This Week in America

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 9)

Far too much media coverage of politics focuses on the horserace angle--who's ahead, who's behind, who's up or down. It relies on false equivalency: if Politician A says X, then the reporter goes to Politician B, who's sure to say Y. That's lazy journalism, and it doesn't actually inform the public about which position (if any) is actually true, or adheres to the facts as we know them. At TWiA, our mission is to discuss politics through the prism of policy--to look, in other words, at the real-world implications of the things that politicians say and do, to make connections others might miss, and to explain it all in language a lay person can understand. Also to offer suggestions of how you can help somebody in need, to report on what's awesome, and to keep tabs on bears. If you like TWiA, share or repost or tell a friend, and be sure to leave comments, even if they're arguments. Especially if they're arguments. 

This Week in Self-sabotage

Because Republicans in Congress chose to carve the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) out of the bill they passed last year to keep the rest of the government funded, this week they faced a crisis of their own making. They decided they wanted to tie an obviously doomed effort (because President Obama would certainly veto it, even if it could overcome a Senate filibuster--which it didn't) to overturn Obama's executive actions on immigration enforcement to DHS funding. That was never going to work, but it would send a message to the conservative base, which appears to be the only thing this Congress is interested in doing.

Shutting down the department that enforces border security, among many other things--when they created the department, the Bush administration threw all kinds of different agencies into it--to (as they see it) increase border security never made much sense. Fifteen percent of DHS employees would be immediately furloughed. Border Patrol and ICE agents would still be expected to work, but they'd be working without pay, until the funding was restored and they were paid retroactively. Left unstated by most of the media is that any federal contractors working on DHS contracts would almost certainly not be paid retroactively--they'd be sidelined for the length of the shutdown, and would just lose those paychecks. And DHS funds a lot of other services outside its immediate purview--firefighters, rail security, police, etc., in towns and cities across the country. They would all be affected.

A DHS shutdown is, all in all, a terrible way to argue in favor of more border security.

And none of it had to happen. As the Washington Post reminds us:

"Way back in 2013, when the Senate reached a compromise and passed a big bipartisan bill on immigration, Speaker Boehner refused to bring it up for a vote, saying it wouldn't have the support of a majority of Republicans in the House. Would the bill have passed the chamber with the support of Democrats and a handful of Republicans with large Hispanic constituencies? It's hard to say. But Boehner might be regretting the decision not to find out.

"Boehner explained his thinking at the time: As the speaker, it's his job to represent the interests of the majority party. If most Republicans opposed a bill, he wouldn't bring it up, unless he absolutely had to. Well, now it looks like he has to. In order to extend funding for the Department of Homeland Security past this week, he might have to ask the chamber to vote on an appropriations bill that does not rescind President Obama's actions deferring deportation for undocumented parents of citizens and legal residents. Most of his caucus will probably vote against the bill.

"As a result, Boehner will be in the awkward position of relying on Democrats to provide money for the department. Conservatives within the Republican Party will say he sided with the enemy to abet Obama's executive takeover of immigration policy. If he'd managed to get an immigration bill through the House two years ago, none of this would have happened. And now, even if a funding bill is passed, Congress will be no closer to fixing a system all sides agree is broken."

Have we mentioned lately that Boehner is one of the worst, most ineffective, speakers in the history of the country? Had the bill passed in 2013, the economy would be in better shape, and Congress--having achieved a real bipartisan victory on an important issue--would probably be more respected throughout the country. Instead, congressional inaction forced the president's hand and set up the self-made crisis that was bound to blow up in Boehner's face.

During the week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R/KY) seemed to realize the futility of the effort, and passed a bill to fund DHS, with no strings attached. Boehner, or the radicals in his caucus, couldn't bring themselves to go along with that. Finally, on the eve of the shutdown, they came up with a brilliant plan: delay taking action for three weeks. Or, as the WaPo headline put it, "Congress to delay arbitrary deadline it set for itself." The piece says, "You might ask whether there's any point to setting an arbitrary deadline for yourself if you're just going to push it back when you realize you can't meet it. In fact, though, Boehner's bill confronts opposition from both Democrats who view this as nonsense and conservative Republicans who view it as a concession. It's unclear whether he has the 218 votes he needs to pass it. If the bill fails, the deadline will not be postponed, and the department's funding will expire. In other words, Congress is becoming so dysfunctional it can barely kick the can down the road anymore."

It's true. The Republicans took over both houses of Congress in January, promising to govern responsibly. It hasn't taken long to prove they're incapable of it. Boehner seems to think that having this same argument later will somehow be better than having it now. He thinks that acting now to keep DHS funded will convince Democrats that next time, he'll shoot the hostage instead of buckling yet again. We admit we don't understand his reasoning.

In the end, the House had to pass a 7-day patch, to keep DHS open for a week, giving them time to cave next week. If it's a face-saving measure, it's hard to see how anybody's face comes out of it okay. In the end, not enough of Boehner's Republicans voted for the patch, and Democrats had to come to its rescue.

House Republicans, once again, put ideology ahead of country. We can only hope voters remember that in 2016.

Side Note: When the Senate finally passed a clean bill--and the House refused to do the same--Sen. Mark Kirk (R/IL) said, "Hopefully we're gonna end the attaching of bullshit to essential items of the government... In the long-run, if you are blessed with the majority, you're blessed with the power to govern. If you're gonna govern, you have to act responsibly." We can only hope his colleagues in the House are listening.

Below the fold: Net neutrality,  vetoes, Israel, snowballs in the Senate, guns, bears, and more.

 

Today at CPAC: A TWiA Special Report

This Week at CPAC

The Conservative Political Action Conference is underway in Washington. This annual event typically features a lot of crazy talk mixed in with hatred for the president, immigrants, gays, and various other groups. Chances are there's some reasonable talk, too, but if so it's rarely reported.

