Paul Ryan To The Elderly: Drop Dead

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin wants to cut elderly people out the size of the national deficit and debt and thinks he has found a way to do it. The ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee thereby has become a darling of the conservative GOP establishment, kind of a wonkish Scott Brown, or maybe Brown without the centerfold.

The idea is that fiscal sanity can be achieved only by curbing the growth of federal entitlements- Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, an idea the Washington media and political establishment embraces. For Medicare, that means vouchers which elderly people (“seniors” are what your sons and daughters will be after their junior year of high school or college) would use to pay for health care, whose costs have been rising faster than the rate of inflation.

The linchpin of Ryan's proposal is that the voucher would grow more slowly than medical costs. In scoring (PDF) this proposal, part of the euphemistically-named "Roadmap for America's Future Act of 2010," the Congressional Budget Office found it is "indexed to grow at a rate halfway between the general inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), and the rate of price inflation for medical care, as measured by the consumer price index for medical care (CPI-M).” While per capita spending is expected to grow at an annual rate of nearly 5% over the next 75 years, the value of the voucher, according to the CBO, would grow at an annual rate of 2.7 percent.

Health care costs will rise, the value of the voucher not so much. Although federal spending on health care obviously would decline, the CBO notes enrollees’ spending for health care and the "uncertainty" surrounding that spending would increase. Spending would increase for two reasons noted by the CBO: Medicare’s current payment rates for providers are lower than those paid by commercial insurers, and the program’s administrative costs are lower than those for individually purchased insurance.

And for a third reason: when customers are pursuing insurance with a greater number of dollars, insurance rates likely would rise for that reason alone. Subsidies sometimes are necessary; requiring the purchase of health insurance, the Democrats' health care plan would be doomed to failure without subsidies (and is problematic with them). But they will increase the asking price of a policy.

Ryan here embraces the holy grail of conservatism, ""free-market" principles. He tells the Washington Post's Ezra Klein "This sector isn't immune from free-market principles." (Funny, isn't it- when asked about the public option, which would have offered competition to the insurance industry and thereby lowered insurance costs, Representative Ryan and his compatriots were conveniently silent about "free-market principles.")

Democrats, of course, don't have to take this lying down, though having recently seen their Senate majority shrivel to a mere 18, they may do so. But in the House, two Representatives already have introduced a resolution expressing the chamber's commitment to resist privatization of Social Security, another part of Ryan's "road map." Republicans can choose, in effect, to renounce a prominent member's plan- or go on record wanting to begin eviscerating arguably the most popular federal program ever.

The same approach could be taken to Ryan's privatization scheme for Medicare, another program that serves elderly people well, notwithstanding the efforts of the private health insurance industry to bankrupt America and take the program down with it. Under his scheme, if health care costs rise more than 2.7% per year- which they will- additional costs would not be covered.

The CBO explains it as "Beneficiaries would therefore be likely to purchase less comprehensive health plans or plans more heavily managed than traditional Medicare, resulting in some combination of less use of health care services and less use of technologically advanced treatments than under current law." Matthew Yglesias explains it as "If grandma’s got a bunch of money, then she can spend her money. If not, then the plug is pulled."

Now, that's a death panel.

Attacking Obama, Rush Scorns Christianity

This past week, President Obama made his second off-handed remark about the character of the Las Vegas, Nevada business community, pointing out

You don't go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don't blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you're trying to save for college.

That is undeniably true, as was his remark a year ago to fat-cat bankers "You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime." (Actually, they could, but that was the problem.)

Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday charged

He's gotta have something in for Las Vegas. Maybe he lost a bunch of money there. Maybe got rolled by a hooker there. I don't know what it is, something happened.

If he did, it must have occurred several years ago, for, in the run-up in January 2008 to the Nevada caucus/primary, the Los Angeles Times reported

Barack Obama has warned about the dangers of gambling -- that it carries a "moral and social cost" that could "devastate" poor communities. As a state senator in Illinois, he at times opposed plans to expand gambling, worrying that it could be especially harmful to low-income people.


So Barack Obama has been right about gambling at least three times. Probably Rush has been right about gambling at least once- say, when a Democratic politician has defended the practice- but given Limbaugh's preference for high-stakes gambling on Wall Street, his partiality to gambling generally is understandable.

