Reflexive Opposition to B.O.


"Well, looks like Romney," a friend of Rush Limbaugh e-mailed the blowhard, "so I wish us much luck.  Look at what happened.  The Tea Party rises up, the Tea Party delivers the House of Representatives to the GOP, the Tea Party nearly takes out the Democrat Senate in 2010, and our nominee is gonna be a former RINO governor of Massachusetts who invented Romneycare....the Tea Party did everything, and we get a RINO?"

Of course, the individual mandate at the core of "Obamacare" wasn't dreamed up by Governor Romney.    Although the Heritage Foundation was not the first to float the concept of an individual mandate, the concept was promoted by the conservative think tank, that to which Rush Limbaugh has afforded the highest honor, contending it "was every bit as involved in Reaganism as reagan was, and nothing's changed."

In October, 1989 Heritage's Stuart Butler wrote

[N]either the federal government nor any state requires all households to protect themselves from the potentially catastrophic costs of a serious accident or illness. Under the Heritage plan, there would be such a requirement...

Society does feel a moral obligation to insure that its citizens do not suffer from the unavailability of health care. But on the other hand, each household has the obligation, to the extent it is able, to avoid placing demands on society by protecting itself...

A mandate on households certainly would force those with adequate means to obtain insurance protection.

In March of 1992 Heritage's Butler offered a plan in which

All citizens should be required to obtain a basic level of health insurance. Not having health insurance imposes a risk of delaying medical care; it also may impose costs on others, because we as a society provide care to the uninsured. The risk of shifting costs to others has led many states to mandate that all drivers have liability insurance. The same logic applies to health insurance...

The obligation to obtain basic health insurance should be placed on the individual, not on the employer...

In our scheme, every person would be required to obtain basic coverage, through either an individual or a family insurance plan.

When a health care program with a mandate and exchanges was instituted by the Massachusetts legislature and its Repub governor, the Heritage Foundation practically fell all over itself praising it.     Although Obamacare, strikingly similar to Romneycare, is not identical to Heritage's proposal, American Conservative senior editor Daniel McCarthy told Politifact

Every think tank on the left and right knows that its recommendations will undergo some deformation before they make their way into law, if they ever do.     Heritage might prefer state insurance exchanges with greater individual choice, including for workers already covered by their employers. But I don't imagine Ed Feulner would be complaining at all if a Republican president or a Republican Congress had passed a plan that deviated from the Heritage blueprint to the same degree that Obama's bill has. While it's not true that 'lots of' the specifics in the Obama plan were dreamed up by Heritage, the overall approach is similar to policies Heritage has long championed, including the individual mandate as well as the insurance exchanges. This is only controversial because the wrong party happened to pass the law, and it's poison for any conservative to be identified with it. 

Before the primary season began, and for much of the early phase, there was reasonable and considerable skepticism that the issue of health care reform would sink the Romney candidacy.    But the ex-governor effectively finessed it, as Salon's Steve Kornacki explains:

when Obama became president, the right – as it invariably does when a Democrat occupies the White House – committed itself to reflexively opposing him. This meant branding his healthcare plan socialism and fighting it with all the hysteria that could be mustered. It didn’t really matter how the program was structured; whatever Obama proposed would amount to a government takeover of healthcare in conservatives’ minds. The details weren’t what mattered; the fact that it was authored by Obama did.

This simultaneously endangered and shielded Romney. If he admitted that RomneyCare and ObamaCare were the same thing and defended his program, he’d have been guilty of a capital offense against conservatism. But by pretending that his law is something completely different and railing just as loudly as every other conservative voice against ObamaCare, he’s made it virtually impossible for his foes to build a case against him – as Santorum has been discovering.

Before he disowned the mandate popularized by the Heritage Foundation, Mitt Romney  failed to gain the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 when he was viewed as a conservative alternative to the leading candidate (McCain).      Now thought of as the least conservative of the three leading Repub contenders and the one associated with a program very unpopular with the GOP base, Mitt Romney is poised to be nominated.     But, as Kornacki describes, the Repub position on health care has little to do with ideology or principle and a lot to do with the demon they believe holds the White House.

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Jesus Christ On The Issues


It was just another narrowly focused commentary by Rush Limbaugh, touching on oil companies, the military, the value of the dollar, the decline of America, Jesus Christ, tax hikes, the deficit, entitlements, General Motors, and abortion. But he seemed particularly exorcised when he remarked

Folks, I cannot tell you how righteously offended I am at these people who 364 days a year try to make a mockery of Christianity and Christians, on one day a year now try to come out and appropriate Jesus Christ as their own. Not because of His message, but so they can manipulate it and further their agenda.

