The Impossible Takes Longer

Once again RWA1 has come through for me (unintentionally, of course), this time with a link to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the "GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco: How did the Republicans manage to lose the tax issue to Obama?"

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

The writer labels Obama's payroll tax cut as a "tax holiday," which is fair enough. He could have done the same of Bush's tax holiday for the rich, which the Republicans have been so insistent on prolonging, but the writer chooses instead to see the expiration of the tax holiday as a tax increase. Such deliberate obfuscation don't help solve our problems, but they may help explain why the Republicans are in such trouble politically right now.

Most Americans favor higher taxes for the wealthy, and the Republicans have been vocal and self-righteous about opposing them. Obama has not been particularly clever in exploiting this, but he didn't need to. Most of us, regardless of our party, have seen the same people who nearly destroyed the world economy carry on almost untouched by the depression. While unemployment rose and people lost their homes by often dubious foreclosures, CEOs and other executives were given extravagant bonuses, even when their companies lost money or collapsed altogether. The Republicans called for more austerity, resisted extensions of unemployment benefits, blocked even Obama's tepid stimulus measures, and fussed over the deficit while many people lost hope for their future. Democratic operatives have been working themselves into a vindictive frenzy because Obama has been criticized from the left, but not to worry: the Republicans have worked hard to make themselves less popular than Obama.

Apart from the propaganda in pro-Obama media, I've been getting e-mail from the source, denouncing the Republicans for wanting to raise "a typical family's taxes by more than $1,000 next year" by letting the payroll tax holiday expire. Obama, by contrast, wants to "[e]xtend and expand the tax cut, helping 160 million people and letting that same family keep $1,500." That's all very nice, and I like extra money as much as anyone else, but even $1,500 is not that much money. It's just over $100 a month, which is not going to help a family with children very much. Of course Obama's playing politics with his tax holiday, but so did the Bush administration, which tried to distract attention from its service to the top 1% with a couple of "tax rebates" -- remember those? -- in 2001 and 2008, which gave the typical family a one-time payment of a few hundred dollars. (Three hundred in 2001, three hundred to 1200 in 2008.) Besides, lowering the payroll tax means lowering the amount of money that goes into the Social Security fund, which is not a good idea to put it gently. (According to Josh Bivens, though, "the legislation that cut the payroll tax also instructed Treasury to credit the Trust Fund for the lost revenue – but since when has being factually wrong defanged a political argument? And who’s to say that the next year of payroll tax cuts will maintain this commitment to hold the Trust Fund whole?")

The op-ed writer also talks about the huge tax increases that will happen in 2013 if the Republicans can't find a way to win the public's confidence. Nothing he mentions suggests that the top brackets are going to pay a lot more if their tax holiday expires, and with good reason: their top marginal rates weren't that high before the holiday, certainly compared to what they were in the 1960s. I'm also skeptical about the writer's claim that Obama has "spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases," which is familiar right-wing boilerplate. They were saying it in 2009, and it was false then. The WSJ editorial page has never been known for factual accuracy either, rather the opposite.

The writer had some recommendations for the Republicans, which RWA1 endorsed. Here they are:

At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly. Then go home and return in January with a united House-Senate strategy that forces Democrats to make specific policy choices that highlight the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation. Wisconsin freshman Senator Ron Johnson has been floating a useful agenda for such a strategy. The alternative is more chaotic retreat and the return of all-Democratic rule.

All-Democratic rule!? Oh, noes! While I was writing this post the news went out that the Republicans did cut their losses and extended the payroll tax holiday. ABC News reported that

A muted House Speaker John Boehner announced today that Republicans have decided to accept a short-term extension of the payroll tax cut, preventing a hike in taxes just nine days before the tax break expires for 160 million Americans.

Boehner has a mute button? Why weren't we told this before? But I don't think the Republicans are going to have much success highlighting "the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation," because the Republican "differences" are political concrete overshoes. Not that I'm concern trolling here, mind you. I'm perfectly happy to see the Republicans suffer a humiliating defeat on everything, so I can concentrate more on criticizing the Democrats.

By the way, the WSJ also features something I can't resist passing along: "How to Sneak in Sports on Christmas", by one Jason Gay (which must be a pseudonym). It's sort of like the op-ed piece: how to do what you want to do, no matter what anyone else thinks, while still feeling totally justified and put-upon.

