Why Can't We Say It? Republicans are the Problem

Here's a good piece from the Wapo.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.
The post-McGovern Democratic Party, by contrast, while losing the bulk of its conservative Dixiecrat contingent in the decades after the civil rights revolution, has retained a more diverse base. Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.

I've been pushing this idea for a while, and I remind my readers of two things I've been saying:

1. The Republican party has clearly moved far to the Right on many many issues over the past 15 years, from Climate Change to Taxes to Immigration to Abortion/contraception, etc.  The Democratic party, by contrast, has not moved further Left on any issue except gay rights, and even there it's been very slow.  I've challenged conservative correspondents and the many thousands of readers of this blog to disprove this point, and nobody has even tried.
2. The article I linked to above talks about the filibuster use and how the media should be reminding the public what a huge change in governing this has brought about thanks to unprecedented Republican use of it.  Here I repeat my prediction that if the GOP gains the presidency and the Sentate, and the Democrats start to use the filibuster in the same way the Republicans have for the past three years, the Republicans are just going to end the filibuster entirely and change the rules.  This will be met with much gnashing of teeth by pundits, but it's what Democrats should have done in 2009.  If Democrats somehow hold on to the Senate and presidency, the filibuster needs to be ended, but unfortunately liberals are too lily-livered to do it.

Austerity vs. Stimulus Again

In a (perhaps futile) effort to get past my confirmation bias on economic theory, I've been tracking the relative outcomes associated with western countries that instituted austerity vs stimulus measures. A few months back I was pointed to an article questioning whether the UK had actually done austerity. I was wondering about that in light of this, a news item reporting that the UK is officially in recession again. I searched a bit to see whether I could find whether the country had actually instituted austerity.

So has the UK cut spending in an attempt to balance their budget and promote growth? Yes:

At the start of its term in 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has announced the biggest cuts in state spending since World War II.

Savings are estimated at about £83bn are to be made over four years. The plan is to cut 490,000 public sector jobs. Most Whitehall departments face budget cuts of 19% on average. The retirement age is to rise from 65 to 66 by 2020.

The budget deficit is about 10% of GDP and unemployment - officially 2.67 million (8.4%) - is at its highest level since 1994.

In the 2012 budget, Chancellor George Osborne announced several measures to ease taxes - including a 5% cut to the top rate of tax and a rise in the personal income tax allowance threshold.

However, he also cut the personal income tax allowance pensioners receive, reduced child benefit and raised taxes on tobacco and other items.

Public anger over the cuts has grown. More than 250,000 people demonstrated in London in March 2011 - the city's biggest protest since the 2003 Iraq war.

Protest camps sprang up in cities across the UK towards the end of 2011, echoing similar "occupy" sit-ins around the world.

Now maybe there's another way to look at the UK's government spending; maybe they didn't really do austerity like this piece says. But if not, this is a strong data point for Keynesian formulations. The UK is a great example to counterpose with the US because over there austerity was not required by anyone (as in Spain or Ireland, where the ECB gave them no choice), and of course the UK has its own currency like the US so monetary options are on the table unlike in the EU.

It's not a perfect comparison of course- for one thing, the US hasn't continued to do stimulus and has endured severe government spending cuts at the state and local levels- but it's still worth watching.

Social Security's Fake Crisis- UPDATED

Digby points me to this article about how the media has changed the shaping of the narrative around Social Security to reflect the talking points of right wingers who are opposed to the program.  It reminds me again about how idiotic the whole debate is around Social Security in the US.

There are lots of problems here that are really hard to solve.  Medicare is projected to break the bank if we can't rein in spending, for example.  But Social Security is easy, and there are a bunch of ways we can take its solvency past 2036 (it doesn't run out of money until then).  We can:

1. Raise the ceiling of contributions for people making more than $106,000 (currently we only pay SS taxes on the first $106K of income- if we raised that to the first $140K we could solve the problem right there, nice and clean- that's my favorite solution).  But if you don't like that, we could:
2. Raise the retirement age
3. Decrease benefits to 80% of current levels
4. Raise the contribution for everyone
5. Means-test the program (my least favorite solution- the program is now for all of us, which helps all of us support it)
6. Some combination of 1-5

So there's just no crisis.  Simply put, there is a problem with many solutions, all of which would work, but all of which have positives and negatives.  Unfortunately, the media and the Common Wisdom inside the beltway keep dragging us through the crisis swamp.

UPDATE: Just stumbled upon this post from Kevin Drum explaining ways to fix social security.

