Tame

Confrontation always carries the risk of backfiring and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are reportedly not as gung-ho on overturning Roe v. Wade as are Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito. However, this reflects a stunning lack of perspective:

Please don't protest at people's homes.

Please don't intrude on people attending their houses of worship.

Organize politically, be civil civically.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 8, 2022

 

 The "civil" approach to abortion politics was illustrated when on March 10, 1993 Dr. David Gunn was gunned down walking into his clinic during a forced-birth protest at a reproductive health clinic in Pensacola, Florida. In 1994 Dr. John Britton and volunteer Ret. Lt.Col. James Barrett were shot dead at another healthcare clinic in Pensacola. Later that year,

an anti-abortion extremist opened fire on two clinics in Massachusetts, killing both clinics’ receptionists—Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols—and wounding five others. In 1998, Eric Rudolph, who bombed the Olympic Games, a clinic, and a lesbian and gay bar in Atlanta, detonated a bomb at a clinic in Birmingham, Ala., killing off-duty police officer Robert Sanderson, who served as a security guard at the clinic, and critically injuring a nurse. In 1998, a sniper murdered Dr. Barnett Slepian in front of his family as he was standing in the kitchen of his home in upstate New York.

On a Sunday at the end of May 2009, Dr. George Tiller was attending services at his church in Wichita, Kan., when anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder entered the church, raised a gun to Tiller’s forehead and shot him at point-blank range. Tiller had survived being shot in both arms by a different anti-abortion extremist in 1993.

In 2015 Robert Lewis Dear Jr. shot six people, two fatally, outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, then shot one person inside the facility and held police off for five hours, shooting four and killing one officer.  He later rejoiced at the murder and mayhem because he believed it would prevent abortions being performed there. However, the murders

don't come close to telling the full story of the unrelenting, daily violence and harassment that anti-abortion extremists visit on providers and clinics. Attempted murder, death threats, stalking, kidnapping, bombings and arson are a routine part of life for providers and clinics.

From 1993 to 2016 (video below from 5/16), "pro-life" advocates killed doctors, clinic employees, a clinic escort, a security guard and a police officer, 11 in all, with 26 attempted murders.

Then it got worse. After speaking to the National Abortion Federation, in 2019 CBS News reported

In 2017, violent acts against abortion providers more than doubled from the year prior, according to data compiled by NAF. The group recorded 1,081 violent acts, the most since the group began tracking these incidents.

Last year, the group recorded another new record high: 1,369 reported violent acts, including 15 instances of assault and battery, 13 burglaries, 14 counts of stalking and over a thousand episodes of illegal trespassing.

None of that includes the great number of women who are harassed, scared and shamed as they walk a gauntlet to enter abortion clinics.  It's what makes the pro-life movement the "pro-life" movement, a fervid, aggressive effort to prevent strangers from getting the reproductive care they've chosen.

Make no mistake about it.  If the authors of the draft copy of the decision leaked last week had gone against the State of Mississippi by concluding that the law banning most abortions after 15 weeks was unconstitutional, the uproar on the right would have been far nastier, illegal, and violent than anything we've witnessed from the left. Instead, it took anti-abortion activists several decades but they appear finally to have gotten what they have wanted, and it hasn't come by friendly persuasion.

It's how the right rolls. More than a month after testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee following nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Court, Christine Blasey Ford reportedly was "still getting death threats" and "had to move four times. She can’t go to work as a professor at Palo Alto University, and it’s unclear when she’ll be able to return, according to NPR. She needs a private security detail."

So obey the law, everyone. But never forget that "might makes right" is the code of the conservative.

 

Share |

Kristol Certainly Knows A 'Crazy' When He Sees One

The reviews have come in on Donald Trump's statement that John McCain is "a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured.

The responses have not been positive. John Ellis Bush termed Trump's remarks "slanderous attacks." Scott Walker called McCain "undoubtedly an American hero" and argued Trump "needs to apologize to Senator McCain" for this "disgrace." Marco Rubio asserted "America's POW's deserve much better to have their service questioned by the offensive rantings of Donald Trump."