There are 13 NFL games on Christmas Eve, and five juicy season-opening NBA contests on Christmas Day, and at some point, you're going to be following a game on your TV, or your phone, or your high-tech germ tablet, and a disapproving person is going to scold you and tell you to shut that thing off and show some respect. And you will feel ashamed, and promise to pay close attention for the rest of church, or your child's first Christmas.

"In church"? Jason Gay is visualizing some guy in the pews with an iPod plugged into his ear, hunched over the tiny screen as he pretends to be kneeling in prayer. Will Tim Tebow be playing on Christmas Day? Where are the War on Christmas partisans? Somebody call the American Family Association! It's hard to believe that Jason Gay isn't writing satire, but he seems to be entirely serious.

I count myself lucky, though. If I were attending a normal American family Christmas, I'd probably be stuck among people who made those games a family activity, and I'd be trying to sneak in some reading against their attempts to shame me for not caring about the "important games."

The Impossible Takes Longer

Once again RWA1 has come through for me (unintentionally, of course), this time with a link to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the "GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco: How did the Republicans manage to lose the tax issue to Obama?"

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

The writer labels Obama's payroll tax cut as a "tax holiday," which is fair enough. He could have done the same of Bush's tax holiday for the rich, which the Republicans have been so insistent on prolonging, but the writer chooses instead to see the expiration of the tax holiday as a tax increase. Such deliberate obfuscation don't help solve our problems, but they may help explain why the Republicans are in such trouble politically right now.

Most Americans favor higher taxes for the wealthy, and the Republicans have been vocal and self-righteous about opposing them. Obama has not been particularly clever in exploiting this, but he didn't need to. Most of us, regardless of our party, have seen the same people who nearly destroyed the world economy carry on almost untouched by the depression. While unemployment rose and people lost their homes by often dubious foreclosures, CEOs and other executives were given extravagant bonuses, even when their companies lost money or collapsed altogether. The Republicans called for more austerity, resisted extensions of unemployment benefits, blocked even Obama's tepid stimulus measures, and fussed over the deficit while many people lost hope for their future. Democratic operatives have been working themselves into a vindictive frenzy because Obama has been criticized from the left, but not to worry: the Republicans have worked hard to make themselves less popular than Obama.

Apart from the propaganda in pro-Obama media, I've been getting e-mail from the source, denouncing the Republicans for wanting to raise "a typical family's taxes by more than $1,000 next year" by letting the payroll tax holiday expire. Obama, by contrast, wants to "[e]xtend and expand the tax cut, helping 160 million people and letting that same family keep $1,500." That's all very nice, and I like extra money as much as anyone else, but even $1,500 is not that much money. It's just over $100 a month, which is not going to help a family with children very much. Of course Obama's playing politics with his tax holiday, but so did the Bush administration, which tried to distract attention from its service to the top 1% with a couple of "tax rebates" -- remember those? -- in 2001 and 2008, which gave the typical family a one-time payment of a few hundred dollars. (Three hundred in 2001, three hundred to 1200 in 2008.) Besides, lowering the payroll tax means lowering the amount of money that goes into the Social Security fund, which is not a good idea to put it gently. (According to Josh Bivens, though, "the legislation that cut the payroll tax also instructed Treasury to credit the Trust Fund for the lost revenue – but since when has being factually wrong defanged a political argument? And who’s to say that the next year of payroll tax cuts will maintain this commitment to hold the Trust Fund whole?")

The op-ed writer also talks about the huge tax increases that will happen in 2013 if the Republicans can't find a way to win the public's confidence. Nothing he mentions suggests that the top brackets are going to pay a lot more if their tax holiday expires, and with good reason: their top marginal rates weren't that high before the holiday, certainly compared to what they were in the 1960s. I'm also skeptical about the writer's claim that Obama has "spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases," which is familiar right-wing boilerplate. They were saying it in 2009, and it was false then. The WSJ editorial page has never been known for factual accuracy either, rather the opposite.

The writer had some recommendations for the Republicans, which RWA1 endorsed. Here they are:

At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly. Then go home and return in January with a united House-Senate strategy that forces Democrats to make specific policy choices that highlight the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation. Wisconsin freshman Senator Ron Johnson has been floating a useful agenda for such a strategy. The alternative is more chaotic retreat and the return of all-Democratic rule.

