The Truly Farcical “Jobs Through Growth Act”
I suppose Senate Republicans deserve at least some credit for making an effort. The congressional GOP has largely ignored the jobs crisis, so the fact that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have put together the “Jobs Through Growth Act,” is at least marginally constructive.
The problem is with the “plan” itself.
What do Senate Republicans want to do to give employment a boost? Cut taxes, approve a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, eliminate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, eliminate the entirety of Wall Street reform safeguards, blocking EPA enforcement of clean air measures, and a tax repatriation holiday for international corporations.
When President Obama unveiled the American Jobs Act, it had been deliberately crafted to include several provisions that Republicans have traditionally supported. Graham, McCain, and Paul didn’t bother. Try not to be surprised.
The GOP senators boasted their plan would create 5 million jobs. And how would that happen? Who came up with that number? How would Republicans pay for their plan? How quickly would it make a difference?
They didn’t say. In fact, unlike the detailed jobs bill presented by the White House, the “plan” from Senate Republicans is a wish list of far-right ideas, but it’s also lacking in the sort of substantive details that serious proposals require.
And that’s precisely why this nonsense is so farcical.
The premise of Obama’s proposal was that the two parties couldn’t agree on their long-term vision of government, but the economic emergency was too severe to wait until the election to settle it, so they should act immediately on short-term ideas that have bipartisan support. The GOP response is to issue a series of exclusively long-term proposals lacking any bipartisan support. There’s not much pretense of intending to address the current crisis when your plan has as its cornerstone the passage of a Constitutional amendment. […]
On jobs, the GOP simply will not engage with the premise of the entire macroeconomic forecasting field that the economy is suffering from a lack of demand. The purpose of this bill is to straddle that awkward divide, and provide a sound bite to answer Obama when he says he has a jobs plan.
That’s plainly true. In fact, McCain, who admits he doesn’t understand economic policy, told reporters yesterday he and his cohorts put this plan together in part as “a response to the president saying we don’t have a proposal.”
Senator, I’ve seen your plan. You still don’t have a proposal.
The intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party is just astounding. It has no new ideas, no constructive solutions, no creativity, no depth of thought, no intellectual consistency, no recollection of their own failures, no understanding of economic policy, and no access to calculators.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 14, 2011
Five Reasons The Occupy Wall Street Movement Really Frightens The Right
The Occupy Wall Street movement really frightens the Right Wing. It is not frightening to the Right because of Congressman Eric Cantor’s feigned fear of “the mob” that is “occupying our cities.” It is not frightening because anyone is really worried that Glenn Beck is correct when he predicts that the protesters will “come for you, drag you into the street, and kill you.”
That’s not why they are really frightened — that’s the Right trying to frighten everyday Americans.
There are five reasons why the Right is in fact frightened by the Occupy Wall Street movement. None of them have to do with physical violence — they have to do with politics. They’re not really worried about ending up like Marie Antoinette. But they are very worried that their electoral heads may roll.
All elections are decided by two groups of people:
Persuadable voters who always vote, but are undecided switch hitters. This group includes lots of political independents.
Mobilizable voters who would vote for one Party or the other, but have to be motivated to vote.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement is so frightening to the Right because it may directly affect the behavior of those two groups of voters in the upcoming election.
1). The narrative
People in America are very unhappy with their economic circumstances. As a result the outcome of the 2012 election will hinge heavily on who gets the blame for the horrible economy — and who the public believes, or hopes — can lead them into better economic times.
Political narratives are the stories people use to understand the political world. Like all stories, they define a protagonist and antagonist. And political narratives generally ascribe to those central characters moral qualities — right and wrong.
For several years, the Tea Party-driven narrative has been in the ascendance to explain America’s economic woes. Its vision of the elites in government versus hard-working freedom-loving people has heavily defined the national political debate.