Rick Perry claimed Trump has shown himself "unfit" to be Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces," as if there ever were reason to believe he was fit.  However, the most clever (though probably not prescient) remark came from Mitt Romney, who declared "the difference" between McCain and his critic is "Trump shot himself down."

In a sense, though, the most interesting remark was made by Bill Kristol, who stated on ABC's "This Week"

So I'm finished with Donald Trump. And I don’t think it's going to -- he'll -- and I don't think -- I don't think he'll stay up in the polls, incidentally. Republican primary voters are pro-respect the military. And he showed disrespect for the military.

He showed a lack of respect for war heroes (not for "the military") but, as John Kerry discovered and Jake Tapper pointed out (video below), the GOP's respect for the men and women in uniform is selective.  We will find, also (though it will not be acknowledged) that support for Trump does not plunge because he slammed a guy for having failed to succeed. McCain's service was heroic; but he was captured, and that's a far cry from Republican idolization of the "winners" in society. "I don't like losers" Trump said, but that really captures the ethos of his entire Party.










Evidently, Kristol's recognition that showing a lack of respect for war heroes is offensive does not extend to showing a lack of recognition for other people.    It's not only labeling the individuals cheering Trump on for his anti-immigration remarks as "crazies," even if many are, well, fanatics.

Kristol played a prominent role in the 2008 presidential campaign, for he and two other National Review heavyweights (with some family members) took a cruise to the governor's mansion in Juneau. After a pleasant visit to the state's chief executive

The most ardent promoter, however, was Kristol, and his enthusiasm became the talk of Alaska’s political circles. According to Simpson, Senator Stevens told her that “Kristol was really pushing Palin” in Washington before McCain picked her. Indeed, as early as June 29th, two months before McCain chose her, Kristol predicted on “Fox News Sunday” that “McCain’s going to put Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, on the ticket.” He described her as “fantastic,” saying that she could go one-on-one against Obama in basketball, and possibly siphon off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. He pointed out that she was a “mother of five” and a reformer. “Go for the gold here with Sarah Palin,” he said. The moderator, Chris Wallace, finally had to ask Kristol, “Can we please get off Sarah Palin?"

The next day, however, Kristol was still talking about Palin on Fox. “She could be both an effective Vice-Presidential candidate and an effective President,” he said. “She’s young, energetic.” On a subsequent “Fox News Sunday,” Kristol again pushed Palin when asked whom McCain should pick: “Sarah Palin, whom I’ve only met once but I was awfully impressed by—a genuine reformer, defeated the establishment up there. It would be pretty wild to pick a young female Alaska governor, and I think, you know, McCain might as well go for it.” On July 22nd, again on Fox, Kristol referred to Palin as “my heartthrob.” He declared, “I don’t know if I can make it through the next three months without her on the ticket.” Reached last week, Kristol pointed out that just before McCain picked Palin he had ratcheted back his campaign a little; though he continued to tout her, he also wrote a Times column promoting Senator Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut.

On Sunday, Kristol contended Trump "jumped the shark yesterday."   But when a great war hero and veteran United States Senator- in part due to Kristol's prodding- selects Sarah Palin (!) to be a heartbeat from the presidency (cartoon below by M. Wuerker of Politico), that could not possibly be jumping any fish..

Donald Trump was very rude. But so was Barack Obama. He did not, after the election of 2008, bother to send a thank-you note to William Kristol.

Share |

Tea Party Titans

It's unlikely Bill Maher and William Kristol will be dining together anywhere soon.  Politico's Lucy McCalmont writes

The Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol fired back at liberal comic Bill Maher for saying the tea party was about President Barack Obama being black, calling the claim “total bulls—-.”

Maher began by slamming the tea party for condemning the bailouts during his HBO program “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday.

