Rise against the Republican plutocratic agenda

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Republican Party is, when you get right down to it, a party of greed and cruelty wrapped up in theocratic moralizing. (It's hardly any wonder that Donald Trump is doing so well, nor that Franklin Graham, one of the party's chief theocrats, is saying such nice things about him.) And perhaps the core of the Republican agenda, more important than the social conservatism, is tax policy that benefits the rich, both individual and corporate, at the expense of everyone else, that punishes everyone else, and especially the poor and others most in need of help, for not being rich.

This has been the case for a long time, but increasingly, it seems, in these difficult economic times and with the American economy (and American hegemony) in such dire straits, likely never to recover, let alone to be what it once was, Americans are waking up to what Republicans are all about and expressing their opposition. The Tea Party expresses the rage of the right, anti-government rage that complements the Republican agenda. This new opposition, garnering less media attention, expresses not the counter-rage of the left, nor even rage at all, but a genuine concern for fairness, compassion, and fiscal sanity in American politics.

Here's Think Progress:

All across America, a Main Street Movement has broken out to defend the middle class against right-wing attacks on labor rights and basic public services. In recent days, this movement has turned on GOP House members who voted to effectively end Medicare and turn seniors over to private insurance companies when they approved Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) radical budget bill.

On Tuesday, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) was the latest congressman to face the ire of Main Street America during a town hall event with constituents who stopped being polite and started getting real.

First, constituents explained they were upset that Ryan's plan would cut off people under the age of 55 from Medicare. Then, others directly challenged Duffy about defending tax breaks for the wealthy for voting to effectively replace Medicare with a voucher system.

Ryan himself, supposedly a courageous advocate for fiscal sanity but really just a right-wing extremist whose focus is on tax cuts for the wealthy and spending cuts to programs for the poor, was challenged by his own constituents the other day. And Republicans are facing significant criticism over their support for Ryan's Medicare-slashing plan.

I suspect we'll see more and more of this. Or, at least, I hope we do. It's time for Americans to say enough is enough to the greed and cruelty of the GOP.

Here's the Duffy clip:

Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan gets booed by his own constituents

By Michael J.W. Stickings

To Republicans, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin is a superstar. To many in the media, he's a towering oracle of economic wisdom. To many in the Democratic Party, he's a political giant far too formidable even to question.

And so Ryan, a worshipper of Ayn Rand, gets away with spinning his right-wing extremism without much of a challenge, except from a few lone liberal voices like Jon Chait and Paul Krugman and from some of us outside the media/political establishment on the left of the political blogosphere.

He is widely touted as one of the true heroes of the moment, if not of our time, a courageous campaigner for fiscal responsibility, for balanced budgets and getting America's economic house in order at long last. And yet what he really is is a campaigner for the same old right-wing Republican economic policies, just with a pretty face and broad media appeal. His version of fiscal responsibility, a pretty standard conservative one, involves cutting programs for the poor and cutting taxes for the rich.

To their and their country's shame, most people don't much care about the poor, who barely have a voice in Washington. Most people also oppose cuts to major entitlement programs like Social Security, and so Ryan, like the rest of his party, doesn't want to go there. Nor, of course, does he support significant cuts to military spending, which would certainly help balance the budget. But the key is that Ryan wants to do everything he can to give the rich as much as possible at the expense of everyone else, not just the poor but everyone who isn't rich, including the middle class, or what's left of it. And in supporting tax cuts for the rich, Ryan exposes himself not as a crusader for fiscal responsibility but as your typical Republican, a party of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich, a party that suckers the non-rich into voting for it by playing to deep-rooted fears about race or terrorism or whatever other Other it identifies as a vote-winner.

But you know what? Tax cuts for the rich aren't popular. At all. Republicans generally try to hide their support for such cuts, but they just can't do that anymore, or at least it's more difficult for them to do so, and more and more their real agenda, their plutocratic political agenda, is being exposed. People just need to pay attention.

Which is precisely what some of them are doing, including in Ryan's own district, where this week he was actually booed at a town hall for advocating tax cuts for the wealthy:

In a video posted by ThinkProgress, an attendee at the event this week told Ryan that he believes the rich should pay higher taxes to help close the deficit and strengthen Social Security.

"The middle class is disappearing right now," he said. "During this time of prosperity, the top 1 percent was taking about 10 percent of the total annual income, but yet today we are fighting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire?"