But if his remark about prostitutes and the President of the United States is glaringly loathsome, Rush was more ironic when in the same riff he curiously remarked

By the way, I'm just saying, just a little side note here, but gambling is forbidden in the Koran. Just a little aside. Just saying.... And again the Koran prohibits -- gambling is forbidden in the Koran, I'm just saying.

Your first reaction might be- should be: Why doesn't he just come right out and claim that the President is a Muslim?

Fair enough (the reaction, not the charge). Rush may have no evidence- but that doesn't matter- it has never stopped him before. But what's stunning is the implication that Obama may be a Muslim (or at least Muslim-lite) on the basis that he's critical of gambling!

There is nothing un-Christian about gambling, you protest, and point out there is nothing in the Holy Bible about gambling. Admittedly, gambling is not mentioned (nor, for that matter, is abortion). But if not unmistakable that gambling runs counter to biblical principles, it is barely mistakable (as against the promotion of gambling, which is unmistakablly antithetical to Christian principles). The Old and New Testaments are the dominant expressions of Judeo-Christian principles, and Rush has no objection to individuals being Christian. Or Jewish. Just not Muslim.

This website notes that Scripture contains only disdain for the love of money, as in:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs (1 Timothy 6:10, NIV).

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV).

Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless (Ecclesiastes 5:10, NIV). (For more on Ecclesiastes, see video below).

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, NIV).

The get-rich-quit mentality comes in for its share of criticism:

Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow (Proverbs 13:11, NIV).

A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20, ESV).

And Paul kind of wraps it up in the 31st verse of the tenth chapter of the first book of Corinthians: "Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."

This doesn't mean that Rush Limbaugh is not a Christian. Or that gambling, even promiscuously, consigns one to Hell (it doesn't, and couldn't). Or even that Barack Obama is not a Muslim, although belonging to a Protestant Christian church seems a little incompatible with the Islamic faith. It just means that for Rush Limbaugh, Christianity, or abortion, gay rights, or guns, or wars and the military are just so much background noise. It's that a zeal for gambling in Las Vegas (though relatively inconsequential) is entirely harmonious with that other passion of the talk show host, the gambling that our corporate titans so avidly pursued until they brought the American economic system to the brink of collapse. And nothing else gives Rush such a rush.

I'm just saying.




next up: unknown, but at least it won't be Rush.

Gambling A Moral Virtue To Rush Limbaugh

Conservative syndicated columnist George F. Will, before he lost his mind, wrote on May 8, 1989 ("In the Grip of Gambling")

Aggressive government marketing of gambling gives a legitimizing imprimatur to the pursuit of wealth without work (which) repudiates an idea once important to this republic's sense of virtue. The idea is that citizens are distinguished more by the moral worth of the way they make money than by how much money they make.

No one can accuse President Obama of "aggressive government marketing of gambling." In February of last year, the President remarked

We’re going to do something to strengthen the banking system. You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime. There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility.

The President returned to the subject a few days ago at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, commenting

When times are tough, you tighten your belts...You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Representative Shelley Berkley, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid weren't amused. And barely had Obama finished prostrating himself for his comment, Rush Limbaugh chimed in:

And everybody says I shouldn't say it but I gotta tell you the way it is, this president is a real slow learner. There's politics in everything Obama does. He was off the teleprompter yesterday, at least for that comment, or maybe -- I don't know if he was. But could it be -- you tell me -- because I don't understand this. He's gotta have something in for Las Vegas. Maybe he lost a bunch of money there. Maybe got rolled by a hooker there. I don't know what it is, something happened.

Limbaugh, suggesting the President may have gotten "rolled by a hooker there," obviously is implying that Obama frequented (frequents?) prostitutes. But let's not get sidetracked. Rush added

Las Vegas is the seat, you know, like Hong Kong is big capitalism in China. Las Vegas is capitalism on steroids in the United States. That could be why he doesn't like it.