However, Kristol disagreed saying the bailouts happened in 2008 under the Bush administration and before the tea party, which he said was founded for different reasons.

“They were right to be worried about [the bailouts] and to think they were a really bad precedent, but that is not the origin of the tea party. What happened — what was the origin of the tea party 5 years ago? It wasn’t about bailouts,” Kristol said.

“Sure it was,” Maher said.

“It was not. It was about a mortgage bill. Then it was about Obamacare and then it was about the stimulus—” Kristol replied.

Maher interjected, “It was about a black president. But let’s—”

“That’s bulls—-! That is total bulls—-!” Kristol said. “You think tens of millions of people, just out there, they just—-even you don’t believe that. You’re just saying that.”

“I totally believe that,” Maher responded. “It happened a month after he took office. Suddenly white people were very upset about debt, even though [former President George W.] Bush had raised the debt way more than Obama had.”

Kristol argued that the tea party was upset with Bush as well and they were “rebelling against the Republican establishment as well as the Democratic establishment.”

“I don’t remember a tea party then,” Maher said, adding that members of the group were “suddenly” at town halls.

Jumping in, CNN political contributor Margaret Hoover said that the movement did start under Bush for fiscal reasons.

“Republicans had been trying to get people … revved up to think fiscal issues were sexy for a really long time and finally they codified behind this mass movement to really rein in federal spending. That was a good thing,” she said.

However, Hoover added “it got of the rails a little bit after 2010” and noted that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, was “nowhere near them.”

Maher pointed out that on one tea party website, they were not talking about debt, but rather impeaching Obama, Benghazi and Obamacare.

“I wonder if they ever really cared about the debt that much,” Maher said.

Hoover pushed back saying the group had been “co-opted.”

“It was co-opted by more organized forces that, frankly, had less and less to do with fiscal discipline and more and more to do with … whatever their pet issue was,” Hoover said.

Of course, the tea party doesn't care about debt.  Few Republicans care about debt except when the White House is occupied by a Democrat, typically moving the nation toward a balanced budget lest Republicans complain too loudly- which they do, anyway.  Otherwise, the Real Time discussion was marked by naivete, ignorance, or incoherence.

For Maher, it was about race; for Kristol, it was bailouts, housing, health care and the stimulus; for Hoover, federal spending.

The tea party has feigned concern about federal spending (graph below from CNN Money from CBO figures). Not only is reducing government spending in a deep recession economically bizarre, but

As a share of the economy, spending on domestic and defense programs has been on the decline since 2010, and is on track to reach the lowest level in more than 50 years by 2023.

At its height in 2010, "discretionary spending" under Obama reached 9.1% of GDP. That was largely due to the stimulus law intended to dig the country out of a deep recession. But even at that high level, it wasn't that much higher than the 40-year average of 8.4% and was still below the 40-year peak of 10% reached in 1983.

Today, levels are well below the long-term average. And the Congressional Budget Office projects that by 2023 discretionary spending will fall to 5.3% of GDP, the lowest since 1962.

It is hard accurately to portray the tea party movement as having been co-opted, as Hoover maintains, when it began as an astroturf operation, which Kristol won't acknowledge and surprisingly, Maher doesn't recognize.   CNBC editor/reporter Rick Santelli, described by Wikipedia as "a former vice president for an institutional trading and hedge fund account for futures-related products," is credited with setting off the movement when on the floor of the Chicago mercantile exchange he ranted (video,below) about homeowners unable to pay their mortgages; a rich guy condemning the decadent middle class to a choir of rich guys.