We were going to include CPAC coverage by our intrepid TWiA reporters in the regular weekly TWiA, but quickly realized that would make it much too long. Instead, we'll try to do daily CPAC updates. 

Here's the first day of CPAC in Tweets and photos.

* * *

Did we mention how CPAC feels about gay people? The gay Republican group Log Cabin Republicans tried (again) to be a CPAC sponsor, and they were once again denied. Meanwhile, CPAC is fine with sponsorship by white nationalist groups and other anti-gay organizations dubbed hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

* * *

One of the first speakers was Dr. Ben Carson, darling of the tea party right for reasons that remain unclear, because he literally has no idea what he's talking about most of the time. This week, Talking Points Memo reports, he went after same-sex marriage right off the bat:

"'The Constitution also says that Congress has oversight of all inferior courts. That means the federal courts —only one they don't have jurisdiction over is the Supreme Court," Carson said. "So when these federal judges come in and interfere and overturn the will of the people, the people who have voted for something, Congress has a responsibility to do something about this because it says that those judges serve as long as they are doing a satisfactory job. But it's not satisfactory when they're going against the will of the people.'

"Carson didn't directly say gay marriage but his comments stacked on earlier ones he's made in an interview on Steve Deace's podcast in which he said Congress should remove federal judges who rule in favor of gay marriage."

A couple of problems here, Dr. Carson. First, who decides "the will of the people?" According to all the polling we've seen, allowing same-sex marriage is increasingly popular among "the people." If you were listening to the will of the people, you'd stop opposing it. So you're really arguing that Congress should remove federal judges who go against the will of Ben Carson.

Second, the will of the people often changes. Sometimes it changes depending upon how a question is asked. Federal judges should specifically be protected from the will of the people--they're supposed to uphold the law, not popular opinion. The federal judiciary is not Dancing With the Stars, nor should it be. Anybody who says it should simply doesn't understand the system.

* * * 

Carson also  doesn't seem to understand how wrong Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about Iraq (more on that in Friday's regular weekly report), or how much his upcoming congressional visit is tied to his reelection campaign and is not about any real concern for what's best for America. He said, "We have friends over there. Let's not turn our back on Israel. Let's listen to Netanyahu."

Israel is our friend. Netanyahu decidedly isn't, and he's not someone who should be listened to on matters pertaining to our national security.

* * *

Here's a way you can always tell if a politician or would-be politician has a clue (hint: Carson doesn't)--when they want to tear down federal agencies just to replace them with federal agencies. One of his big applause lines (because in general, the CPAC crowd also has no clue) was when he said we should have "a fair taxation system that allows us to get rid of the IRS."

Do tell, Dr. Carson. How would this "fair" taxation system work? What precisely is unfair about our current system? And if you got rid of the IRS, who would regulate and enforce the new system? You'd need a new agency for that (and start-up costs for a federal agency eat up a lot of tax dollars). What would you call it? Here's a suggestion: how about the "Internal Revenue Service?"

Carson may or may not have been a good doctor, but when it comes to matters of national policy, he is hopelessly ignorant.

 * * *

When Jeb Bush addresses CPAC--where he is not the most popular of figures, by a long shot--he'll make sure to be shielded from the crowd. Although the radical right-wingers who attend CPAC don't like Bush, they do tend to like Fox "News" and radio pundit Sean Hannity, so instead of giving a speech, Bush will answer questions from Hannity. (New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, also no favorite of the CPACers, used a similar tack, being interviewed by radio host Laura Ingraham. Arch-conservatism by association seems to be the theme.) Bush took things a step further, Politico reports, "In response, his advisers have taken steps to pack the room with supporters — a Bush adviser said the campaign would be coordinating transportation for Washington, D.C.-area boosters who’d expressed interest in attending his Friday afternoon presentation."

If you can't excite the crowd that's there, it's always best to bring your own crowd with you. We wonder how he can continue that all the way through the primaries.

* * *

To her credit, Sen. Joni Ernst (R/IA), one of the very few US senators since the South lost the Civil War to believe that states have the power to nullify federal law [we're not sure where Sen. Rand Paul (R/KY) stands on that, but he spent a significant portion of his adult life trying to convince the country that his father, a devout believer in nullification, should be president]--and a military veteran--avoided the loony talk and focused instead of veterans' issues. 

 

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 8.5)

A few short subjects, because it's late and we're tired. But some things need a little discussion.

This Week in Megalomania

Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani is despicable. And wrong. And a few more things, but there might be kids in the audience.

Attending a private dinner to benefit the presidential campaign of Gov. Scott Walker, Giuliani got up and said, according to Politico, “'I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,' Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club, a former Prohibition-era speakeasy in midtown Manhattan. 'He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.'”

Having made the absurd charge that President Barack Obama--a true American success story who rose from simple roots to become president of the United States--doesn't love America, Rudy tried to walk his comments back a little the next day. “Well, first of all, I’m not questioning his patriotism. He’s a patriot, I’m sure,” the former mayor of New York said on “Fox and Friends” Thursday morning. “What I’m saying is, in his rhetoric, I very rarely hear the things that I used to hear Ronald Reagan say, the things that I used to hear Bill Clinton say about how much he loves America.”

 

So he doesn't love America, but he's a patriot? Explain, Rudy, please.

 

"You know, President Obama didn't live through September 11 -- I did.  President Obama didn't almost have a building fall on him -- myself and my police commissioner and my fire commissioner did. And, I lost ten of my very close friends."

 

Yeah, wrong. President Obama was born in 1961. He lived through September 11 (and you, Rudy, have played the 9/11 card about a thousand times too many. There have been other days in history. Like the one on which you decided the city's emergency-command center should be located at the World Trade Center, despite the fact that it had been a target of terrorism before and was an obvious future target. Your administration was so woefully unprepared for 9/11 that we might be forgiven for wondering whether you truly love New York).

 

Backing up just a little, what exactly does Rudy mean by "He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country."?