All-Democratic rule!? Oh, noes! While I was writing this post the news went out that the Republicans did cut their losses and extended the payroll tax holiday. ABC News reported that

A muted House Speaker John Boehner announced today that Republicans have decided to accept a short-term extension of the payroll tax cut, preventing a hike in taxes just nine days before the tax break expires for 160 million Americans.

Boehner has a mute button? Why weren't we told this before? But I don't think the Republicans are going to have much success highlighting "the differences between the parties on spending, taxes and regulation," because the Republican "differences" are political concrete overshoes. Not that I'm concern trolling here, mind you. I'm perfectly happy to see the Republicans suffer a humiliating defeat on everything, so I can concentrate more on criticizing the Democrats.

By the way, the WSJ also features something I can't resist passing along: "How to Sneak in Sports on Christmas", by one Jason Gay (which must be a pseudonym). It's sort of like the op-ed piece: how to do what you want to do, no matter what anyone else thinks, while still feeling totally justified and put-upon.

There are 13 NFL games on Christmas Eve, and five juicy season-opening NBA contests on Christmas Day, and at some point, you're going to be following a game on your TV, or your phone, or your high-tech germ tablet, and a disapproving person is going to scold you and tell you to shut that thing off and show some respect. And you will feel ashamed, and promise to pay close attention for the rest of church, or your child's first Christmas.

"In church"? Jason Gay is visualizing some guy in the pews with an iPod plugged into his ear, hunched over the tiny screen as he pretends to be kneeling in prayer. Will Tim Tebow be playing on Christmas Day? Where are the War on Christmas partisans? Somebody call the American Family Association! It's hard to believe that Jason Gay isn't writing satire, but he seems to be entirely serious.

I count myself lucky, though. If I were attending a normal American family Christmas, I'd probably be stuck among people who made those games a family activity, and I'd be trying to sneak in some reading against their attempts to shame me for not caring about the "important games."

Till the End of the Age

Steve Kornacki at Salon briefly dared to tone down his adulation of President Obama after the debt deal, but he can't quite let go of it. Today, for example:

If there was ever a chance that there'd be a follow-up to the now clearly inadequate stimulus that Obama pushed through Congress at the start of his presidency, it vanished for good (or at least through the 2012 election) last November, when the GOP reclaimed the House and increased its share of the Senate. We knew then that the scale of collaboration between the president and the 112th Congress would probably be limited, at best.

It depends on who "we" are, I guess. There has been plenty of collaboration between Obama and Congress in this session, in the form of Obama collaborating with the Republicans. The stimulus bill was "clearly inadequate" when it was passed, and we who pointed that out were not surprised to see Obama scaling up his concessions to the Right as his term went on. (Of course, we who noticed such things, the premature anti-collaborationists as it were, were and are taken seriously only as "professional leftists" who didn't want to President Obama to succeed. Which was true, if success is to be measured in terms of enacting the Republican Right's agenda, as it has proved to be.)



Kornacki continues:

Five dozen districts that voted for Obama in '08 are now represented by Republicans. If Democrats can pick off half of them in '12, and keep their losses to a minimum elsewhere, they'll be in position to win back the House -- making it possible for Obama to enjoy a productive relationship with Congress again.

Wait a minute. That "productive relationship with Congress" gave us that "clearly inadequate" stimulus bill, the corporate-subsidy Affordable Health Care Act, and an ongoing failure to keep the progressive-sounding promises Obama had made during his campaign, because the nasty partisan Republicans wouldn't cooperate with the President. Obama and his apologists were big on excuses for their failures when they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House; I don't believe their situation is going to be as advantageous after November 2012 as it was after November 2008, but even if they did, would it make any difference? If they couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do better then, they won't be able to do better after the next election.

Realistically, this may be the best case scenario for Obama and his supporters -- gut it out for the next 15 months, eke out a small but impressive-seeming win, then hope the Republicans of the 113th Congress decide its in their interests to be just a little bit more open to collaboration.

For the rest of us, a President a little bit less open to collaboration would be better, but that's not a best-case scenario, it's an impossible dream.