Ryan protested that "We do tax the top," before being drowned out by the audience's jeers.

Here's the clip. Hopefully it's just the start of what Ryan and the GOP deserve, which is the disapproval of voters and, come next November, votes for the other side.

(And instead of cowering in fear before Ryan and his media-enhanced stardom, Democrats should learn from this, as from all the polls showing public opposition to tax cuts for the rich, and counter the Republican agenda with a fair, sensible, and compassionate alternative that doesn't crush the poor, punish the middle class, and let the rich rape and pillage at will.)

Fighting an election on the Paul Ryan budget plan? Good idea (for Democrats)

By: R.K. Barry

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly recently discussed a poll by a major Democratic pollster, Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, which suggested that Republicans might have some difficulty selling the Paul Ryan budget plan to the American people.

On the day the plan passed in the House, the pollster wrote:

Congressman Paul Ryan's budget proposal, to be embraced by the House Republican majority today, faces serious obstacles in winning public support. The Republican plan provides Democrats with a strong argument that Republicans have the wrong priorities for America and will break a long-standing agreement the country has with seniors. The budget opens up a fundamental debate about values that could end up defining the Republicans in the public mind and allowing Democrats to draw sharp differences and regain their standing on the economy and spending priorities and advocacy for the middle class. The decision to end Medicare and shift costs to seniors in continuing tough times may be the Republicans' undoing.

The Republican deficit plan does not even win majority support, but when voters learn almost anything about it, they turn sharply and intensely against it. They have particularly grave concerns about the plan to end Medicare and slash Medicaid spending, pushing seniors into the private insurance market and costing them thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses.

The bottom line is that when people are asked in general terms if they like the Republican plan, 48% support the idea, while 33% were against it. Not bad for the Republicans.

But when people are told exactly what is in the plan, there is a shift.

As Benen writes:

But then respondents were given an accurate description of the same plan, noting, among other things, that the GOP proposal makes small cuts in defense spending, repeals health care reform, cuts taxes on corporations and the wealthy and makes major cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.

Upon hearing this, support drops from 48% to 36% and opposition rises from 33% to 56%.

As Nate Silver points out, "clearly there is a political upside for Dems in attacking the Ryan plan, however, they also have a lot of work to do to inform voters about it."

But that would seem to be the point and opportunity. This is what some people call a ballot question: the top of mind issue that people are thinking about when they enter a voting booth. Understanding that Democrats have a lot of work to do to ensure that people "get it," the Republican approach provides a coherent point of attack for Democrats. Campaigners are always grateful when these sorts of things fall out of the sky. Perhaps we should all send a gift to Mr. Ryan to show our gratitude.

Speaking of the Congressman, when he first started flogging his plan, he was all over the press expressing his hope that Democrats would not politicize his proposal. Here we have perhaps the single most important political decision that can be made in Washington, articulation of the financial architecture of the country for years to come, and Ryan thinks it would be a shame if political hay were made out of it by Democrats.

Not to school Paul Ryan in any way, but there was a very important book written by leading American political scientist Harold Lasswell in 1935 called Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How. I don't think things have changed that much since then. This budget battle is a contest to determine just this. It is the most political of exercises for everyone involved. Republican have a clear idea of who they want to help, as do Democrats.

So far it seems that the more the American people learn about the GOP's plan for America, the more likely they will be to understand that Democrats advocate for a much larger portion of the population and Republicans for a more select few. It's about time something made that picture clearer.

No wonder President Obama is getting fired up lately.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

Massive military spending is bringing America down

By Michael J.W. Stickings

ThinkProgress cites a remarkable report showing the enormous cost of the U.S. military:

A new report released today by SIPRI, a Swedish-based think tank, reveals that U.S. military spending has almost doubled since 2001. The U.S. spent an astounding $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade.

U.S. spending on the military last year far exceeded any other country. We spent six times more than China -- the second largest spender. Overall, the world expended $1.6 trillion on the military, with the United States accounting for the lion's share:



As a percentage of GDP, U.S. military spending has increased from 3.1% in 2001 to 4.8% last year. 

For all the bluster from so-called deficit hawks like Paul Ryan, who isn't really a deficit hawk (let alone a "courageous" one) but rather a media-hyped anti-government Ayn Rand disciple, the real burden on the U.S. budget isn't Social Security or Medicare, nor spending on public broadcasting, nor "waste," but rather the military, which has grown to meet the hegemonic demands of two terrible wars and the maintenance of an empire that is declining and falling.

