farther.
By: Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, August 16, 2012
“Mitt’s Plot To Confuse You”: Goal Isn’t To Win Over Voters On Medicare But To Make Them Frustrated
What’s most noteworthy about the new Medicare-themed ad that the Obama campaign unveiled today is its defensive tone. The spot opens by referring back to a Romney ad that claims the president “robbed” $716 billion to pay for the new healthcare reform law, then contrasts AARP’s favorable assessment of Obama’s actions on Medicare with its ominous take on what Paul Ryan has proposed.
There’s a lot going on here, and that might be problematic for Obama.
Medicare is a supremely popular program, and attempts to cut or alter it dramatically always poll terribly. The hope for the Obama team is to replicate the success that Bill Clinton and Democrats enjoyed in 1996, when they positioned themselves as the last line of defense between Medicare and the Republicans who would (in the famous words of Newt Gingrich) let it “wither on the vine.”
But the issue is more complicated in this year’s campaign, because of the Medicare changes that Obama made through the Affordable Care Act. That the law cuts spending by $716 billion over 10 years is true, but the reductions do not affect benefits; instead, they’re aimed at hospital reimbursement rates and the excessively costly Medicare Advantage private insurance program, with smaller cuts for home healthcare providers and others. What’s more, Ryan’s own Medicare plan, which House Republicans almost unanimously endorsed (and which Romney has indicated he would have signed as president), upholds all of these cuts. But Ryan says he’s now running on the Romney plan, not his own, and the Romney plan (such as it is) calls for wiping out the Medicare cuts.
It’s all rather slippery, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. The upshot is that Romney and Ryan are now running around blasting Obama for making savage cuts in Medicare, and running ads to the same effect. This, of course, is also what Republicans did in the 2010 midterms, when their landslide was keyed in part by an anti-Obama backlash among senior citizens. This complicates Obama’s hopes of replicating Clinton’s reelection strategy. Clinton never had to answer for his own cuts; he could just fire away at the “Dole-Gingrich” attempt to raid Medicare. Obama’s task is trickier. He has to explain his own actions first, then pivot to an attack on his rivals. As Greg Sargent points out, all the GOP needs to do here is to muddy the waters enough that swing voters throw up their hands in confusion and move on to other issues – like the economy.
If there’s a silver lining for the Obama side, it’s that voters still instinctively regard his party to be more supportive of Medicare than the GOP. A poll a few months ago found that voters trust Democrats over Republicans by a 40-24 percent margin to look out for the program. Obama has also enjoyed a wide advantage over congressional Republicans on this front. The gap is tighter when Romney enters the picture; a poll of swing state voters this week found Obama running 8 points ahead of Romney, 42 to 34 percent, on who would better handle Medicare. By comparison, Clinton was running more than 20 points ahead of Dole on the issue at this point in ’96. (Of course, he was also running about 20 points ahead of Dole in the horse race.)
That said, voters are more inclined to give Obama and Democrats the benefit of the doubt on Medicare than Romney and the GOP. And the Democratic assault on Ryan-ism is only beginning. The polls may look different a few weeks, or months, from now. But just because Romney’s running mate is the author of a reviled Medicare plan doesn’t necessarily mean that the GOP ticket will pay a price for it.
By: Steve Kornacki, Salon, August 17, 2012
“Mitt’s Non-Power Power Point”: Romney’s Whiteboard Presentation Proves “Wonk” Is a Meaningless Word
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have been celebrated as a team that might not be the most charismatic, but who are details-oriented number-crunchers who care deeply about policy—i.e., wonks. The w-word is a favorite faux-self-deprecating term of Washington people who are pretty sure they’re pretty smart. With Romney’s choice of Ryan, “wonk” is everywhere.
When The Wall Street Journal editorialized in favor of Ryan, they dismissed worries that he’s “too young, too wonky, too, you know, serious.” After his pick, he was described as “Jack Kemp wonky,” “a policy wonk,” “the Republican wonk star,” “a fit 42-year-old policy wonk,” and “the best of a policy wonk.” Ryan was a perfect match with Romney because “two wonks bonded during the Wisconsin primary,” a Republican strategist told National Journal. Romney and Ryan played up this idea in their first interview as a team with CBS’s Bob Scheiffer. Romney said, “This is a man who’s also very analytical. He’s a policy guy. People know him as a policy guy. That’s one of the reasons he has such respect on both sides of the aisle. I’m a policy guy, believe it or not. I love policy.” That “believe it or not” suggests there might be some doubt. You’d be right to have it after watching his whiteboard presentation on Medicare Thursday.
