On the Contrary

I was reading the papers this morning (actually reading their e-editions) and it occurred to me that they are giving us three truly important rules to live by:

• If you want a policy to fail, compromise with Republicans (See Loopholes in gun laws allows buyers to skirt background checks (note in this article that Republicans have passed legislation that prevents the ATF from keeping data on effective enforcement policy, and Rough outlines of Senate immigration reform emerges
• If religious conservatives don’t like it, it is probably a good idea. I could mention gay marriage but what is most interesting was this article about establishing basic scientific educational standards, that of course they oppose (New Guidelines call for broad changes in science education. The corollary to this rule is, if the South or middle America doesn’t like it, count me in.
• Oh and my favorite, If a proposal is bipartisan and centralist, it is paid for by the poor and middle class, is a capitulation to the Right, and even so, is going nowhere. See The President’s Budget

I believe we have some real wisdom to live by. Who said reading the news just depresses us?

President Obama has sadly listened to the Beltway pundits again and is engaging in a push to work with other side. See his latest push for infrastructure investment that would be revenue neutral to make the Republicans happy. They won’t bite. What should be crystal clear at this point is that they aren’t going to do anything Obama. I doubt seriously if we are going to get anything but eye shadow for immigration reform, and forget anything gun related.

The ‘reasonable’ Senate Republicans now have six Senators who say they will filibuster background checks (more regulations). We have a nation poised for change and all the polls show the American people on the side of gay marriage, immigration reform with a path for citizenship, gun law reform including a ban on assault weapons and high capacity clips, and investment in infrastructure. None of it is going to happen because the Republican Party no longer accounts to what is good for America. Talk about a ground bargain is nonsense, and stupid by the way.

So one might ask yourself, why continue to play the game on the Republican’s court? Why not change your strategy from trying to accommodate the nonsense the Republicans are pushing (see the Ryan and Rand Budgets) with compromises they are never going to agree to, and go after them for the damage they are doing to the country. These are not fellow Americans with a different point of view. These are Americans who if they get their way, will take our country back hundreds of years and turn our society into the upper and lower classes. Call their policies what they are instead of trying to compromise with them, and move the fight to your court.

The conventional wisdom is that the nation is gerrymandered to keep Republicans in power so nothing much will change in 2014. And I believe that is true if Democrats do what they usually do and pander to polls instead of standing up for principles. But if you really understand what the Republicans stand for, the wealthy and disenfranchising everyone else (did you listen to the questioning by the conservative judges on the Supreme Court try to dodge the obvious?), then you understand what this is about. Republicans resist change in a changing world where change is the very foundation of survival and success.

So the strategy from Obama on down to the Democrat running for dog catcher is that they need to recognize that Republican policies are bankrupt and they need to be attacked head on. No more debt is the problem, we have to reduce the debt and invest, maybe we don’t need the assault weapon ban if we get background checks, and on and on. You are not going to get any of them. Go for the throat as the Republicans have been doing successfully to you. Attack their ideas and offer a different world view. If you want to move the country, you have to win the Congress, and to do that, you have to discredit conservatism. Compromise just lends credence to bad ideas and that is what Democrats have been doing now for 5 years.

It is a sin that borrowing right now is free (zero interest rate) and we have not put our people back to work because we bought into the home budget analogy of the Republicans. We let them control the debate focusing on debt which is not a problem instead of jobs. We keep dancing around cutting entitlement benefits when that is not the problem. We try to compromise on gun control, or immigration, or investment in infrastructure and we get nothing. What more do you need to realize we need to become the uncompromising party and fight for real change?

Here is a question to my fellow Americans who can not quite see the forest for the trees: If you wanted compromise and bipartisanship, why did you elect anti-tax, anti-government Republicans to office? Surveys say most Americans want a balanced approach to deficit reduction, yet you returned that buffoon, John Boehner, who said yesterday that unless the President comes up with a plan of all cuts, there is nothing to talk about. Wow see, both sides do it, right? The President and the Senate have both offered balanced plans, and the President has even put cutting social programs on the table, as stupid as that is, but the Republicans want it their way, all spending cuts, or no way, and they both do it?

