Why Does This Not Surprise Me?

From The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen: “In their very first week as the new House majority, the Republican leadership has decided to abandon all of the legislative principles they claimed to support up until very recently.”

A Baffling Turn

I don’t want to spend the whole day excerpting material from Steve Benen’s excellent Political Animal column on the Washington Monthly Web site. But I thought this summation of his thoughts following yesterday’s midterm elections was worth passing along--and it mirrors my own disappointments:

I’ve received some very nice notes today from readers wanting to know how I’m feeling today. In truth, I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, but that’s only because I largely expected the results we received.

Instead, I’m frustrated. I’m frustrated about some exceptional lawmakers losing their jobs for no good reason. I’m frustrated about the role of secret money in the elections. I’m frustrated that there’s so much idiocy in the discourse--people think Obama raised taxes, bailed out Wall Street, and socialized health care, all of which is completely at odds with reality--and that too many people believe it. I’m frustrated about voters saying they want all kinds of things--less gridlock, fewer candidates beholden to special interests--and then deliberately choosing the opposite.

I’m frustrated that, after two years of digging out of a ditch Republicans put us in, the country is ready to take the next productive step forward, and now that’s impossible. I’m frustrated that the economy desperately needs additional investments to create jobs, but that’s impossible, too. I’m frustrated that Republican leaders seem to be making no real effort to hide the fact that they prioritize destroying the president over literally everything else.

But most of all, I’m frustrated that there are no meaningful consequences for successes and failures. Republicans began last year as an embarrassed and discredited minority, and proceeded to play as destructive a role as humanly possible as Democrats tried to clean up their mess. GOP officials refused to take policymaking seriously; they refused to work in good faith; they refused to offer coherent solutions; they even refused to accept responsibility for their own catastrophic mistakes.

They’ve proven themselves wholly unprepared to govern, but have been rewarded with power anyway. It’s ... frustrating.

You will find Benen’s full post here.

No Republican Mandate

As Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen writes this morning:

In mid-September, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) was elaborating on why he wanted to force a confrontation with the White House next year that would lead to a government shutdown.

“If we take the majority, that should be a good indication to the president that the American people have not agreed with his policy and his platform,” Westmoreland said. “And that they agree with ours.”

This may very well be a common sentiment in GOP circles today--Republicans won, the argument goes, so they have a mandate.

But there’s ample reason for skepticism. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite is true--for the first time in memory, voters have punished an unpopular party and rewarded an even more unpopular party.

The exit polls tell an interesting story: 41% of voters yesterday had a favorable opinion of congressional Republicans. Congressional Democrats weren’t winning any popularity contests, but their favorable numbers were slightly better than the GOP’s, while President Obama fared better than both. In other words, Republicans won yesterday despite the public’s impressions of the party, not because of.

Such a result does not a mandate make.

Read the whole post here.

READ MORE: “Republican Blowout, but No Conservative Mandate” (Think Progress).

This Might Be Reassuring Just Now

A short excerpt from Paul Waldman’s new article at the American Prospect Web site:

If Republicans take the House, there’s also a good chance they’ll lose it right back in 2012. If they do win the House, it will be by a small margin. And in 2012, they’ll probably suffer significant losses. First of all, provided the economy looks better in two years than it does today, chances are that President Obama is going to romp to re-election--like Ronald Reagan did in 1984 after suffering losses in 1982, and like Bill Clinton did in 1996 after suffering losses in 1994--and if he does, there will be some coattails in congressional races. Second, the Republican class of 2010 is going to include a lot of inexperienced, inept, and just plain crazy people who are going to be vulnerable to challenge when they have to run in a year not characterized by 9.6 percent unemployment and a general mood of rage.

Nothing is certain in politics, and the next two years could turn into a nightmare. But it’s more likely it’ll be mildly unpleasant, not catastrophic. The country will survive, just as it has survived before. And before you know it, the pendulum will swing back.

Read the full essay here.

