Another Willing Conscript

Seema Verma has been administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services since March of 2017. Previously, she worked directly for Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and thereafter as a consultant working for Daniels' successor, Mike Pence.

As outlined here, throughout her stint in Indiana and in Washington, D.C. Verma has been hostile to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid.  And now we learn that her knowledge of comparative government is roughly equal to her concern for health care for the poor and the uninsured. She was asked on Trump TV "What is the Vice President referring to when he's saying the best model we have is what's happening in Italy?" Verma responded

Well, I think if you look at these other countries, if you look at China and South Korea, right, those have very different approaches . Uh, we're a free country, we're giving recommendations to the American people and hoping they adhere to those.

The governments of mainland China and South Korea are approximately as comparable as the government of the Phillipines is to that in Australia.  According to Wikipedia

The Government of South Korea is a centralized democratic republic with the three primary branches of government; executive, legislative and judicial. The president acts at the head of state and is the highest figure of authority in the country, followed by the prime minister and government ministers in decreasing order....

As with most stable three-branch systems, a careful system of checks and balances is in place. For instance, the judges of the Constitutional Court are partially appointed by the executive, and partially by the legislature. Likewise, when a resolution of impeachment is passed by the legislature, it is sent to the judiciary for a final decision....

Elections in South Korea are held on national level to select the President and the National Assembly. South Korea has a multi-party system, with two dominant parties and numerous third parties. Elections are overseen by the Electoral Branch, National Election Commission (Republic of Korea).

Not free?! Yet South Korea recently managed to impeach their president for abuse of power and put the head of their largest corporation behind bars for corruption. Perhaps a model in more than one way! https://t.co/npJnY9u83Y

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) April 3, 2020

Once "selected for the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network," Verma is probably performing as expected for President Trump. She is helping advance the mission of Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6) and Grover Norquist, to destroy government in service of the barons of the private sector. ignorance is not a bug but a benefit. Like most of the Trump Administration, she is not there to make government work but to impel its failure and ultimate destruction.

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No Red Line There

Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, means well.  He has tweeted "any attempt to remove the Special Counsel, pardon key witnesses, or otherwise interfere in the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power" and "all members of Congress, from both parties, have a responsibility to our Constitution and to our country to make that clear immediately."

Nonetheless, the Virginia senator also tweeted "I've said it before, and I am saying it again: firing the Special Counsel is a red line that the President cannot cross." 

Saying it repeatedly, unfortunately, won't make it magically happen, though perhaps Warner meant that this President cannot cross a red line with Mueller any more than the previous one did with Syria, which meant nothing, notwithstanding helping defeat Hillary Clinton.

As Natasha Bertrand has noted, "Trump asked Comey for loyalty; asked him to drop the Flynn probe; fired Comey; pressured Sessions not to recuse; pressured Sessions to fire McCabe; pressured Coats, Rogers, Pompeo & multiple congresmen to say he wasn't under FBI investigation; and tried to fire Mueller."(He also fired Sally Yates.)

Trump calls the investigation a "witch hunt" and has such members of Congress  as Senators Cornyn and Johnson criticizing the FBI and Representative Trey Gowdy undermining the FBI. Devin Nunes has beeen such a toady for Dear Leader that if he isn't being paid a salary as a member of the President's communications team, he should sue. (Meanwhile, Martin Luther King's birthday came and went without a hint of criticism from them over FBI surveillance of the Reverend Dr.; can't imagine why.)






But the best evidence that firing Mueller is no "red line" that cannot be crossed ironically comes from the Senator who at one time seemed exorcised by the possibility. The Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff reports

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican in his first term, made headlines over the summer when he signed on to legislation with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) that would have shielded Mueller from being fired. But Tillis has largely abandoned the push to move that legislation forward while conceding that the bill doesn’t have the support to get through Congress. His office says he still supports the bill, but that the matter isn’t urgent since Trump says he doesn’t plan to fire Mueller....

On Thursday night, The New York Times reported that Trump tried to fire the special counsel last summer. (Tillis spokesperson Daniel) Keylin told The Daily Beast that despite the revelation, Tillis continues to trust that the president isn’t planning to fire Mueller, who is leading an investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.

The Senator is blowing smoke up our posterior or, as the commercial puts it, our kiester (Wisconsin).  Woodruff further explains

the dialing back of the Senator's support is significant. Unlike Graham, who veers between bashing Trump and golfing with him, and Coons and Booker—both Democrats—Tillis could bring the legislation to shield Mueller serious bipartisan bona fides. When he introduced his bill, Tillis similarly didn’t believe that a firing of Mueller was near, but he pitched the legislation as a precautionary measure.

“I don’t have any evidence to suggest the White House had any intention of doing it [firing Mueller], but it’s a helpful way for us to take it off the table,” he explained.

Now the proposal has been all but taken off the table- not because firing Mueller is a longshot but because it would put congressional Republicans into a bind.  They would have to choose between giving to Trump a pass on an act which would instantly incite massive demonstrations nationally or angering the President's base, much of which is unyielding. Republicans who would vote in favor of Tillis-Coons also would be subject to Trump's angry and derisive tweets, and Republicans don't like to get their feelings hurt.

And then there is the matter of taxes for the wealthy, which Sarah Ellison described in August as it pertained to Paul Ryan, who had condemned Donald Trump for his 7/15 charge that Mexico was sending "their rapists" to the USA; allegation that Judge Curiel was biased because his descendants were from Mexico;  travel ban; and comments on the Access Hollywood tape. Nevertheless the House Speaker has made a

bargain (which) is clear—it’s the one spelled out by Grover Norquist back in 2012, when Norquist defended the choice of Mitt Romney by saying he’d also have endorsed a monkey, a plate of lasagna, or a potted plant. All Norquist wanted was “a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign legislation. Ryan wants to gut the safety net for the poor and cut taxes for the wealthy, and believes that with Trump he can do that. He said recently that he had dreamed of cutting Medicaid since his keg-drinking days. Having Trump’s digits on the Resolute Desk—whatever the existential risk to the principles of the country as a whole—is a small price to pay.