America's Ongoing Shame

Every once in a while, when I'm feeling ready for some self-flagellation, I read me some Glenn Greenwald.  This week's post reminds us again about the Obama administration's use of extra-judicial killings in the War on Terror.

There are many evils in the world, but extinguishing people’s lives with targeted, extra-judicial killings, when you don’t even know their names, based on “patterns” of behavior judged from thousands of miles away, definitely ranks high on the list.

The Obama administration claims the right to use drones to kill people, even American citizens, in faraway places based on intelligence gathered by the CIA and NSA, subject to no review whatsoever.  The logical extension of this argument is that an American administration can kill any person at any time that it believes is a threat.  How do we know they're a threat?  We just have to trust the government to decide.

And on this topic there's no meaningful debate in the US at all.  As Greenwald reminds us, liberals and Democrats support this policy too.  Obama has taken Bush's evisceration of civil liberties in the War on Terror and doubled down on them in a rank display of presidential power.  And there's no opposition except on the fringes of American politics.

Since I'm easily accused of being an Obama toady, let me just say that on the topic of drone attacks and military actions in the Global War on Terror, the administration is outrageously and sickeningly wrong.  It's too bad there's no way to express that in our current system, in which Obama's opposition criticize his actions..... as being too peacenik.

Whoa, Mexico

A quick thought and question to see if anyone reads this:

Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico, where his father had brought the family to live in a Mormon community that included polygamy.  The family previously lived in the states, so this was just a short sojourn in the big scheme of things.

But I thought George Romney was a candidate for president in the 1960s.  How could that be if he wasn't born here?

I guess this Wikipedia article explains it, but that's not exactly defnitive.  It's totally new to me that George Romney was considered eligible as a "natural born citizen" even though he clearly wasn't.  In light of the Kenyan Birther stuff, it brings in all kinds of angles.

Doesn't really matter at all, but I was just wondering....

Can't Get Past the Crazy

I was thinking today about a problem in the political discourse that I lose sight of sometimes: namely that the source of much of my frustration is that I can't get past the Crazy.

What I mean by that is that I want to have thoughtful and civil arguments with people on the Right, in which I acknowledge the value of their points of view and they acknowledge the same for me, even as we continue to disagree because, in the end, we have different priorities.

But I can't get to that because the Right has gone crazy.  To wit:

• The argument over the federal budget should be something like this: liberals want to increase taxes more than cut spending to balance the budget, because we value spending on the social welfare state, while conservatives want to cut the welfare state in favor of lower taxes.  But when I try to get to that, I find the Right arguing that any tax hike at all is the End of Civilization, even though tax rates are the lowest they've been in many years.  They can't even acknowledge that there are two sides to the deficit equation.
• There's just no question that the Republican party has moved way to the Right over the last few election cycles.  Mitt Romney was the "conservative" in 2008, and now he's the squishy moderate- while his stated positions have moved to the Right!  The honest argument a Republican can make is to acknowledge that and defend it- "yes, we moved right, and thank God!  We want to experiment by forming a modern economy with a much smaller welfare state and with much lower tax rates on the wealthy- we think it will lead to so much growth that we won't need the welfare state very much anyway because everyone will be able to get a job".  But instead I hear how the problem is that Obama and the Democrats are socialists, dedicated to redistributing wealth and creating equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity.  A Democrat "move to the Left" is a matter of faith, notwithstanding the lack of evidence.
• The honest conservative argument on global climate change is that we can't afford to make the changes that would be required to make a difference in production of greenhouse gases, and that economic growth is just too important to imperil through untested technologies.  Instead we get the canard that Global Warming is a hoax being perpetrated by greedy scientists so they can get more funding.
• The Trayvon Martin case brought up race relations again.  The honest conservative argument is that we're putting too much emphasis on race, that progress is being made against racism, and that conservatives share liberals' disdain for racism and denounce it when found among their supporters.  But what I hear is that the only racism issue left in the US is that of Black Nationalists who hate White people.  I asked a particularly rabid Right wing correspondent of mine if he thought George Zimmerman was a racist, and he couldn't bring himself to say it.  But admitting that he's a racist doesn't undercut any conservative arguments at all- it gives conservatives a chance to join with liberals and denounce racism.  But they won't.
• The honest argument against the Affordable Care Act is that health care just isn't a right, or that it's too expensive to provide, or that funding it for poor people will pull too much money out of the system and imperil the "greatest health care in the world" that exists for the rest of us.  Instead we get ridiculous arguments about the individual mandate being unconstitutional, or canards about Death Panels.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  I'd love to have a debate about what a civilized society should provide through the government and what it shouldn't provide.  Instead, I'm swatting away CrazyFlies.