 

Rudy was brought up by a mob enforcer, so I suppose he's right there--neither Obama nor I nor most TWiA readers were brought up the way he was. Rudy's mobster father and all five of his brothers dodged service in WWII, though neither my father nor Obama's grandfather did. So he's right again--we weren't brought up with the values that Rudy was brought up with. We're not sure where "love of country" fits into his definition, though.

 

But what else might be mean? Possibly that Obama is black? No, not according to Rudy. “Some people thought it was racist — I thought that was a joke, since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools, and most of this he learned from white people. This isn’t racism. This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism.”

 

Admittedly, it's hard to know what he's saying there. "This isn't racism." Presumably by saying "This," he's talking about himself, and his comments. But he continues with, "This is socialism or possibly anti-colonialism." "This" again, in the very next sentence. So he's saying he's expressing socialism or anti-colonialism? And he can't tell the difference?

 

Or possibly, although he repeated the word "This," he meant the second "This" to refer to something other than the subject of the first "This." Maybe that second one refers to Obama?

 

We assume that Rudy is opposed to socialism. But anti-colonialism? Is he really not aware that our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are the founding documents of anti-colonialism?

That our revolution was an incredibly successful anti-colonial act? Is he saying that he's pro-colonialism? Does he know nothing of American history?

 

But wait--Rudy is practically a history professor. According to Rudy, anyway. "“What I don’t find with Obama — this will get me in more trouble again — is a really deep knowledge of history. I think it’s a dilettante’s knowledge of history.”

 

If Rudy knows history, how can he not know that the story of America is the story of a great triumph of anti-colonialism?

 

The New York Times says, "He [Prof. Rudy] also challenged a reporter to find examples of Mr. Obama expressing love for his country."

 

Steve Benen at Maddowblog suggests that Rudy must have missed last month's SOTU address, in which the president said this:

“I know how tempting such cynicism may be. But I still think the cynics are wrong. I still believe that we are one people. I still believe that together, we can do great things, even when the odds are long.

 

“I believe this because over and over in my six years in office, I have seen America at its best. I’ve seen the hopeful faces of young graduates from New York to California, and our newest officers at West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs, New London. I’ve mourned with grieving families in Tucson and Newtown, in Boston, in West Texas, and West Virginia. I’ve watched Americans beat back adversity from the Gulf Coast to the Great Plains, from Midwest assembly lines to the Mid-Atlantic seaboard. I’ve seen something like gay marriage go from a wedge issue used to drive us apart to a story of freedom across our country, a civil right now legal in states that seven in 10 Americans call home.

 

“So I know the good, and optimistic, and big-hearted generosity of the American people who every day live the idea that we are our brother’s keeper and our sister’s keeper.”

And this:

“Our technology companies and universities are unmatched. Our manufacturing and auto industries are thriving. Energy independence is closer than it’s been in decades. For all the work that remains, our businesses are in the longest uninterrupted stretch of job creation in our history. Despite all the divisions and discord within our democracy, I see the grit and determination and common goodness of the American people every single day – and that makes me more confident than ever about our country’s future.

 

“Abroad, American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world. It is America that has the capacity and the will to mobilize the world against terrorists. It is America that has rallied the world against Russian aggression, and in support of the Ukrainian peoples’ right to determine their own destiny. It is America – our scientists, our doctors, our know-how – that can help contain and cure the outbreak of Ebola. It is America that helped remove and destroy Syria’s declared chemical weapons so that they can’t pose a threat to the Syrian people or the world again. And it is America that is helping Muslim communities around the world not just in the fight against terrorism, but in the fight for opportunity, and tolerance, and a more hopeful future.”

Giuliani doesn't need to shut up, because this is America and people are entitled here to express even the most idiotic points of view. No, Rudy should be allowed to talk all he wants.

But the press should stop reporting what he says, because he has clearly gone off the rails. Nothing he says adds to the national conversation. Let this incident, at last, be the time we stop talking about Rudy.

 

* * *

 

For his part, Scott Walker refused to denounce Rudy's comments at Walker's dinner. This profile in courage said, "The mayor can speak for himself. I’m not going to comment on what the president thinks or not, he can speak for himself as well. I can tell you I love this country.”

Brave words, those. One can only wonder what the outcry would be throughout the right wing if a speaker at a dinner for Obama, during the 2012 election, had announced that Mitt Romney didn't love America. Because after all, a guy brought up as a millionaire wearing magical underwear was not brought up like you and me.

 

Walker has other problems on his mind, though. Like this one:

"To help close the state’s $283 million budget shortfall this year, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) plans to skip a $108 million debt payment scheduled for May.

"Walker, a likely presidential candidate whose campaign message rooted in Wisconsin’s fiscal record, has been struggling to balance the budget in his home state before the June 30 deadline. Pushing off debt payments is one tactic that he and predecessors have used in the past.

"By missing the May payment, Walker will incur about $1.1 million in additional interest fees between 2015 and 2017. The $108 million debt will continue to live on the books; Walker’s budget proposal for 2015-2017 will pay down no more than about $18 million of the principal.

“'This latest accounting gimmick kicks the can further down the road and will end up costing taxpayers millions more,' State Sen. Jennifer Shilling (D) said in a press release yesterday."

Those tax cuts were a good idea, Governor...

 

"In March last year, Walker signed a $541 million tax cut for both families and businesses. At that point, Wisconsin was facing a $1 billion budget surplus through June 2015, the Journal Sentinel reported.

"By November last year, the administration was estimating a $132 million shortfall. In January, the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau pegged it at $283 million. The Bureau, which does research for the Wisconsin Legislature, explained that tax collections were $173 million worse than the administration’s own estimates in November."

Walker's economic ignorance comes naturally to him, since he turns for economic advice to people proven wrong time and time again. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman writes, "You can’t say the same, however, about postcrisis developments, where the people Mr. Walker was courting have spent years warning about the wrong things. 'Get ready for inflation and higher interest rates' was the title of a June 2009 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal by Mr. Laffer; what followed were the lowest inflation in two generations and the lowest interest rates in history. Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Moore both predicted 1970s-style stagflation."