A Historic Session, with More to Be Done

From The Progress Report:

Regardless of what happens in the voting booths today, the 111th Congress will be coming to an end. According to polls, many people--in fact, most Democrats--may be happy to see it go: a recent Pew and National Journal survey shows that only one-third of Democrats think this Congress achieved more than recent congresses, while 60 percent think it has achieved the same or less. Unfortunately, this perception is divorced from reality. The 111th Congress has been easily one of the most productive congresses in American history, having passed major reforms of health care, the financial sector, and the student loan industry, while also pumping a massive stimulus bill into the economy that helped save or create millions of jobs. The New York Times described this Congress as one whose accomplishments rival “any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition.”

You can read the whole piece here.

READ MORE: “The End of the ‘Do-Something’ Congress,” by Ezra Klein (The Washington Post).

Quote of the Day

You tell him, Roseanne Cash!

Stupidest Quote of the Week (So Far)

Responding to a question from Fox Business Network host David Asman, in which Asman alleged that Democratic politicians operate under an “arrogance of power” that leads them to legislate in ways they think best, rather than taking their marching orders from voters, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo--now running as a third-party candidate for governor Colorado--remarked:

It is an attitude that you see all the time. Yes, I spent 10 years in Congress. I could certainly see it there. There is a sort of an elitist idea that seeps into the head of a lot of people who get elected. And they begin to think of themselves as, really, there for only one purpose and that is to make laws. And why would you make laws? Well, because you know, better than anybody else what to do.

Huh? Some government officials get the “elitist idea” that they should make laws? Isn’t that the primary purpose of lawmakers, to make laws? Of course, Tancredo--who’s become a favorite of the right-wing “tea party” cultists, because he’s done such idiotic things as call President Obama “the greatest threat to the United States today, the greatest threat to our liberty, the greatest threat to the Constitution of the United States, the greatest threat to our way of life; everything we believe in”--is not known for making sense. But even for him, this ridiculous answer to a question that demonstrates nothing so clearly as partisan arrogance has to mark a new low in a campaign season that’s been largely bereft of coherent debate.

Wrong-headed Political Stubbornness

“This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles.”

The quote comes from Republican House minority leader and would-be speaker John Boehner. He was talking on Sean Hannity’s radio program specifically about right-wing pipe dreams of overturning President Barack Obama’s

history-making health-care reform legislation. But his statement encapsulates what has gone so wrong with American politics these days.

As has been said many times before (so many times, in fact, that the quote’s originator seem to have been forgotten), politics is the art of compromise. Or, to quote former President Gerald Ford, “Compromise is the oil that makes governments go.” Politicians are supposed to legislate for the benefit of all, not only for the people who elected them from a specific region, or the most wild-haired members of the voting public. This great responsibility requires that the office holders demonstrate common sense and pragmatism, as well as diplomatic and arm-twisting skills, in order to craft legislation that benefits the most people possible. What’s so ridiculous about the above remark from Ohioan Boehner (who, admittedly, has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer), and other similar declarations from right-wing extremists hoping to win seats in the next U.S. Congress, is that they fail to realize that without compromise, a democratic government does not work. Of course it’s important to stand up for one’s principles. But it’s vital, as well, for officeholders to acknowledge that the business of national governance is too important to be sacrificed before the hissy fits of obdurate politicos who insist that everything has to work on their terms, or not at all.

Looking over the current U.S. political scene, I see far too many candidates who are unprepared for working with their fellow legislators to overcome the nation’s longstanding economic and social ills. The Republican Party--once the home of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt--has been taken over by its most radical, hateful fringe, the “tea party” cultists, who want to privatize and kill Social Security; get the government completely out of the health-care business (which would mean terminating Medicare and Medicaid) and put your long-term health completely in the hands of bottom-line-driven private insurers; blithely ignore global-warming warnings until it’s too late to avoid disaster; do away with the Department of Education; impeach President Obama (if only to satisfy those ridiculous “Birthers,” who propagate lies about his not having been born in the United States)--and if the president and Democrats don’t let them have their own baby way, they’re fully prepared to shut down the U.S. government.

Clearly, there are no longer adults in power in the GOP.