In January, 2008 Mark McDonald from the left whether we

Remember the "What would Jesus do?" campaign that was popular back in the 1990s? It was a slogan used by many Christians as a reminder to follow Jesus in their daily lives. These days, Republicans have borrowed the phrase as part of their creepy, ongoing deification of their hero, Ronald Reagan. Recently, right-wing hacks Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have been touting the Heritage Foundation's "What would Reagan do?" campaign. The "What would Reagan do?" slogan (often abbreviated as "WWRD") recently took off like wildfire across the right-wing Web. Wingnut bloggers pontificate on the subject and online merchants peddle WWRD T-shirts and other products.

From the right while writing on the website of right-wing World Net Daily, Rebecca Hagelin that same month asserted

Which brings us back to the thousands and thousands of candidates running for local, state and national offices this year. When pondering a policy question, they should ask themselves, What Would Reagan Do? The Heritage Foundation has partnered with talk show greats Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham in a new year-long campaign to invite citizens and candidates to ponder this very question. There is no better role model to help navigate the choppy waters of politics, today and well into the future.

Search on the Heritage.org website even today for "what would Reagan do?" and up pops "What Would Reagan Do?"; "Defense Spending: What Would Reagan Do?"; New Start: What Would Reagan Do?"; Heritage In Focus: What Would Reagan Do?"; "Immigration: What Would Reagan Do?: Heritage In Focus." The (four) authors may not have believed Ronald Reagan was the second coming, but they didn't mind if you did.

Three years ago, the right knew what Ronald Reagan and Jesus Christ would have decided on a wealth of issues. Now, Rush Limbaugh tells us what side Jesus would have taken on spending issues:

Taxes and budget cuts, what would Jesus do? Well, what would Jesus take? That's the question people need to ask to put this in perspective. Of course the answer is, nothing.

And you knew that Limbaugh, who neatly divides the country into "producers" and "non-producers," would shamelessly ask rhetorically

Would Jesus approve of Democrats fanning the flames of class warfare for the sole purpose of being reelected?

Unlike, evidently, Limbaugh, I've checked ontheissues.org in vain to find the position statements of Jesus Christ (R-USA) and don't know if he would be aghast at class warfare, although it is written

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. (Matthew 21:12, ESV)

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Undermining Social Security, Presidential Edition

This is is one more conspiracy theory. But it's my conspiracy theory, so it must be valid. (I’m starting to sound like Rush Limbaugh. This can’t be good.)

Seeingtheforest.com blogger Dave Johnson of Campaign for America's Future in February lamented "the right's noise machine" that has been determined to convince the electorate that "Obama tripled the deficit." He found a search of "obama tripled the deficit" on Google received 27,000 hits. Fortunately, the number now appears down to 988, but 52,000 without the quote markes.

Still, the propaganda machine has been very effective, arguably spearheaded by Limbaugh's beloved Heritage Foundation, though some attention now has been diverted to other issues with the passge of time. In February, pounding on a common theme of his, Rush would allege

But this is one of the biggest problems that people are having with Obama and therefore it is important. People are fed up with this spending. They're scared to death of it. They know full well what it portends. It portends massive tax increases for years on us, our kids and grandkids. It weakens the country. This is just an abomination. Nine years ago we were attacked. Barack Obama cannot tell the truth. Constitutionally, he's not capable of telling the truth. He has increased the deficit, not by twice, not by three times, but by four times -- and it was not necessary.

As Johnson notes, Fox News initially printed the headline "Obama triples budget deficit to $1.4 trillion." It now has been changed to the slightly less misleading "U.S. Budget Deficit Hit Record $1.4 Trillion in 2009"- still leaving the impression it is Obama's doing, inasmuch as everyone realizes Barack Obama was president for virtually all of 2009. $1.4 trillion was the deficit in Bush's last budget- not coincidentally, the same $1.4 trillion that conservatives claim Obama tripled the deficit to.

As the conservative libertarian Cato Institute explains, President Bush was significantly more responsible for the deficit (and the high level of spending) than was President Obama. The fiscal 2009 budget began on October 1, 2008 and "was largely set in place" by the time Barack Obama took office. Or as Johnson puts it, "A budget year that ends 8 months into a President's first year wasn't that President's budget."

But here is where it gets interesting. (If not, you have a money back guarantee!) Johnson argues

This dishonest propaganda campaign is the source of the political pressure to cut spending. Fine. What else would you expect from the right? It's what they do. But why has this campaign gone unanswered? Why haven't the forces allied with the President reached out with the facts? Why have they let themselves be put into this box?

A bigger question, why does the Obama administration still not seem to get it that this is what they do? The right has a coordinated, funded propaganda machine that just lies, and smears, belittles and humiliates people, makes the public afraid, stirs up division - even encourages sedition, all to get their way.

The right is well-funded because there is a monetary payoff to the big corporations and wealthy individuals who fund campaigns like this one. Their anti-government campaign is buying tax cuts, subsidies, deregulation or just non-enforcement of regulations, waivers or just lack of enforcement of anti-trust rules, military contracts, and a long list of other financial benefits.