Are we wakening up yet? Republicans in the Senate started hanging amendments on an appropriations bill to limit the reach of gun violence measures, and they both do it? When are Americans going to wake up to the fact that Republicans are the problem. And what is really scary is that you elected some of the least informed Americans out there. Who else would be pushing a giant austerity program on America when the results of that policy in Europe is for everyone to see? It takes either giant denial, or grand stupidity. I find both among the Republicans.

And let’s just say you are one of those government hating, tax deploring Americans, what would you cut? Well, answers the grossly uninformed, “gov’ment spending”. What government spending? Ah, now we get down to it. And do you think the Republican Party is listing the cuts they want to make? No, they understand this will be highly unpopular and possibly damaging (actually they are counting on it) to our country so they want the Democrats in a spirit of bipartisanship to specify all the cuts.

So let’s just summarize for the less intelligent members of our country who voted for these morons:

• The only compromise the Republicans will accept is a plan that is totally what they want, all spending cuts, and that is not a claim, that is what John Boehner said
• When it comes to gun violence, immigration, energy policy, climate policy, or even a realistic budget, Republicans will block any real change through the use of the filibuster in the Senate, or their gerrymandered House majority
• The Republicans scream for cuts even though austerity is a provenly failed policy because their real aim is to dismantle government by cutting programs to help the poor and middle class while preserving the tax benefits of the wealthy. See Ryan Budget for details.
• Oh, and lets not forget that their ideal of little regulation has lead to the largest meltdown of our financial system since the Great Depression, and food and pharmacological contamination, and I could go on and on.
• Couple that with low taxes for the “job creators” that instead of flow down has led to the largest transfer of wealth to the wealthy in our history and one has to ask, why we would want to do that some more?
• And in those states where we have Republican Governors, and a Republican controlled State House what do we get? Limits to the right to vote, an attack on government and union workers, attempts to make gay and lesbians second class citizens, and let’s not forget the massive (record number of bills) amount of legislation passed to limit a woman’s right to choose
• The bottom line is that Republicans hate government and taxes and are here to dismantle our great state. Ask yourself where in their plan is the money for improving infrastructure?

So oh great thinkers in the American red states and for that matter, the Beltway Media, where is the compromise in this? The Republicans have presented us with failed social policies, failed financial policies, failed energy policies (none other than low taxes or subsidies for the most profitable industries in the world), and a total plan of just say no. As stupid as cutting right now is, the Senate Democrats have provided you with a balanced approach of cutting and tax reform to cut the deficit. It is already the “compromise” position. Can you now identify who is the problem? I doubt it. Nothing is going to happen till 2014 and maybe not then, if our terminally stupid population re-elects these buffoons.

I guess we have all read or heard about Bill Clinton’s Op-Ed explaining his Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) back in his day. Times were different. I don’t buy it. Was slavery moral back in 1779 but immoral in 1865? Was disenfranchising the rights of gays and lesbians through DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell okay in 1990 and a gross violation of their civil rights in 2013? Think about the name of the bill, Defense of Marriage Act. Who were they defending it from. Did gays back in 1990 threaten traditional marriage like they totally don’t in 2013? Yes it was different times or was there just a lack of leadership.

Nobody that I know of (doesn’t mean much) has come out and criticized the Big Dog, because, I guess he is the Big Dog. Bill Clinton is a master at mesmerizing a crowd and with simplifying issues like no one else can. That was very apparent in his Democratic Convention speech and his later campaigning for President Obama. But when I look back at his Presidency, he took us in the wrong direction.

President Clinton is given the credit for moving the Democratic Party out of the shadows by embracing some conservative ideas and moving the party more to the right. He is lauded by the Republicans as an example of how a President can work with the other party. But what came out of those collaborations? DOMA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, deregulating banking that led to the collapse in 2008, reforming welfare, which when the sky fell in 2008, many were without a life preserver. And of course who can forget his “not having sex with that woman” and probably was the primary cause of electing George Bush (well actually that would be the Supreme Court because Al Gore actually won the vote in Florida).

Chris Hayes was on Now with Alex Wagner Friday and they were discussing his op-ed and Alex asked Chris if this is a reflection of him realizing he was on the wrong side of history. Chris said this which I think we really ought to think about as we look for “bipartisan” solutions:

“It is also a reminder here I think, when people talk about Bill Clinton particularly and his Legacy and particularly the Clinton-Gingrich relationship as a kind of precedent or model for what President Obama is dealing with.

