On the Contrary

In Mitch Daniels’ Response he began by saying, “The status of ‘loyal opposition’ imposes on those out of power some serious responsibilities: to show respect for the Presidency and its occupant, to express agreement where it exists.“  What a boldfaced lie.  There is no “loyal opposition”, just a group of people who want to see the President fail.  One only has to look at what has occurred over the last three years to draw that conclusion.  There are a record number of filibusters, holding the country hostage to their debt demands, and defeating any attempt at improving the unemployment picture.  We have an ideological divide that does not allow the taking of prisoners anymore.  I wish the President would have made that point far more emphatic in his remarks.  We all know nothing is going to happen and now the critical battle is whether we are going to allow the Republicans to eviscerate government and turn us into a two-class society.  It is as simple as that and there is no middle ground.

On Republican leadership, I think we saw it at its most naked form when Rick Santorum was confronted by a woman who again raised the outrageous nonsense about President Obama being a Nigerian Muslim and Santorum pandered to her beliefs (and the amazing crowd of know-nothings around him).  Mitt shows us his leadership when he panders to positions he has rejected in the past, but anything to get by the primaries.  Newt?  Well if lying, deceit, obfuscation, and generating hate is leadership, then bring on the rope and we can call ourselves the lynch mob country.  Ron Paul at least shows some backbone on his unpopular positions on drugs, wars, and sex, but his racist comments and his zany ideas about anarchy as a way of governing lead us to wonder if he thinks deeply about complex problems.  Some leadership when you lie and pander to mob instincts to lead the nation.

I listened to Eric Cantor (ever notice that most of these people are not very bright?) explain how the State of the Union speech (before he had heard it) was just more of the same failed policies.  Really?  Eric and company have never let the President have his policies without being watered down by booby traps that make them ineffective.  But what really ought to make Americans think is that the same old policies are more tax cuts and less regulation.  That is where we have been for the last 30 years and the result is for all of us to behold.  One of the best offensives is to project your weaknesses on your opponent.  This is one giant example of calling what we have not tried except after WWII when our economy was booming, old worn out policies, while calling more of the same that has brought us down and created a two class society change.  You got to love their chutzpah.  But if we listen and follow them, well kiss you kid’s future goodbye.

The President began to throw down the gauntlet, but he should have learned something from Newt’s rise in the polls.  The rabble like clear lines and firm opposition.  Let’s hope this speech was simply a stepping off point for beginning to draw clear lines, confronting failed ideology, and not the lines themselves.  They need to be much more clear and abrupt or the middle class and the appropriate role of government will be lost.

Well I hate to be a curmudgeon, but I didn’t think there was any there, there.  We are the world….  He was walking a fine line between Democrats and Republicans and so everything was qualified.  It was carefully crafted to mean two things.  He is not going to slash social security or medicare, but does that mean he will cut it some?  We need to invest in tomorrow, but we need to cut spending.

He is against earmarks and I still wonder why since this is simply a talking point from the right.  One more time:  Earmarks don’t spend more money, they just redirect already appropriated funds.  This is the way our representatives can further our interests in our states instead of some formula for where money goes in a government office.  The only issue here is complete transparency so if they are going to some wasteful project, the voters can throw the bum out.

Then he is against the extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, but that is what he said before, and there was no commitment to veto an extension if it came up.  He talked about thinking big and our sputnik moment, and then talks about cutting government.  But I think the biggest problem in the speech was no there, there.  It was a list of values we can all agree on, but no specific policies to get us there.  Once again he is leaving it up to Congress to work out the details, so I have no idea what he really proposed.

This whole talk about the corporate tax rate is a red herring.  The big guys, and where all the money is, don’t pay taxes.  So the real issue is a total overhaul of corporate tax loop holes.  Yes, he mentioned it, but what is the plan?  The other red herring is the medical malpractice tort reform.  It is estimated that this accounts for less than 10% of our medical costs.  So you can attack it, but it is not the real driver of growth of medical costs.

So I don’t know where we are going.  Ryan’s rebuttal speech told you to be afraid and cut everything.  That we are spending our way oblivion.  Actually that spending is mostly tax cuts to the wealthy which he was for.  This is moronic.  Everybody is afraid of China and we don’t think their government is a major player in their economy?  So we had hand holding and musical chairs, but the underlying difference, the role of government in our lives is still the issue.  Ryan and Bachmann want to take us back to the 19th century and forget about all the problems or the fact that the government subsidized the rail system (provided the land) or the land grant colleges and it goes on and on.

