“Can You Hear Me Now?”: A Moment Of Real GOP Clarity In The Fiscal Debate
As you regulars know, I’ve been hoping and hoping that reporters will press top Republicans on a simple question: Is there any ratio of entitlement cuts of your choosing to new revenues you’d accept? Three to one? Four to one? Five to one?
Well, John Boehner was asked something very close to that question on ABC News today:
MARTHA RADDATZ: Is there any ratio of entitlement cuts to new revenues that you would –
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: The president got his –
MARTHA RADDATZ: — say that the is three to one, four to one –
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: — tax hikes. The president –
MARTHA RADDATZ: — nothing?
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: — got his tax hikes on January the 1st.
MARTHA RADDATZ: So, the answer to –
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: He–
MARTHA RADDATZ: — that is no?
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER: — he ran his election on taxing the wealthy. He got his tax hikes. But he won’t talk about the spending problem and that’s the problem here in Washington.
We’ll take that as a No. House GOP majority whip Kevin McCarthy was also asked that question on NBC today:
DAVID GREGORY: Is there any ratio that you could accept?
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: There are no new tax increases because you don’t need it. If you look at this report –
DAVID GREGORY: But you’re never going to get entitlement reform –
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY: You’re going to get nothing.
DAVID GREGORY: — without tax increases. Is that political reality?
Again, until we hear otherwise, we’ll take that as a No.
And so it’s now sinking in that: 1) Republicans are not getting the entitlement cuts they want without agreeing to new revenues; and 2) Republicans are explicitly confirming that there is no compromise that is acceptable to them to get the cuts they themselves say they want. The GOP position, with no exaggeration, is that the only way Republican leaders will ever agree to paying down the deficit they say is a threat to American civilization is 100 percent their way; they are not willing to concede anything at all to reach any deal involving new revenues to reduce the deficit, or to get the entitlement reform they want, or to avert sequestration they themselves said will gut the military and tank the economy.
But … but … but … Obama needs to lead and prove he’s Serious by offering still more entitlement cuts than he already has!
Come on. Is the situation clear enough now?
By: Greg Sargent, The Washington Post, The Plum Line, March 17, 2013
“Why Mess With Success?”: The Smart Strategy Behind Paul Ryan’s Stupid Budget
Unlike most unsuccessful VP candidates, Ryan’s path to continued influence meant going right back to what he was doing before.
For an ambitious politician, a spot on your party’s presidential ticket is fraught with danger. On one hand, you immediately become a national figure, and if you win, you’re vice president and you’ve got a good chance to become president. On the other hand, if you lose, you may wind up the target of contempt from forces within your own party and quickly fade away. Look at the list of recent VP losers: Sarah Palin, John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, Jack Kemp. None of them had any political future after their loss.
And then there’s Paul Ryan. You have to give him credit for one thing. Unlike, say, Palin, he didn’t let his time on the national stage give him delusions of grandeur. Instead of proclaiming himself the leader of a movement, he went right back to what he was doing before: using the budgeting process to push an extraordinarily radical agenda, all couched in enough numbers and figures to convince naive reporters that he’s a Very Serious Fellow, despite the fact that his numbers and figures are about as serious as an episode of The Benny Hill Show. But this act is what got him where he is, and he seems to have concluded, probably wisely, that his best move is to get back on that same track, which might eventually lead him to the White House.
During an appearance on Fox News Sunday last weekend, Chris Wallace asked Ryan whether he’d like to be speaker of the House one day, and Ryan responded, “If I wanted to be in elected leadership like speaker, I would have run for these jobs years ago. I’ve always believed the better place for me is in policy leadership, like being a chairman.” And he’s absolutely right. These days, being a Republican Speaker is nothing but a hassle. For Ryan, the budget is both the vehicle of his (continued, he hopes) political rise and the means of radical ideological transformation. As Ezra Klein explains well, Ryan’s budget, the latest iteration of which comes out today, is a blueprint for that ideological transformation, presented as nothing but a sober-minded effort to make “tough choices” and solve practical problems. It turns Medicare into a voucher plan, slashes spending on Medicaid and food stamps, repeals Obamacare, and cuts taxes for the wealthy. But it balances the budget! How? Well, partly by accepting the tax increases in the fiscal cliff deal (which Ryan opposed), and repealing only the benefits of Obamacare, like providing coverage to people, but keeping Obamacare’s tax increases and Medicare savings (which, you’ll remember, Ryan attacked relentlessly during last year’s campaign as an unconscionable assault on our seniors). It brings to mind the old joke about an economist stuck in a pit who says he can get out of it easily. How? “Assume a ladder.” Ryan’s budget assumes that Republicans won the White House and both houses of Congress in 2012.