Of legislation protecting Robert Mueller, Maine Republican senator Susan Collins in December remarked "I haven't seen the need for that because I really don't think the President is going to fire Mr. Mueller.  But certainly the introduction of the bill sends a strong signal." It certainly did. And its virtual withdrawal has sent an even stronger one.




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Reasonably Well-Liked Crackpot

Even with expansion to 280 characters, Twitter has its limits. And so Matthew Yglesias tweets

Liberals need to come to terms with the fact that conservatives on Capitol Hill, in the executive branch, at interest groups, and around the country think this is a good president leading a well-run administration.

Et tu, Matt? He speaks of "liberals" as if he is not among them, which would be news to almost everyone.

O.K., though.: if his thesis is that many people believe Donald Trump is a good president and like him, polls do confirm that Trump remains popular among Republicans.

However, it's less likely these individuals believe their hero is administering a well-run organization than that they just don't care whether he is.  From the moment he came down the escalator and recognized their id with "when Mexico sends its people...  They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists," they knew he was the same guy who on at least 12 occasions had suggested the black President wasn't one of them.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" may never have been so applicable as in describing the one candidate who seemed (and still seems) unafraid to say what they would like to say about the people they hate. Their spouse, their neighbor, and especially their employer may not want to hear it- but one guy is willing to say the things not "politically correct."

Yet that's far different than believing the President runs a well-oiled shop.  Not all of the President's supporters know chapter and verse of Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury. However, Trump himself does not know chapter and verse (or any chapter and verse, it seems) of the Bible but knows other people know it. And so it rings at least partially true to them, even more to members of the Executive Branch- that

The truth was, Ivanka and Jared were as much the chief of staff as Priebus or Bannon, all of them reporting directly to the president. The couple had opted for formal jobs in the West Wing, in part because they knew that influencing Trump required you to be all-in. From phone call to phone call — and his day, beyond organized meetings, was almost entirely phone calls — you could lose him. He could not really converse, not in the sense of sharing information, or of a balanced back-and-forth conversation. He neither particularly listened to what was said to him nor particularly considered what he said in response. He demanded you pay him attention, then decided you were weak for groveling. In a sense, he was like an instinctive, pampered, and hugely successful actor. Everybody was either a lackey who did his bidding or a high-ranking film functionary trying to coax out his performance — without making him angry or petulant.

They're not terribly ignorant, and not stupid at all, but simply unmoved by the chaos of the Administration.  Their political priorities are Trump's political priorities, or so GOP voters believe.  And the interest groups know where their bread is buttered: Trump is their only president, and his failure means the failure of their agenda and, ultimately, Democratic victory at the polls, which they would find rather uncomfortable.

The interest groups have largely accepted the maxim (emphasis mine) of Grover Norquist, who in May of 2012 famously- and not in jest-  quipped

All we have to do is replace Obama. ...  We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. [...]

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.





Donald Trump has the working digits and obviously will sign whatever Ryan-McConnell put on his desk.  Formally eliminating the Affordable Care Act would have been merely the cherry on the top of an agenda of privatization, deregulation, and tax cuts for corporations.  The popular base has its hateful rhetoric, members of  the Executive Branch have their jobs, and interest groups have what they paid for. As Matthew Yglesias should realize, all the rest, including a "well-run Administration," is quite beside the point.

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The Circle Goes Round And Round


Grover Norquist, who has probably harmed the USA more than everyone the past 30 years, is famous for two things:  the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and a quote assuring us of the purpose of the Pledge.

It was in 2001 that Norquist infamously asserted "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

He hasn't quite gotten there, but is making serious progress.  And in Pennsylvania, the nation's least popular governor, Repub Tom Corbett is doing his best to make Norquist's boast a reality.

There are few roles of government more important, nor affecting more people, than the public school system. In Pennsylvania, home to a burgeoning charter school system, the GOP chief executive understands that once public education is starved of funds, the quality of education deteriorates rapidly, adding to public frustration toward the system.  In Philadelphia, Salon's Aaron Kase recognizes "a public school system in its death throes," in which

the school district is facing end times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss created by a state intent on destroying public education.

On Thursday the city of Philadelphia announced that it would be borrowing $50 million to give the district, just so it can open schools as planned on Sept. 9, after Superintendent William Hite threatened to keep the doors closed without a cash infusion. The schools may open without counselors, administrative staff, noon aids, nurses, librarians or even pens and paper, but hey, kids will have a place to go and sit.

The $50 million fix is just the latest band-aid for a district that is beginning to resemble a rotting bike tube, covered in old patches applied to keep it functioning just a little while longer. At some point, the entire system fails.

Things have gotten so bad that at least one school has asked parents to chip in $613 per student just so they can open with adequate services, which, if it becomes the norm, effectively defeats the purpose of equitable public education, and is entirely unreasonable to expect from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

The needs of children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it.

To be clear, the schools are in crisis because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania refuses to fund them adequately. The state Constitution mandates that the Legislature “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education,” but that language appears to be considered some kind of sick joke at the state capital in Harrisburg.

It’s worth noting that the state itself runs the Philadelphia School District after a 2001 takeover. The state is also responsible for catastrophic budget cuts two years ago that crippled the district’s finances. And in a diabolical example of circular logic, the state argues that the red ink it imposed, and shoddy management it oversees, are proof that the district can’t manage its finances or its mission and therefore shouldn’t get more money.

Make no mistake, on the aggregate the district does not perform well. Only slightly more than 60 percent of students graduate from high school, with less than 60 percent proficient in reading and math. But put that in the context where 80 percent of students come from disadvantaged backgrounds while administrators struggle to cobble together enough cash to even open doors, let alone provide a safe, rich and comprehensive educational experience.

