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“Red State America”: Moochers Against Welfare

First, Atlas shrugged. Then he scratched his head in puzzlement.

Modern Republicans are very, very conservative; you might even (if you were Mitt Romney) say, severely conservative. Political scientists who use Congressional votes to measure such things find that the current G.O.P. majority is the most conservative since 1879, which is as far back as their estimates go.

And what these severe conservatives hate, above all, is reliance on government programs. Rick Santorum declares that President Obama is getting America hooked on “the narcotic of dependency.” Mr. Romney warns that government programs “foster passivity and sloth.” Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, requires that staffers read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” in which heroic capitalists struggle against the “moochers” trying to steal their totally deserved wealth, a struggle the heroes win by withdrawing their productive effort and giving interminable speeches.

Many readers of The Times were, therefore, surprised to learn, from an excellent article published last weekend, that the regions of America most hooked on Mr. Santorum’s narcotic — the regions in which government programs account for the largest share of personal income — are precisely the regions electing those severe conservatives. Wasn’t Red America supposed to be the land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts?

The article made its case with maps showing the distribution of dependency, but you get the same story from a more formal comparison. Aaron Carroll of Indiana University tells us that in 2010, residents of the 10 states Gallup ranks as “most conservative” received 21.2 percent of their income in government transfers, while the number for the 10 most liberal states was only 17.1 percent.

Now, there’s no mystery about red-state reliance on government programs. These states are relatively poor, which means both that people have fewer sources of income other than safety-net programs and that more of them qualify for “means-tested” programs such as Medicaid.

By the way, the same logic explains why there has been a jump in dependency since 2008. Contrary to what Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney suggest, Mr. Obama has not radically expanded the safety net. Rather, the dire state of the economy has reduced incomes and made more people eligible for benefits, especially unemployment benefits. Basically, the safety net is the same, but more people are falling into it.

But why do regions that rely on the safety net elect politicians who want to tear it down? I’ve seen three main explanations.

First, there is Thomas Frank’s thesis in his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”: working-class Americans are induced to vote against their own interests by the G.O.P.’s exploitation of social issues. And it’s true that, for example, Americans who regularly attend church are much more likely to vote Republican, at any given level of income, than those who don’t.

Still, as Columbia University’s Andrew Gelman points out, the really striking red-blue voting divide is among the affluent: High-income residents of red states are overwhelmingly Republican; high-income residents of blue states only mildly more Republican than their poorer neighbors. Like Mr. Frank, Mr. Gelman invokes social issues, but in the opposite direction. Affluent voters in the Northeast tend to be social liberals who would benefit from tax cuts but are repelled by things like the G.O.P.’s war on contraception.

Finally, Cornell University’s Suzanne Mettler points out that many beneficiaries of government programs seem confused about their own place in the system. She tells us that 44 percent of Social Security recipients, 43 percent of those receiving unemployment benefits, and 40 percent of those on Medicare say that they “have not used a government program.”

Presumably, then, voters imagine that pledges to slash government spending mean cutting programs for the idle poor, not things they themselves count on. And this is a confusion politicians deliberately encourage. For example, when Mr. Romney responded to the new Obama budget, he condemned Mr. Obama for not taking on entitlement spending — and, in the very next breath, attacked him for cutting Medicare.

The truth, of course, is that the vast bulk of entitlement spending goes to the elderly, the disabled, and working families, so any significant cuts would have to fall largely on people who believe that they don’t use any government program.

The message I take from all this is that pundits who describe America as a fundamentally conservative country are wrong. Yes, voters sent some severe conservatives to Washington. But those voters would be both shocked and angry if such politicians actually imposed their small-government agenda.

 

By: Paul Krugman, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, February 16, 2012

February 19, 2012 Posted by | States, Welfare | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“The Little Man On The Wedding Cake”: Mitt Romney, Plain And Unpopular

Unlike Newt Gingrich, who can claim a regional base, Rick Santorum, who has a solidly defined political persona, or Ron Paul, who has something of a cult of personality, there’s nothing unique about Mitt Romney as a candidate. He is the definition of a generic Republican—a blank slate for the public to register its frustrations. Like Thomas Dewey—who played a similar role in the 1948 election—he is “the little man on the wedding cake.” Indeed, if there is anything close to a reason for his presidential campaign, it’s his vanilla appeal to the broad public, and undecided voters in particular.

Since the beginning of the year, however, that advantage has completely evaporated—the public has gone from slight approval of the former Massachusetts governor, to outright loathing.

In less than two months, Romney has gone from a positive rating of +8.5—43.5 percent favorable to 35 percent unfavorable—to an astonishingly negative one of -17.4, or 31.2 percent favorable to 48.6 percent unfavorable. What’s more, this comes as his name recognition has increased; the more Americans get to know Mitt Romney, the less they like him. This, it should be said, wasn’t true of John Kerry when he ran for the presidency in 2004.