But the assault on the middle class disguised as the "tea party" began much earlier. Blogging at The Huffington Post in October, investigative historian Eric Zuesse explained

Amanda Fallin, Rachel Grana, and Stanton A. Glantz, published on 8 February 2013 in the online edition of the journal Tobacco Control, their blockbuster study,"'To quarterback behind the scenes, third-party efforts': the tobacco industry and the Tea Party," and they laid out there the history of the key alliance between the tobacco companies and the Koch brothers. This enormous study, through thousands of pages of archives, was funded by the National Cancer Institute; and it reported that, "Rather than being a purely grassroots movement that spontaneously developed in 2009, the Tea Party has developed over time, in part through decades of work by the tobacco industry and other corporate interests. ... Simultaneously, they funded and worked through third-party groups, such as Citizens for a Sound Economy, the predecessor of AFP [Americans For Prosperity] and FreedomWorks," all of which were/are Koch operations.

These researchers reported that, "In 2002, ... CSE started its US Tea Party (http://www.usteaparty.com) project, the website of which stated 'our US Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.'" (Amazingly, that damning webpage can still be accessed, via the web's archive authority.) Already, "Between 1991 and 2002 the tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, provided CSE with at least US$5.3 million," and Philip Morris's V.P. for Government Affairs justified these expenditures in a memo by saying: "They are adding this level of value. They have provided significant grassroots assistance, in the nature of several thousand calls to the Hill," and are "very active on our behalf in the field in key states with key Members" of Congress. So: when the "spontaneous" "Tea Party" organization rose up in February 2009, to protest Obamacare, it was actually neither spontaneous, nor at all new.

There are racially bigoted undertones and overtones among tea party adherents, as Maher emphasizes.  But those are mere rank-and-file supporters, manipulated by a corporatist movement uninterested in anything but promulgating its own wealth and power.



Share |

Deficit Obsession


Politics is, at first glance, a matter of competing ideologies springing from different values.  

Some people believe same-sex marriage should be only between a man and a woman, as traditionally it has been, and as sanctioned in the world's best-selling book.  The other believes it is simply a matter of equality, allowing everyone the same opportunity.

There are different opinions as to when life begins, but even some individuals who believe it is at conception support reproductive rights, believing that a woman must be allowed to do as she wishes with her own body.  And many pro-life people, even those not fixated on the the idea that life begins at conception, believe that each life- or potential life- is precious and should not be snuffed out.

This clash of values is featured prominently even in a discussion of the federal income tax rate.   Everyone should pay something, to have "skin in the game," say conservatives, who would maintain that position even when reminded that virtually every American pays some combination of   payroll, property, sales, excise, or local/state income taxes.    The rest of us argue that there already is a growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, and that efforts must be ongoing to help those who most need it or to smooth out the vagaries of life.

Sometimes, however, evidence suggests that conflicting values is less significant than with ignorance of facts, willful or otherwise.

The drive to cut Social Security benefits is perhaps the most glaring example.   Many peopledo not realize that Social Security has its own dedicated source of funding, cannot legally operate with a deficit, and is financially sound.   They hear members of the media who, engaged in a profession with very little demand physically, may live and work forever, casually maintain that the lifespan of Americans is growing by leaps and bounds.

Lynn Parramore of Alternet has observed the "group of hustlers claiming that life expectancy for Americans was less than 62 years in 1935, and now it’s more than 77 years, so the program must be inadequate."   She explains

The early figure was based on life expectancy at birth. That is a vastly different matter from projecting how long people will live after they reach the age of 65 and start collecting benefits. In the 1930s, there was much higher infant mortality, and children died much more frequently from diseases that are now preventable through immunization. Because our parents’ and grandparents’ generations had a high rate of early death, the life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed less than 62 years. But here’s the catch: Social Security is funded by the workers who collect the benefits, along with their employers. Obviously, if you die as a child, you are not going to collect benefits. So the significant measure is not how long you’re going to live after you are born, but rather how long you’re going to live once you hit 65.

In reality, the average life expectancy once a person has reached the age 65 has increased only a modest five years on average since 1940.

So let’s be clear. Workers who reach the age of 65 today are only living five years longer than their parents. The designers of the program were fully aware of this possibility when they calculated the retirement age and they constructed the program accordingly.