Romney has a reputation for loving data, as expressed through his love of PowerPoint. The PowerPoint presentation and the whiteboard are supposed to signal smart data-driven analysis. But the whole point is to actually show the data. Romney did not do that today, as you can see in this video posted by Politico’s Alexander Burns. Romney divided up a whiteboard into two columns and two rows, showing how current seniors and the next generation of seniors would be affected under his and President Obama’s proposals. He did this because Democrats are attacking him for Ryan’s old plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program and his new plan to make the vouchers an option. Democrats have also screamed bloody murder over Romney’s attacks that Obama will cut $716 billion from Medicare, when Ryan’s plan keeps those cuts, and the cuts affect how much providers are paid, not what health services old folks receive. But Romney’s counter-counter-counter attack did not address those attacks. Instead, he reiterated his claim about the $716 billion. As for the next generation of seniors? Under Obama, Romney wrote “bankrupt.” Under Romney, Romney wrote “solvent.” Well, that explains everything.
Just because a campaign’s talking points were written on a thing used to show details doesn’t mean actual details were shown. The Romney campaign has been careful to avoid getting too deep into the details of the candidate’s economic proposals, because they want to make the election a referrendum on President Obama. But refusing to dip into the details is not the sign of a wonk, it’s the opposite. This was most apparent when Fox News’ Brit Hume pressed Ryan on when his plan would balance the budget. Ryan tried to get out of answering by saying he didn’t want to “get wonky on you” before admitting he didn’t know, because the numbers have not been crunched.
Hume: “I get that. What about balance?”
Ryan: “I don’t know exactly what the balance is. I don’t want to get wonky on you, but we haven’t run the numbers on that specific plan. The plan we offer in the House balances the budget. I’d put a contrast. President Obama, never once, ever, has offered a plan to ever balance the budget. The United States Senate, they haven’t even balanced, they haven’t passed a budget in three years.”
Hume: “I understand that. But your own budget, that you —
Ryan: “You are talking about the House budget?”
Hume: “I’m talking about the House budget. Your budget will be a political issue in this campaign.”
Ryan: “The House budget doesn’t balance until the 2030s under the current measurement of the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) baseline.”
By: Elspeth Reeve, The Atlantic, August 16, 2012
“Unconnected To A Concern With The Truth”: Mitt Romney’s Implausible Bid For The High Road
Politics is tough, and most politicians—including President Obama—are willing to bend the truth to win an election. But there’s a difference between the small distortions of all campaigns, and the brazen dishonesty we’re seeing from Romney. In a 48-hour period, Mitt Romney has doubled-down on the false charge that Obama has ended work requirements for welfare, lied about the Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cost savings, and kicked up a storm over comments made by Vice President Joe Biden. That last one is noteworthy for the sheer chutzpah of Romney’s complaint.
During an event in Danville, Virginia (pronounced Dan-vul) with African-American supporters of the president, Biden deployed somewhat unfortunate language in attacking Romney’s promised repeal of financial reform:
“Romney wants to let the — he said the first 100 days — he’s gonna let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street,” Biden said at an event in Danville, Va. “They gonna put y’all back in chains.”
“Unchain” was a reference to Paul Ryan’s promise to “unshackle” the economy by repealing financial regulations and health care reform. And while Biden’s message is clear, it’s probably wise to avoid an allusion to slavery when talking to an audience of black people. Even still, it’s not a huge deal.
Wrong.
Team Romney wasted no time in jumping on the vice president’s rhetoric. “Well, there’s going to be folks across the country that will try and take that as some kind of code word that is going to suggest that the Republicans are trying to be racial in their programs,” said former New Hampshire governor John Sununu. Yesterday evening, while campaigning in Ohio, Romney referenced Biden’s remarks, attacking the Obama campaign for its “divisive” campaign:
“This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like. President Obama knows better, promised better, and America deserves better,” Romney told a roaring crowd of about 5,000 supporters in Chillicothe. “His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then try to cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”
Romney added, “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”
It’s hard to take this seriously. As I said earlier, Romney began this week with two huge whoppers. In an ad called “Long History,” Romney repeats the charge that Obama has ended welfare’s work requirements, “On July 12th, Obama quietly ended work requirements for welfare. You wouldn’t have to work, and wouldn’t have to train for a job.” Romney used this line last week, and was promptly denounced for his mendacity, and not just from the usual collection of fact-checkers; both Ron Haskins (who built welfare reform) and Bill Clinton (who signed it) weighed in to dispute Romney’s claim, which Clinton called “not true.”
The most disgraceful thing about Romney’s welfare attack—which he continues to use—is that it’s an obvious ploy to associate Obama with “handouts.” Welfare is one of the most racialized issues in American politics, and Romney’s attacks are a clear callback to the “welfare queens” and “young bucks” that punctuated Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric. It’s only a little more subtle than Newt Gingrich’s declaration that Obama is a “food stamp” president, and serves a similar purpose: to erode Obama’s standing among white voters who reflexively oppose anything that might hand benefits to the “undeserving.”