Economics and political cowardice aren't Walker's only claims to fame, either. Determined to prove he's just as wretched a human being as any of the other likely 2016 Republican candidates, "Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it."

Because preventing a member of a committed relationship from visiting a loved one in the hospital is an admirable goal. You're a heck of a guy, Scotty.

* * *

And speaking of likely 2016 candidates:

"The figure most discomfited by this turn of events was not Walker but Bobby Jindal, a rival candidate. Racially tinged dog whistles are Jindal’s thing. This has been his major point of differentiation against fellow Republicans. He can’t just sit there and let Walker bask alone in the reflected glory of Giuliani’s smear.

"So Jindal released a statement to the media that he would not condemn Giuliani’s statement. Nobody even asked him, but just in case you were wondering what Jindal thought about smearing Obama’s patriotism — which was not a subject of intense curiosity, for the same reason nobody has wondered what Harvey Fierstein thinks about Alabama blocking gay marriage — he has cleared things up. No Walker-style dodge here."

* * *

One of the other economic "experts" Walker has consulted is the Heritage Foundation's Stephen Moore, who we've discussed in this space before. Moore is well paid not to be right about economics, but to try to shore up the Heritage Foundation's preferred ideology. Moore is seldom right about economics.

To his credit, though, sometimes he's not simply wrong, he's heroically, spectacularly wrong, as he was this week in an ill-considered attack on the Affordable Care Act.

The headline of a takedown by Jonathan Chait begins to make the argument: Guy Who Gets Paid to Say Obamacare Doesn’t Work Can’t Find a Single True Fact to Support His Case.

"Obamacare has increased enrollment in its health care exchanges to more than 11 million, and the conservative response to the law’s demonstrable success at carrying out its goals has been fascinating to behold. Measured by volume, the right-wing backlash has diminished severely, as great roaring waves of furious anger have given way to irregular ripples of discontent. But measured by its content, very little has changed. Conservatives are talking much less than they used to about Obamacare, but they are saying more or less the same things, treating the law as a costly and obvious failure. What’s most striking is how oblivious most of them remain not only to measures of the law’s success, but even to the broad parameters of its objectives.

"To take a typical example, here is Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, making his case, such as it is, that Obamacare has failed to meet its cost targets. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Moore’s column is the fact that, five years after its passage, the chief economist of the most influential conservative think tank in the United States lacks even a passing familiarity with its fiscal objectives."

The article goes through Moore's column point by point, printing Moore's every word to demonstrate that Moore has no understanding whatsoever of the topic (or if he does, he pretends, with rank dishonesty, that he doesn't).

To be fair, there is one sentence in Moore's column that can't be easily disproved.

Moore writes: "Premiums for Obamacare plans are on average between 7 percent and 15 percent last year for the broad coverage plans."

And Jon Chait responds, "It is hard to substantiate or refute this, because it is not even an English sentence. If Moore is contending that the cost of premiums in the exchanges is rising by 7 to 15 percent a year, he is way, way off. Health-care premiums have almost always increased annually throughout history, but the rate of increase next year is far lower than the historic average."

Chait concludes his piece with this:

"As shown above, all these claims are demonstrably wrong. He [Moore] concludes:

This begs the question: Is there a single promise that Mr. Obama made about Obamacare that has proven truthful?

"There is not a single substantive claim in this column that appears to be true."

No wonder Scott Walker looks to Moore for economic wisdom, and bankrupts his own state in the bargain.

* * *

And still speaking of 2016 candidates, former FL Gov. Jeb Bush gave a big foreign policy address this week. The result? Less than impressive, on the oratorical and policy levels. So far, as a candidate, Bush's performance has been more than a little underwhelming.

This Week in Gun Safety

We'll close this abbreviated TWiA with a brief glimpse at a terrible idea from Sen. John Cornyn (R/TX). In the NYT, Gail Collins writes:

"Earlier this month — right between Groundhog Day and Valentine’s Day — Senator John Cornyn of Texas introduced a bill that would allow people from states with lax gun laws to carry their concealed weapons all around the country.

"The goal, Cornyn said in a press release, is to treat local gun permits 'like drivers’ licenses.'

“'This operates more or less like a driver’s license, he told a reporter for The Hill. 'So, for example, if you have a driver’s license in Texas, you can drive in New York, in Utah, and other places subject to the laws in those states.'

"This is perfectly reasonable, except for the part about gun permits being anything whatsoever like drivers’ licenses. If a citizen from Mississippi shows his driver’s license to someone in Connecticut, the Connecticut person has good reason to presume that the licensee can, um, drive. It’s not a perfect system — witness the fact that there are many, many licensed drivers in America who have successfully parallel parked only one time in their entire life. But, still, no matter what state it comes from, a driver’s license generally signifies a certain level of accomplishment when it comes to the basics of stopping, starting and steering.

"On the other hand, a permit to carry a concealed weapon from Mississippi is concrete proof of the owner’s ability to fill out an application. In Virginia, you can take an online course. You can get a permit from Florida without ever living in Florida, although you definitely do have to send $112 to the State Department of Agriculture.

"In some states, you can be pretty certain that anyone with the legal right to carry a concealed weapon has been checked out carefully. In others, not so much. In 2007, The Sun Sentinel in Florida found that in a six-month period, more than 1,400 people who had pleaded guilty or no contest to felonies had been awarded concealed carry permits, along with 216 people with outstanding warrants, 28 people with active domestic violence injunctions against them, and six registered sex offenders.

"The Cornyn bill would set a national bar at the lowest denominator."

Read the rest here. It's worth a few minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 8.0)

A mid-week TWiA this week, because there's been a lot of news. We may not have as much to say toward the end of the week, so this might be the big one. We like to be thorough, but not intimidating...