It's ironic, perhaps, that Limbaugh refers to Las Vegas approvingly as "capitalism on steroids in the United States" (insert Oxycontin joke here.) America's major financial institutions gamble with the money of their middle-class customers, and Rush pronounces his blessing. Las Vegas is ground-zero of America's gambling culture, and Rush praises it. And Limbaugh does both for the same reason: he believes, as Will would have described it, that citizens are distinguished more by how much money they make than by the moral worth of the way they make money.


next up: Rush says something curious about gambling and Obama.

Mel Gibson, At It Again

He's at it again! Yes, it's Mel Gibson who, in July, 2006 was arrested for Driving Under the Influence in Malibu, California referred to "f****** Jews," and told the Jewish arresting officer, "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" and "are you a Jew?"

After successfully completing a three-year term of probation, the celebrated actor convinced a judge in October to expunge the record of his arrest. However, Gibson's character was on display in an interview recently held to promote his newest film, Edge of Darkness. CNN reports (video below)

In a video that has now gone viral, Gibson let an expletive slip while he was still wearing a microphone and appearing on camera for a segment on Chicago's WGN-TV with reporter Dean Richards.

Richards asked Gibson if he felt like he was "a different person, a better person," than he was four or five years ago, noting that the actor has "had a lot of ups and downs" since then....

During the interview with Richards, Gibson responded that the past few years have been "a real roller coaster ride," but said he thinks he's the same person he always was.

Richards then asked Gibson if he felt the public would receive him differently, at which point Gibson became visibly agitated.

"That's been almost four years, dude," he told Richards. "I've moved on. But I guess you haven't." Richards said he just wondered whether Gibson thought the public had moved on, to which Gibson replied, "Well, I certainly hope so. That was a while back, and I've done all the necessary mea culpas, so ... let's move on, dude."

Richards wrapped up the interview with a standard thank-you-for-coming, and Gibson, drinking coffee, gave the reporter a thumbs-up before muttering a loud-and-clear "a--hole" right into his mic before the satellite feed was cut.

Shortly before this incident, Gibson had been asked by Sam Rubin, a reporter with a CNN affiliate, about the impact of the earlier anti-Semitic comments on his absence from acting. Gibson denied the remarks and asked "I gather you have a dog in this fight?" (for which he later apologized).

At the time, Gibson blamed his behavior in the drunken driving incident on alcoholism. That episode, as well as Gibson's most recent remark, suggests a distaste for Jews, which may or may not be connected with his apparent membership in the extremist, Roman Catholic offshoot Opus Dei.

This is not a mere PC problem, and goes far beyond Rahm Emanuel's recent use of the word "retarded" (combined with an obscenity). It's not only anti-Semitism with Gibson; it may also be something more common, but more intrinsic to his personality. On his blog, Richards wrote

You've probably seen the interview by now. It was pleasant enough for the first half but as my questions became more challenging, his tone and even physical demeanor changed. I asked about his 7 year absence. I asked if he is a changed person as a result of the time off that he described. When I asked if the he thought the public would perceive him differently, that's when the tide really turned.

He used his stock "I've gotten past all that, you should too, dude" line that I heard him use on other reporters who dared to ask a tough question. He clearly became angry and confrontational. That was not my hope. I just wanted to learn what he had learned since his troubles.

"I've gotten past all that, you should too, dude." "Let's move on, dude." Gibson wasn't physically present for his interview with the WGN reporter, but those remarks are all too consistent with his behavior in 2006 at the scene and at the police station. Without delving into psychobabble, this is a rude, belligerent bully (probably the major parallel to Emanuel). Richards explained

I didn't brow beat him. I didn't make a judgment on him. I didn't dredge out all of the details of his "incidents" until he pretended like he didn't know what I was talking about and asked me what I meant. Apparently, he thought I'd back off.

It may not be surprising that Gibson figures he's entitled to such behavior. Reuters reported

In the incident in 2006, "Gibson was permitted to leave the sheriff's station in Malibu without providing a palm print or signing a statement promising to appear in court as required. A sheriff's sergeant also gave Gibson a ride to a tow yard to retrieve his car without clearing with it station commanders."