Recently, this clash of myth and reality has taken root in the obsessive desire by the mainstream media to warn the American people of utter death and devastation if the budget deficit is not curbed.   Robert Reich has noticed

an entire deficit-cutting political industry has grown up in recent years – starting with Ross Perot’s third party in the 1992 election, extending through Peter Petersen’s Institute and other think-tanks funded by Wall Street and big business, embracing the eat-your-spinach deficit hawk crowd in the Democratic Party, and culminating in the Simpson-Bowles Commission that President Obama created in order to appease the hawks but which only legitimized them further.

Most of the media have bought into the narrative that our economic problems stem from an out-of-control budget deficit. They’re repeating this hokum even now, when we’re staring at a fiscal cliff that illustrates just how dangerous deficit reduction can be.

As the deficit burgeoned under Presidents Reagan and Bush 43, there was concern (among Democrats) but little alarm raised and Dick Cheney famously boasted "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."  Once a Democrat entered the Oval Office in 2009, however, there were dire predictions of runaway inflation and soaring interest rates, with public spending crowding out private investment.      But inflation remains low and interest rates have plummeted to a level even below the minimal growth in the consumer price index.                            

Deficit fetish has not been curbed, unfortunately, even though, as Jed Graham describes at investors.com

Believe it or not, the federal deficit has fallen faster over the past three years than it has in any such stretch since demobilization from World War II.

In fact, outside of that post-WWII era, the only time the deficit has fallen faster was when the economy relapsed in 1937, turning the Great Depression into a decade-long affair.

If U.S. history offers any guide, we are already testing the speed limits of a fiscal consolidation that doesn't risk backfiring. That's why the best way to address the fiscal cliff likely is to postpone it.

While long-term deficit reduction is important and deficits remain very large by historical standards, the reality is that the government already has its foot on the brakes.

In this sense, the "fiscal cliff" metaphor is especially poor. The government doesn't need to apply the brakes with more force to avoid disaster. Rather the "cliff" is an artificial one that has sprung up because the two parties are able to agree on so little.

Hopefully, they will agree, as they did at the end of 2010, to embrace their disagreement for a bit longer.

And hopefully, congressional Republicans will succumb to the tea party and the more unyielding factions of their coalition.   More dangerous would be accepting the advice of their realists, such as William Kristol, who believes the party should accept the higher taxes on upper incomes proposed by Barack Obama in return for concessions from the Democrats.   This would please President Obama but, as Digby remarks

I know that the administration doesn't want to delay the expiration of the high end tax cuts, but I honestly don't think it's the most important thing in the world if they do. This economy is weak and if we do go back into recession (or even slow growth) after these tax hikes are enacted, the moneyed elites will ensure that "taxing the job creators" gets the blame. It's not worth the price of "dramatic reforms" to entitlement programs and it won't create one job or help one foreclosed homeowner.


                                                     
                                             HAPPY THANKSGIVING



Share |

Not Only Economics


Where is the hawkish U.S. Representative Pete King (R-NY) when we need him?  

In May, 2010 the hawkish Mr. King, then the ranking member (now chairperson) of the Committee on Homeland Security, wrote

While I am heartened that this first Obama Administration National Security Strategy addresses the growing problem of al-Qaeda recruiting American citizens and those in the country legally, perhaps most notable about the Strategy is what it fails to say. 

I have serious concerns about this Strategy. The Obama Administration refuses to even identify head-on the threat our nation faces. Even though we have been at war against radical Islamic jihadists since they killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11, the Obama Administration fails to even mention such terms. By his own account, assistant to the President John Brennan stated in a speech yesterday, “nor do we describe our enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists,’” even after these terrorists we are fighting continue to commit their slaughter in the name of “jihad.” The Administration is ignoring the quintessential rule of war: ‘Know Your Enemy.’ Failing to acknowledge the enemy we face will not make the enemy disappear.