And why, you might ask, is this treated with any more seriousness than a press release put out by some numbskull backbench congressman? Because Paul Ryan is a wonk, making tough choices! If Ryan weren’t so skilled at charming Washington reporters, and so shameless about the hypocrisy embedded in his plans, this kind of thing would be regarded not as some possibly questionable budget math, but as outright buffoonery, just a step or two above the Republicans who rush to the cameras whenever it snows to make lame jokes about how Al Gore is a stupid-head. But it isn’t treated that way. It’s treated the same way it was before Ryan became Mitt Romney’s running mate, as more evidence of what an intellectual leader of the GOP Ryan is. Why mess with success?
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, March 12, 2013
“Obama’s Outreach Isn’t New”: When Dealing With Obstructionist’s, The Larger Dynamic Won’t Budge
After President Obama treated 12 Republican senators to dinner, and had a nice lunch with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the Beltway’s reaction can be summarized in one word: Finally.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who attended Wednesday’s dinner, said, “This is the first step that the president has made to really reach out and do like other presidents in the past — develop relationships and build trust.” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) added, “After being in office four years, he’s actually going to sit down and talk to members.”
And while plenty of pundits are echoing the sentiments, John Dickerson notes that those who insist this is a first for Obama are mistaken.
The aloof president is reaching out. That was the media’s first gloss on the president’s new robust effort at networking. He had finally embraced a Truth of Washington: You must engage your opponents and work with them. Finally he’s showing leadership. Hooray! […]
But this isn’t the first time the president has tried…. Early in his first term, during negotiations over the stimulus package, he reached out to Sens. Grassley, Snowe, Collins, and Specter…. Obama may not be very good at trying to work Congress; he may only have done it in fits and starts, but you can’t say he hasn’t tried.
On the Recovery Act, Obama reached out to Republican lawmakers. On health care, the president not only reached out, he spent about as much time talking to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins as he did talking to his own staff. In May 2011, Obama invited a bipartisan group to the White House, not for a meeting or policy negotiations, but as part of “a get-to-know-you effort in the spirit of bipartisanship and collegiality.” In one of my very favorite moments of Obama’s presidency to date, he even attended a House Republican retreat, engaging in a spirited Q&A.
But, my DC pundit friends will tell me, these outreach efforts don’t count because they were in professional settings. What Obama needs to do is try personal outreach in informal ways and friendly settings. Except, the president has tried this, too, inviting members to the White House for Super Bowl and March Madness parties, and even golfing with Boehner.
Those who keep asking why Obama hasn’t reached out before this week don’t seem to be paying close enough attention.
So, why haven’t the efforts paid dividends? Dickerson has some worthwhile ideas on the subject, but for what it’s worth, I’ll add some speculation of my own.
For one thing, the parties sharply disagree with one another — there is no modern precedent for partisan polarization as intense as today’s status quo — and presidential outreach won’t change that. Congressional Republicans tend to fundamentally reject just about everything the White House wants, believes, and perceives as true. Presidential face-time changes nothing.
For another, outreach may help set the stage for constructive negotiations, but compromise has been rendered all but impossible, not just because Republicans reflexively oppose everything Obama supports — including, at times, their own ideas — but also because the parties can’t horse-trade when one side doesn’t have much of a wish list.
Jonathan Bernstein had a very smart post on this yesterday.
In a world of divided government with two sensible parties, the logical compromise is that Republicans would trade the minimum wage hike — a popular policy Democrats care more about than Republicans anyway — for something which Republicans care about more than Democrats. That’s what happened last time, when Republicans were able to extract tax cuts for business in exchange for supporting the increase, with the whole thing going into a larger bill that had plenty of things for both parties.
And this gets at a larger problem that explains a lot about dysfunction in Washington right now: Republicans have largely given up on developing specific policy goals while becoming more and more dedicated to opposing compromise on everything as some sort of fundamental principle.
Think about it: what is the Republican agenda item the party could trade for a minimum wage increase? What’s the GOP policy request on health care, other than the dream of repealing the Affordable Care Act? What’s their policy request on climate? Energy? Education? I mostly have no idea.
And neither do I. Sure, it’s obvious Republicans have some vague policy preferences — energy = drilling; education = vouchers — and certainly stick to broad principles on tax cuts, but the traditional give-and-take process falls apart when transactional policymaking isn’t a possibility.
Obama could host luncheons and dinners every day, but this larger dynamic won’t budge.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 8, 2013
“Every Game Is A Shutout”: How Much Of A Market Is There On The Right For Real Reporting?
Four years ago, Tucker Carlson went before the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and told them that instead of creating more media forums to talk to each other about what a bunch of jerks liberals are, they ought to nurture outlets that actually report news, with a commitment to accuracy. For his trouble he was booed vigorously, and I guess he learned his lesson about what conservatives are interested in, because instead of creating a newsgathering organization he created the Daily Caller. I’m sure it’s doing quite well with it’s target audience, and I couldn’t help but think about Carlson upon seeing that Erick Erickson, proprietor of RedState.com and CNN talking mouth, issued a plea to conservatives to come work for him and actually do journalism. First though, he identified the problem:
I think conservative media is failing to advance ideas and stories. Certainly part of that is because the general media has an ideological bias against conservatives, which makes it harder for the media to take our views seriously. But many conservatives are, instead of working doubly hard to overcome that bias, just yelling louder about the same things. The echo in the chamber has gotten so loud it is not well understood outside the echo chamber in the mainstream press and in the public. It translates only as anger and noise, neither of which are conducive to the art of persuasion.
