Don't give me that do-goody-good bullshit

Yes, Republicans are obsessed with poverty

Poor, poor Jackie Calmes.  Six years in and she still thinks the president can come to terms with "leading conservative intellectuals" in the House over things they both care about.  Like poverty.

WASHINGTON — More than he might have imagined just a month ago, President Obama has an opening with Tuesday’s State of the Union address to advance his argument to Congress that the rising inequality of economic opportunities is America’s “defining challenge of our time.”

Leading Republicans have responded with their own expressions of concern — and seeds of ideas. Previously the party mostly ignored Mr. Obama’s periodic speeches about trends that show the United States trailing Canada, France and Germany on measures of upward mobility and seven out of 10 Americans born into poverty likely to stay there.

The best-known Republicans speaking out on poverty and opportunity have presidential ambitions, among them Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Influential conservative economists and columnists have spoken up as well.

Yes, Paul Ryan has a real obsession with the poor.  Via K-thug.

Mr. Ryan blames Mr. Obama’s talk of “class warfare” and Republicans’ own message mistakes — but not their policies — for his party’s image deficit.

“We have just not done a good enough job of explaining why our ideas and our principles are good for everybody and how they restore upward mobility,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview.

Why, oh why, can't we have a better press corps?

Today in the Republican "Theater of Ideas"

Hey, if they want to be the candidates of smoke-choked skies, water that makes your kid's hair fall out, and leaden toy paint, I say, more power to them.

And meanwhile, the similarities between Palin and Perry (and I'm not just talking hair here) are just too damned savory not to relish.

All of which raises the question: is Romney brilliantly ensuring that he doesn't have to swerve too far "to the center (i.e., somewhere west of Crazy Town)" if he wins the nomination or is he ensuring that he can't win the Republican nomination?

Like being in a room with nothing but furniture...angry furniture

Budget analyst Stan Collender is invited to speak to the Tea Party Caucus in Congress. That won't happen again.

I was also surprised by the invitation because I wrote the column to pour cold water on a number of the misstatements that were being made at the time about the debt ceiling. For example, some commentators were saying that not increasing it would lead to an immediate default and government shutdown. Because of that, the idea was rapidly making the rounds at the time that the debt ceiling could be used to force the White House to do things on the budget it didn’t want to do.

In other words, the column was telling the tea party that its apparent plan to use the debt ceiling as a lever with the administration was based on a misreading of how it worked and very likely wouldn’t succeed. Nevertheless, I was invited to attend and decided to go.

The meeting was held in a small room in the Capital building across from the members’ dining room and it was packed by the time it began. I didn’t actually count, but my recollection is that 15-20 members of Congress attended along with staff and other tea party supporters.

The meeting began with Rep. Bachmann introducing me. I then talked for about 25 minutes about the debt ceiling and essentially repeated what I had written in the column.

But I was just the opening act. The other three speakers were the tea party chairs from three states – Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Florida – and each one instructed the House members who were in the room what they expected them to do on budget issues.

Actually, “instructed is not strong enough; what they said to the members is best described as nonnegotiable demands. They insisted that no one vote for that first extension of the CR unless it included a provision defunding healthcare reform (they called it “Obamacare’). They also unequivocally insisted that no one vote to increase the debt ceiling. And, they were absolutely adamant that the spending cuts in the continuing resolution that the House members were so proud of were insignificant and that entitlements had to be tackled immediately.

One of the more interesting exchanges occurred when one of the House members who was there asked the tea party chairs if they really had expected them to have reformed Medicare in the first six weeks of the session. Another was when one of the members complained about having been booed at a national tea party meeting that had just been held.

But the most interesting exchange came when the tea party state chairs openly threatened the reelection of the tea party supporting members of Congress who attended. This was anything but subtle. One of the chairs specifically pointed at the members and told them that the tea party had elected them and would run someone against them in the next election if they didn’t vote as expected. This was beyond a “passionate” exchange: It was angry with a strong take-no-prisoners attitude.

And you thought Speaker Boehner cried a lot before. He'll be reduced to a puddle trying to reconcile a GOP agenda that is being co-opted by the party's most extreme -- and ignorant -- wing.