Of course, because this poll measures all voters—and not just independents—this includes some Republicans who will return to the fold if Romney becomes the nominee. But the favorability gains that come with leading a unified party aren’t enough to overcome a deficit of this size. What’s more, it will do nothing for Romney’s standing with independents, which has also collapsed in the last two months. You can also expect these numbers to get worse for the former Massachusetts governor as he moves to bury Rick Santorum under a landslide of attack ads ahead of the Michigan primary. Voters aren’t keen on constant negativity, which has become Romney’s default position as the primaries drag on.

None of this is to say that Romney is doomed if he becomes the nominee, but the situation doesn’t look good. At this point, most Americans don’t trust him to stand up for their interests, a plurality of Americans don’t like him, and independents would rather stick to President Obama. It’s true that this could all change with a crisis in Europe or a war in the Middle East, but if that’s what you’re banking on, you’re not in a good place.

 

By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, February 16, 2012

February 17, 2012 Posted by | Election 2012 | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Extreme Positions”: The GOP Again Goes For The 1%

Fighting contraception. Stopping domestic violence protections. Extending tax cuts for the wealthy, while hiking taxes on the middle class. Welcoming white supremacists to a conference, but banning gay conservatives. The GOP has followed its extremist fringe off the deep end, leaving the rest of us back in the reality-based world, and befuddled. Their strategists warned them not to do this, but it appears that to the GOP, unhinged fringe issues are like catnip.

It wasn’t a surprise to see Republican luminaries, including Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell flock to major conservative conference last week that also included a panel session featuring a white supremacist. But it was ironic that this same event, the Conservative Political Action Conference, banned a group of gay conservatives from participating, accusing them of alienating so-called “family values” groups like the Family Research Council (FRC).

The banned group, GOProud, is hardly radical, even by right-wing standards — it split from the Log Cabin Republicans because it thought the older group was too concerned with gay rights. Beyond pushing the much feared “The Gay Agenda,” now just being gay excludes you from the biggest conservative conference of the year. Being a white supremacist gets you on a panel.

This year, CPAC banned the gays to gain back the  FRC — and white supremacists came as a bonus. The leaders of the GOP — including a few aspiring leaders of the free world — came along for the ride.
But CPAC was just the beginning of what has been a surreal week for a major political party. On Friday, President Obama announced a compromise with Catholic leaders who objected to religious institutions being included in the contraception coverage mandate for employee insurance. The compromise, which spared Catholic institutions from providing contraception coverage while ensuring that female employees would still have access to it, was not enough for the Catholic bishops and GOP leaders. Instead, they announced that they wanted a rule that would allow any employer to renounce any insurance coverage for any procedure they find morally objectionable.

Anyone who has ever had health insurance knows that that’s an extreme position — allowing employers to pick and choose what procedures they’ll provide insurance for? — but it’s one that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and the leaders of the House and Senate GOP jumped right on.

And attacking contraception is just the beginning. Republicans in the Senate are blocking a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act because it includes protections for LGBT people and undocumented immigrants. The Virginia House just passed a bill that would require women seeking abortions to undergo an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound without their consent, and another that would put access to birth control at risk. The latter, a so-called “personhood” bill, is so extreme a similar measure was rejected by Mississippi voters by double digits last year — yes, that Mississippi. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is widely considered to be a top candidate for the GOP vice presidential nomination, has said he will sign the forced ultrasound bill and may sign the “personhood” measure.

Finally, on another issue important to millions of American families — middle class tax cuts — the GOP gave in and joined the rest of us in reality. While Republicans had been making rumblings about repeating their disastrous stunt in December where they threatened to raise payroll taxes on working Americans because the cost would be offset by a miniscule tax on the very rich, they ultimately gave in — while leaving lower-profile but equally important issues of extending unemployment benefits and fixing Medicare payments for doctors in the lurch.

Where is the mainstream of the GOP? And why aren’t they speaking up? 99 percent of American women who have ever been sexually active have used birth control. 59 percent of Americans think all employers should have to provide comprehensive health insurance to their employees — including to women. Sixty-six percent think the wealthiest should pay a bit more to help all Americans get by in a bad economy. As of last year, 56 percent said gay and lesbian relationships are “morally acceptable” — and although I haven’t seen polling, I’d bet that the “morally acceptable” number for white supremacists is significantly lower.

Polls are polls and politicians shouldn’t govern by them, but shouldn’t they notice when they’re falling off the deep end? The GOP, in pursuing the agenda of the most extreme factions of its base, has left moderates within its own party and American common sense behind. This isn’t just bad for them politically — in the long run, it’s bad for the country. There are plenty of serious issues that demand our attention — jobs, housing, the energy crisis, crumbling infrastructure. But instead of tackling these, the GOP seems determined to fixate on a parade of dangerous nonsense.