Particularly noxious lawmakers are fond of spouting the ridiculous notion that money can’t help struggling schools, as if more and better-trained staff, better equipment and diverse programming wouldn’t make a difference in kids’ educations and their lives.

The timing of this meltdown is unfortunate, as if there were ever a good time for the euthanasia of public schooling. According to the 2010 census, Philadelphia grew in population for the first time in 60 years, changing direction from decades of decline. Most of that growth came from immigrants who will rely on public schools — or not, as the case may be. Another area of growth was in young families, who will face a choice, once they have school-age children, to stay in the city or flee to superior suburban schools as previous generations have done.

Nearly the entire burden to keep the district afloat has fallen to the city, which raised property taxes each of the two previous years specifically to funnel extra money that the schools weren’t getting from the state. This is in one of the poorest and most highly taxed cities in the nation.

The floundering district is both a symptom and cause of the city’s predicament, creating a vicious cycle of people who can afford to bail moving to the suburbs, leaving a crippled tax base, with the result being less money to fix the schools and ever-higher taxes imposed on those who stay.

The state of Pennsylvania has the cash, or at least a relatively painless way of raising it. Kase explains

Unlike the city, the state could come up with the necessary cash without excessively burdening its finances. Pennsylvania has the lowest severance tax of any state drilling for Marcellus shale gas, with plenty of room for an increase. The state had a modest surplus at the end of the last budget year. The governor has no trouble coming up with money to build new prisons, which will serve as future homes for all too many children of Philadelphia who are being failed and tossed aside by adult leadership, if you can call it that.

But sending the school district enough money to continue educating, however inadequately, the children would defeat the purpose.  Clearly,

The pattern has become clear: defund the schools, precipitate a crisis and use that as an excuse to further attack the schools, pushing them closer and closer to a point of no return. The $50 million to open the schools this year is just the latest and most immediate example of three years of brinkmanship.

Educating the children is the biggest expense of city government and one which captures the attention of all parents. But it works throughout government, as Mother Jones' Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery wrote in late 2011:

Public transit cutting routes and upping fares? Parks shuttering Little League fields? Bridges going unmaintained until they fall into rivers? Firefighters letting homes burn because the owner hasn't paid a $75 fee? Cops watching a man drown because they can no longer afford water-rescue training? (Those last two? Really happened.) Do this long enough, and pretty soon the snake starts eating its own tail: We underfund public services, therefore public services don't work, therefore we underfund them.

After that, of course, people become even more irritated at the inability of the public sector to provide basic services and thus demand further cuts as the cycle repeats.  The anti-tax, anti-government fanaticism of Grover Norquist is playing out across America as planned.


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It's All In The Game

Income taxes rose for everyone at midnight New Years Eve/New Years Day and then, almost instantaneously, fell as Congress approved the fiscal slope deal.  Though candidate and President Obama vowed to raise the rates for household incomes above $250,000, he eventually settled with the GOP for $400,000- and declared victory, albeit in his standard understated way.

Also declaring victory (though not so understated), ironically, was Americans for Tax Reform founder, director, lobbyist and chief spokesperson Grover Norquist.  He tweeted “The Bush tax cuts lapsed at midnight last night. Every R voting for Senate bill is cutting taxes and keeping his/her pledge,”  Upon retiring for the night, he was more explicit:    “gdnight. When Dems wake up they will realize they just made most of the Bush tax cuts permanent and lost their leverage for the next 4 yrs,”

The Democratic President and the originator and keeper of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which kept- no, has kept- any Republican from voting for an income tax increase since 1981 both applauded the budget agreement.  At first impression, one must be lying or at least mistaken. That would, however, be only at first impression.

Obama apologists, such as the once principled liberal/progressive Ed Schultz on the Obama Cable Network, argue that Democrats should be pleased with the deal because a) additional revenue will be raised from most of the wealthy while taxes were cut for middle incomes; and b) earned benefits were held harmless.

But  It was nearly inevitable that taxes would be kept at the lower rate for moderate incomes- $250,000, according to the pre-negotiations Obama.  Via negotiations, the upper limit moved to $400,000, closer to the figure (infinity) favored by Republicans.  In return, the GOP relieved the President of the discomfort of requiring them to be sufficiently responsible and patriotic to raise the debt ceiling.   And because the debt ceiling will be re-litigated by Congress in two months, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are imperiled by the GOP-controlled Congress, the latter two legs of the social insurance tripod additionally by President Obama.

Don't take it from Grover Norquist, though he uncharacteristically spoke the truth in his late-night tweet.    Consider also the words on MSNBC of Representative Tom Cole (R-OK), who remarked

Again, I would prefer not to raise taxes on anybody. But we protected almost every American. We did it at a higher income level than the President campaigned on. And again, frankly, we’ve denied him I think his most important piece of leverage in any negotiation going forward. So I particularly like that part. I understand unemployment extension. I prefer, you know, a more focused effort in that regard. But we do have parts of the country where that’s necessary and it’s a fair compromise. 

The entitlement issue, just too much to deal with I think in one piece of legislation. But again, still sequester is in front of us. The continuing resolution runs out the end of march and obviously the debt ceiling. All of those things honestly are Republican leverage not Democratic so I think there will be opportunities to deal with the spending issue next year. Honestly I expect that will be the dominant issue along with trying to overhaul the tax code going forward. So that’s usually pretty good ground for Republicans.

From the upper chamber came this from South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, who remarked Tuesday on GOP TV

We're gonna make him a historic president whether he wants to be or not. Social Security and Medicare are going bankrupt. The debt ceiling is a chance to get those programs out of bankruptcy and to put the country on a path to sustainability.