House repeals all scientific "theories"

Brilliant, but as Steve Benen notes, the whole thing probably went right over his Republican colleagues' respective heads.

Eye on Newt

Couldn't resist that one, sorry.

But, please, please make this happen!

Another illustration of GOP governing philosophy: styrofoam

My new fave acronym, If It Pisses Off Liberals, or IIPOL.

Part of me wonders if the GOP policy brought back the environmentally-irresponsible cups just to annoy Pelosi, or if Republicans are choosing to thumb their noses at "green" policies, just because it makes them feel better about themselves.

I suppose it's possible that it's both.

I should be outraged, I suppose, but why give them the satisfaction?

Repeal amendment

The latest in conservative intellectual movements is the Repeal Amendment. Dahlia Lithwick explains why it is a really stupid idea, a fetish for states' rights, and puts the lie to claims by conservatives that they want to "preserve" the constitution. It turns out, they only want to "preserve" the bits they think they like.

But she also bemoans the fact that liberals are silent on this subject.

Yet what we have heard in response to the Repeal Amendment from liberals is near-total radio silence. And it's not because liberals are eager to see a return to the conditions that led to Jim Crow or the Civil War. We just seem to have forgotten how to talk about the Constitution as if it's ours, too. After years of failing to respond to Reagan-era cries of "liberal judicial activism," and failing to push back against the singular perfection of originalism, it's as if we've ceded the entire document to conservatives—as well as the fight over its history and meaning.

Her point is well taken. Liberals allow these crack pot ideas to fester below the surface without any push back, then they become talking points of the new House majority whip. The Wall Street Journal talks it up favorably, and FoxNews swoons with giddiness. Next thing you know it becomes a real issue rather than the ravings of anti-fourteenth amendment civil war reenacters.

This just gets harder and harder

Apologies for the light posting schedule these days. Much of the reason for it is that the day job has been a full time one lately. But a lot of it, I'll admit, is a sense of, what's the point? It's not so much the seeming inevitability of stark losses in the midterms. I've come to terms with our modern politics in which Republicans gain power, screw the pooch, Democrats are elected to clean up the ensuing mess, and are then punished for it by our ADD electorate.

No, it really has come down to the realization -- and I don't think I'm naive, but still -- that the modern GOP has no interest whatsoever in public policy beyond acquiring power. In the past, as Krugman writes today, there was at least some theory beyond their crackpot policy prescriptions. Laffer had his curve. Today, there's not so much as an old cocktail napkin against which to argue.

The approach Mr. Boehner set out is based on a belief that smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation will fuel economic growth, create jobs and ultimately lead to a more prosperous nation. It deviated little from the tenets of mainstream conservatism over the last generation.

But even conservative-leaning budget and policy analysts said that the Republican blueprint, as drafted, would lead to bigger, not smaller, deficits and that it did not contain the concrete, politically difficult steps needed to alter the nation’s fiscal trajectory.

In the agenda, Republicans said they would extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts, which would add roughly $4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. They also proposed a new tax break for small businesses at a cost of $25 billion over the next two years.

And while they called for quickly slashing about $100 billion in “nonsecurity” discretionary spending, they did not specify how those cuts would be carried out. Moreover, experts said such reductions would not change the long-term budgetary picture.

“I wouldn’t call this a deficit reduction plan,” said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonprofit group that advocates fiscal responsibility.

“It’s a net increase in the deficit, because extending all of the tax cuts is a huge hit on the deficit, and they are not making anywhere near the magnitude of the spending cuts you would need to justify extending those tax cuts on a permanent basis.”

Critics noted that the Republican plan pointedly excluded military and other security programs from budget cuts — even though Pentagon spending has soared in recent years — and that the plan even called for added spending on missile defense.

In addition, the House Republicans said that repealing the Democrats’ health care law would be the centerpiece of their agenda. But they also indicated they would retain popular provisions that would probably lead to a big increase in health care costs.

Although the seriousness of the consequences are all too real, it's just not all that interesting coming up with arguments against such unserious politics.