You think? It’s a bit of a surprise to see this coming from Erickson, who in the past has had, shall we say, a taste for bombast and insults (he called David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester” and Michelle Obama a “Marxist harpy”; see here for more). But hey, people change. I completely understand how somebody can spend some time playing the role of shouting partisan, then decide it really isn’t accomplishing much and there might be a better way of accomplishing your ideological goals. Erickson went on:
Educating conservatives is a critical component of our mission. We have never viewed RedState as a site engaged in reporting, but as a site engaged in activism. Though occasionally we do break news, it has not been central to our existence. But, an honest accounting of facts and news is important and mission critical. Consequently, I would like to hire some reporters who can help educate conservative activists — who will not be focused on the outrage du jour, but focused on the daily grind of Washington and how the sausage being ground out in Washington will affect the conservative movement and the nation. Over time, I would like to expand this to covering governmental sausage making in the states too.
Good for him, I suppose, though I’ll admit I’m skeptical. There are certainly conservative reporters out there—heck, there are even some real reporters at Fox News—but the question is just how much of an audience there is for what they produce. The problem isn’t just that the really successful conservatives are bloviators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, it’s that the entire movement seems content to treat their constituents like they’re a bunch of idiots who want only to nod their heads and mutter about how Barack Obama is a socialist and liberals are evil.
Consider the recent case of Jeff Sessions’ GAO report. The Alabama Republican senator asked the GAO to give him a report on how much Obamacare would add to the deficit if all the spending stayed in, but all the ways to pay for the bill, from cost savings from innovation, to reduced payments to providers, to tax increases, were taken out. The GAO has to respond to these kinds of requests, so it did. And then Sessions went in front of the cameras proclaiming that the GAO says Obamacare will increase the deficit by eleventy bazillion dollars, and one conservative news organization after another (here‘s an example) picked it up, saying, “See! See! See!” As Steve Benen said, the whole exercise was “roughly the equivalent of the Boston Celtics’ coach asking someone on his staff, ‘Figure out what our record would be if our opponents’ points didn’t count.’ Then, soon after, the coach called a press conference to declare, ‘Good news everyone! We’re undefeated! And every game was a shutout!'”
My point is, this is not how serious people who respect their constituents act. But Sessions knew that conservative media outlets would run with his ridiculousness, and they in turn knew that their audiences would eat it up. In the end, the whole thing did nothing but make conservatives a little dumber on the issue of health care. And you know what? They don’t care. Oh sure, there are some conservatives who are embarrassed by that kind of thing, but they’re the quiet ones, and they’re outnumbered.
And that’s what Erick Erickson will be confronting if he really wants to hire real reporters to do real reporting: there just aren’t enough people on his side who want it.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, February 28, 2013
“An Idiot?,Yes”: Oh Please, The White House Didn’t “Threaten” Bob Woodward
The country is in an uproar because people are saying that a senior White House official “threatened” legendary journalist Bob Woodward because of something he planned to publish.
Now, I haven’t seen the video of Bob Woodward talking about this incident, so I’m not sure whether Woodward actually said he was “threatened” or whether that’s a media amplification. But people are saying he was threatened. So…
If a very senior White House official did, in fact, “threaten” Woodward–if the official promised that a gang of thugs would drop by Woodward’s house later, for example, or even if the official said no one in the White House would ever speak to Woodward again–then, fine, this might be worth talking about.
But according to Ben Smith of BuzzFeed, here’s what the senior White House official actually said to Bob Woodward (in an email):
“You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”
That’s it?
That’s the “threat”?
The official wasn’t even saying that Woodward would “regret” publishing whatever he planned to publish because the official would get him back for it later. He was saying Woodward would regret it because Woodward would be proven wrong.
I’m not sure what it is that non-journalists think that aggressive public relations folks do for a living, but this is exactly what they do:
- They make friends
- They whisper sweet nothings
- They flatter
- They dole out information favors
- They guilt-trip
- They threaten
- They yell
- They bully
- They impose the silent treatment
- They say you are about to ruin your reputation and destroy your career
- They beg
- They plead
- They promise
- They push every button they can in the hopes of finding one that works
They do all this in the hope of influencing coverage in the way that they are paid to influence it.
Among a particular breed of PR professional, that’s all part of the job.
If you’re in the journalism business, meanwhile, growing a thick skin–and occasionally yelling right back–is also part of the job.
I am sure that on many occasions, White House officials have completely lost it at journalists, possibly even threatening them. But in the annals of PR professional-journalist communications, the “threatening” email that Woodward received is actually quite polite and respectful.
“Perhaps we will not see eye to eye here?”
The official didn’t even tell Woodward he was an idiot!
By: Henry Blodget, Business Insider, February 27, 2013
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