...I've never seen a better chance for Republicans and Democrats to come together reform entitlements in a way to save these programs... The good news is we're one big deal away from dominating the 21st century... We have leverage at the debt ceiling to make this president face up to the fact that we're spending our way into oblivion and most Americans don't want to borrow any more money unless we get their kids out of debt and start saving programs that we're all gonna need down the road like Medicare and Social Security. This is the best chance, Steve, I've seen since I've been in Congress, to do something big.

Debt and sequester negotiations will transpire in two months and, according to Cole, "the entitlement issue" will "be the dominant issue" now that the President has been "denied" what is "his most important piece of leverage in any negotiation going forward."   (Why is everything these days expressed as "going forward?"  Is anyone actually jumping into a time machine and going backward?)  Echoing his fellow Republican, Graham maintains "we have leverage at the debt ceiling" and will "come together (to) reform entitlements in a way to save" Social Security and Medicare.

Graham is being singularly dishonest about these programs, but that's an issue for another day.    Schultz and his compatriots are giddy that Social Security and Medicare were untouched in the recently concluded deal.  Yet, Graham and Cole, who are clear that reduction in earned benefits will be the price Democrats will have to pay for raising the debt ceiling, also are satisfied that agreement was reached.  With eyes fixed firmly on cutting the legs out from the sick and the elderly, they voted in favor of the measure, apparently because they realize that these programs are safe only until, as the Oklahoma congressman notes, the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling run out at the end of March.

It's tempting to suggest that Barack Obama did not drive a hard enough bargain, that he gave more than he needed or wanted to, in order not to go over that 'cliff' (below) Cenk Uygur has located  (and says "doesn't look so bad").  But as Uygur wrote nearly two weeks ago

There is only one person who can rescue the Republican Party now -- Barack Obama. And he will... Here's what you have to understand -- it's because he doesn't want to "win." Winning is different for him than it is for me and you. To us, winning is passing progressive priorities. To him, it's passing a deal where he seems like he is above party politics. 

Uygur believed that the President would sacrifice in this round any combination of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to prove to the Establishment his bipartisan bonafides.   That, it now appears, comes later.  Susie Madrak, who evidently recognizes that this President sees the chessboard two steps ahead, explains

President Obama is playing Br'er Rabbit to the Republicans' Br'er Fox. "Oh please, please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me in that briar patch!" If he ends up in a squeeze where the only deal Republicans will accept includes cuts to Social Security and Medicare, it's because he wants to be there.

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Reprise, Of A Sort



Appearing on C-Span's Washington Journal, powerful anti-income tax fanatic Grover Norquist was caught by Think Progress speculating of President Obama

We got lots of things Obama claims to be for, and we will make — we, the Republicans in the House and Senate — will make him actually make those spending restraints, in order to get the continuing resolution out [for] a week, two weeks, a month. Obama will be on a very short leash, fiscally speaking, over the next four years. He’s not gonna have any fun at all. He may decide to go blow up small countries he can’t pronounce because it won’t be any fun to be here, because he won’t be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to.

Where did we hear politicians and pundits previously impugn the motives of a Democratic President with the charge that he might order a military attack to divert attention- or just for funsies?  Oh, yeah:

Clinton came under intense criticism in 1998 by the GOP after he launched an attack on suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. Intelligence indicated bin Laden and his top associates were meeting at a training camp when U.S. missiles were fired at it, just weeks after al Qaeda terrorists bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

The attack was launched on the same day Lewinsky, a former White House intern, wrapped up her testimony before a grand jury investigating whether Clinton lied under oath about their relationship or encouraged anyone else to do so.

"During that time when the attack was launched in Afghanistan and Sudan, there was a movie out called 'Wag the Dog,' " Cohen testified Tuesday. In the movie, an administration launched a fake war as a political ploy. "There were critics of the Clinton administration that attacked the president, saying this was an effort on his part to divert attention from his personal difficulties.

The former Secretary of Defense added "I would like to say for the record under no circumstances did President Clinton ever call upon the military and use that military in order to serve a political purpose."

The military attack ordered by Bill Clinton was denounced by many individuals who were obsessively hostile toward the 42nd President- or were blind to the danger presented to the U.S.A. by Islamic extremists.  The 9/11 commission's report noted

After launching cruise missile strikes against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for the embassy bombings, the Clinton administration applied diplomatic pressure to try to persuade the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to expel Bin Ladin. The administration also devised covert operations to use CIA-paid foreign agents to capture or kill Bin Ladin and his chief lieutenants. These actions did not stop Bin Ladin or dislodge al Qaeda from its sanctuary.

Alas, the Clinton Administration applied insufficient pressure to destroy Al Qaeda's base camps in Afghanistan or Sudan, the incoming Bush Administration virtually ignored the problem, and disaster ensued on 9/11/01.   And now Grover Norquist, whose puppets in the G.O.P. deserve a great deal of the blame for the soaring national debt, says President Obama may "blow up small countries" because "he won’t be able to spend the kind of cash he was hoping to."  Pretty clever: Norquist demands low taxes; Republican members of Congress vote unanimously for the past 22 years against raising income taxes; the national debt climbs to unprecedented levels as Bush 43 cuts taxes again and again while we fight two wars; and Norquist claims the Democratic President may bomb countries to avoid dealing with the debt Grover arguably did more than anyone to create.

And no, other than CAP and a few other liberal bloggers, he won't get called out for it.




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And I End With A Musical Allusion


Even Donna Brazile is getting into the act, the almost ritualistic plea to House Republicans to grow a spine and challenge their party's leader.  The CNN contributor and Democratic strategist writes "First, though, Republicans must break Norquist's insane hold on their party. More Republicans must put their country before someone else's agenda, and their Pledge of Allegiance before 'The Pledge' to Norquist."

Grover Norquist is extraordinarily influential in the G.O.P.   Bruce Bartlett, policy advisor to Presidents Reagan and Bush 41 and to Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul argues the founder and director of Americans for Tax Reform "basically controls the Republican Party’s fiscal policy."