This morning I exercised one of my foremost rights as a citizen of the United States: I filled out and mailed off my midterm election ballot. And nowhere on that ballot did I vote for a Republican, because I no longer trust them--I don’t trust them to act in my best interest, rather than their own or the interests of their loudest-screaming right-wing backers; I don’t trust them to maintain programs such as Social Security and Medicare that work well and have provided the foundation of hope for American seniors; I don’t trust them to respect constitutional prohibitions against establishing a national religion and persecuting the irreligious; I don’t trust them to work with the president to strengthen the U.S. economy (Republicans spent eight years under George W. Bush weakening the economy through wasteful spending and an aversion to business regulation--why would I be stupid enough to believe they’d do anything different now?); I don’t trust them not to be corrupted further by their too-cozy association with Big Business; and I don’t trust them one iota to compromise when compromise is necessary to pass legislation that would boost the nation’s well-being or maintain America’s thoughtful leadership in the world.

Even as four-fifths of Americans polled “say they want Republicans and Democrats to work together to get things done, as opposed to rigidly sticking to principles,” Boehner and his ideological cronies insist they will not cooperate. Not now, not ever. If there’s any silver lining to be found in this mess, it comes from remembering that the GOP of Newt Gingrich’s era said pretty much the same thing--and look at how soundly their shenanigans were rejected. If, as political pundits predict, Republicans win control of the U.S. House of Representatives on November 2, then I suspect we’re in for a repeat of the politically divisive 1990s. The efforts of the radical-right to impose their out-of-the-mainstream agenda on the country will eventually be scorned by a majority of Americans, and President Obama will benefit (just as President Bill Clinton did before him), because he will be the adult in the room who most publicly stands up against political fanaticism.

I voted today because I recognize what’s at stake in this election. What are you waiting for?

READ MORE: “GOP Leaders Tell Obama: There Will Be ‘No Compromise,’” by George Zornick (Think Progress); “Why the GOP’s Gains Are Built on a Sham,” by Justin Gardner (Donklephant); READ MORE: “Three Unorthodox Ways Obama Can Fix the Economy--Even with a Republican Congress,” by Noam Scheiber (The New Republic).

GOP Revives “Culture of Corruption”

Will Republican’ts never learn that Americans don’t want their elected representatives to sell their souls to Big Business? That coziness is part of what lost the GOP its congressional majority in 2008. This comes from The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen:

Congressional Republicans’ affinity for corporate lobbyists is hardly new. When Congress worked on a jobs bill, the GOP huddled with corporate lobbyists. When work on Wall Street reform got underway, the GOP huddled with industry lobbyists. When Congress worked on health care reform, the GOP huddled with insurance lobbyists. When an energy/climate bill started advancing, Republicans huddled with energy lobbyists.

Care to guess who’ll be writing the laws under a GOP majority on the Hill?

This week, however, the ties looked even more unsavory. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee announced that it would co-host an Election Night reception with one of the top lobbying firms in Washington, and corporate donors willing to write big checks could buy all kinds of nice perks.

GOP officials, meanwhile, are trying to argue this isn’t a fundraiser, and that donors to the Election Night event are merely “underwriters” who will help cover the costs of the shindig.

The midterm elections haven’t even been held yet, and the GOP--anticipating gains on Capitol Hill--is already returning to it’s sleazy practices. You can read more here.

The Unmaking of the GOP

E.J. Dionne has a very good column in The Washington Post today, reflecting on longtime Republican Congressman Mike Castle’s embarrassing loss this week to the more ideologically right-wing Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party favorite, in Delaware’s primary race for a U.S. Senate seat. He writes, in part:

Castle’s defeat at the hands of Christine O’Donnell, a perennial candidate who may be the least qualified Senate nominee anywhere in the country, does indeed mark the collapse of the Republican Party not only of Nelson Rockefeller and Tom Dewey but also of Bob Dole and Howard Baker.

After two decades in which moderates fled a party increasingly dominated by its right wing, the Republican primary electorate has been reduced to nothing but its right wing. O’Donnell, boosted by a last minute anti-Castle spending spree from the California-based Tea Party Express, pulled off her revolution with a little more than 30,000 votes. That’s all it took to seize control of a once Grand Old Party in which the center no longer has the troops. ...