Sure we need to innovate, but improving the competitive environment for the big guys who already off shore everything will not improve the life of our middle class, just corporation’s bottom line.  What I didn’t hear was a commitment to start fighting for the middle class, any recognition that what is good for Wall Street is not necessary good for our economy, or any real plans for a Sputnik moment.  Just the same old management style of turning things over to Congress to see if they come up with any good ideas.  That has not worked out well.

One last thought:  American Exceptionalism.  We aren’t any more.  Other countries have better infrastructure, they have better health care, they take better care of their less fortunate citizens, have stronger economies, and are innovating where we are leaving the field like alternate energy.  It is nice to psych up the crowd, but the crowd doesn’t understand how far we have fallen.  Exceptionalism is not something we were born with, we have to earn it.  The Republicans want to do nothing and be exceptional.  Exceptionalism requires dreaming the big dreams, willing to take risks, and investing in our future.  Cutting taxes and government is not going to get us there.  We would have been better served by a reality check, not a continuation of our fantasy life.

Update:

Oh, I forgot.  Clean coal.  There is no such thing.  It is an environmental nightmare, not to mention health hazard to mine it.  Then if you can burn it and remove the C02, you have to do something with the C02.  We need to be focusing on alternate energy that doesn’t produce c02 in the first place, not trying to keep an old antiquated coal industry raking in the dough.

With the passing of the tax cuts for the wealthy, I believe we have set ourselves on a path that will make recovery from our economic problems much more difficult, if not impossible.  In addition, I believe that the Democratic Party has made itself irrelevant.  Next month the President will give the State of the Union Address and in it he will tell you that times are tough, but things are getting better.  He will tell you that we need to work together to solve our problems and he may use his extension of the Tax Cut Deal as an example of the new bipartisan approach.  It is all horsepucky.  So in advance of this staged spin machine, I would like to give my own, “State of the State” speech.

My fellow Americans, we are so screwed.  Four score less 78 years ago, we were swept into office to change the direction of America.  And while our faithful in the House of Representatives did just that, our Ship of State foundered on the rocks of the Senate filibuster where the minority party stonewalled all legislation.  Instead of standing firm on our bridge and holding true to our course, we deviated right to get legislation, any legislation passed.  In that deviation we have totally lost our way and have found ourselves tacking hard right in a direction to nowhere with tax cuts for the wealthy.  But we are making great progress in that direction!

Sadly it is all in vain.  While tax cuts and employment insurance for the lower minions will help them sustain their spending power, all the rest of that spending is for naught.  Without increased demand, all the tax incentives in the world will not entice businesses to expand for a non-existent customer, and when they do expand, it will be in countries that allows them to use cheap labor.  So we have frittered away our Treasury doing the Republican’s bidding of enriching the wealthy where flow-down is non-existent and real investment in our infrastructure to create jobs goes wanting.

But wait!  The tax cut is just a way station, a slight detour until our economy gets better claim the delusional.  Oh how secure it must feel to live in the Washington Bubble.  Out here in the hinterlands we see massive cuts in our educational systems and state governments.  We see larger deficits looming which means more cuts or even more taxes that will just further reduce demand and depress the economy.  We see more foreclosures and people really starting to suffer.  We see an old and aging infrastructure with no way to fix it or invest in it for tomorrow.  And of course there is that inconvenient fact that we really don’t make anything that would produce well paying jobs for the middle class that the rest of the world wants. Remember when the Senate Republicans filibustered a real energy bill that might really stimulate our alternate energy production?

No my fellow Americans, things are looking bleak.  The fans of reality TV are now the stock and trade of what goes for intellectual introspection.  Political polls reign supreme where our politicians do what their voters demand instead of what their voters need.  Real leadership is a thing of the past, pandering is in, except of course for Bernie Sanders, the one giant among midgets.  And as the Republicans demonstrated in the last election, it is so easy to use hate, fear, race, and outright lies to mislead the rabble into voting against their own best interests.

And we found that the Democrats are like naïve children who want to believe and trust in their fellow Republicans only to be tricked again and again like Lucy who snatches the football away from Charlie Brown when he thinks this time he really will get to kick it.   Now they believe that giving the Republicans the tax cuts will allow them to actually pass a spending budget, the DREAM Act, or repeal DADT.  No my fellow Americans, they never learn.  They even think they will fix the filibuster law next year!  And pigs will fly.