Of course at first glance it’s an easy case for them to make. The President, who is the head of the over-powerful, “dysfunctional” government, is in charge. Things aren’t going well — so he, and the government he runs, must be at fault.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has helped force the alternative narrative into the media and public consciousness. The recklessness and greed of the big Wall Street banks, CEO’s and top one percent — those are the culprits who sunk the economy and who have siphoned off all of the economic growth from the middle class. They and their enablers in Congress — largely Republicans — are the problem. To address the underlying economic crisis facing everyday Americans we must rein in their power.
This narrative is very compelling and, of course, it is true. It’s not that many voices haven’t framed the debate in these terms for years. But by creating a must- cover story, the Occupy Wall Street movement has forced it onto the daily media agenda. That is great news for Progressives. The longer it continues, the better.
Right Wing pundits have disparaged the Occupy Wall Street movement for not having specific “policy proposals” — but the Right knows better. The Occupy Wall Street movement is advocating something much more fundamental. It is demanding a change in the relations of power — reining in the power of Wall Street, millionaires and billionaires – the CEO class as a whole. It is demanding that everyday Americans — the 99% — share in the increases in their productivity and have more real control of their futures — both individually and as a society. Now that’s something for the Right to worry about.
2). Inside-Outside
Especially in periods when people are unhappy, the political high ground is defined by who voters perceive to be elite insiders and who they perceive to be populist outsiders. Who among the political leaders and political forces are actually agents of change?
In 2008, Barak Obama won that battle hands down. The Tea Party Movement muddied the water. It portrayed themselves as “don’t tread on me” populist outsiders doing battle with President Obama the elite, liberal insider.
Of course this ignores that the Tea Party was in many ways bought and paid for by huge corporate interests — but in the public mind it was a very compelling image.
The Right Wing has always had its own version of “class conflict.” Its “ruling class” is defined as the elite, intellectuals, bureaucrats, entertainers and academics that are out to destroy traditional values and undermine the well-being of ordinary Americans.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, coupled with the movements in Wisconsin and Ohio earlier this year, present an entirely different — and accurate — picture of who is on the inside and who is not.
3). Momentum
Politics is very much about momentum. Human beings are herding creatures — they travel in packs. People like to go with the flow. Whether in election campaigns, or legislative proposals, or social movements, or football games — the team with the momentum is much more likely to win.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has put the progressive forces in society on the offense — it has begun to build progressive momentum.
4). Movement
The Occupy Wall Street movement has managed to turn itself into a real “movement.” Movements don’t involve your normal run-of-the-mill organizing. Normally organizers have to worry about turning out people — or voters — one person or one group at a time. Not so with movements.
Movements go viral. They involve spontaneous chain reactions. One person engages another person, who engages another and so on. Like nuclear chain reactions, movements reach critical mass and explode.
That’s what makes them so potentially powerful — and so dangerous to their opposition.
Often movements are sparked by unexpected precipitating events — like the death of the fruit stand vendor in Tunisia that set off the Arab Spring. Sometimes they build around the determined effort of a few until that critical mass is reached.
In all cases movements explode because the tinder is dry and one unexpected spark can set off a wild fire.
Movements mobilize enormous resources — individual effort, money, person power – by motivating people to take spontaneous action.
The Occupy Wall Street movement in New York has spread to scores of cities — and the fire shows no sign of flaming out. It will fuel the engagement and remobilization of thousands of progressive activists and volunteers who had been demobilized and demoralized, but the sausage-making of the DC legislative process. That is a huge problem for the right that was counting on despondency and lethargy among progressives to allow them to consolidate their hold on political power in 2012.
5). Inspiration
More than anything else, in order to mount a counter-offensive against the Right wing next year, Progressives need to re-inspire our base. We need to re-inspire young people and all of the massive corps of volunteers who powered the victory in 2008.
Inspiration is critical to mobilization. It is also critical to persuasion. Swing voters want leaders who inspire them.