Sheriff's officers were disciplined, but California politicians got the message. Powerful celebrities in Hollywood are not to be trifled with. Wikipedia reports

As a result of the circumstances surrounding Gibson’s arrest, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, proposed legislation ("Mel's Law") that would criminalize the sale of privileged information pertaining to the arrests of high-profile suspects. The lawmaker argued that Mel Gibson's due process rights were violated by the unauthorized leak of prejudicial allegations before he had received due process. Bill AB920 was approved unanimously by both the California state assembly in May 2007 and the state senate in September 2007, and the bill was signed into law by the governor in October 2007.

Privilege will be served. Under pressure, Rahm Emanuel apologizes, and the White House scurries about to satisfy the demands of the Special Olympics folks. Whether there is a similar reaction to Mel Gibson, a serial offender, we'll find out in the next several days.

Rahm, Rush, And Sarah

Oh, there are several reasons that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel should be fired.

Take for instance the August 4, 2008 Common Purpose meeting in which Emanuel called MoveOn "f*****g retarded" for deciding to run commercials against three Blue Dog Democrats for having voted against the House Energy and Commerce Committee health care bill.

You might think, on reflection, that it's odd (or slightly ungrateful) for a guy to condemn a progressive group promoting progressive values by supporting health care reform that he himself supported. However, there was little outrage over his comment then, and the mainstream media continues assiduously to avoid examining Emanuel's sordid role in this administration.

But if Emanuel's comment was appalling (and not only for use of the adjective, but also for the adverb), it has brought out the worst in Sarah Palin. No, not the worst- that would truly be horrifying; rather, the wit and wisdom of the woman who apparently couldn't handle the job of small-state governor.

The former V.P. nominee on her Facebook page on Monday remarked

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.

Surely, Governor Palin will similarly slam Rush Limbaugh, who on Wednesday repeatedly and joyfully employed the "slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities":

Folks, there is so much apologizing going on from members of this administration, it's just amazing. First place, there's Rahm Emanuel out there who is in big trouble for calling liberals, for calling liberal activists F-ing retards. Sarah Palin demanded that he be fired. Instead, he is apologizing to liberal activists. He was getting mad at them about health care. The liberal activists kept blaming the White House for all this health care debacle not happening and not getting done. Emanuel's getting ticked off out there saying, (paraphrasing) "What are you blaming us for? We didn't do anything about it, you F-ing retards." I think the big news is the crack-up going on. But our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are "retards," "retards." I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are Looney Tunes. I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm just quoting Emanuel. It's in the news. I think the big news is that he's out there calling Obama's number one supporters "F-ing retards."

So now there's going to be a meeting, there's going to be a "Retard" Summit at the White House, much like the Beer Summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

Fortunately, because Sarah Palin is no hypocrite she will waste no time calling for Limbaugh to end his program and surrender his microphone. Or not, given her response to the Fort Hood shooting, reported by Matthew Continetti in The Weekly Standard in November:

Palin blamed a culture of political correctness and other decisions that "prevented -- I'm going to say it -- profiling" of someone with Hasan's extremist ideology. "I say, profile away," Palin said. Such political correctness, she continued, "could be our downfall."

Sarah Palin, apparently, was against political correctness before she was for it.

Rush Turns His Attention To Sex

Rush Limbaugh had sex on his mind on Tuesday's program- and not only by continuing to boast about having been a judge at Saturday's Miss America pageant. He commented about a study reported in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine which seemed to indicate the superiority of abstinence-only education to a comprehensive approach. He declared

Finally they've researched it, and they found with young people, a sex education class focusing on abstinence works. The feminists hate that. The left hates that. They say, "You're not going to be able to stop kids from having sex! You're just not going to be able to stop it!" Okay, so let's teach 'em how then. They give them condoms and that's sex education. This is a federal study. Of course it only makes sense: Abstinence works every time it's tried. I mean, it's silly to dispute that, and it's also wrong-headed to get so angry about it. But they do, on the left.

Here we have 662 African-American children from four public schools in a northeastern city from 2001 to 2004 assigned to either: an 8-hour abstinence-only program; an 8-hour safer-sex-only program; an 8- or 12-hour program that combined both or an 8-hour control group that focused on non-sex related health issues.

Rush had it partially right: The Christian Science Monitor reports

In the group receiving abstinence-only education, 33 percent began having sex over the next two years, compared with 47 percent of those in the control group. Among the other groups, 52 percent of those taught only about safe sex became sexually active within two years, as did 42 percent of those in the comprehensive program.