Justice Slowed is Still Not Justice Denied

I'm really pleased to see that Trayvon Martin's killer, George Zimmerman, has now been arrested and charged with 2nd Degree Murder.  I want to say that I'm fine with the police taking a long time to do this (though I don't really understand the delay)- it's not in the cause of justice to rush to judgment, and I always think of things like the Duke Lacrosse Team scandal when the public is out for blood.

I'll be interested to see how the trial turns out.  I remain open to the possibility that some new information will give this case a new twist, but here's something to keep in mind: Zimmerman seems like a very dangerous man, and having him off the streets definitely makes those streets safer.

OK I Admit It- Republicans are Courageous

As I keep reading the reports of Republican proposals on the budget, I've been struck by something: yes Republicans are mendacious, lying constantly about Obama's policies and past behavior, and yes they've carefully been cute about what they want to cut in their budget (no specifics, so they can complain when Obama denounces cuts to Head Start that would have to be part of it).

But overall, the Ryan plan, which has been adopted by Mitt Romney, is a pretty stark description of where the far right wants to take this country.  Huge tax cuts for upper incomes.  Increased defense spending.  Medicare turned into a voucher system with no guarantee of full benefit coverage.  Social Security with reduced benefits to seniors.  And although they don't specify other cuts, the clear implication is the dismantling of the modern social welfare state in the US.

I don't say this as an hysterical or outrageous statement; it's just a statement of fact- that's what the Ryan budget would mean, and when I talk to the informed rabid right wingers I know, that's what they say they want- no more Food Stamps, no more welfare, etc.  They also want a huge reduction in regulation of all industries, meaning the FDA would be weakened, pollution controls would be loosened, etc.

Look, a lot of Americans really do want to end these programs.  The stuff for the poor they see as helping lazy shiftless leeches.  They see government red tape, which is indeed a big burden on businesses, as not worth the corresponding safety is ensures.

I'd like to see this next election as a referendum on the Republican vision for our future.  I honestly don't know how Americans will vote on such a referendum.  Obviously I'm in favor of the welfare state, but I wonder if enough Americans are.  Let's have an honest debate about that.  Through all the Republican lies, there is space there for an honest debate- bring it on!

Centrism, with a Bonus on Mendacity

Following up on yesterday's post, here's Krugman today making a similar point about the center as it relates to Paul Ryan.  Basically the point is that Ryan is seen by squishy centrists as one of the "reasonable" ones even though his policy proposals are breathtakingly radical not to mention completely unworkable (balancing budgets through magic asterisks, like saying he'll make up for the huge reduction in tax rates by closing unspecified loopholes in the tax code).

Why is Ryan seen this way when he's as radical as anyone on the Right?  Well, I think it's mostly a matter of style.  Romney benefits from this too- they're just not firebreathing personalities, a la Gingrich or Michele Bachman or Lindsay Graham.  I can understand why people look at them that way- they just seem nicer and more reasonable than the "radicals".

And they probably are nicer.  My guess is that Paul Ryan is calmer kinder than Newt Gingrich.  He's probably a good father, he probably doesn't cheat on his wife.  But his policies are unquestionably as radical as anything that Sarah Pailin stands for.  Pundits need to be smart enough to understand the difference between style and substance.  Paul Ryan is not a centrist.

As an extra bonus today, this compendium of lies by Mitt Romney in just one week is amazing.  His mendacity is just breathtaking in its scope.  Democrats have got to take him to task on this issue- after all, Al Gore was targeted by Republicans as a liar based on practically nothing outside of association with Bill Clinton.  But what's needed, of course, is for this meme to take hold outside of the world of MSNBC and Daily Kos.  If we had a press that wasn't completely cowed by right wingers attacking it for left wing bias, we might get that- I'm not optimistic.

Useful Idiot David Brooks

David Brooks at the New York Times is considered a moderate pundit, but he puts out columns that in some ways make me more infuriated than anything coming from the hard right.  It's not that he's in favor of crazy policies or that he scores cheap political points; it really comes from the way he defnes himself and the way common political wisdom defines "the sensible center"- as the political center point between the two poles, no matter whether one of the poles is completely insane.  The centrist punditocracy just can't seem to accept this into their worldview- they search for comity, they want "people to work together", and then when an important Democrat points out that the other side is dedicated to policies that are terrible, the Democrat is punished for being too "partisan".