Yes, the Tea Party has just about handed Delaware’s Senate election to Democratic nominee Chris Coons, the young New Castle County executive who was transformed from an underdog to Castle on Tuesday morning to the overwhelming favorite against O’Donnell by late evening.

But the larger question is whether the country is ready to deliver a majority to a Republican Party that now holds problem-solvers like Castle in contempt; is scared to death of a well-financed right wing that parades under a false populist banner; and, in primary after primary, has aligned itself with Sarah Palin, who anointed O’Donnell one of her Grizzlies.

Will moderate voters take a chance on the preposterous proposition that this Republican Party will turn around and work in a calm, bipartisan way with President Obama? Or will they use their ballots to wake up the Republicans and tell them that they need more Mike Castles, and fewer extremists?

We can hope that what few remaining “adults” there are under the GOP tent will take their party back from the insurgents now holding it hostage, but I don’t expect that will happen anytime soon. The Republican Party is bound to go through a very trying period in the near future, as its weak leaders endeavor--and fail--to satisfy the extremists who don’t care about governing, but only about undoing decades of social progress, reducing public oversight of business, and bankrupting the national treasury with tax cuts for the well-to-do.

READ MORE: “The Effect of Fringe Successes,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly); “OD’d in Delaware,” by Clive Crook (The Atlantic); “David Brooks and the Possible Backlash Against the Tea Party GOP,” by Michael J.W. Stickings (The Reaction); “A GOP Senate Would Battle Obama on the Surface, but Itself Within,” by Patricia Murphy (Politics Daily).

You Call This Progress?

What can Americans expect if Republicans make significant gains in Congress after the coming November elections? Not only a doubling of the national deficit and a crippling of Social Security, health-care reform, and other important public-assistance programs, but a repeat of the government shutdown that so angered voters in the mid-1990s. It’s sad to think that the U.S. electorate may not have learned from the monumental GOP failures of the recent past.

GOP Drags Bottom of the Barrel for Candidates

READ MORE: “John Boehner, Mitch McConnell Should Be Replaced, Say Voters Usually Favoring GOP,” by Elyse Siegel
(The Huffington Post).

Of Help and Hypocrites

This is good news, brought our way by The New York Times:

The Senate on Thursday approved a multi-billion dollar package of tax breaks and government-backed loans for small businesses, as Democrats surmounted months of opposition by Republican leaders. Backers say the bill could spur business growth and new hiring.

“Small businesses are the major job creators in our economy, and this legislation will ensure that our small businesses have the tax incentives and credit they need to expand and hire,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California.

It took 61 votes, including those of two Republicans, to overcome a ridiculous GOP filibuster. The bill now heads for the U.S. House, where it’s expected to pass quickly and be sent to the president for his enthusiastic signature.

But, as The Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen notes today, this delay in getting assistance to people and businesses wasn’t necessary.

The basis for near-unanimous opposition to the legislation was ... well, I’m still not sure what Republicans were thinking. We’re talking about a bill with tax incentives for small businesses and an attempt to expand credit through a lending program that utilizes local banks. The bill, which is fully paid for, was finished and ready to go in July, arguably even June.

Indeed, there were all kinds of small businesses that “put hiring, supply buying and real estate expansion on hold,” just waiting for the Senate to act.

But Republicans didn’t want the Senate to act. For reasons that remain a mystery, the GOP fought to delay passage, then fought it again with a filibuster, then fought it again even when final passage was assured. For all their talk about small businesses needing relief, Republicans--including the alleged “moderates” (Snowe, Collins, and Brown)--spent most of the summer trying to kill a bill to help small businesses.

Voinovich, in refreshing candor, acknowledged last week that his Republican colleagues were, in fact, playing petty games, as part of a larger political “messaging” effort. Now, the Ohio senator believes, “we don’t have time anymore” for the partisan gamesmanship.

In other words, according to a senior GOP senator, his Republican Party delayed progress on a worthwhile economic bill--on purpose--as part of an election-season scheme. Businesses that could have aided economic expansion months ago were delayed because the GOP had a “messaging” strategy in mind.