People forget what awful legislation came out of that partnership. We got the Effective Death Penalty Act which is an absolute disaster that any death penalty attorney will tell is a disaster. We got DOMA out of that. We got welfare reform, which I think is a very mixed bag, which as time goes on and we work our way through the Great Recession, is not all that it was cracked up to be.

So there was a lot that came out of that, out of Washington working or them coming to the table together that has haunted us for 17 or 18 years after the fact. I think it should give people just a little skepticism on just how worthwhile compromise or a grand bargain are as ends in and of themselves.”

So maybe Bill is a great politician, but not so much a leader if you define leadership as seeing the big picture and moving the country in the right direction. More importantly, think about all those compromises which were really moving the country in the wrong direction. That is pretty much what is on the table from Republicans these days. So I will ask again as I have asked over and over in this blog, why would you want to compromise with failed policies?

I heard Reverend Al on MSNBC ask what is it going to take to get a “deal” and Ed Rendell, the ex-Governor of Pennsylvania and Democratic talking head said that both sides are going to have to give, and then quoted the Rolling Stone’s song, You can’t get everything you want.”

What a bunch of crap. I and most Americans don’t want a deal, WE WANT A FAIR DEAL OR NO DEAL! And Ed keeps talking like we haven’t already given up too much and the both sides nonsense. He is one of those Democrats that hasn’t figure out that the debt is not the problem and solving the fiscal cliff does nothing to stimulate the economy. Maybe Democrats need to represent the Americans who voted for them (the majority) and not concede to some deal that furthers Republican agendas.

So Reverend Al should have asked how we get a fair deal, and Ed should have said there is already one that is way too generous on the table. And the answer to that whole question about a fair deal is we are not going to get one. There are 40 “chuckleheads” as one moderate Republican calls them, that will not raise any taxes. That’s fair right? The poor should pay for everything. Let’s take care of those job creators right?. Merry Christmas you assholes.

♫ High Ho, High Ho, It is Over the Cliff we Go ♫ unless the Democrats capitulate once again.

Oh and why do I say this does nothing for the economy? See The Incredible Shrinking Stimulus.

My morning routine involves driving down to the mailbox (1/4 mile down a steep hill) at o’dark thirty to get the newspaper and also give my golden retriever a ride in the truck, which she pouts about if I don’t exactly follow this routine.  So my satellite radio was on and  I was tuned to MSNBC and I listen to Chris Jansing interview some Progressive Congressman about going over the cliff, which he felt would provide Democrats with better leverage in the negotiations.  Jansing countered rather vigorously with the question, “What makes you think the Republicans will negotiate then (after going over the cliff) rather than now.”  Implicit in this questions was be afraid, be afraid, the Republican talking point.

No, I did not hear the answer because I was so frustrated with the question, I turned her off.  But here is what my answer would have been:  “Gee Chris, so implicit in your question is the assumption that we should just cave to what the Republicans want like we did last time?  What you are really saying in your question is that taking the nation hostage with terrorist demands should be tolerated?  And in answer to the question, when we go over the cliff, it will be obvious who caused it and we will take it to the American people.  They have already weighed in on tax cuts for the wealthy in the election. Republicans are already irrelevant, and this will be political suicide for 2014.”

There are really two things to consider when looking at compromise that everybody who is a talking head or a pundit seems to want.  The first is to consider how extreme the Republican Party is.  They have moved the country far to the right during the Clinton and Bush years, and George Bush brought us Republican Valhalla, minimal enforcement of regulations and rock bottom tax rates, and the deficit bloomed, the economy sputtered and then blew up.  Now what the Republicans are fighting for is an extreme position backed by failed policies and compromise just moves us further to the right.  They move the ball 10 yards down the field to Right Lunacy, and we compromise with a 5 yard gift?  Why would we want to do that?

Second, the two views of the economy are diametrically opposed.  The Republicans’ view is to pay off the debt so that the wealthy will have “confidence” and create jobs while maintaining their “job creator” status.  The problem with this is an unblemished record of failure in this economic philosophy (See Europe and their austerity or job creation during the Bush years).  As the wealthy get more concentrated wealth, the economy falters (See Why Nations Fail or Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else).  They are fighting to maintain this unequal distribution of income and if you believe history, continue to weaken our economy and our economic future.