 

By: Michael B, Keegan, the Huffington Post, February 16, 2012

February 17, 2012 Posted by | GOP Presidential Candidates, Women's Health | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“At Ease Christian Soldiers”: Drumming Up A Phony War On Religion

At ease, Christian soldiers. There is no “war on religion,” no assault on the Catholic Church. A faith that has endured for thousands of years will survive even Nicki Minaj.

It never occurred to me to evaluate the Grammy Awards show on theological rectitude, but apparently we’re supposed to be outraged at the over-the-top “exorcism” Minaj performed Sunday night. The hip-hop diva, who writhed and cavorted amid a riot of religious iconography, is accused of anti-Catholic bigotry — and seen as an enemy combatant in an escalating “war on religion” being waged by “secular elites,” which seems to be used as a synonym for Democrats.

Seriously? Are we really going to pretend that Christianity is somehow under siege? That the Almighty would have been any more offended Sunday than he was, say, in 2006, when Madonna — who could sue Minaj for theft of intellectual property — performed a song during her touring act while being mock-crucified on a mirrored cross? While wearing a crown of thorns? Even at her show in Rome?

The “war on religion” alarmists are just like Minaj and Madonna in one key respect: Lacking a coherent point to make, they go for shock value.

Among the loudest voices, predictably, are those of the Republican presidential candidates. Guess who’s to blame for the attack on all God-fearing Americans who go to church every Sunday to hear sermons about the sacrifice and triumph of Jesus Christ. Hint: He got in trouble four years ago, during his presidential campaign, for going to church every Sunday to hear sermons about the sacrifice and triumph of Jesus Christ.

President Obama is indeed waging a war on religion, Mitt Romney claimed last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Romney promised to rescind every “Obama regulation” that somehow “attacks our religious liberty.”

Newt Gingrich said at CPAC that Obama plans to “wage war” on the Catholic Church if he is reelected. Those who don’t see this coming are not familiar with “who [the president] really is.” Apparently, the real Obama is about to come out of hiding, any day now.

But it is Rick Santorum who wins the award for histrionics. Progressives, he said last week in Texas, are “taking faith and crushing it.” From that ridiculous proposition, he went on in truly hallucinatory fashion:

“When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”

Wow.

Just how has this “hostility to faith in America” manifested itself? Obama issued a rule requiring some church-owned or church-run institutions to provide health insurance that pays for contraceptives, which are outlawed by Catholic doctrine — and used by most Catholic women. Obama subsequently altered the rule to placate Catholic bishops, who responded by declaring themselves implacable.

In his speech at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, Obama cited New Testament scripture in arguing for economic and social justice. Conservatives blasted him for, um, quoting the Bible.

This is a war? This is a march to the guillotine?

Romney and Gingrich know better; they’re just cynically pandering to religious conservatives. Santorum, at least, is sincere in his pre-Enlightenment beliefs. But rejection of the intellectual framework that produced not just the French Revolution but the American Revolution as well does not strike me as an appropriate philosophy for a U.S. presidential candidate to espouse, much less a winning platform to run on.

The Founders wisely decided to institutionalize separation of church and state. The references to God, the Creator and Divine Providence in the Declaration of Independence mask the fact that the Founders disagreed on the nature and existence of a Supreme Being. They understood the difference between faith and religiosity.

Within our secular governmental framework, religion has thrived. No other large industrialized nation has nearly as many regular churchgoers as does the United States.

And just as faith somehow survived Nicki Minaj’s burlesque at the Grammys, it will survive the attempt by Republicans to create a religious war out of thin air.

 

By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, February 14, 2012

February 17, 2012 Posted by | GOP Presidential Candidates, Religion | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Bad History And Undisciplined Demagoguery”: Rick Santorum Mangles The Founding Fathers

Each time presidential candidate Rick Santorum rears his righteous head, it is to exploit a social issue that is of no import in a national election.  But he knows that the way to keep the cameras pointed at him one more day is to manufacture a new bit of hysteria.

Last Thursday, Joan Walsh reported on Santorum as he clamored to punish non-Catholics by limiting their access to contraceptives if their workplace was in the hands of the Catholic Church.    She rightly pointed out that he “absolutely mangles” what the founders said about religion.  Raising the specter of the atheistic French Revolution and its notorious use of the guillotine, the former Pennsylvania senator planted a seed in the minds of his hearers: A left-driven tyranny was where the anti-Christian Obama administration would be heading next.

The fear-monger tosses out familial metaphors with devilish glee.  At once subverting patriarchy within the home and turning the federal government into Big Brother, the sitting president stands in moral opposition to all that is good.  And only the moral policeman Rick can stop him.