Today's column is a great case in point.  He starts off bemoaning how Obama comes off when he's being critical of the Ryan budget.

It should be said at the outset that the Ryan budget has some disturbing weaknesses, which Democrats are right to identify. The Ryan budget would cut too deeply into discretionary spending. This could lead to self-destructive cuts in scientific research, health care for poor kids and programs that boost social mobility. Moreover, the Ryan tax ideas are too regressive. They make tax cuts for the rich explicit while they hide any painful loophole closings that might hurt Republican donors.

But these legitimate criticisms and Obama’s modest but real deficit-reducing accomplishments got buried under an avalanche of distortion. The Republicans have been embarrassing themselves all primary season. It’s as if Obama wanted to sink to their level in a single hour.

First, there was his tone. Obama cast himself as the fiscal moderate who embraced the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles approach. (Perhaps we were all asleep during the Simpson-Bowles-Obama consciousness tour.) Then he unleashed every 1980s liberal cliché in the book, calling the Republicans a bunch of trickle-down, Trojan horse-bearing social Darwinists.

OK, let's start with the "fiscal moderate" meme.  Who is more moderate fiscally, right now, the party that has proposed closing the budget deficit with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases (from a current tax rate that is at its lowest level in decades), or the party that has just proposed cutting the deficit without any tax hikes at all, requiring cuts that would basically end nearly all discetionary spending?

Now it's true that the "trickle down economics" thing is an '80s liberal cliche, but it's also completely true right now.  The Ryan budget destroys the social safety net and counts on wealth trickling down to the masses- that's the plan!  When you propose turning government into little more than a defense force plus some services for the elderly, you're saying pretty explicitly that the poor will need to fend for themselves- that's Social Darwinism as far as I'm concerned.  (Jon Chait puts it well here).

Brooks goes on to point out that the Obama and Ryan budget proposals aren't that different in terms of how they'll affect the deficit.

Obama exaggerated these normal-sized differences into a Manichaean chasm. Under Ryan, Obama charged, 10 million college students would get their financial aid cut by $1,000, Alzheimer’s research would be slashed, 200,000 children would lose their chance to enter Head Start.

Where did Obama get these specifics? He imagined them. He imposed some assumptions that are nowhere to be found in the Ryan budget. He compared Ryan’s reduced spending increases with proposed growth, not current levels.

Now why would Obama have to make up specifics? Because the Ryan plan doesn't give any specifics!  It refers to hikes in defense spending, deep tax cuts, continued spending on entitlements, elimination of unnamed tax breaks, and making up the difference by reducing overall spending by a massive amount.  When one does the Math, it means that the programs Obama is talking about have to be cut out.  Saying so isn't hyperbole.

Then the president turned to Ryan’s Medicare proposal. The Ryan plan, he charged, “will ultimately end Medicare as we know it.”

In 2011, when Ryan first proposed a version of this budget, Politifact, the truth-checking outfit, honored this claim with its “Lie of the Year” award. Since then, the Ryan Medicare proposal has become more moderate and much better. Obama’s charge is even more groundless.

Well, Ryan's plan does end Medicare as we know it, and proposes changing it into a very different program in which seniors get a voucher to purchase health insurance instead of getting the health insurance directly from the government.  If they can't afford the difference between the two, then they won't have health insurance.  That sure sounds like a big change to me.

As I say, I have my own problems with Ryan’s plan, which Obama identified. But Ryan has at least taken a big step toward an eventual fiscal solution. He’s proposed necessary structural entitlement reforms, which the Democrats are unwilling to do. He’s proposed real tax reform, which the Democrats are also unwilling to do.

The first truth is that we will have to do these big things to avoid a fiscal calamity. The second truth is there is no one party solution; there has to be a merger of respectable ideas. The third truth is that gimmicky speeches obscure the president’s best character and make it seem as if he doesn’t understand the scope of the calamity looming in front of us.

This just makes me want to tear my hair out.   Ryan's plan is completely unworkable.  It's not a big step toward a solution to the deficit because it includes tax cuts that increase the deficit, and then use much of the rest of the plan to compensate for those revenue cuts with even more spending cuts.

We have to do things to avoid a fiscal calamity, but it's not all that complicated.  If Congress just does nothing the medium-term deficit goes down considerably. 

The fact is that the solutions to our budget problems are staring us in the face: a combination of spending cuts and the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts.  That's actually a moderate solution.  It's proposed by the center-Left.  Centrists like David Brooks should be pointing out that Republicans are refusing to compromise to solve this problem, but instead they throw out this crap.