Meanwhile Progressives understand that we must raise up the middle class as the only way to get our economy going again versus the flow down that has failed under the Republicans.  They understand that the deficit is not the problem, but a symptom of a lackluster economy that is not growing.  The problem is jobs.  If you gut Medicare and Medicaid, and only increase tax rates marginally on the wealthy, you simply leave the problem in place while forcing those who have already suffered under these policies to pay price.  So why compromise if the end result does not solve the problem. Like last time when the Democrats compromised on the Stimulus and the Debt ceiling, nothing got better and  simply gave the Republicans a reason to say once again, “See, the Democrats ideas don’t work” when the Republicans made them ineffective with their compromised positions.

So no, don’t compromise.  If we go over the curb, we have just taken care of the tax cuts to the wealthy and there will be tons of pressure on Republicans to restore middle class tax cuts.  The other spending cuts need to be addressed one -on-one.  Defense certainly needs to be cut.  And note, if you follow my yesterday’s recomendations, that money will be reinvested into the economy in more productive ways, so there is no net loss in spending and we create jobs.

One last shot over the bow.  I listened to ex-Senator Alan Simpson of the Bowles-Simpson plan discuss how we need to raise the rates on the rich because he understands that without revenue, you can’t solve this problem.  But then he went off on the debt causing growing interest rates and inflation.  This is basically the argument that the CEO’s have launched to get a deal before we go over that speed bump.  It is the confidence fairy argument again where the problem is the deficit, not a lack of jobs and a growing GDP.  It is a failed argument as Paul Krugman has documented for the last four years (Incredible Incrediblity).  It is solving the wrong problem and nothing will get better.

First Republicans, CEOs, and VSPs (Very Smart People) have been saying our borrowing will drive up the interest rates and yet it is at record lows as predicted by Keynesian Economics in a severe recession.  It is not going to go up no matter how much we borrow until our economy takes off, because there is no strong demand for borrowing in a depressed economy.  When the economy takes off, you can then throttle back spending, controlling the interest rate, but first it has to take off and that means jobs.

The inflation argument is the other one that has been repeated over and over again since 2008 once it was obvious that we are printing money to pay our debts.  The trouble is two-fold.  First is a little inflation would be a very good thing.  Holding on to money during a period of inflation just makes it decrease in buying power, and there would be an incentive to invest and grow our economy.  Second, once again, Keynesian Economics tells us that there won’t be any or very little inflation until the economy starts to grow, and as Paul Krugman pointed out after WWI, France took the print money approach to solving their problems and weakening their currency while England took the responsible austerity approach, and guess whose economy did better and recovered earlier (Twenty Tales)?

My point is simple.  The people who are holding sway in this debate and pushing compromise and debt reduction have it all wrong.  Not just wrong in my opinion, but demonstrably wrong by all the data out there.  So why are we listening to them?  Because we are stuck in our home budget analogy and just can’t grasp the lessons of the world around us.  The only way to solve our problems is to grow our middle class, redistribute the spoils of our economy, and create jobs.  The debt will take care of itself if we follow Keynesian Economics and throttle back spending when the economy blossoms (see what happened after WWII with our massive debt, we just simply grew out of it).  So listening to this false BS on the TV makes me want to drive the car off a cliff.  Will we ever learn?

There was an article in the Washington Post about how liberals fear that Obama will once again give away what he was handed in the election. I think they fear with good reason. That is his history, and I still don’t think he really understands Keynesian economics, which has been the model to use to describe what we are going through. The deficit is not the problem, but a symptom of the problem and yet he talks about solving the deficit problem instead of leading us with a discussion of about how we need to create new jobs so we have the ability to then deal with our deficit. I still think he believes that we can do both, i.e., some sort of compromise, and if he does, once again he will have squandered what the voters handed him.

I guess my real concern is that if he leads forcefully, he could end conservative nonsense about the economy forever, and if he doesn’t, he lets them right back in just like he did last time by allowing them to define the issues. If he were to go after jobs, and really improve the economy, 2014 and 2016 would force the Republicans to come back into the mainstream. And make no mistake, this election was not a lurch to the left, but a small move back to the center right. Don’t get carried away with the weed approvals and gay marriage. This is kind of recognizing failed policies and wasted dollars fighting what doesn’t need to be fought. But the nation, or at least the pundits and maybe the President are living in the dark ages of economics where they think we can cure our economy with just a little less severe austerity than the fiscal cliff.