 
This Week In Inequality

At a right-wing gathering late last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R/TX) said, "I chuckle every time I hear Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton talk about income inequality, because it’s increased dramatically under their policies."

Sen. Rand Paul (R/KY) agreed. "The reason I would say the economy is getting better is despite the president and despite the president’s policies. This president should take no credit for any kind of recovery we have.”

Of course, both of these men want the president's job, which presents them with a problem. They have to argue that they would perform better than he has. And because the economy is growing and recovery is getting stronger, they have to lie about it.

Income inequality is the worst it's been since right before the Great Depression (and we would do well to always remember that income inequality was a major cause of that depression). But the gap turned into a chasm in the years before President Obama took office, spiking during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush administrations. The Great Recession brought inequality down because it ate into the wealth of the richest more than it did into the poor and middle classes. Not that the rich felt the pain as much, because they're rich. But they lost more of their fortunes.

Meanwhile, as David Leonhardt writes in the New York Times, "The existing safety net of jobless benefits, food stamps and the like cushioned the blow of the so-called Great Recession. So did the stimulus bill that President Obama signed in 2009 and some smaller bills passed afterward. 'Not only were low-income people protected – middle-income and some higher income-households had much lower losses because of these public policies,' Mr. Rose said. 'For those who think government programs never work, maybe they need to think again.'"

Inequality remains a big problem, as does wage stagnation for the middle class. But government programs, including the too-small but nonetheless successful stimulus program (launched 6 years ago this week) have helped considerably, so for Rand Paul to claim the president has had nothing to do with the recovery is simply foolish. And over the longer term, some of the ideas advocated by the president in his State of the Union address will help more.

Back to Mr. Leonhardt:

"On the growth side of the ledger, both energy and education have been problems. The cost of energy, after temporarily falling in the 1990s, returned to its post-1970s norm in recent years and acted like a tax on the rest of the economy. Education, meanwhile, is the lifeblood of economic growth, allowing people to do entirely new tasks (cure a disease, invent the Internet) or to do old ones with less time and expense. Yet educational attainment has slowed so much that the United States has lost its once-enormous global lead.

"On both fronts, the country has been making progress, Mr. Obama rightly noted. The fracking boom and a more modest clean-energy boom have increased this country’s share of energy production and held down costs worldwide. The price of oil has been mostly flat for three years.

"And the number of high-school and college graduates is rising. The financial crisis deserves some perverse credit, because it sent people fleeing back to school, much as the Great Depression did. But some of the efforts to improve school performance – by raising standards and accountability – are also playing a role."

Leonhardt continues:

"As for the other entry in the ledger, the biggest reason to think economic growth may translate more directly into wage gains is the turnabout in health costs. After years of rapid increases, they have slowed sharply in the last three years. Mr. Obama likes to give more credit to the 2010 health care law than most observers do, but he’s not wrong about the trend’s significance.

"Health costs take a direct bite out of paychecks. Employers don’t have some secret stash of money to pay for health insurance; when it becomes more expensive, there is less money left for salaries. It’s no accident that the best period of wage growth in the last 40 years – the late 1990s – was also a period of quiescent health inflation."

So, no, Senators. Inequality has not gotten worse during Obama's presidency (and it's hard to know what he's talking about with regard to Secretary Clinton, because during the time he blames her and Obama for his imagined rise in inequality, she wasn't even a senator--she was Secretary of State, and then a private citizen. In neither position did she make economic policy. He's trying to score points against the supposed frontrunner even at the cost of making less sense than usual). And the president's policies have improved the economy, and will continue to do so.

Unless, of course, someone who's completely ignorant of economic reality (say, Sens. Cruz or Paul) is elected and, along with a friendly Congress, reverses those policies. If we want the economy to keep improving, that's what we have to beware of.

Side Note 1: According to the Washington Post, Sens. Cruz and Paul both have reasonable chances of winning the Republican nomination for president, which is both sad and terrifying. According to CNN's latest polling, former governor and purveyor of phony Alzheimer's cures (among other dubious offerings*) Mike Huckabee (R/AR) is out ahead, trailed by Jeb Bush, Gov. Scott Walker (R/WI) and Rand Paul. The entire field, as described in these pieces, is composed of far-right ideologues, without even a sensible Jon Huntsman-like character in the mix to toss in little nuggets of reality.

Side Note to the Side Note: *Huckabee is far from alone in being a right-wing politician who uses his list to run mail-order scams. Conservative Jonah Goldberg wrote in the National Review this week about phony PACs set up to suck money from the wallets of conservative donors while paying their executives handsomely and not really passing the donations on to candidates or causes. As a typical example, Goldberg notes that Sarah Palin's SarahPAC has spent only 7% of their haul--$205,000 out of $3 million collected. The National Draft Ben Carson for President Super PAC is not actually associated with Ben Carson, and out of the almost $13 million they've suckered people out of, they've only spent 4%. Anyone who gave to  the NDBCFP or SarahPAC might want to demand a refund.

Side Note 2: The Washington Times reports that Cruz, Paul, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R/FL) are all trying to beef up their resumes in advance of presidential runs by sponsoring lots of bills in the Senate. They have, the Times says, led the sponsorship of hundreds of bills during their Senate careers. The problem? "The three senators, meanwhile, have carried a total of three bills through the Senate, according to records from the Library of Congress."

Combined, those three have more than ten years of Senate experience, four-plus each for Rubio and Paul and two-plus for Cruz. Each man has an average of one bill getting all the way through the Senate--not being signed into law, mind you, just getting it past their own chamber of Congress. Their records are only better than TWiA's by the slimmest of margins--and TWiA has never been a United States Senator.

Beefing up their resumes by failing more often? For these three, that's perfect.

Side Note 3: This week, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R/OH) celebrated the 6th anniversary of the stimulus by tweeting. "On this day 6 years ago POTUS signed his failed $787 billion 'stimulus' into law. Retweet if you agree: Washington spending isn't the answer." 