Railing against the con men

Although in the end Paul Krugman's relentless calling out as bullshit Bush's claims about his tax cuts -- everything from returning the surplus to supply-siding out of the 2003 stock nose dive -- did not stop Congress from passing those tax cut windfalls to the wealthiest.

Still, he was a refreshing blast of honesty in a miasma of clueless punditry.

Today, he sets his aim on the latest darling of Kaplan Test Prep Daily, the ever so hot Paul Ryan.

Mr. Ryan has become the Republican Party’s poster child for new ideas thanks to his “Roadmap for America’s Future,” a plan for a major overhaul of federal spending and taxes. News media coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable; on Monday, The Washington Post put a glowing profile of Mr. Ryan on its front page, portraying him as the G.O.P.’s fiscal conscience. He’s often described with phrases like “intellectually audacious.”

But it’s the audacity of dopes. Mr. Ryan isn’t offering fresh food for thought; he’s serving up leftovers from the 1990s, drenched in flimflam sauce.

Mr. Ryan’s plan calls for steep cuts in both spending and taxes. He’d have you believe that the combined effect would be much lower budget deficits, and, according to that Washington Post report, he speaks about deficits “in apocalyptic terms.” And The Post also tells us that his plan would, indeed, sharply reduce the flow of red ink: “The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan would cut the budget deficit in half by 2020.”

But the budget office has done no such thing. At Mr. Ryan’s request, it produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.

And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.

Read the whole thing.

Rising star...of something

Because he is only 40 and Republican the Times is compelled to do a glossy profile.

“Do you want this welfare state, which puts us down this tipping point, advances this culture of dependency, moves us away from the America idea toward more of a Western European social democracy welfare state? Do you want that which invites a debt crisis? Or the alternative party is offering you an opportunity society on top of a safety net where we reclaim these ideals and principles that founded this country. That’s what we owe you. And if we get back in office and we shrink from that challenge, shame on us.”

In this highly charged election season with both houses of Congress at stake, not a lot of politicians are lining up publicly behind Mr. Ryan. He is, nonetheless, suddenly a rising star in some corners. And like many other politicians whose ideas were once considered extreme, only to later be mainstream — like Ronald Reagan — Mr. Ryan is seen as on the leading edge of something.

Of what, we aren't really told.

But no matter. He is young. And has hair.

Fit from years of an intense exercise program called P90X and with hair as thick as Rod R. Blagojevich’s (and cut in a more contemporary fashion), Mr. Ryan has become a regular on the cable news circuit, and a book about conservative politics that he co-wrote — “Young Guns” — will include his picture on the cover when it comes out this fall.

Ooh, snap. The Carly Fiorina school of political analysis.

The Liz Cheney Experience

Steve Benen asks why "Liz Cheney is on my teevee."

Liz Cheney, who has no expertise in national security policy, continues to be given media platforms by outlets that prefer to pretend she knows what she's talking about.

He then answers his own question.

Take this morning, for example, when Cheney condemned the Obama administration on "Fox News Sunday."

She is on "Fox News Sunday" because "Fox News Sunday," like Hannity and a few other Fox News programs, is there to promote rising GOP brand names. The Cheney name is a major brand name and, as Mark Leibovitch pointed out in his profile of her last September, she's the rising, new and improved member of the Cheney product line.

When you think about it, the modern GOP is little more than a bunch of brand names without much in the way of substance behind the logo. Palin, Huckabee, Cheney, even the Tea baggers, are self-propelled marketing items. They don't bring ideas -- they have opinions but no real viewpoints -- they only bring their images and "personalities."

Immigration hissy fit

Believe it or not, like Marc Amber, I'm willing to cut Sen. Hucleberry a little slack on pulling the football away and backing away from his own energy legislation. Energy use reform is, in the grand scheme of things, a much more pressing issue than immigration reform. But it does strike one as a little odd than Graham would react so strongly. It's a given that he's a walking hissy-fit, but he was working on an immigration bill as well, and suggested late last year that immigration was a "priority."