“They are taking faith and crushing it,” Santorum howls at the political left. “When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights then what’s left is the French Revolution…. What’s left are no unalienable rights.  What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine.”

This is a combination of really bad history and undisciplined demagoguery.  What we’d like to focus on is not the fractured logic of the demagogue so much as the perversion of history by the two-term senator.  We consider it quite sad that a presidential candidate in 2012 should be resurrecting the same dirty campaign tactic that accompanied the charge that Thomas Jefferson, for five years U.S. minister to France, would, if elected president, shut down churches and burn bibles.

Start with the fact that in his superficial evocation of the 1790s, Santorum was referring not to the French so much as he was unconsciously reviving the propaganda used by New England Federalists against the “atheist” Thomas Jefferson, who championed freedom of conscience and refused to wear his religion on his sleeve.  From 1793 on, conservative Yankees predicted that the social chaos of Paris would wash ashore in America.  Indeed, conservative academics of our own time view the French Revolution as the first step toward the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union–all of which fits neatly with the crack-brained Tea Party narrative in which President Obama is a sworn socialist and enemy of capitalism.

Mitt Romney is not beyond indulging in the same polemical game, associating Obama with European social programs.  Yet Santorum does what the Mormon cannot, by playing the “Catholic card” in his effort to “other” the president.  It is an especially bizarre move in historical relief, because the Federalist critics who most loudly warned of the French-tainted Jefferson were New England Calvinists who feared Catholics as much as they feared French anarchy.

Federalists termed the French Revolution a “contagion,” a violent, sickening, uncivilizing process.  If Santorum sees the metaphorical blade of the guillotine hanging over the heads of the Catholic bishops, it is well worth noting that eighteenth-century conservatives were so carried away by their own outlandish predictions that their panicky congressional majority passed a series of repressive laws, the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which first targeted French émigrés and then U.S. citizens who needed to be silenced.  The Sedition Act authorized the imprisonment of journalists and politicians who criticized the president.  The main purpose of the legislation was, as James Madison observed, to shut down free and open political debate–to derail democracy.  Cleverly drafted, the Sedition Act allowed the government to punish critics of the president, but not the vice president.  Why the omission?  Because in 1798, John Adams’s vice president was the unAmerican Thomas Jefferson.

It certainly seems that Rick Santorum reads the First Amendment just as the Federalist Congress of 1798 did.  As we all know, though, the First Amendment was intended to uphold religious freedom, protect speech, and ensure liberty of conscience.  Madison, who conceived the First Amendment, defended the last of these three principles as a deeply private, individual right shielding citizens from the coercive, invasive force of a church or state government.

It is Santorum, not President Obama, who is waging a war against religion.  It is the fear-mongers who endanger religious freedom.  Why should the Catholic Church impose its doctrines on employees who are not Catholic?  Why should any who are not Catholic be deprived of access to a health insurance benefit solely because they are employed by a Catholic hospital or university?  Why should the Church be permitted to impose its doctrines on an individual who not a member?  The First Amendment does not grant any church the power to deprive individuals of rights.

Santorum is waging a war not only on religion but on all Americans who do not share his faith.  The Catholic Church has every right to impart its doctrines; its members can accept or reject them.  The majority of Catholic men and women have rejected the particular doctrine prohibiting the use of contraception.  Employees possess the right to insurance and the right to adhere to their own religious beliefs.

As Madison argued in a 1788 letter to Jefferson, religious fanaticism was as serious a danger to religious liberty as excessive state authority.  In his words, “rights of conscience” were undermined by “overbearing majorities” who were intent on advancing the interests of a particular “religious establishment.”  In plain and simple terms, the founders meant to protect individuals against excessive encroachments by church as well as state.

We might all wish to heed Madison’s further warning:  “It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the Government has too much or too little power.”  Religious liberty required the protection of state authority, in creating a barrier around the individual and guarding against intrusions from religious institutions.

The fact remains that President Obama is no more a French Revolutionary Jacobin than Jefferson or Madison.  It appears, in fact, that the president has a very clear understanding of religious liberty, appreciating the boundaries between church and state just as Madison intended.  His promptly conceived compromise solution, respecting religion without restricting rights, fits the balanced, reasonable approach our founders prescribed when they fought, state by state, to eliminate state funding and sanctioning (i.e., disestablishment) of privileged sects.

If the last three years tell us anything, 2012 will not usher in a new Age of Reason.  Fanaticism will continue to seize the news cycle.  Rick Santorum has learned (perhaps from Donald Trump and birther mania) that the best way to grab the headlines is to ramp up the epithets, bark the loudest, and fantasize a history that never was.

 

By: Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Salon, February 14, 2012

February 16, 2012 Posted by | Election 2012, GOP Presidential Candidates | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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