Boehner can keep refighting that fight all he wants, but it only makes him look ever more delusional. The stimulus worked. It reversed the course of the Great Recession and kept it from becoming the Great Depression Redux, and it did a lot of good for the country in the process. Boehner's idea--also proposed during a debate by President Obama's 2008 opponent, Sen. John McCain (R/AZ) was a spending freeze. Even conservative columnist David Brooks called that idea "insane" at the time, and he was right. When the economy is in freefall, a government spending freeze is the best way to push it all the way into a devastating depression.

Boehner is picking a fight he's long since lost. He's good at that, if nothing else. When the history of this era is written, he'll go down as a hapless, hopeless, tragic figure, the weakest Speaker in generations. We hope he's enjoying the big office and extra pay, because he's sure not earning respect.

Below the fold: the Federal Reserve and clown shoes, ISIS and why terrorism shouldn't scare us, treason, free speech, and the most adorable bear. Keep reading!

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 7)

TWiA explores the intersection of policy and politics, and most importantly, how that intersection affects real people. It's dedicated to the proposition that good government is possible, it matters, and taxpayers deserve nothing less. Its starting point is that facts are facts, science is real, data are real, and we can and must learn from history. Below you'll find facts and opinions that derive from fact, informed by a close and careful study of these issues that began in 1968 and has never stopped. Note, when we discuss generic "Democrats" and "Republicans" or "conservatives" and "liberals," etc., we're generally talking about elected officials, unless otherwise noted. Also, bonus bear news and other awesomeness. We appreciate comments and arguments, so please chime in, and if you like it, spread the word. 

This Week in Health Care

Early next month the Supreme Court will address King v. Burwell, a lawsuit that could tear health insurance away from millions of Americans. The lawsuit is a joke; it's predicated on a single sentence in the law that was poorly constructed, but those who wrote it--and those who opposed it--fully understood what was meant by it.

The lawsuit was ginned up by a Libertarian organization: "The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank funded by big pharmaceutical firms, oil and gas outfits, the Koch brothers, Google, tobacco companies, and conservative foundations, answered the call. ('This bastard has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene,' Michael Greve, then CEI chairman, said at the conference.) But CEI had to recruit plaintiffs—actual people who could claim they had been harmed by the Affordable Care Act in a particular way—to launch its lawsuit."

The plaintiffs that CEI came up with were actually not particularly harmed by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). One of them says she doesn't know how she became attached to the case, and doesn't want Americans to lose their health care. The others despise the president for various reasons, but aren't remotely damaged by the law. Most of them would benefit from it, if they were willing to embrace it.

This Mother Jones piece profiles each of the four plaintiffs, and to a lesser extent the lawyer bringing the suit, who is not altogether clear on his legal history. It's a brief but fascinating piece of journalism, well worth your time.

* * *

Health insurance companies, meanwhile, are siding with the administration in this case. The ACA is working, they say, and dismantling it now would be bad for the bottom line. Since Republicans usually bend over backwards to cater to big business, it's interesting that in this case they're putting their ideological opposition to the ACA ahead of the wishes of big business.

* * *

Why does business support the ACA so strongly? For one thing, remember how virtually every Republican member of Congress refers to it? "Job-killing Obamacare." Has it really killed jobs? Let's ask Forbes Magazine:

"Notably, April 2013 to April 2014 was the worst 12-month hiring stretch in health care since 2000. But after the spring, as newly insured Medicaid patients began to seek care and after the ACA’s exchanges had successfully enrolled about 7 million Americans, health care’s job numbers began to surge.

"Perhaps no sector stood to gain more from Obamacare’s coverage expansion than hospitals. A decline in uninsured patients meant less bad debt and more revenue.

"And that was borne out in the jobs numbers. In 2013, the hospital sector actually shrunk. But in 2014, the sector gained almost 50,000 jobs. To put it very plainly, the hospital rebound explains nearly half of the difference between 2013 and 2014′s health care sector hiring on its own."

A different Forbes piece offers a little more nuance, suggesting that there is still a possibility that the ACA might have "negative labor market effects" someday. But it also points out that:

"From a broken economy to a broken record: Friday’s jobs report was the 59th straight month of private sector jobs growth, the longest stretch in U.S. history. More Americans are employed than ever.

"The U.S. economy has gained 3.2 million jobs in the past twelve months — the biggest one-year jump since the Clinton administration.

"Interestingly, that single-year surge overlaps with when the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions, including the Medicaid expansion, took effect."

During the Obama administration--which began when the economy was in free-fall, and which shifted focus to the ACA as soon as that drop was halted (which many critics said was too soon), the economy has added 11 million jobs, most of them full-time. The total for the George W. Bush administration--when there was no ACA--is a negative number. The economy lost jobs. If the ACA were a job killer, we'd probably know it by now. (In fact, on average, job growth during Democratic administrations is almost three times what it is during Republican ones).

* * *

For a couple of opposing viewpoints on the Republican "plan" discussed here briefly last week, see this piece in favor of it, and this one against it. Interestingly, the one against it used math to make the point, while the one for it relies on ideology.

* * *

Another point on that Republican "plan." Last week we described it as new. Turns out, not so much.

 More below the fold, including economic, Ebola, evolution, and war balls. And bears.

 

The Michael Mariotte Legacy Fund

If you'll permit me a personal interlude in the middle of all the news, I'd like to say a little bit about my big brother, Michael Mariotte.

Last November, Marcy and I attended a ceremony honoring his decades of service to his country and his planet through his work heading up the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS). There's a myth that nuclear energy is "clean," and low in carbon emissions, when in fact, it's neither. It can't be accomplished without constant large-scale uranium mining, for one thing. And there's never been a real solution for all the nuclear waste it produces, which in its most common forms can remain radioactive for millions of years. Nuclear energy is far from cheap, as well, and energy companies won't even build new plants without the protection of taxpayer-financed "insurance" against disasters.