It's clear that Reid sees immigration reform as a means of improving Hispanic turnout this November, something he'll desperately need if he's going to keep his seat. But that's not the only reason. Immigration reform is perilous, but the issue is much simpler to understand, most voters are already pretty set in their mind -- for everyone who supports the Arizona measure, there are many others who want to see some sort of combination of increased enforcement, path to citizenship, and a better means of documenting workers. That applies to both sides of the aisle. And it's a reality of daily life. Everyone can see the men hanging out in the parking lot, waiting for work. But everyone also knows an undocumented worker, living in fear while raising a family here and paying taxes.

And the AZ bill was a big espresso shot of immediacy in this debate, something Reid and the Democrats certainly didn't ask for.

Energy, on the other hand, is another big, complex legislative tangle. It would be subject to the same misinformation campaign that was the health care "debate." It's easy to turn it into a screaming match over "taxes" and "intrusion" and, of course, the Prius Mandate.

So, Graham may not like it, but it's the past and current behavior of his conservative colleagues that forced the political calculus on this.

UPDATE: Maybe, energy legislation isn't quite as dead as was thought.

Boehner gets "serious"

The Contract on America, revisited.

Though little-known publicly, Mr. Jackson has been at the center of Republican strategic planning for years and was closely involved, for instance, in the Bush administration push to add drug coverage to Medicare as well as its unsuccessful drive to add personal savings accounts to Social Security.

So, the guy who was influential in getting an unfunded trillion dollar entitlement passed and wants to push Social Security to the wilds of Wall Street. Sounds like a winning argument.

The Bronze Age

Leading GOP "intellectuals" cite a winter snow storm as proof that God is pissed about the Copenhagen accord.

A series of newer tubes!

I wanted to visit the new gop.com site and riff on it, but it seems to be down/loading too slow...so, site unseen (pun intended), here's the top ten reasons it meets the Epic Fail standard.

What's really important

Her name.

Assimilated Pronunciation [Mark Krikorian]

So, are we supposed to use the Spanish pronunciation, so-toe-my-OR, or the natural English pronunciation, SO-tuh-my-er, like Niedermeyer? The president pronounced it both ways, first in Spanish, then after several uses, lapsing into English. Though in the best "Pockiston" tradition, he also rolled his r's in Puerto Rico.

By the way, can anyone point me to the video of the 1990 Saturday Night Live skit with Jimmy Smits where the news staff were doing ridiculously exaggerated pronunciations of "Neek-o-rah-gwa" and the like? I can't find it online or on DVD.

He wasn't done.

It Sticks in My Craw [Mark Krikorian]

Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor's name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name "freed" even though it's spelled "fried," like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — "sipe" instead of "seep.") Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent's simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to.

Yes, there should be limits to permitting people to have names that are "unnatural in English."

What's especially amusing is that he goes on to write that somehow Sotomayor's name hindered the Princeton and Yale grad's ability to assimilate. Or something.

You're not the boss of me, nyah, nyah

An ad seen over at TAPPED:

Anti-Obama T-shirts

Annoy a liberal with our obnoxious anti-Obama stickers and t-shirts

The "loyal opposition" now defines political discourse as, "I'm with stupid."

Message discipline really isn't the problem

GOP strategists, not surprisingly, can feel the bottom of the pool with their toes.

Bottom, of course, is a subjective term. But most Republican strategists claim to see at least a few signs of new life, even if a spring awakening is still a ways a way. "The last few months have not been so hot for us, but our guys understand that and they are working on a way out of it," says Ron Bonjean, a strategist to GOP House and Senate leadership. After losing the House in 1994, Democrats took more than a decade to form an effective opposition; even with the advantage of a Democrat in the White House until 2001, Bonjean notes, they were unable to present a united front until President Bush's second term. "We'll know the GOP is firing on all cylinders when both the House and Senate leaders and members are all saying the same thing."

If that's their strategy, then they've got a fer bit longer to go down the road to irrelevancy. Because "saying the same thing" isn't the problem for the GOP. In fact, they are pretty much saying the same things. I mean look at these geniuses. The problem is that what they're saying generally falls into four broad categories: dumb, a lie, irrelevant , or insane.

The problem is not message discipline, it's message. Period.

First they came for my dishwashing detergent, and I said nothing

Finally, an issue the GOP can rally around.