Who now is "failing to acknowledge the enemy"- or American heroes?    Surprisingly, neo-con William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, a few days ago observed

The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan. Nor did he utter a word of appreciation to the troops fighting there, or to those who have fought there. Nor for that matter were there thanks for those who fought in Iraq, another conflict that went unmentioned.

Leave aside the question of the political wisdom of Romney's silence, and the opportunities it opens up for President Obama next week. What about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing even to mention, in his acceptance speech, a war we're fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored, in this kind of major and formal speech, the war and our warriors? 

The candidate's omission,though far less likely oversight than tactical positioning, may be more significant than meets the eye.   Once Mitt Romney, yearning for journalists and pundits everywhere to compare him to Ronald Reagan, parenthetically asked during his nomination acceptance speech whether Americans are "better off" than they were four years ago, the media jumped on board.    Rush Limbaugh, George Stepanopoulos, pollsters, and others were quick to ask the question, or answer it in the negative.

The question is assumed to pertain to the economic state of the nation which, as Paul Krugman explains, is better now than it was in November 2008, though worse than it would have been had Obama governed like the progressive he campaigned as.   Housing permits and retail sales generally are rising; the civilian employment-population ratio is gradually rising and is slightly higher than at the depth of the recession; the stock market is up, inflation low, and interest rates even lower; private sector employment has increased for the past 29 months; the average total tax burden is lower than it has been in decades while corporate profits are higher than in decades.   (We should acknowledge that government jobs are down and good and bad jobs alike still are leaving the country for abroad, but we wouldn't want to make Republicans giddy.)

However, the query is never posed so specifically as to specify the "economy" or the economic status of the average American family.   It is always framed in very general terms, as to being "better off" period.   And for that, Joe Biden says it best: "bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

Not only is bin Laden dead, but Al Qaeda seems to be on the run, though determining definitively is nearly impossible.   While drone attacks have been instrumental in destroying much of the terrorist group's leadership, "signature strikes" probably have improved Al Qaeda's recruiting more than they have impeded the group's capacity for violence.  But the likelihood that Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan will question the Administration's aggressive use of drones- or rendition, military commissions, or indefinite detention- is slight or nonexistent, and slight is on a train heading out-of-town.

So expect President Obama, when asked whether we are "better off" than four years ago- and when pre-empting the question in his acceptance speech- not to say definitively that Americans are basking in the lap of economic security.   That would be not only an exaggeration, but invite criticism for insensitivity to suffering.   He will note some improvement since the last Administration, during which the economy collapsed.  But he will argue also that America is more secure than she was a few years ago and tick off his administration's success fighting Al Qaeda, ratcheting down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, implementing health care reform, and in other areas.   And he will demonstrate a better understanding of the enemy abroad than most leading Republicans, including Mr. Romney, Mr. Ryan, and Mr. King.

Share |

Vague For A Reason


Numerous Republicans already were concerned about the direction of the Romney campaign.   The disreputable NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch on Monday tweeted "Met Romney last week.   Tough O Chicago pols will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from team and hires some real pros.   Doubtful."    Others piled on after the Romney campaign failed to label early, definitively, and with equanimity the penalty in the health care mandate a tax, rather than a fine.

Thus the opening was provided for other Republicans to know avoidance by the candidate to avoid any specifics about his signature issue, the economy.   Weekly Standard editor William Kristol wrote

The economy is of course important. But voters want to hear what Romney is going to do about the economy. He can "speak about" how bad the economy is all he wants—though Americans are already well aware of the economy's problems—but doesn't the content of what Romney has to say matter? What is his economic growth agenda? His deficit reform agenda? His health care reform agenda? His tax reform agenda? His replacement for Dodd-Frank? No need for any of that, I suppose the Romney campaign believes. Just need to keep on "speaking about the economy."

The Wall Street Journal editorialized

This latest mistake is of a piece with the campaign's insular staff and strategy that are slowly squandering an historic opportunity. Mr. Obama is being hurt by an economic recovery that is weakening for the third time in three years. But Mr. Romney hasn't been able to take advantage, and if anything he is losing ground.