Bartlett takes us through the modern history of Norquist's goal of shrinking government "down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."  The "starve the beast" doctrine began, he writes, with Alan Greenspan in October, 1978 appearing before the Senate Finance Committee and advocating "restraining the amount of revenues available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."

In February, 1981 President Reagan claimed "But there were always those who told us that taxes couldn't be cut until spending was reduced. Well, you know, we can lecture our children about extravagance until we run out of voice and breath. Or we can cure their extravagance by simply reducing their allowance."   Twenty years later, Bartlett continues,

George W. Bush justified his tax cut on starve-the-beast grounds, saying it would constitute a “fiscal straitjacket for Congress.” According to the journalist Ron Suskind’s book, “The Price of Loyalty,” the Bush adviser Karl Rove often invoked the starve-the-beast approach as “conservative economic theology” in White House meetings. By 2003, using deficits strategically to slash the size of government was widely considered to beparty doctrine among Republicans.

Cutting taxes is merely the means to the end of eliminating government.  In his famous interview with Politico on November 28, Norquist, asked whether the debt ceiling should be increased month-by-month, responded

Monthly. Monthly. Monthly if he’s good, weekly if he’s not. I mean, look, it’s an accordion, it’s an accordion, because if you’re really – well, that’s what they did – remember the first few months of the Obama – when the Republicans took the House and the Senate – took the House, they said, “O.K., here’s two weeks of continuing resolutions because you have saved $4 billion. Oh, now you’ve agreed to $8 billion in savings, you may have four weeks.

But, Bartlett explains in another column

At the risk of stating the obvious, the debt limit is nuts. It serves no useful purpose to allow members of Congress to vote for vast cuts in taxation and increases in spending and then tell the Treasury it is not permitted to sell bonds to cover the deficits Congress created. To my knowledge, no other nation has such a screwy system.

Nevertheless, we have a debt limit that is denominated in dollar terms; it is breached when the debt subject to limit, which includes bonds the government itself holds in various trust funds, rises above that limit. Currently, it is $16.394 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that given current spending and revenue trends, that figure will be reached before the end of the year.

At that point, Treasury will have to take extraordinary and costly measures to avoid technically hitting the debt ceiling. But these measures provide only a month or so of breathing room. At some point, Treasury will lack the cash to pay the bills that are due and it will face nothing but unthinkable choices – don’t pay interest to bondholders and default on the debt, don’t pay Social Security benefits, don’t pay our soldiers in the field and so on.

Either way, social services provided by government would suffer dramatically, either immediately or more gradually.  Disenchantment would result and disillusionment of voters toward "the government" would increase as the needs of the individual and of the community are neglected.   With government unable to meet its objectives,  people would grow ever more angry and demand further cuts in an institution which would increasingly seem to be without purpose.   Perhaps it wouldn't be so small as to be drowned in a bathtub, but it would become a shell of its former self.

The GOP thus is pursuing a long-term, ambitious strategy.   President Obama, by contrast, is pursuing a strategy of gaining prompt assent from congressional Repubs for re-imposing Bush-era tax rates on upper incomes.  If that is done before the fiscal cliff/curb/slope is reached, the President will have played his cards for, relatively speaking, chump change and the GOP will be ready to play its debt ceiling card.

In the context of modern American politics, the debt limit is not "nuts"- not, at least, for a Party determined to use it to bring support for government to a diminuendo and with it, its own fortunes to a crescendo.



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Means To An End



House Speaker John Boehner has called Grover Norquist "some random person" and has stated "Because the American people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to accept some additional revenues, via tax reform."   Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss claims the founder and director of Americans for Tax Reform "has no credibility" and Bush 41 has charged "Circumstances change, and you can't be wedded to some formula by Grover Norquist.   It's- who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?"

Some Republicans undoubtedly would say, rhetorically and in private:  "Who the hell is George H.W. Bush, anyway?"  (He is the last Republican president and, worse yet, the last president since Jimmy Carter to be rejected for a second term.)   Norquist, creator and keeper of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, still is far more influential that HW Bush.

Still, as The Philadelphia Inquirer's Thomas Fitzgerald writes, some GOP congressmen "are openly defying Norquist."

That's just it- they're openly defying Norquist, all the better to curry favor with media types who yearn for a sign, any sign that Republicans may be doing something that may approximate what can be plausibly called "compromise."  But compromise it's not.

Boehner, who sent a thrill up the legs of many Obamites and media types when he spoke vaguely on November 7 about "additional revenues," now says "we need to repeal Obamacare and enact common-sense, step-by-step reforms that start with lowering the cost of health care."  (You win the election; we set the agenda.  Sounds fair, doesn't it?)
 
While the House Speaker is willing to consider "additional revenues" in order to undermine the Affordable Care Act, Senator Chambliss has his eyes set on Wall Street's favorite targets, Social Security and Medicare. Zaid Jilani notes

For more than a year, Chambliss has been involved with a group of senators who support the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate. This Bowles-Simpson plan closes a few token tax loopholes, and also reduces the popular mortgage interest deduction. Norquist is opposed to closing even the tiny loopholes that the Bowles-Simpson plan closes, so he staunchly opposes the plan altogether — which also means opposing Chambliss.

Chambliss is willing to deal with closing small loopholes in the tax code in order to get to the wider goals of the Bowles-Simpson plan: cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age, cutting Medicare benefits by capping overall spending, and dramatically lowering corporate tax rates.

On Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopolous, Georgia Senator Lindsey Graham conceded "Republicans should put revenue on the table. We're this far in debt. We don't generate enough revenue. Capping deductions will help generate revenue. "   Moments later Graham, one of the congressmen often hailed as independent of Norquist, spun (h/t/ to Susie Madrak) this tale:

I don't think you can look at entitlement reform without adjusting the age for retirement, like Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did. It goes to 66, 67 here pretty soon for Social Security. Let it float up another year or so over the next 30 years, adjust Medicare from 65 to 67 over the next 30 years, means test benefits for people in our income level. I don't expect the Democrats to go for premium support or a voucher plan, but I do expect them to adjust these entitlement programs before they bankrupt the country and run out of money themselves. So age adjustment and means testing for both Social Security, Medicare I think is eminently reasonable. And all those who've looked at this problem have done that over time.