So it is up to Democrats to lead if he won’t or can’t. I could be jumping the gun, but I think we are seeing the leanings once again to some kind of a bargain with entitlements. I hope not, because if he does, he has missed the boat once again, and Democrats in the Senate and House will have to lead. He has such an opportunity to define our future and change the dialogue from small thinking to big thinking. Will he? Will he go over the cliff and define the debate as he needs to? He hasn’t yet and if he doesn’t, if Democrats want to gain control in 2014 and 2016 they will have to pull him along. I am doing my part.

At the Democratic Convention the Democrats loved Bill Clinton because he came and said what they were thinking, and he made the policy differences between what the Republicans are saying ((lies) and the Democratic policies crystal clear and easy to understand.  That was step one.  Step two was to clearly explain where we are today, how we got here, and the path forward.  That was President Obama’s job and in my mind he failed at it. Well, he didn’t really fail, they decided to fall back on hope and honor.  I think that was a big mistake.

Okay step one was to paint where we have come from and he and the Democrats did a good job of that, describing the mess the Republicans left and what were some of the policies that made a difference (stimulus, bail out of General Motors, etc.).  Step two was to explain why we are still stalling today, and on that one, they took a pass in order to appeal to that mythical middle that doesn’t like that the two sides won’t cooperate.  And they finished with he is still willing to work with them as though they will ever work with him.

Here is why I think that was the fatal flaw.  The election, counter to the conventional wisdom, is not going to be decided by the few undecided out there.  It is going to be decided by who gets the biggest voter turn out.  And that goes for both the Presidential election and the state contests.   Too many voters feel their vote just doesn’t matter and they are not that interested.  You have to light the fire.  You have to make it clear what the stakes are. They aren’t going to get out and vote because you are a nicer guy. They are going to get out and vote if they truly understand the threat they are facing.

What should have happened in that speech was to focus on why we have not accomplish so much more and that is the obstructionism of the Republicans and he should have called them on it.  He should have listed every thing he did to try to get them to work with him on and how they blocked bill after bill.  He should have reminded everyone of Mitch McConnell’s pledge (as Bill did) of his aim to block anything that might make him a success.  

He should have reminded us of the “Grand Bargain” and how the Republicans backed out.  Not that the Grand Bargain was such a good idea, but how far he was willing to go to get compromise. He should remind us that they drove us to the brink of bankruptcy that led to our credit rating downgrade.  He should remind us that they are now reneging on their deal if we can not come to a compromise on extending the tax cuts.  He should remind us that they have used the filibuster to make government ineffective.  He should have drawn that line in the sand and said that we cannot continue this way and we must remove from office all those that block progress.

What President Obama should have done was lay out in simple terms all he has tried to do to help us and demonstrate in simple terms like the Big Dog did, how the Republicans have thwarted him and we are where we are today because they have tied his hands.  He should have pointed out that even obvious steps like the Dream Act had to be done with an executive order, because they blocked even that.  

He should have pointed out that we don’t have real financial reform yet and we will never get it with the Republicans watering it down every step of the way.  He should have pointed out that the Republicans are working hard to steal the election in 2012 with voter ID laws.  He should point out that this bunch of Republicans are never going to work with him and the only way to move this government forward and make it effective again is to remove them.

This is what will get the vote out.  Unless people really see the evil of this bunch of Republicans and as they say, get fired up, it is going to be close and the case will not be made to change the face of Congress.  Unless the evil this bunch has brought to government is carefully laid bare and they feel the threat, they will sit on their hands.

So my advice from the hill overlooking the vineyard with a glass of beer in my hand (I am relating to the working man tonight) is that it is truth telling time.  That is what is going to get the vote out and that is what will win the election, and maybe save the country.  Forget about the undecided voters who are mental morons.  Show what the other side has done, don’t be afraid to tell the whole truth because it might appear that you no longer want to compromise with the side that has never compromised with you and isn’t likely to.  

That is what is going to get the vote out and that is what will win you the election.  Staying above the fray has failed for you so many times, can you get a clue? Remember FDR back in 1936 announcing the second New Deal? “They are unanimous in their hatred for me, and I welcome it..“. He showed you the way. Tomorrow it is Monday morning in America and it is time for you to lead.