The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault. We're on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that "Obama isn't working." Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better.

Then-President George W. Bush invoked a (well-worn) response that is applicable here:  "Bring it on."  Terming it "an excellent piece of work and very much needed," Romney in March stated "I'm very supportive of the Ryan budget plan. It's a bold and exciting effort on his part and on the part of the Republicans and it's very much consistent with what I put out earlier."

Paul Ryan's budget, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities explains

would cut the top marginal income tax rate, now 35 percent but scheduled to rise next year to 39.6 percent, to 25 percent.  It would cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and eliminate taxes on the foreign profits of U.S.-based multinationals.  It would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), designed to ensure that high-income people pay at least a minimum level of tax.And it would eliminate health reform’s increase in the Medicare tax for high-income individuals.      

That would blow a hole of $400 billion in the budget in 2015.    Still, Ryan claims his plan would prove to be revenue-neutral in part because the "reforms will grow the economy" (pursuant to discredited supply-side theory) and also "because we close special-interest loopholes."

It would be entertaining to watch the GOP presidential nominee explain which deductions he would close.     The ones with greatest impact, as the table (below, from Kevin Drum with figures from the Tax Policy Center) from the CBPP indicates, are exclusions of employee healthcare benefits and the mortgage interest deduction, and favorable treatment of pension benefits.     Perhaps Romney would like to tackle (or jet-ski through) the deductions for charitable contributions, or on social security or medicare part B benefits, or the earned income tax credit.    What a political winner that would be.

Alternatively, perhaps the former governor would end the tax breaks on dividends, capital gains, inheritance, or offshore income.    That would be a fine way to squander his advantage over Barack Obama in fund-raising among the top 10%.    Romney is as likely to jeopardize that as he is to turn down the nomination he will be handed in Tampa.

So, Mitt, follow the advice offered you by Kristol (and demanded of you by the WSJ) and go into detail.    Forget the vague, sometimes misleading references to Obama's failed economic policy and reject the approach of the party's 1968 nominee, who promised merely "peace with honor," with no explanation.    Then watch as you struggle to win 200 electoral votes in November.



                                     
                               

Share |

A Little Harsh On Romney



Frustrated writer, sometime columnist, pundit, and professional neocon William Kristol (who, by the way, looks like he's related to Billy Crystal)  rhetorically asked in his Weekly Standard blog "Is it too much to ask Mitt Romney to get off autopilot and actually think about the race he's running?"

More significantly, the editors of the unofficial house organ of the Republican Party, the Wall Street Journal, ran an editorial maintaining "If Mitt Romney loses his run for the White House, a turning point will have been his decision Monday to absolve President Obama of raising taxes on the middle class."

Responding to the suddenly fashionable hand-wringing from GOP heavyweights about the Romney campaign, Salon's Alex Pareene is right about so much- and wrong on one point.

Pareene correctly notes, "Mitt Romney will definitely accuse Obama of raising taxes" and it is, after all, only early July.     He recognizes as "an awful idea" Kristol's desire "to hear policy specifics from Romney," which the WSJ also suggests for the candidate.  He notices the Journal's "point is actually just to hammer Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom for being sort of feckless and horrible at mesaging, and to let the Romney campaign know that the Journal will be telling them which things to say, thank you very much."    

Recognizing, further, that "Romney, for all his flaws, was the best candidate to face Obama this year," Pareene finds Republicans are "whining how it's harder to beat Obama than thy have always thought it ought to be."   They are gearing up, if Romney is defeated, to blaming the campaign, as well as nomination of the individual generally considered the least conservative candidate.

Top Republicans, including the Wall Street Journal, William Kristol, and Rush Limbaugh, seem to believe that Barack Obama should be easily defeated for re-election.    "The Romney campaign," Pareene argues, is doing the absolute best it can running against an incumbent president who remains broadly popular."     The campaign itself, and the ex-governor as a presidential candidate, have been underrated.    But, as I never get tired of saying, Barack Obama's personal popularity is an urban myth.