Discussing the fiscal cliff, fiscal curb, or whatever idiotic, inaccurate cliches are in vogue this week, Graham pimps for raising the age for Social Security recipients.   If we pretend, as does the thoroughly dishonest South Carolinian, that Social Security has something to do with the deficit (other than cutting it as politicians use the trust fund to pay for tax cuts), Graham ought to be informed that life expectancy has dipped, however slightly, in recent years. Lyn Parramore responds to the fear mongers by explaining

You will be hearing lots of convincing-sounding rhetoric on this topic in upcoming weeks –often from Democrats – including the notion that we should be means-testing Social Security for longevity among high-income earners. That plan plays into the mythology that the program is somehow broken and needs to be “fixed.” It also plays into the game of fiscal conservatives who know full well that means testing will diminish support, which is why they have been ardently pushing it for 50 years. It’s yet another red herring.

In return for beginning to demolish Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, Republicans hint at a willingness to accept an increase in revenue.   But to many on the right, lowering taxes on the wealthy- the "job creators"- itself magically increases tax revenue (supply-side economics, Laffer Curve, voodoo economics, etc.).   If they can be persuaded to accept caps on deductions, the loopholes simply will return within a few years.  The lobbyists will not get religion, fold up their tents and go home simply because of a minor, temporary setback.   Grover Norquist maintains his grip on the Gas and Oil Party.

In the meantime, the attack on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid- demonized as "entitlements"- would continue apace among neo-liberal centrists and conservative plutocrats.  The Great Recession may have been engineered (intentionally or otherwise) by the financial community, but old people, poor people, and sick people must suffer for their sins.


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A Road Not Paved With Good Intentions



"My goal," Grover Norquist once famously boasted, "is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The founder of the euphemistically-named Americans for Tax Reform never stated that he wanted to eliminate government altogether because he would face the opprobrium of the media for such brazen and colorless extremism.   He is reported to have maintained "I don't want to abolish government," presumably because there are actions taken by government to enhance the health and welfare of the top 10%.   That he would not want to see end.

This is where Mitt Romney comes in.      There was not one extraordinary moment in Mitt Romney's speech (transcript, from a conservative source, here) yesterday to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, nor one clear objective he had in mind in accepting the organization's invitation.     Rush Limbaugh says "Romney knows, get 3% of the black vote and you throw this election into a tizzy.  Get 5% of the black vote, and Obama loses.  So he shows up today."    Romney has no intention to compete for votes of black Americans- even for 5%- and if he did, his share of the white vote would drop.   More likely, he hoped to create doubt in the minds of moderates that he is just another paleolithic right-winger, just as George W. Bush successfully softened his image among moderate whites with his "compassionate conservative" misdirection.   Perhaps, additionally, he wanted a twist on Clinton's Sister Souljah moment, this time a candidate boldly speaking falsehoods to an organization which would not vote for him, anyway, and which most of his supporters don't especially care for.

Joan Walsh believes it most likely that Romney, who admitted afterward that he expected to get booed at the convention, lusted after film which would show him being booed by a group representing his opponent's most ardent supporters.   Nancy Pelosi sees it the same way.

Walsh criticizes Romney's attack in his speech on "Obamacare," the signature legislative achievement of the first black president, which unsurprisingly resulted in boos from the assemblage.    But she finds even more troubling, given the NAACP's effort "for a century to expand voting rights for African-Americans,"  the speaker's claim, as she puts it, "that he'd be a better president for African-Americans than Obama." Still other critics were distressed by Romney's pledge to "defend traditional marriage," a far less serious offense, especially given that our (Democratic) President, even as of April, was on the same side of the marriage issue, at least publicly.

Otherwise, the speech consisted mostly of boilerplate conservative myth, including the former governor's assertion

If our goal is jobs, we must, must stop spending over a trillion dollars more than we earn. To do this, I will eliminate expensive non-essential programs like Obamacare, and I will work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security, in part by means-testing their benefits.

Whoa! Let's back that up.    In order to "stop spending over a trillion dollars more than we earn," Romney wants to eliminate "Obamacare," which is projected by the CBO to cut the deficit by approximately $210 billion.

But more significant is Romney's vow to means-test Medicare and Social Security. Though Medicare and Social Security are both earned benefits (derided by the misleading appellation "entitlements"), they differ in more than one critical aspect.   The rise in the cost of Medicare is not the problem, not a problem, not any problem.  The problem, which Romney is loathe to concede, is health care costs.   In making health care accessible to old (no, old is not an insult) people, Medicare is considerably more efficient than the private health-care system upon which we would be more dependent with a reduction in Medicare services.     And the Affordable Care Act, which Romney has promised to begin to repeal "on Day One," appears already to have begun reducing health care costs.     

Still, means-testing Medicare and Social Security would further a critical objective of Romney, and his party generally.    Following the Supreme Court's Medicaid determination in its ruling on the PPACA, several states (virtually all, if not all, GOP-dominated states) are threatening to refuse to expand the program- one designed to provide health care for poor people- even though the states themselves would bear less than 10% of the cost of expansion.   If they were promised that the federal government would send them more than 100% of the cost, thus affording them a profit, some Repb officeholders still would balk at strengthening a program which, benefitting the needy, somewhat resembles a welfare program.   Means-test programs directed toward the elderly, and we're headed down the same road.

This is, admittedly, speculation, though reasonable and realistic.   But it is not speculation to note two words Romney slipped in:   "in part."     Means-testing is only the first spoke in destruction of these (thus far) popular programs to aid the elderly, primarily because they are the most politically palatable.   There would be more to come.