So the State of the State my fellow Americans, is looking bleaker and bleaker and we live in a fantasy world that believes we are exceptional and are number one, when we didn’t even get into the semi-finals.  We suffer no pain and we get no gain.  So we shut out more and more of reality to reinforce the walls of our fantasy world as our nation continues its slide into a backwater state.  Our Ship of State is headed in the wrong direction, crewed by those who are directionally challenged and uninformed, with a storm in our path.  I would love to be wrong, but I don’t think so.  It will take winds of hurricane force and the true terror of sinking before we recognize that we need to turn this Ship of State around and head for calmer waters.  Thank you my fellow Americans and God Bless America (Sorry about that God Bless America thing.  Pandering to exceptionalism by being the chosen people still has great utility with the reality TV crowd).

President Obama laid out a basic truth in his State of the Union Address that appealed to everyone.  The Chinese are moving forward on green everything and we don’t want to be second in the world economy.  What he didn’t say forcefully enough was that we sit stymied by the filibuster and just saying no to everything.  He pointed out that the market place the Republicans love to worship won’t work unless government sets up the incentives to make it work.  That will require some self-sacrifice by all of us, and that is not part of the Republican repertoire, hence going from boom to bust in the last decade in terms of our deficit.  Everything, in their minds, can be solved by cutting taxes, smaller government, and less regulation.  Ask no one to sacrifice.  It has worked out swimmingly hasn’t it?

What I will take great exception with is that the President was not thinking big.  In fact he was perpetuating some of the conservative myths that should finally be put to rest so our country can finally start to progress.  He is making the same play that Bill Clinton made back in the 90s when he turned conservative after the Republicans were sweep back into office in 1994.  While it got him re-elected in 1996, what Clinton did was to enable the Republicans to bring us George Bush and the conservative party that was the first decade of this century and almost totally destroyed our economy.

The big lie, and the policy that is right out of the Conservatives playbook, was that we can start trimming the deficit in these tough times.  It flies in the face of what we learned in the depression, or what the Japanese learned in their lost decade.  It was crafted to appeal to the independents who don’t yet see the total failure of conservative ideology in the 21^st century.  But it perpetuates a false assumption and if we actually do it, it will hurt, not help the economy whose only prop up right now is the stimulus bill.   It makes doing what we need to do that much harder because sooner or later, we have to discredit conservative ideology if we are to move forward.

Right now we have to prime the economy, not worry about the deficit.  If you are paying attention, while economists are focused on the stock market, States are facing massive budget overruns and are making draconian cuts.  For my conservative friends who think this is just fine to get government under control, they forget that that spending is what is keeping them afloat and without it, then they start to go down.  Unless the Feds come up with a massive aid program to the states, the unemployment rate is going to start climbing again.  So step one in thinking big is a massive aid program to the states.

Step two is to put in place real incentives for green energy, both on the consumer side and the R&D side.  President Obama has taken some steps already on the R&D investment side, but nothing on the consumer side.  Oh get ready here.  I am going to say the “T” word.  We need a real and meaning full TAX on fossil fuels, from gasoline to fuel oil.  Nothing stimulates the market place more than an opportunity to serve a need at a cheaper price.  So you have to make green energy cost effective.  Waiting for innovation to do that is ceding the markets to the Chinese who are making these massive investments.

Oh, you thought that was radical?  Well step three is punishing the banks.  That one ought to be popular since this nation is big on revenge.  One might think that the housing boom was caused by stupid borrows.  But lets not forget stupid lenders (and the whole driving force, the need for debt instruments to sell to the rest of the world).  Now the lenders who are holding these loans, of which it is estimated that 1 in 4 of all mortgages are underwater, want the home owner to stay paying their debt that they will never even break even on so that the banks don’t have to face up to their bad loan decisions and their overvalued equity.  But if our economy is going to get going we have to reset home mortgage values so that the housing market can recover.

Now the way to do this is to reset the mortgage values on these houses to the current value and ban adjustable mortgages.  So the homeowner would have the option of walking away from his loan without any impact to him, or the bank can negotiate not just a longer payment period, but an adjusted mortgage value at a fix rate mortgage. Now the banks cannot offload their bad debt on the homeowners, but must share in the pain of their bad loan decisions.  Oh radical, radical, radical, but actually making the market place work by punishing bad decisions.

The rest of President Obama’s ideas are wonderful, but way too small except of course for that stupid pander of freezing discretionary spending..  Higher education has to be available to everyone who can qualify.  Loans to get credit moving for small businesses needs to be ten times the $30 billion proposed.  If you want to attack the deficit right now, health care is the number one way to do it, but as usual President Obama failed to put a line in the sand on what is acceptable.  The current plan is a disaster, and without a real public option, it will fail.  So get on with reconciliation Senators.