Michael has been involved in the movement to prevent the spread of nuclear power for 30+ years, and working with activists across the globe, has had many successes. At the ceremony, I was able to speak briefly about him as a person, as a brother, rather than as a force in the anti-nuclear movement, and the truth is that he's good at both.

Michael accepting a plaque from Ralph Nader, while his daughter Zory looks on

What's less commonly known, although no secret, is that Michael has been struggling for several years against pancreatic cancer, which is very aggressive. He's been aggressive in return, and has held it at bay while continuing his work at NIRS and his writing at the GreenWorld blog. While he's had to step down from his long-time role as Executive Director at NIRS (shoes ably filled by Tim Judson), he remains involved with the organization and dedicated to the cause.

NIRS not only wants to pay back that dedication, but even more importantly, to keep Michael's cause alive and active. To that end, they've started the Michael Mariotte Legacy Fund. Its goals are:

*To ensure Michael receives his full salary and benefits, regardless of whether he is able to continue working.

*To ensure NIRS has the capacity to advance the mission to which he has dedicated his career.

*At Michael's specific request, to ramp up NIRS' work on nuclear power and climate (an issue he first began working on in 1988!) throughout this year, and at the year-end international climate conference in Paris. Michael played a key role in keeping nuclear power out of international climate rules in The Hague in 2000 and intends for NIRS to do so again this year. Atomic reactors and the nuclear fuel chain are simply too expensive, too dangerous, too dirty, and too environmentally devastating to be considered a climate solution. Clean, safe and affordable renewable energy coupled with a 21st century smart grid, distributed generation and increasingly competitive electricity storage will power our future without carbon emissions, radioactive waste, and nuclear meltdown.

Unfortunately, nuclear power remains a threat, despite those decades of activism. In TWiA's home state of Arizona, a state Senate committee just approved a pro-nuclear bill, SB1134. As Michael described it:

"This bill includes a re-definition of nuclear energy as a renewable energy, which it is not. It says that nuclear reactors fueled by uranium fuel rods that include eighty percent or more "recycled" nuclear fuel and "natural thorium reactor resources under development" will be defined as renewable energy. It seeks to have that definition apply to the Renewable Energy Standard established by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC)."

He added:

"Perhaps Arizona lawmakers do not realize there are no reactors in the U.S. that use 'recycled,' or more appropriately termed 'reprocessed' fuel, nor is there a reprocessing infrastructure in the U.S., nor will there be. America's reprocessing experiment ended in the 1970s, leaving nothing but billions of dollars in bills for a clean-up that still hasn't been completed at West Valley, New York.

"Nor are there any thorium-fueled reactors in the U.S., nor will there be. Not a single U.S. utility has demonstrated any interest in building a thorium reactor.

"And, in any case, nuclear power is simply not renewable, as the fuel for the plants must be mined from the Earth. There are also a plethora of financial and environmental issues with nuclear power, including cradle to grave issues with contamination from uranium mining, the disposal of radioactive waste and the threat of nuclear meltdown.

"Nonetheless, the nuclear industry wants this foot in the door to achieve its goal of inclusion in Renewable Energy Standards nationwide."

There's good news about America's energy usage and future, too. We're becoming more efficient, we're burning less coal, solar costs are down and the technology is spreading.

Despite those facts, nuclear keeps pushing for a new foothold, and the fight continues. NIRS remains dedicated to the cause.

If you can help--a dollar, ten dollars, a thousand dollars, any amount at all--please do. For my brother, and for the planet. It's important work and it needs to go on. Go here to read more, watch a short video about Michael's and NIRS's work, and donate if you can: http://legacyfund.nirs.org/

Thank you for anything you can do.

Jeffrey J. Mariotte
Michael's little brother

This Week in America (Vol 3, Week 6)

 

This Week in Doublespeak

In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell wrote about "doublethink."  Political economist Edward S. Herman, in his book Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda : Including A Doublespeak Dictionary for the 1990s, described how doublespeak, which is derived from Orwell's doublethink, really works. "What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program."

There could be no better description of what Rep. Paul Ryan (R/WI) is up to this week. The New York Times describes his response to President Obama's proposed budget:

"He also opposed 'envy economics,' a hit on Mr. Obama’s proposals to curb tax breaks on huge individual retirement accounts, to raise the capital gains tax and to tax inheritances based on the value of assets when they were purchased, not based on their value when the owner died.

"But even as Mr. Ryan criticized proposals that could be viewed as pitting class against class, he acknowledged a reality that many Republicans have long avoided: The rich are getting much richer. Republicans once held that liberal economic policies would stifle 'the job creators.' Now, Mr. Ryan said, the creators are doing well. Others are not.

“'The Obamanomics that we’re practicing now have exacerbated inequality,' he said. 'They’ve exacerbated stagnation. They’re made things worse.'

"Mr. Ryan continued: 'The wealthy are doing really well. They’re practicing trickle-down economics now.'”

Ryan is, of course, famous for producing his own budget proposal every year when he was chair of the House Budget Committee. That budget proposal, every year, received near-unanimous votes from Republicans in the House, and approval from Republican presidential candidates. The effect of that budget proposal--as indeed, the effect of every economic policy idea Ryan has supported as a congressman--would have been to make the rich richer and to increase the inequality gap.

Now it worries him? Now he's opposed to the "trickle-down" theories he's spent his career promoting? And we're supposed to believe that?

Maybe if Ryan made a mea culpa speech in which he admitted to having been wrong before. After all, he could easily look at economic history and see that. Or he could do some math and see just how wrong he has been, and remains. There's nothing "trickle-down" about the president's budget, unless Ryan changed the definition while the rest of us were watching the Super Bowl*.