Like Grover Norquist, Mitt Romney, who yearns to conduct a testosterone-fueled foreign policy and lusts after additional job-killing trade deals to destroy more American jobs, does not want to destroy government.     Cutting it down to the size of a bathtub drain, starting with the poor and the elderly, is quite enough, thank you very much.

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Not A Bright Outlook

There are less than three weeks before the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction is to make to Congress its proposals for debt reduction over the next decade. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has details, expressed in billions of dollars, of both the Democratic and Republican plans

The GOP is advancing a standard ultra-conservative plan with extensive cuts to the social safety net, including Medicare and Medicaid. There are no tax increases, yet an increase in revenue of $40, due entirely to characterizing proposed increases in Medicare premiums and various fees as "revenues." CBPP notes that this defies standard budget accounting and the practice of the federal budget, which treats these not as increases in taxes but as reduction in outlays. By contrast, there are $1300 of "revenue increases" in the Democratic proposal.

There are savings of $685 in the GOP plan, $475 in the Democratic plan; $685 reduction in other mandatory programs from the GOP, $385 from the Democrats; $1150 in discretionary spending cuts in the Repub plan, $1300 in the Democratic offer. These total $2,520 in spending cuts from the GOP, $2,160 from the Democrats (in billions of dollars, as noted). This results in $495 in debt service savings under the Repub proposal and $664 in the Democratic proposal with total deficit reduction of $2,085 proposed by the GOP and $4,124 by the Democrats.

So the plan expected to be proposed by the Grand Old Party contains $685 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, taking a huge chunk out of the middle class and the poor. And the Democrats, party of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey, are countering with.... slashing $475 billion.

Once again, Democratic politicians are counting on being seen as the responsible party, the grown-ups prescribing needed medicine to the sick patient. Independent voters are to be comforted while the mainstream media swoons over this "compromise."

But of course there is little compromise when Democratic members propose a conservative plan and Republican members propose a more conservative plan. The Democratic members of the supercommittee, as well as President Obama, would be delighted to have the GOP members sign on to some sort of tax increase, even a minimal one, which they then can trumpet as a "victory."

That victory, however, as David Atkins explains, would come with a huge price. He explains that for Grover Norquist and for many Republican lawmakers, the vast majority of whom have signed Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" (promising to oppose any tax increase, anytime)

Tax cuts are simply a means of "starving the beast," which forces cuts to government programs, which theoretically leads to Objectivist self-sufficient nirvana without the need for statist evils like FDA or public schools.

Meanwhile, Atkins recognizes that if the differences were split (perhaps with a nominal tax increase) or the Democratic plan were adopted, "conservatives would bellow about how unfair it was that taxes were 'raised' even an inch and portray the austerity sandwich as a victory for Democrats."

And we know how popular austerity is proving in Greece, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe.

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Closer, Probably

There is more good news than bad, or at least more significant good news than bad. Talking Points Memo reports that, unfortunately,

An urgent Saturday morning White House debt talks meeting between President Obama and Congressional leaders ended after less than an hour, a sign that both sides likely still remain in a stand-off.

But the President laid down a marker, somewhat, in his remarks (text, here) last night when he noted

Last point I’ll make here. I mean, I’ve gone out of my way to say that both parties have to make compromises. I think this whole episode has indicated the degree to which at least a Democratic President has been willing to make some tough compromises. So when you guys go out there and write your stories, this is not a situation where somehow this was the usual food fight between Democrats and Republicans. A lot of Democrats stepped up in ways that were not advantageous politically. So we’ve shown ourselves willing to do the tough stuff on an issue that Republicans ran on.

Although the President- inaccurately- characterized beltway differences of opinion as the "usual food fight," he did at least assert that this is not a "he said, she said" situation. One side, he noted, has "stepped up in ways that were not advantageous politically" while "we've shown ourselves willing to do the tough stuff on an issue that Republicans ran on."

Admittedly, it's a little late to start making this argument. The debt limit has been raised 89 times since 1939- all with clean bills and the current GOP leadership on Capitol Hill has voted 19 times to raise the debt limit. Saint Ronald himself once asserted

Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility,” Reagan says in the clip. “This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations.”

Obama's comments were not dramatic or very powerful, but they did constitute what passes for healthy partisanship from this president: we're trying to prevent the destruction of the nation's, and perhaps the world's economy, and they're not. Even if our team is trying to do it by giving the other side almost everything they could have dreamt of.

But a more important factor is coming into play. Grover Norquist (the Americans for Tax Reform in the Americans for Tax Reform), who this past week explained that letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire would not constitute a tax hike, would constitute a tax hike, and might constitute a tax hike, apparently has been listening to his organization's corporate sponsors. Their identities remain, as permissible under law, a secret but Joe Conason, who recently interviewed Norquist, reports

Unlike the Tea Party Republicans, but much like his supporters in the business community, he is troubled by the potential consequences of an impending and unprecedented default. As Norquist told The National Memo today in an interview:

“I am not an advocate or adherent of the position I have heard some state, that a default would be ‘not a big deal’ or ‘would strengthen the hand of those arguing for limited government.’ I worry that handing the executive branch control over what bills to pay is not a wise move....even when they would have less cash to spend.”

Norquist went on to say that “a ‘shutdown’ or ‘default’ or ‘wobbly walk around the rim of default’ would be, as my mother would say, ‘unhelpful.’ How unhelpful? I don’t know, [and I’m] not real interested in finding out. Let’s experiment on a smaller country.”

Consistent with their campaign rhetoric, those "Tea Party Republicans" have firmly and virulently held firm against anything which approximates a tax increase. If they vacillate, equivocate, or show any sign of self-doubt (practically a capital offense in GOP politics, anyway), they may find themselves going the way of Bob Bennett. And that is in large measure because of Grover Norquist.