This is shameful behavior by Congress’ minority party. Republicans have acted for the last two years like spoiled brats, unwilling to cooperate because they’re no longer in charge of things. They have tried to delay, kill, or otherwise cripple legislation that would help Americans in need of financial help, merely because they don’t want their Democratic opponents to win any more favor among voters. Screw the people, goes their message, what counts is our winning more power in the November midterm elections.

I understand that Americans are frustrated with the sluggish pace of economic recovery; I’m no less frustrated. But why anyone who’s been paying attention to the political scene over the last decade would endorse a takeover of Congress by Republicans--the very same people who, through overspending, disregard for public oversight of Big Business, and general incompetence, got us into this mess in the first place--is beyond me. The GOP hopes to curb public spending by denying assistance to people in need, and undermining valuable programs such as health-care reform and Social Security. Their goal seems to be to destroy the public safety net and leave Americans helpless on their own.

Whatever hurt that causes, they’re willing to inflict. And ignore.

READ MORE: “Senate Gets Back to Business of Not Getting Business Done,” by Alex Pareene (Salon).

Really, These Are the People Claiming to be Good Stewards of the Public Pocketbook?

From Slate: “Republican Tax Proposal Would Double the Deficit.”

“An Allergy to Policy Depth”

John Boehner, the Ohio pol and U.S. House minority leader who aspires to relieve Speaker Nancy Pelosi of her job next year, seems to be clueless when it comes to taxes and other economic issues.

Who Are They Kidding?

READ MORE: “Maybe Boehner Left Out the Good Parts,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).

Early Warning

You still aren’t taking seriously concerns that Republicans hope to eliminate Social Security and Medicare if they manage to take control of Congress with this November’s midterm elections? Then just listen to former GOP House Speaker and current “Tea Party” leader Dick Armey as he lays out the right-wing strategy to starve those vital social programs to death by making them voluntary.

READ MORE: “Granholm Calls Out Armey and Ryan for Wanting to ‘Effectively Dismantle’ the Social Safety Net” (Think Progress); “Toomey Touts His ‘Very Important’ Social Security Plan, Without Mentioning It’s Based on Privatization” (Think Progress); “Alaska GOP Senate Candidate Joe Miller Suggests Medicare and Social Security Are Unconstitutional” (Think Progress); “Rep. Marsha Blackburn: If the GOP Takes Back Congress, Our Priority Will Be to Repeal Health Reform” (Think Progress).

Gee, Maybe in Rossi’s Alternative Universe I’m Swimming in Dough Too

Republican’ts are one-track-minded in their determination to extend George W. Bush’s wasteful tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. This despite ample evidence that extending those cuts beyond their planned 2010 limit would add more than $36 billion to the national deficit and that they failed as an engine of economic growth. But of course, if your goal is to bankrupt the federal government as a way to reduce or eliminate all social programs, then throwing money away to the rich makes sense.

And having to lie to voters doesn’t seem to bother Republican’ts one iota. Take the case of newly minted Washington senatorial candidate, two-time loser Dino Rossi. He contends that “the Obama administration’s plan to extend the cuts enjoyed by middle-income taxpayers, while repealing tax cuts for high-income households” amounts to a “class warfare program.” To prove this allegation, and win votes away from his considerably more skilled opponent, incumbent Senator Patty Murray, Rossi contends “that 2 1/2 million people in Washington benefit from the 2001 Bush tax cuts.”

As Think Progress explains, however, Rossi’s statement is baloney:

There are about 6.7 million people in Washington state, so for Rossi’s number to be accurate, he’s either claiming that [President] Obama and Murray want to raise taxes on people that they don’t, or he is claiming that more than one-third of the state’s population is making more than $200,000 per year. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, there are 105,209 households in the state that would be affected by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts (or about 1.6 percent of the total population). So Rossi inflated his state’s wealthy population by 24 times. Also, as The Wonk Room explains, Rossi’s push to extend the tax cuts for the rich would definitely help one Washingtonian: Dino Rossi.

Calling Dino Rossi and others on such falsehoods is responsible journalism. Republican’ts expect reporters to merely write down what they say, no matter how misleading, and never raise uncomfortable questions about the facts at issue. But when politicians lie so baldly to win office, they deserve to be called on it. Each and every time.