Meanwhile people interested in democracy and good government are largely unfunded. They are largely shut out of TV and radio. For example, you rarely see a representative of labor on TV, radio or in the news. Bloggers reach a lot of people, but nothing like the talk radio/TV empire of the right. So how can we do this better?

A bigger question, why does the Obama administration still not seem to get it that this is what they do?

Perhaops this question should be asked rhetorically. Maybe the Obama administration does "get it"- and is just fine with it.

In a report about the February 2009 Fiscal Responsibility Summit's breakout session on Social Security, the Washington Post reported

Both Summers and Sperling said there would not be consensus in today's session about how to fix the program. They also said the public was more receptive to the government making hard decisions necessary to keep SS from running out of money in the long run, because Americans are anxious about their private retirement savings and the value of their houses.

Sperling said: "I think there may be a lot more openness than we thought in the past for people to have an honest discussion about the shared sacrifice necessary to have Social Security solvency. That this would be a sure thing they could count on, and they could count on for the next 50 to 75 years."

At the end, Sperling also tried to cut through disagreement over whether the program was in a state of crisis. "I really hate the whole argument about, is this a crisis or is this not a crisis? Why do we not want to preempt a crisis. Why do we not want to do something early? It is a shame on our political system that there has never been entitlement reform without a gun to our head. . .Wouldn't it be a tremendous confidence-building thing to act early and smart?"

That would be Gene Sperling, Counselor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner of the administration which has convened a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility. The commission is composed of two co-chairmen, a Democrat and a Republican; 4 appointees of President Obama; and 3 appointees by each of the following: Senate Majority Leader Reid, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, House Speaker Pelosi, and House Minority Leader Boehner. Fortunately, 14 of 18 members have to agree on a recommended change. However, there is little doubt that Republicans (of a party whose dominant theme is "government is hopeless"), wary of a successful and popular government program, will support efforts to undermine Social Security. The commission co-chairmen and three of the four individuals selected by Obama have been, or are believed to be, critical of the growth of entitlement programs. (The other Obama appointee, outgoing SEIU President Andy Stern, may be looking for a position in the Administration.) Two of the individuals- Representative Jan Schackowsky and Majority Whip Dick Durbin- selected by Democratic congressional leaders are avid Obama supporters, hail from Illinois and.... you get the picture.

Before convening the Fiscal Responsibility Summit, forerunner to the Deficit Commission, President Obama commented

What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further. We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's.

These are hard decisions- it's always uncomfortable (but "serious")- cutting benefits of the elderly while financial manipulations of the big banks, hedge fund managers, and corporate scofflaws are virtually unimpeded. Sacrifices will be demanded- but not by those who control the economy and can blackmail officeholders, only of the middle class. And it's always "hard" to summon the creativity to manufacture a crisis.

A report prior to the deficit commission's first meeting in April noted

Barbara Kennelly, CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said Monday the commission should not seek to balance the budget in the short-term by cutting Social Security.

"Simply put, Social Security has not contributed one thin dime to the current deficit," said Kennelly, a former Democratic House member from Connecticut.

Kennelly noted that Social Security is paid for with payroll taxes and is expected to remain solvent through 2037.

Facts, though, don't dominate the discussion when the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee (a Democrat, no less), hands wet from wringing over the projected status of Social Security 75 years from now, can state "so the idea of not doing anything to me is not the answer." That would put him on the same wavelength as Obama advisor Sperling, who wants to find an answer to a problem that doesn't exist. (Hurry, if it ain't broken, fix it!)

As Digby implies, the emphasis on deficit reduction and satisfying the bond markets finds its expression in the continuing failure to enact comprehensive and effective financial reform and in a desire to undermine the Social Security system. It's all a part of "the pain caucus," as Krugman termed it. Digby's remarks about Summer and Sperling apply also to those on the deficit reduction commission:

These people want credit for fixing social security, which they acknowledge means that people are going to have to "sacrifice." Why these silly Democrats think the Republicans are going to hold hands with them on this is beyond me and the idea that the people will appreciate them doing it is delusional.

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A New Slogan For The Right

Some things are so ironic that they are hard to believe. The conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, has been running a contest entitled "What Would Reagan Do?" It is being promoted by syndicated conservative Repub talk-show hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham who, like their right-wing brethren, have been fond of blaming liberals/Democrats for allegedly trying to evict religion from the public square.

"What Would Reagan Do?" sounds an awful lot like "What Would Jesus Do?" a motto popular among Christians who believe that Jesus Christ was in essence God and therefore without sin. So the righteous right simply substitutes Reagan for Jesus as they imply Reagan and Jesus really were the same.

Such a curious, and disturbing, argument advanced by stalwarts of the Republican Party.