It's a sad, sad state of affairs that the economic viability of the United States may depend on pressure applied by the business community upon the political party it owns. But when the situation is this dire, it's better than the alternative.

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Stand There And Do Nothing

The Gang of Six is out with its proposal or, rather, a framework for a proposal. It would cut the deficit by approximately $4 trillion over twelve years with 76% of that coming from spending reductions and 24% from tax increases, most of which would hit primarily the middle class. President Obama, of course, signaled general support for its principles.

In what seems so long ago, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell proposed a "clean" debt bill, which would have saved the nation and the economy from devastating spending cuts, though it would have required the President to request thrice of Congress that it raise the debt ceiling. That was, however, unacceptable to the far right of the House GOP caucus and to Barack Obama, demonstrating once again that politics makes strange bedfellows. Or maybe not.

President Obama is itching for that Grand Bargain so that he can do something really, really BIG. He has been pushing an agreement to cut spending and eliminate a few tax loopholes, which he probably realizes would be transitory. But Republican members of Congress, nearly all of whom have signed the Americans for Tax Reform Taxpayer Protection Pledge, are cool to slashing spending because of the small tax increase (for corporations) which would be part of the package.

So the President is doing whatever he can to sweeten the package for those Republicans, frightened that any vote for anything vaguely resembling anything like a tax increase would bring down upon them the wrath of ATR's Grover Norquist, and a primary challenge.

But there appears to be a way out for a President who recognizes the need for revenue increases and is obsessed with cutting the national debt. The Washington Post editorialized Wednesday

With a handful of exceptions, every Republican member of Congress has signed a pledge against increasing taxes. Would allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 violate this vow? We posed this question to Grover Norquist,its author and enforcer, and his answer was both surprising and encouraging: No.

In other words, according to Mr. Norquist’s interpretation of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue — the cost of extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for another decade — without being accused of breaking their promise. “Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase,” Mr. Norquist told us. So it doesn’t violate the pledge? “We wouldn’t hold it that way,” he said.

As the chart (from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities via businessinsider.com) below indicates, repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, extended six months ago by the Obama-GOP coalition, would dramatically reduce the national debt.

The deficit as a percentage of GDP would drop dramatically if these cuts expire on schedule in 2012, as the chart (from CBPP) below shows.

Expiration of the tax rates could spare the economy spending cuts which would further reduce consumer demand which, The Wall Street Journal has found, most economists believe is the key to persuading companies to resume hiring. It would also, however, reduce pressure for reducing entitlements, which the Gang of Six favors. And that would be very unpopular with the Obama-GOP axis which now dominates the nation's politics.

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GOP Tax Pledge Firm


The Associated Press reports

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warned on Friday that GOP senators will not vote to increase the government's borrowing limit unless President Barack Obama agrees to rein in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, laying down a high-stakes marker just weeks before the debt ceiling is reached.

In an interview with The Associated Press, McConnell complained that Obama has refused his offers — both public and private — to work on a bipartisan plan to tackle the nation's massive benefit programs, which threaten to overwhelm the budget in coming years.

"There will be no entitlement reform without President Obama," McConnell said. "It cannot be done without him, will not be done without him."

Obama did not address the long-term financial problems of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the 2012 budget proposal he released in February, saying it will take time to create the political environment necessary for Democrats and Republicans to negotiate in good faith on such difficult long-term issues.

But at a news conference Friday, Obama said he and Congress should address the nation's long-term fiscal condition and programs such as Medicaid and Medicare — after lawmakers complete a deal on spending for the current fiscal year. Obama said any long-term agreement would have to be bipartisan and also would require tackling defense spending and taxes.

A long-term agreement probably would be bipartisan, in the Obama mold; would not likely involve reducing defense spending significantly; and would not involve taxes, at least in the manner of raising them, helping to reduce the long-term debt. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and originator of the "drown government in the bathtub" goal, was recently interviewed by Ezra Klein. When Klein asked why Norquist wouldn't have GOP candidates sign a spending pledge as well as a tax pledge, Norquist replied

Twenty-five years ago, I created the Taxpayer Protection Pledge at the federal level. Then I brought it to the state and local level. About 97 percent of the Republicans in the House and 85 percent in the Senate have signed on, and the number of candidates who have taken the pledge is even higher. It’s become a party position.

Asked by Klein about the support of the President's bipartisan debt commission for large spending cuts and small revenue increases, Norquist responded

The reason it won’t happen is that the Republicans have taken the pledge and made a promise to their constituents that they won’t increases taxes. And I’ve talked to the guys in the House and Senate. They tell me it won’t happen. And even Coburn, Chambliss and Crapo wrote a letter to me that said, “If and when there is a legislative proposal to be presented to the American people, we look forward to again working with you and all interested parties to support a proposal where any increase in revenue generation will be a result of the pro-growth effects of lower individual and corporate taxes.”

Besides aiding corporate America, the Repub Party stands for one thing: reducing income taxes. And given that campaign rhetoric pledging to allow businesses to pollute the air, poison the food supply, and gamble with the public's money to destroy the mortgage market is not the ticket to electoral success, the GOP will continue to pledge to the American people that it will not raise taxes. President Obama may want to take the high bipartisan road pushing a mixture of spending cuts and tax increases, but Republicans will sign on to the first part.

Klein observes

It's not about reducing the deficit. If it was, then the tax deal wouldn't have passed in December, entitlements would've been in the mix from the beginning, tax expenditures and defense spending would be on the table, etc. Nor is it about cutting spending. If it was, then the cuts wouldn't be limited to 12 percent of the budget. Rather, it's about cutting non-defense discretionary spending.

Barack Obama can persist in playing the adult in the room and, given the quality of GOP presidential hopefuls, may be reelected. But Republicans will not go along with a tax increase and if the President insists on considerable cuts in non-defense discretionary spending, his party will take a tumble.

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