The War Against America Continues

That was no mistake by Senator Kyl. He really did mean to say that tax cuts for the wealthy must be maintained, even if it costs the government $670 billion a year in revenues. And he really did mean to say that unemployment extension can not be passed because it would increase the deficit. As Rachel Maddow pointed out, unemployment generates $1.69 for every buck paid out, while tax cuts for the rich net only $1.06. So which is more stimulating to the economy?

But Ezra Klein coming back from his bummer article on the election has noted quite clearly that what you are seeing is really the GOP's ideological commitment to their past economic policies as a way to destroy government and not to strengthen the economy. There is no more pretending that tax cuts to the wealthy or corporations has anything to do with economic theory or policy.

The new twist in my mind is that the old rhetoric about welfare is now being applied to the unemployed for the first time. Extension of unemployment benefits when the rate of unemployment is so high has been an automatic on a bipartisan basis since 1952. This is the first time there has been a denial of these benefits. Now, the GOP are saying that the unemployed are too lazy to get a job and , in the words of Orrin Hatch, just going to spend their benefits on drugs. So we've now racheted up the rhetoric against Welfare Queens to apply to millions more people. There is a certain racial genious to this: white unemployment is around 8%; Hispanic about 15% and Black about 18%. Since the latter two demographics have been written off by Republicans, all you have to worry about is white and especially white 45 or over.

Diane Rehm had teabaggers on her show yesterday. They were people on social security and receiving naval pensions "for which they worked their whole lives". They repeated the whole teahdist schtick. But they was no irony or self-awareness that they essentially had worked for the government their whole lives and wanted these benefits cut for everyone else.

On top of all this is that state governments face a $220 billion shortfall this year and another $180 billion next year. Without the Federal government stepping in, the entire benefit of the stimulus package will be wiped out. And thousands upon thousands of teachers will be fired and state government services will be dramatically eliminated. As Lawrence Kudlow asked a local government official, "do you have anything to sell?" We can have a firesale of government buildings like in Arizona or the Grand Teton Park in Wyoming.

The Catfood Commission led by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson has uttered a statement that everyone over 58 will get their full social security benefits but the program will have to be changed for younger people. The House Republicans really do want to raise the retirement age to 70. That sounds reasonable if you are working a white collar job and see no prospects of losing your job. If you are blue-collar, it just means you die and lose. Now seniors can apply for jobs at McDonald's as they are doing today to make ends meet--as long as they don't get sick. What was once an entry level job for the young becomes the new safety net for the elderly. And we know that all those white collar folks will really be welcomed as younger workers would like to advance.

I hate to take potshots at my generation but it's quite clear the message to anyone younger is "We got ours, now you fend for yourselves." Trolling the rightwing websites, I noticed an interesting phenomenon the most vitriolic against Obama are people in their early 70s, who want revenge for something someone did to them in the 1960s. On the leftwing websites, you have old arguments from the 1960s being trotted out to refute their brethern across the ideological divide. And luckily, for our generation, are interests are being protected by filthy rich Senators, who will maintain the status quo at all costs. I wonder even if the aging baby bommers even listen to their old music anymore. I think they like to see Paul McCartney because he's had plastic surgery and is rich.

But maybe there are strands of sanity still surviving in the country. Billionaire Pete Peterson's roadshow on the national debt isn't generating the responses he wanted. Majorities polled at these townhall meetings want to adopt the McColm solution for Social Security--raise the FICA salary cap. A Majority wants an additional 5% tax on people earning over $1 million a year. And a Majority want defense spending included in considerations of cutting the deficit. So far, the Cat Food Commission will only own up to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as being the three major debt generating programs. But we can't address the national debt honestly--a loaded word--without tackling the issue of the cost of our empire.

Niall Ferguson, the British enthusiast for our American Empire, told the gathering at Aspen Insitute that the United States will have to make dramatic cuts in social programs over the next two years in order to maintain its position as a world power. Almost the same day, reports came out that Russia spends $88 billion on defense. This gave me the idea that the United States should calculate our nearest competitor in terms of defense outlays and simply accept a formula that we would double it. The Two Times plan would in fact slash our Defense Budget by about $200 billion a year. Any war would be paid for by a war tax. If we're supposed to be a nation at war, then we should pay for it. Remember the phone tax that paid for the Vietnam War? Something similar is called for here. So we're down to Medicare and Medicaid. It's looking easier to dramatically reduce our national debt every moment.

Did Republicans deliberately generate these deficits? For the Reagan years, the answer is yes. The Reagan deficits were aimed at bankrupting the SovietUnion by our escalation in military spending and by restraining any Democratic Administration from embarking on any domestic spending programs. We all remember Bill Clinton eliminating welfare. But the George W. deficits were part design and part chance. The Iraq War was totally under-budgeted by about $1 trillion and the revenue to be generated by tax breaks for the wealthy was totally under-estimated. There was literally no budget considerations for Medicaid Plan D, which costs $5 trillion in the outyears. The deficits were meant as restraining factors to inhibit Democrats. But once the world economy collapsed and our financial system was destroyed because of de-regulation all bets were off.

Instead, what we see today is that the Right has gone back to embrace their ideology of dismantling government as we saw in Thomas Franks'The Wrecking Crew. As we have seen by recent polls of the teahadists, their extreme positions mirror the Republican Party in general. In other words, these people mean what they say about government. And it's really not hypocritical, as long as our entitlements are protected, we don't care what happens to you and your children. That's why is seems so jarring to see elected Republicans double-down on their support for corporations, the big oil companies, banks and tax cuts for the wealthy. That's their world and their financial supporters.

TPM compiled videos of Rand Paul's positions over the years as expressed on a Kentucky PBS station. To the normal viewer, he sounds batty but through the lens of today's GOP he's fairly mainstream. It'll be interesting to see how the average voter takes this. Bob Bennett claims that Mitch McConnell has put a muzzle on Paul so he doesn't keep alienating people.

So now that we are bombarded with reports that independents have abandoned Obama, the blacks don't like him anymore, Hispanics are disillusioned, gays disappointed and the Left disgusted, how's he doing? According to the blarring headlines in today's Washington Post, only 42% of Americans believe his administration makes the rights choices for the country. The Washington Post poll screams that Americans have no confidence in Democrats. They didn't mention that only around 20% of Americans believe that Republican policies are better for America. 60% don't want to return to Bush economic policies, even though Ed Gillespie raved on Sunday talk shows about what a job creator Bush was. The facts actually indicate that W created less jobs than anyone as long as they have kept records--since Truman. And Americans in the high 40s still blame W for the economy.

So how is he doing? Well, according to the Washington Post, Obama's approval rating contnues to plummet to the ground--he's at 50%, only 15% above Reagan at the depth of the recession in the early 1980s. The lack of confidence in the Democrats shows--they have a 1% lead in the generic congressional poll. So, yeah, it is possible that the Republicans can take back the House but even this idea is getting some push back from Beltway pundits, who usually go for anything the herd believes. No one has any idea really.

Meanwhile Hapless Harry Reid seems to have picked up 60 votes to push for the Financial Reform Bill. Today is the vote on cloture again. The vote is scheduled for next week when West Virginia will have a Senator. The Republicans want to go home already so they want to delay a vote on Elena Kagan until after the August recess. As of today, Leahy says the vote will be next week sometime.

Just an aside, students of the Great Depression expect government to take a forceful role in stabilizing the economy and generating employment. But that is not the Republican view anymore. Their real goal in stopping Wall Street Reform is to return to the days prior to the New Deal when the American economy naturally crashed every 20 years. Unfortunately, a natural recovery takes about 10 years.