Inspiration is not about what people think — it’s about what they feel about themselves. When you’re inspired you feel empowered. You feel that you are part of something bigger than yourself, and that you — yourself — can play a significant role in achieving that larger goal.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has begun to inspire people all over America. That’s because people are inspired by example. They themselves are inspired if they see others standing up for themselves — speaking truth to power — standing up in the face of strong, entrenched opposition. People are inspired by heroic acts — by commitment — by people who say they are so committed that they will stay in a park next to Wall Street until they make change. That’s what happened in Egypt and Tunisia. That’s what happened in Wisconsin this spring.
The legacy of the Occupy Wall Street movement could very well be the re-inspiration of tens of thousands of Progressives — and the engagement of young people that are so important to the future of the progressive movement in America.
Right-wingers will plant provocateurs in an attempt to stigmatize the Occupy Wall Street movement with violence — to make it look frightening. But if the Movement continues with the kind of single-minded purpose and commitment that we have seen so far, the Occupy Wall Street movement may very well make history. It has already become an enormous progressive asset as America approaches the critical crossroad election that could determine whether the next American generation experiences the American Dream or simply reads about it in their history books.
By: Robert Creamer, Published in Huff Post Politics, October 12, 2011
“We Are The Whiners”: About Those ‘53 Percent’
Republicans have been preoccupied for much of the year with those Americans who don’t make enough money to qualify for a federal income tax burden. Some are working-class families who fall below the tax threshold; some are unemployed; some are students; and some are retired. These Americans still pay sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and in many instances, property taxes, but not federal income taxes.
This, apparently, annoys the right to no end. It’s why all kinds of Republican officials — including Mitt Romney and Rick Perry — want to “fix” what they see as a “problem,” even if it means raising taxes on those who can least afford it.
This argument is even manifesting itself in a new “movement” of sorts, intended to respond to progressive activists calling for economic justice.
Conservative activists have created a Tumblr called “We are the 53 percent” that’s meant to be a counterpunch to the viral “We are the 99 percent” site that’s become a prominent symbol for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Tumblr is supposed to represent the 53 percent of Americans who pay federal income taxes, and its assumption is that the Wall Street protesters are part of the 46 percent of the country who don’t. “We are the 53 percent” was originally the brainchild of Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.org, who worked together with Josh Trevino, communications director for the right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation, and conservative filmmaker Mike Wilson to develop the concept, according to Trevino.
The overriding message is that the protesters have failed to take personal responsibility, blaming their economic troubles on others.
There are all kinds of problems with the right’s approach here, including the fact that they seem to want to increase working-class taxes and also seem entirely unaware of the fact that it was Republican tax cuts that pushed so many out of income-tax eligibility in the first place. There’s also the small matter of some of those claiming to be in “the 53 percent” aren’t actually shouldering a federal income tax burden at all, but are apparently unaware of that fact.
But putting that aside, take a look at Erick Erickson’s argument, presented in a hand-written message posted to the Tumblr blog: “I work three jobs. I have a house I can’t sell. My family insurance costs are outrageous. But I don’t blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners. I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.”
Just for heck of it, let’s take this one at a time.
The very idea that Erickson works “three jobs” is rather foolish.
Blaming financial industry corruption and mismanagement for Erickson’s troubles selling his house is actually quite reasonable.
If Erickson’s reference to “family insurance costs” is in reference to health care premiums, he’ll be glad to know the Affordable Care Act passed, and includes all kinds of breaks for small businesses like his.
And the notion that victims of a global economic collapse, who are seeking some relief from a system stacked in favor of the wealthy, are “whiners” is so blisteringly stupid, it amazes me someone would present the argument in public.
If there are any actual “whiners” in this scenario, shouldn’t the label go to millionaires who shudder at the idea of paying Clinton-era tax rates?
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly-Political Animal, October 11, 2011
“Economic Royalists”: The Panic Of The Plutocrats
It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.
And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.
Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.
Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.
Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to “take the jobs away from people working in this city,” a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement’s actual goals.
And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters “let their freak flags fly,” and are “aligned with Lenin.”
The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.
Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous dictum that “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”
But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda,” that she believes that “individualism is a chimera.” And Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”
What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.
Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.
This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.
So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.
By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, October 9, 2011
Leadership: A Quality That Continues To Elude Republicans
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) delivered a closely-watched speech the other day, in which he went after President Obama over, among other things, the issue of leadership. “We continue wait and hope that our president will finally stop being a bystander in the Oval Office,” the governor said. “We hope that he will shake off the paralysis that has made it impossible for him to take on the really big things.”
The next day, I received a few emails from liberal friends, all of whom are Obama detractors from the left, who seemed giddy but bemused by the fusion of Republican talking points and liberal complaints. They don’t love Christie, but they seemed to love the rhetorical shots Christie was taking at the president.
I find much of this pretty bizarre, not just because dyed-in-the-wool lefties are applauding cheap GOP talking points, but primarily because the argument itself is so weak. John Dickerson had a good piece yesterday on the nature of presidential leadership.
What the president’s critics really mean when they say the president “isn’t leading” is that he hasn’t announced that he is supporting their plans, or that he hasn’t decided to commit public suicide by announcing a position for which they can then denounce him.
By any measure, Obama is a leader. The first stimulus plan, health care reform, and financial regulatory reform he pushed for are all significant pieces of legislation. Christie’s measurement of leadership is doing “big things” even if they are unpopular. Health care, as Republicans will tell you, represents about one-fifth of the economy. Obama certainly wasn’t facing the prospect of popularity when he pushed for changing it.
I remember taking a class on leadership and being surprised, as a naive grad student, how complicated it was. Leadership at a conceptual level seems straightforward and obvious — a person steps up, presents a vision, and encourages others to follow him or her. There is, however, far more to it than that, and there are even different models of leadership (transactional vs. transformational, for example).
But for the purposes of conversation, the notion that Barack Obama is a “bystander,” too overcome by “paralysis” to do “big things,” isn’t just wrong, it’s ridiculous. Indeed, as far as the right is concerned, the attack is itself in conflict with the conservative notion that Obama is destroying American civilization with his radical agenda. One can be a bystander and one can be a radical activist hell bent on gutting our cherished traditions from within — but one cannot be both.
Contradictions aside, what are we to use as a metric for evaluating a president as a leader? If the metric has to do with making controversial decisions to advance the greater good, Obama has clearly done this repeatedly, including his unpopular-but-successful rescue of the American auto industry. If the metric relates to accomplishments, Obama’s record is lengthy (health care, Wall Street reform, Recovery Act, DADT repeal, student loan reform, New START, etc.). If the metric has to do with making tough calls when combating enemies, Obama’s role in killing Osama bin Laden would appear to meet that standard, too.
Has Obama compromised? Sure, but so has every other successful president. Has he fallen short on several goals? Of course, but he’s leading at time of nearly impossible circumstances, after inheriting a Republican mess of unimaginable proportions, and his tenure hasn’t even lasted three years. Is Obama struggling to get things done with this tragically dysfunctional Congress? Obviously, but there’s no point in blaming the president for the structural impediments of the American system of government. As Dickerson explained, “Calling for leadership is a trick both parties use to arouse anger and keep us from thinking too much more about the underlying issue. If only we had a leader, everything would be solved, they’d like us to think. But we should think more about what it actually takes to be president — what kind of leadership works and what kind of leadership doesn’t.”
Ultimately, the president’s critics are raising the wrong complaint. For the right, the criticism should be that Obama may be an effective leader, but he’s effectively leading the nation in a liberal direction they disapprove of. For the left, the criticism should be that Obama isn’t leading the nation to the left quickly or aggressively enough.
But to characterize him as a passive bystander is absurd.
By: Steve Benen, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 29, 2011
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