The same idea (and goal) underlies Romney’s attacks on the Medicare savings in the Affordable Care Act—“The money you paid for guaranteed health care is now going to a massive government program, that’s not for you.” With the backdrop of a white senior, the message of this ad is plain to see: Obama is giving your tax dollars to minorities.
(Since this is bound to inspire protest from readers, I will point you in the direction of research detailing the tight connection between racial attitudes and support for government programs.)
This is why it’s hard to stomach Romney’s complaints about “anger” and “divisiveness”; they come less than two days after he has renewed his attempt to split white voters from Obama with tired tropes about the undeserving poor. And when you look at the whole of his general-election campaign—which includes regular attacks on Obama’s fictional “apology tour,” and routine lies about his job-creation record—there’s no way in which Romney is in a position to take the high road.
Philosopher Harry Frankfurt famously defined “bullshit” as a statement made without regard to its truth value. Whether it’s true or false is irrelevant—the point is to persuade. “[B]ullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true.”
If this doesn’t describe Mitt Romney, I’m not sure what does.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, August 15, 2012
“Private Fears”: How Ryanization Threatens The GOP
There is the idea of having Paul Ryan on the Republican ticket, and then there is the reality.
If conservative ideologues are over the moon at having their favorite conviction politician as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate, many Republican professionals — particularly those running this fall — are petrified. They freely express private fears that Democrats will succeed in Ryanizing the entire GOP.
What’s striking is not just that down-ballot Republican candidates are distancing themselves from Ryan’s proposals, particularly on Medicare, but that Romney won’t take ownership of them either, except in vague terms. Worse, the Romney apparatus is forcing Ryan to distance himself from his own budget. It was sad to watch Ryan dancing around these issues on Fox News Tuesday night and having to say that Romney is the boss. How long before conservatives start producing “Let Ryan Be Ryan” bumper stickers?
Oh, yes, and Ryan could not explain when his fiscal plan would balance the books (presumably because the right answer is somewhere past 2030). “I don’t know exactly when it balances,” Ryan told Brit Hume. So much for specificity.
To understand the elation Democrats feel about the Ryan choice, it’s useful to canvass their reactions in what will be one of the hardest battleground states for President Obama to hang onto. In 2008, Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate in 32 years to carry North Carolina. Now it is, with Indiana, one of the states most likely to move back to the GOP. “We’re at the pink end of the spectrum,” Rep. David Price, a Democrat who represents the Research Triangle area, said in a phone interview.
To Price, Ryan offers a double opportunity for the Democrats. The swing voters in his own district, he says, “are pretty practical and not enamored of the doctrinaire, ideological approach that Ryan exemplifies.” The very reasons that ideologues admire Ryan are the reasons that independents and moderates may be put off by him.
On top of that, Price said, “the issues of Medicare and Social Security are toxic for Ryan.” White voters in the current over-65 generation, more conservative than the New Deal era electoral cohort that has largely passed on, are now the base of the Republican Party. By putting Medicare on the ballot, Ryan threatens to push away core Republican voters.
That’s why Romney went up so quickly with advertisements attacking Obama for reducing spending on Medicare. One longtime Democratic organizer of senior citizens I spoke with here — his organization doesn’t let field staff speak for the record — noted that John McCain defeated Obama by eight points among voters over 65. “If Obama can cut that margin from eight to five, he wins,” the organizer said. “He doesn’t have to win that demographic. Closing the gap is a win.” His analysis is especially apt in North Carolina, where McCain beat Obama by 13 points among seniors.
Already, the North Carolina Democratic Party is out with lots of numbers — in other circumstances, Ryan might appreciate its wonkery — showing how the Ryan budget would hurt certain voter groups in the state. The party says that “1,368,646 North Carolinian seniors would be forced onto vouchers when they retire,” referring to the number of near-elderly citizens who would be affected a decade from now by Ryan’s idea of changing Medicare into a premium-support program. Repeal of the Obama health-care law, the party says, would move “154,884 North Carolina seniors back into the prescription drug ‘donut hole.’ ”
Walton Robinson, the Democrats’ state communications director, has his eye on a very specific demographic group that Ryan might move: older white rural women without college educations. Obama remains competitive in this state because of a large lead among female voters. Shifting this “one holdout group” Obama’s way, Robinson says, “could drive that gender gap even further apart.”
State Sen. Linda Garrou, a pro-business Democrat who has represented Winston-Salem for 14 years, is retiring after a Republican reapportionment broke up her district. She agrees that Ryan will help Democrats among older voters but is especially worried about Republican education cuts at all levels of government. She casts the choice as fundamental.
“The Romney/Ryan plan,” she said, “seems to say, ‘I’ve got mine, you get yours the best you can, the heck with you.’”
Americans often oppose government in the abstract but actually want it to do quite a lot. Thanks to Paul Ryan, this year’s debate will be anything but abstract.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 15, 2012
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