Till the End of the Age

Steve Kornacki at Salon briefly dared to tone down his adulation of President Obama after the debt deal, but he can't quite let go of it. Today, for example:

If there was ever a chance that there'd be a follow-up to the now clearly inadequate stimulus that Obama pushed through Congress at the start of his presidency, it vanished for good (or at least through the 2012 election) last November, when the GOP reclaimed the House and increased its share of the Senate. We knew then that the scale of collaboration between the president and the 112th Congress would probably be limited, at best.

It depends on who "we" are, I guess. There has been plenty of collaboration between Obama and Congress in this session, in the form of Obama collaborating with the Republicans. The stimulus bill was "clearly inadequate" when it was passed, and we who pointed that out were not surprised to see Obama scaling up his concessions to the Right as his term went on. (Of course, we who noticed such things, the premature anti-collaborationists as it were, were and are taken seriously only as "professional leftists" who didn't want to President Obama to succeed. Which was true, if success is to be measured in terms of enacting the Republican Right's agenda, as it has proved to be.)



Kornacki continues:

Five dozen districts that voted for Obama in '08 are now represented by Republicans. If Democrats can pick off half of them in '12, and keep their losses to a minimum elsewhere, they'll be in position to win back the House -- making it possible for Obama to enjoy a productive relationship with Congress again.

Wait a minute. That "productive relationship with Congress" gave us that "clearly inadequate" stimulus bill, the corporate-subsidy Affordable Health Care Act, and an ongoing failure to keep the progressive-sounding promises Obama had made during his campaign, because the nasty partisan Republicans wouldn't cooperate with the President. Obama and his apologists were big on excuses for their failures when they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House; I don't believe their situation is going to be as advantageous after November 2012 as it was after November 2008, but even if they did, would it make any difference? If they couldn't -- or wouldn't -- do better then, they won't be able to do better after the next election.

Realistically, this may be the best case scenario for Obama and his supporters -- gut it out for the next 15 months, eke out a small but impressive-seeming win, then hope the Republicans of the 113th Congress decide its in their interests to be just a little bit more open to collaboration.

For the rest of us, a President a little bit less open to collaboration would be better, but that's not a best-case scenario, it's an impossible dream.

Just a Piece of Parchment

I happened on this amusing cartoon yesterday. I am not sure whose link directed me to it; it was originally posted at the right-wing blog Get Liberty, which bills itself as favoring limited government. As far as I can tell from its archives, Get Liberty only became concerned about unlimited government in March 2009; before that, though some of their material criticizes former President Bush for abandoning free-market principles, they don't seem to care if their critique of big government is accessible to readers. (P.S. Well, no wonder!) Articles like this turn up in a search, but they're still warnings of what Obama will do to those who dare to criticize him, with convenient amnesia about the Bush Administration; or this one, begging President Bush to call Congress back into session, if it please you Sir, if you're not playing eleven-dimensional chess to ensure "success this November." There's a marvelous cognitive dissonance in seeing Get Liberty urge Bush, of all Presidents, "to make that abundantly clear to the rollicking, frolicking House leadership that has put their fun in the sun above the nation’s energy needs." They even admit gloomily, "Whether flying off to the China Olympics or holing up with Vladimir Putin, the President surely doesn’t seem to be" listening to the People. Bear in mind that they're talking about a President notorious not only for his own long vacations, but for his inattention and absence during national emergencies. These guys are as pious in their hopes as liberal Democrats who hope that President Obama will at any moment drop the mask and reveal himself as a fighting progressive. You can't stuff money into the pockets of the rich (which Bush always made clear was his purpose in life) with a small government, dummies! Hell, even with a big government, Bush wasn't able to spend all the TARP funds he wanted on welfare for the suffering, deserving wealthy.

I also enjoyed this cartoon, which sees Rush Limbaugh's failed bid for a football team as a victim of McCarthyism, another odd call for the Right, which has been trying to rehabilitate the late Senator from Wisconsin for half a century, but remains ever-vigilant about New McCarthyisms. Unfortunately, Get Liberty are unable to avoid New McCarthyisms of their own: they denounced Sotomayor as a "self-declared racist termagant." (They also don't seem to know what "self-declared" means. Making statements which others construe as racist does not constitute declaring oneself a racist, or Limbaugh would also be a "self-declared racist.")