In the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson runs through some of the history:

"Consider: In the 1960s, when mass prosperity was the order of the day, corporate chief executives made, on average, 20 times what their average employee did. Today, they make 300 times that. Consider: Fully 70 percent of all the increase in income that Americans reaped between 1935 and 1980, according to an analysis of IRS returns by University of California economics professor Emmanuel Saez, went to the bottom 90 percent of households, while 7 percent went to the wealthiest 1 percent. Since 1997, the wealthiest 1 percent has claimed 72 percent of the increase in income, while the bottom 90 percent has gotten precisely none of it.

"A cause for envy? More like a cause for righteous rage — at the offshoring and downgrading of middle-class jobs, at the gutting of unions, at the rise of a deregulated financial sector that claims a steadily greater share of the nation’s income for its top executives without delivering a service even remotely commensurate to its pay, at corporate CEOs who funnel profits into share buybacks that increase their own paychecks rather than into research and development or employee raises."

And at The Week, James Pethokoukis combines history and math:

"Shlaes and other fantasy tax-plan advocates have a big problem: Their math doesn't work. First, the top tax rate has bounced up and down for more than 30 years, and growth has actually been faster when it's been on the higher side. Correlation and causality are tricky to prove with a big complicated beastie like the $17 trillion U.S. economy. But simply assuming a lower rate will create hypergrowth is a stretch."

. . .

"Back in 2012, Newt Gingrich had a 15 percent flat-tax plan that the Tax Policy Center scored as losing $1 trillion a year. Fantasy economic plans based on ideological aspiration and Reagan-era nostalgia may be fun to talk about. But Republicans like to consider themselves hard-nosed realists who understand life is about trade-offs. They need to check their math."

For Ryan to talk about income inequality, to recognize that it's a problem when the rich get richer while the rest of us stagnate, is a good thing. For him to pretend it's President Obama's fault, and not his own, is the height of hypocrisy. More than that, it's the definition of doublespeak. He's saying the opposite of what he believes, and hoping we'll believe it's what he means.

We'd be glad to see Ryan embrace economic reality. We're just not remotely convinced that he has.

 * * *

Presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has joined the doublespeak club, as well. He gave a major economic policy speech in Detroit this week, at which he said:

"Far too many Americans live on the edge of economic ruin. And many more feel like they’re stuck in place: Working longer, and harder, even as they’re losing ground. Tens of millions of Americans no longer see a clear path to rise above their challenges.

“Something is holding them back. Not a lack of ambition. Not a lack of hope. Not because they’re lazy, or see themselves as victims. Something else. Something is an artificial weight on their shoulders. ... Today, Americans across the country are frustrated. They see only a small portion of the population riding the economy’s 'up' escalator."

That's all true. What's missing is an understanding of the real causes. When Bush described the "something" holding Americans back, he was solidly on traditional Republican ground.

"In saying that 'something' is holding back frustrated workers, he fingered exactly one possible culprit: government. He gave examples: Government that shuts down small business owners for not paying licensing fees. Government that loses money collecting parking fines and selling snacks on Amtrak trains. Government that protects taxi cabs, restaurants and brick-and-mortar retailers from competition.

"Bush described a 'right to rise' society, sounding similar to Romney in a speech he gave in Detroit three years earlier: stronger families to give children a better chance of economic success; school reforms heavy on teacher accountability and school choice; and changes to government policy to enable the economy to grow at 4 percent a year, a rate it never achieved once during the three combined terms his father and brother served as president."

As with Ryan, the policies Bush pursued as governor of Florida were policies that rewarded the rich and punished the poor for being poor, and grew the inequality gap. If he thinks that inequality is a symptom of our economic stagnation and not a cause, he just doesn't see reality.

We've been living through a period of massive redistribution of wealth, toward the already rich and away from the rest of us. Since the rest of us are more inclined to spend what we have--how many offshore accounts do you have? "Companies such as GE and Microsoft" have $2.1 trillion socked away overseas," according to Reuters--that sucks money out of the economy and prevents growth. The standard conservative solution to every economic situation--deregulation, tax cuts that favor the rich, and less government spending--only exacerbate that redistribution. We need economic policy that pushes wealth the other way.

The president's budget isn't perfect. But it, unlike anything ever proposed by Paul Ryan or Jeb Bush, at least moves us in the right direction. President Obama is trying. Those other guys are complaining, while advocating policy that only makes the problems they're complaining about worse. There's a big difference.

* * *

The New York Times describes the Labor Department's latest jobs report, and it's good news, top to bottom:

"The economy cruised into the new year with a burst of fresh momentum, adding jobs at the fastest pace since the boom of the late 1990s and lifting employment and wage prospects for millions of Americans left behind in a long but mostly lackluster recovery.

"The Labor Department said on Friday that employers added a seasonally adjusted 257,000 jobs in January, but even more significant was a revision of earlier estimates showing an additional gain of 147,000 jobs in November and December.

"Since Nov. 1, employers have hired more than one million new workers, the best performance over a three-month period since 1997. More jobs were created in 2014 as a whole than in any year since 1999."

Oddly, Republicans are bummed out by good news.

Side Note: *Speaking of the Super Bowl, popular wisdom has it that Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll made the worst call in football history on Seattle's final, doomed drive. Mathematically speaking, not so. Sports are necessarily games of chance--skill is important, yes, but things can happen. The problem here wasn't an incomplete pass, it was the fact that the Patriots, expecting a Beast Mode charge, had a wild card in Malcolm Butler, who managed to pick off that second-down pass. If that hadn't happened, if he had just swatted it out of the receiver's hands, or if the receiver had just plain missed, the seconds that Seattle were trying to run off the clock would have been used up, and Lynch would have made the TD on the next play or the one after that. Seattle used math, logic, and a profound understanding of the game; Butler used magical hands, which trumped all those.

 

(More below the fold, including Road Runner cartoons, Bill Murray, vaccination craziness, propaganda videos, and bears. And yes, "below the fold" is a newspaper term, but we like it better than "after the jump." Sue us.)