So there you have it.  It is the only way forward and yet we can’t seem to get off the dime, stuck in conservative falsehoods that are going to bring the country down if we don’t soon shake off their chains.  I am struck by one thought.  Maybe if the President cannot bring himself to think big and wants to bring us the lost decade of the Japanese, why not just turn things over to the conservatives, let them implement  their ideas and then they can finish the work of the last decade and totally destroy our economy.  Then, maybe just then, we could finally once and for all discredit the conservative nonsense and start moving the country forward.

Okay, I listened to it.  Let’s face it, he is a great orator and the speech was a strategic thrust into the war for the independent voter, with only a few bones for real Progressives.  It was a great speech because he rose above the battle and acted like a leader of the country. He made those in Congress look small.  It was a strategic speech because, if he follows through with real challenges to the Republicans, they will look like what they are, total obstructionist to any progress.

The speech was written to appeal to those who still think the problem is that the two parties should quit fighting partisan battles.  That is really a hard argument to make if you have been watching how the Democrats have turned themselves inside out trying to bring a Republican, any Republican to vote for anything with a yeah.  But instead of falling into the Republican’s plan to paint the Democrats as partisan who have shut them out, he seemed like the reasonable one.  There were wonderful little traps that cornered the Republicans and made them look like the fools they were if they didn’t stand up and support what he was saying even though they would vote against it the first chance they get.

If fact if you really look at it, what he offered was some of their own stuff recycled. The programs he offered were way too small to really help.   But it was a great tactical move because he may corner them if he plays his cards right and they will be caught reversing their positions and taking very unpopular positions in their attempt to block all progress in government.  If, big if here, if he follows through and takes an active role from here on out, and engages these guys in their two-step, he will expose them for what they are for all to see.  Up till now, they have been able to take the debate to him, claiming the Democrats have “locked them out” when the reality is the only compromise they will except is their way, the same way that got us the disaster we are now in.

So the table has been set nicely for the Democrats to parry and take the offensive.  Will they?  Will Obama fully engage on these issues and trap the Republicans in their lies and deceit?  I can only hope so, but I am not optimistic.  If you are a realist, the Republicans are not going to vote yes on anything.  It is what they have now done for one year so the realistic game is to gut up and proceed understanding that you can play at bipartisanship, but for the Republicans, no matter what you give them they are going to say no.

Can the Democrats summon the courage to discipline their own ranks and move forward with reconciliation?  Not with the likes of Harry Reid at the helm.  The House has done their part.  Now the Senate has to get a backbone.  The only way that will happen is if President Obama engages them nose-to-nose. What is really important is what happens in the next month to see if it was just more soaring rhetoric with no there there, or whether he now understands the playing field and is ready to engage. I can only hope.

Last night with President Obama’s speech to a joint session of the House and Senate followed by Bobby Jindal’s Republican rebuttal, two different paths were clearly evident.  In order to understand this you have to step back and see where we are today.  Instead of listing what most of you already know about our failure to invest in our future, let me just refer you to a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation that found that the competitive edge of the United States economy has eroded sharply over the last decade (New York Times).  If this is not a wakeup call we were on the wrong path, nothing is.

But last night we heard President Obama tell us that government has to get back in the drivers seat and lead, and we have to dream big.  He told us that we have been kicking the can down the road and now it was time to tackle, energy, education, and health care.  It was time for government to take the reigns and lead us out of our doldrums.  He described a way forward that would be led by a reinvigorated government/industry partnership working in our interests.

Next up was Governor Jindal who told us that the solution is not with government, but with businesses solving our problem. “But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians. The way to lead is by empowering you – the American people”.  What we saw in the last eight years of this approach was, as President Obama identified, the transfer of taxpayer money to the wealthy with nothing to show for it.   Then Jindal told us we can’t dream big because we can’t afford it.  That the very businesses that got us into our current mess are going to save us.  Then he told us the lie about the train from Disney Land to Las Vegas again, and reinvented the Katrina mess as how a state can take care of it itself without federal help.  He reinterpreted the whole mess as what happens when the Feds are involved instead of the reality of what happens when Republicans dismantle government.

So here it is as simple as I can put it.  President Obama tells us to dream big and tackle our problems by forging a partnership between an invigorated government and industry.  He points out that we cannot afford not to.  Governor Jindal tells us to not dream at all and to continue our rudderless approach to our future.  This is a choice?  If Americans are still intellectually alive, the Republican Party is finished.