It does seem to be true that Sotomayor wasn't questioned adequately by the Senate; but the failure was bipartisan. Avedon at the Sideshow mentioned a right-winger who was "whining about how hard it is to pronounce 'Sotomayor' - which I thought was pretty rich coming from an Armenian." Later she linked to a Frank Rich column that provided an overview of the Republican political clown show, which was unconcerned about the Constitution but very concerned about putting a Latina, even a conservative one, on the Supreme Court. FAIR did some stories too.

As always in cases like this, I have to wonder when Get Liberty began worrying about the Constitution. Certainly not during the Bush administration, when their President was quoted (and three witnesses concurred) telling Republican leaders in 2005 that he could do whatever he wanted. It was one of Bush's own aides, presumably a loyal Republican, who warned him that there was "a valid case that the provisions in [the Patriot Act] violate the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

And, of course, the last thing the gang at Get Liberty wants is a new President who takes the Constitution seriously, unless they want to see most of the Bush administration in the dock for multiple high crimes. And I don't think they do.

Just a Piece of Parchment

I happened on this amusing cartoon yesterday. I am not sure whose link directed me to it; it was originally posted at the right-wing blog Get Liberty, which bills itself as favoring limited government. As far as I can tell from its archives, Get Liberty only became concerned about unlimited government in March 2009; before that, though some of their material criticizes former President Bush for abandoning free-market principles, they don't seem to care if their critique of big government is accessible to readers. (P.S. Well, no wonder!) Articles like this turn up in a search, but they're still warnings of what Obama will do to those who dare to criticize him, with convenient amnesia about the Bush Administration; or this one, begging President Bush to call Congress back into session, if it please you Sir, if you're not playing eleven-dimensional chess to ensure "success this November." There's a marvelous cognitive dissonance in seeing Get Liberty urge Bush, of all Presidents, "to make that abundantly clear to the rollicking, frolicking House leadership that has put their fun in the sun above the nation’s energy needs." They even admit gloomily, "Whether flying off to the China Olympics or holing up with Vladimir Putin, the President surely doesn’t seem to be" listening to the People. Bear in mind that they're talking about a President notorious not only for his own long vacations, but for his inattention and absence during national emergencies. These guys are as pious in their hopes as liberal Democrats who hope that President Obama will at any moment drop the mask and reveal himself as a fighting progressive. You can't stuff money into the pockets of the rich (which Bush always made clear was his purpose in life) with a small government, dummies! Hell, even with a big government, Bush wasn't able to spend all the TARP funds he wanted on welfare for the suffering, deserving wealthy.

I also enjoyed this cartoon, which sees Rush Limbaugh's failed bid for a football team as a victim of McCarthyism, another odd call for the Right, which has been trying to rehabilitate the late Senator from Wisconsin for half a century, but remains ever-vigilant about New McCarthyisms. Unfortunately, Get Liberty are unable to avoid New McCarthyisms of their own: they denounced Sotomayor as a "self-declared racist termagant." (They also don't seem to know what "self-declared" means. Making statements which others construe as racist does not constitute declaring oneself a racist, or Limbaugh would also be a "self-declared racist.")

It does seem to be true that Sotomayor wasn't questioned adequately by the Senate; but the failure was bipartisan. Avedon at the Sideshow mentioned a right-winger who was "whining about how hard it is to pronounce 'Sotomayor' - which I thought was pretty rich coming from an Armenian." Later she linked to a Frank Rich column that provided an overview of the Republican political clown show, which was unconcerned about the Constitution but very concerned about putting a Latina, even a conservative one, on the Supreme Court. FAIR did some stories too.

As always in cases like this, I have to wonder when Get Liberty began worrying about the Constitution. Certainly not during the Bush administration, when their President was quoted (and three witnesses concurred) telling Republican leaders in 2005 that he could do whatever he wanted. It was one of Bush's own aides, presumably a loyal Republican, who warned him that there was "a valid case that the provisions in [the Patriot Act] violate the Constitution."

"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

And, of course, the last thing the gang at Get Liberty wants is a new President who takes the Constitution seriously, unless they want to see most of the Bush administration in the dock for multiple high crimes. And I don't think they do.