READ MORE: “Jared Bernstein, White House Economist, Throws Cold Water On Bush Tax Cuts Compromise,” by Sam Stein (The
Huffington Post).

Forget the Nation, Just Vacation!

Over the too many years, beginning during President Clinton’s first term, that Republican’ts were the majority party in the U.S. Congress, they were notorious for their abbreviated working hours and leisurely breaks from having to do the people’s business. George W. Bush actually set the record for presidential vacation time (at a cost to taxpayers of $20 million for air travel alone), topping even Ronald Reagan’s liberal holiday schedule. Now, anticipating gains on Capitol Hill come November’s midterm elections, members of the congressional GOP are trying to legislate a two-month, taxpayer-funded break for themselves between November 2 and January 3, 2011, when the next Congress is scheduled to be sworn in.

Gee, does wannabe-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) need some more time to brush up on his golf game?

From The Huffington Post:

House Republicans are going forward with plans to introduce a resolution on Tuesday to prohibit the House of Representatives from assembling during the two-month period following the November elections.

A GOP leadership aide confirmed to The Huffington Post that the resolution, authored by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) for the purposes of preventing Democrats from passing legislative items during the lame-duck session, would be introduced before the House passes additional Medicaid and teacher funding.

Haven’t Republican’ts already taken a vacation during the last two years, doing little or nothing to help the United States dig itself out of the financial mess that Bush and company left behind? Haven’t they already put their feet up enough, as they tried to slow down or outright kill legislation designed to improve access to health-care services, hold Wall Street accountable for its irresponsible practices, regulate the predatory credit-card industry, and bring valuable fiscal reform to the nation’s student loan program? It seems to me that “the Party of No” has already exceeded its right to be lazy, to do nothing while collecting fat paychecks. Isn’t it about time Republican’ts on Capitol Hill started to work for a living? Over the last two years, Democrats appear to have been the only ones who took the nation’s needs and business seriously.

If the GOP really thinks it can win voter support in November by endorsing a two-month holiday for its members of Congress who are already not doing much of anything to help Americans, it’s more out of touch than even its worst critics imagined.

READ MORE: “Republicans Seek to Handcuff Democrats in Lame-duck Session with Resolution,” by Molly K. Hooper (The Hill); “Lame Duck Hypocrisy: GOP Leaders Blast 2010 Lame Duck Session Despite Supporting Previous Sessions” (Think Progress).

Political Irrationality

Even for a newspaper columnist as level-headed and chary of overstatement as The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne, the paucity of adults and mature debate in the present Congress appears to have reached the level of ridiculousness. After commenting today on the unsupportable notion that taxes can’t be raised in the United States, even while we prosecute two wars overseas, and the absolute fiction that President Obama’s economic stimulus program had been ineffectual (even though studies show it has “created or saved as many as 3 million jobs”), Dionne lights into the Republican’ts’ eager employment of Senate rules to prevent any legislation that might strengthen the economy, relieve the plight of the jobless, or help small businesses from reaching the president’s desk--simply for political reasons. Writes Dionne:

Then there’s the structure of our government. Does any other democracy have a powerful legislative branch as undemocratic as the U.S. Senate?

When our republic was created, the population ratio between the largest and smallest state was 13 to 1. Now, it’s 68 to 1. Because of the abuse of the filibuster, 41 senators representing less than 11 percent of the nation’s population can, in principle, block action supported by 59 senators representing more than 89 percent of our population. And you wonder why it’s so hard to get anything done in Washington?

I’m a chronic optimist about America. But we are letting stupid politics, irrational ideas on fiscal policy and an antiquated political structure undermine our power.

We need a new conservatism in our country that is worthy of the name. We need liberals willing to speak out on the threat our daft politics poses to our influence in the world. We need moderates who do more than stick their fingers in the wind to calculate the halfway point between two political poles.

And, yes, we need to reform a Senate that has become an embarrassment to our democratic claims.

Dionne’s bottom line: “Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid?” You can read all of today’s column here.