Pareene links to Real Clear Politics, which presents favorable-unfavorable results from dozens of surveys since the beginning of the calendar year from various firms.    Although the wording differs slightly- very slightly- from poll to poll, it is typically similar to that in the last (from CNN/Opinion Research), in which respondents are told "We'd like to get your overall opinion of some people in the news. As I read each name, please say if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people -- or if you have never heard of them."

The last eight surveys give the President an average of +6.5, in which there are 6.5% more individuals holding a favorable, than unfavorable, view of Obama.     That might seem mildly impressive until one considers that a) Americans generally like their presidents personally, or at least think they do; 2) some people say, however implausibly, that they like everyone or at least hate no one; and 3) the president is black and it's very uncomfortable for many Caucasians to admit they don't like a black person- especially when his election was an historic first.     (That, ironically, demonstrates how far we have not come in the matter of race relations.); 4) the somewhat positive results seemingly contradict results of other polls pertaining to the President.

Barack Obama is of the United Church of Christ denomination, more generally Protestant, and even more generally Christian.    He was born in the State of Hawaii, of the nation of the United States.   (He even presented, to appropriate fanfare, a long term birth certificate, probably more evidence of birth than any other U.S. President has.)

Why, then, are many Americans unconvinced Barack Obama was born in their own country- and did the Public Religion Research Institute find approximately two months ago that a mere "36% of respondents correctly identify Barack Obama as Protestant or just Christian?"      This is, folks, still largely a nation of Christians, though our values might more correctly be characterized as Judeo-Christian (or instead, in some cases, off-kilter).    Most Americans identify with a Christian denomination, as has every President, to one extent or another.     If these Americans believe Barack Obama may not be a Christian, it's likely they are not enamored of him- and not surprisingly, the ignorance is greatest among white evangelical voters, few of whom are members of the Barack Obama Fan Club.      

Despite doubts about the President's religious affiliation (and nation of birth), Obama holds an advantage in the upcoming election.    But the political victory handed the Administration by Chief Justice Roberts,  as well as the inept response by the Romney camp, are of relatively little import.   Far more significant is the nomination of the GOP of probably its strongest candidate- and the release of six economic reports before Election Day.


Share |

More Than Distortion

It's ironic that The Weekly Standard's William Kristol, once Chief of Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle and now a pundit, would have served (albeit briefly) in the conservative chair of the op-ed section of The New York Times.

That role was held for a long time by William Safire, who also fancied himself, justifiably, as something of an amateur etymologist. For Safire, words were important, and not to be trifled with.

But this morning the Washington Post's website carried a piece by Mr. Kristol in which he claimed

But isn’t health care a crisis? No.

Indeed, the president acknowledged it isn’t: “But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future -- and that is the issue of health care.” In other words, health care -- unlike, say, the financial system a few months ago -- is not in a state of crisis.

So there is no health care crisis.

Mr. Kristol imagines there is no health care crisis. And he imagines that President Obama, in his speech to a joint session of Congress, "acknowledged" there is no health care crisis, stronger than even "implied," which itself would be an inaccurate interpretation.

Here is what Mr. Obama said (emphasis mine), according to Kristol and the transcript of the speech: "But we did not come here just to clean up crises."

"Just"- is not the preferred word here, given that its primary definition is as an adjective, meaning "fair" or thereabouts, rather than as an adverb. But as an adverb it can mean "merely, only" and that is clearly what the President was saying- saying, not just only meaning, but actually saying. Clarified (apparently necessary for Kristol), Obama stated "But we came here for more than to clean up crises."

Odd enough that the fellow's GOP would find the need to promote a health care plan (pdf) of its own absent a crisis. Still, Mr. Kristol is entitled to fantasize about having a health care system that's the finest in the world. But he is not entitled, without rebuttal, intentionally to misinterpret what the President said.