But he left out a few details. The abstinence-only program

counseled children to delay sex “until they are ready” rather than until marriage, avoided a moralistic tone, and was careful not to disparage condom use, and to help children get rid of misconceptions about contraceptives if the subject came up during discussion.

Further, the youngsters had an average age of 12, an unusually young age to study for sexual activity, and they were followed for only two years. There was no way to determine, therefore, the degree and nature of sexual activity practiced by the young people when they reached the ripe old age of, say, 15, by which time some may have developed a more cynical attitude toward what they were taught.

The abstinence-only program employed was developed strictly for the study, whose results ran counter to evidence previously available. But given that only factual information was taught, it probably would qualify for federal funding under this administration's criteria, that the teen pregnancy program be evidence-based. Ultimately (depending on the results of continuing research and policy adopted) this may be the one thing this program most clearly demonstrates- that this President is, above all, a pragmatist, adhering to no set of dogma (or principles) but rather to what he believes will work.

Abdication

Blogger extraordinaire Digby has a post up today about how the Democratic Party failed to recognize the building popular revulsion at the bailout of financial institutions represented by TARP. Now, with the election in Massachusetts of the banks' front man as U.S. Senator

The Democrats either didn't see that (or chose to ignore it) and foolishly went on to allow this populism to get caught up in health care reform and tie the agenda up in knots. We watched it, aghast, every day.

In September of 2008, she recalls, she was

watching Pelosi and Reid, Frank and Dodd stand there all by themselves taking "credit" for this bill. They are handing out plaudits to all the others who "helped" them get it done like members of "the Hills" at the MTV awards.

All that is true, and turned out probably to be bad policy- and clearly bad politics. Democrats now are being blamed for the bank bailout (supported by many members of both parties), resurrection of huge bonuses to bank executives (while Republicans oppose the bank tax proposed by Obama), raising taxes (though they have been lowered for most working Americans), the stimulus package (averting a depression), "big government" (allowing financial institutions to resume risky investments that brought us to the brink of that depression), and the decline of the Roman Empire (or at least of this country). But the identification in the minds of the American people of the Democratic Party with Wall Street has had little to do with the House Speaker, the Senate Majority Leader, the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, or the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

Someone else is much more responsible, though we can be confident Chris Matthews won't hold him accountable. Firedoglake's Jane Hampshire explains

Back in the day (2008) the unions were waging aggressive campaigns against private equity groups that were buying up companies, slashing their staffs, breaking their union contracts, selling off their assets and reaping millions. They led the way on the issues of corporate governance, Wall Street accountability and the Bush bailout that gave banks a blank check.

But just as the tea parties were getting going in April of 2009, the White House met with bankers in the wake of the AIG scandal who told them to put the kibosh on the harsh anti-bank rhetoric.

The banks’ message: If you want our help to get credit flowing again to consumers and businesses, stop the rush to penalize our bonuses.

And so calls went out from the White House to the unions to put a pin in it (they were holding EFCA over their heads).

They did.

Which left the field wide open for the tea parties (who were being heavily juiced by Fox News) to reap all of the economic discontent. “Our side” abandoned the field.

I remember standing out in front of the White House with Bill Greider, David Swanson, Jason Rosenbaum and three Code Pink people for the protest organized by A New Way Forward in April, the day before the tea party protests began. Bill and I shook our heads and said “this is bad.” There was no institutional support coming from liberal groups whatsoever.

And for millions of people justifiably pissed at the banks, the tea parties became the only game in town.

Congressional leaders and the unions bear some blame, of course. They could have stood tall for the party's traditional principles, defending the middle class against corporate greed. But they seem to have staked everything on the popularity of the neo-liberal in the White House, which seems to be O.K. with him. Politico reports a story told to a reporter from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by retiring U.S. Representative Marion Berry (D.-Ark), who warned the Administration of impending Democratic Congressional losses in 2010:

I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’

The President's complacence, naivete, or disinterest already helped drag Martha Coakley down to defeat. And as Digby notes, "It's not clear to me how the Dems catch up, but they'd better come up with something quick if November isn't going to be a bloodbath."