This just isn't sustainable. As Matthew Yglesias writes, "given that the US share of global economic output is extremely likely to shrink over the next 15 years, we're not going to be able to sustain this kind of hegemonic posture without really crippling the domestic economy."

But of course you can't cut the military, can you? If you do, you're apparently not tough enough on America's enemies, and you may even want the terrorists to win. So instead we get Republicans, who claim to be fiscally conservative deficit hawks but who are really just plutocrats seeking to make life even cushier for the wealthy. And so Paul Ryan's much-ballyhooed and media-applauded "The Path to Prosperity" includes regressive tax cuts and attacks on programs for the poor. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

As for military spending, yes, sure, the argument can be made that the U.S. bears the burden of policing the world in a way no other country does. (And, yes, I support the intervention in Libya, too.) But choices have to be made, and if the U.S. is to recover a sense of fiscal sanity it will need to reduce its military spending and to make do with less. And, of course, to decide what sort of global military power it wishes to be -- and can afford to be. Americans may wish to cling to a sense of unchallenged superiority, with a military able to wield enormous power, but the reality is that, considerations of the dubious justice of overwhelming military might notwithstanding, their country's future requires significantly more constrained objectives.

Truth in Comics: Paul Ryan's balancing act

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From RJ Matson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Taegan Goddard):

We'll add this excellent work to our "Truth in Comics" series. 

And for more on Ryan's much-ballyhooed budget plan, "The Path to Prosperity," see Jon Chait's:

-- "Path To Prosperity Even More Insanely Unworkable Than You Thought";

-- "Republicans Admit Their Health Care Complaint Was Bogus";

-- "The Path To Prosperity And The True Republican Agenda";

-- "The Counterintuitive Liberal Case For Ryan Is Too Counterintuitive";

-- "Ryan's Bipartisanship Fib"; and

-- "The Achilles Heel Of The Path To Prosperity."

Great analysis of a fiscally irresponsible and incredibly cruel plan.

It's not about the money

By Mustang Bobby 

When you see something like the budget that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) proposed with all its cuts to programs that have become ingrained in the fabric of American life such as Medicare, and then listen to the other things the Republicans want to cut such as public broadcasting or regulations on pollution, it's obvious that cutting spending is just an excuse. Like the teabaggers say, they really do want to take the country back: back in time.

They want to go back to the 1950s, or better yet, to the 1920s or even the 19th Century when there were no safety nets for the poor or disabled, when children worked in the textile mills, when minorities were very much in the minority in terms of everything, and everyone was a lot happier as long as you were rich, white, and healthy. If you weren't, well, that was God's will, and if the life expectancy was in the mid-50s and people died from the common cold and 12 hours a day six days a week meant that the factory worker had little time for foolishness and impure thoughts such as striking for a fair wage and shorter working hours, that was the American way.

As Rachel Maddow noted last night, Mr. Ryan said about his proposal, "This isn't a budget, this is a cause." And he's right. His budget proposal perfectly outlines the GOP philosophy of every white man for himself and the rest of you will have to just suck it up and make it on your own, especially if you're older and not feeling too well.

The Republicans know they've lost the battle on such things as multiculturalism, gay rights, women's rights and reproductive choice. They can't make the arguments any more on philosophical grounds because they sound like they're racist, homophobic, misogynistic bigots, so they resort to the one thing they know gets to everyone: money. Sure, we'd love to provide healthcare to all people at an affordable cost but it costs money. Sure, we'd love to turn the public schools into palaces and pay teachers what they're really worth, but we're broke. And yes, we'd love to make sure that all the police and firefighters have a say in their negotiations over their wages, but we just can't afford it. It's their perfect excuse, and it works, at least until you remember that it was the Republicans who got us into this mess in the first place... just as they did in the 1920s when everything was hunky-dory right up to the Crash in 1929.

If Mr. Ryan had made such a budget proposal five years ago, at the height of the Bush administration's two wars that were off the books and the tax cuts that helped get us into the deficit we're in now, he would have been shown the door not by just the Democrats, but by the Republicans as well. His timing would have been way off; the only time the Republicans care about a budget deficit or too much spending is when a Democrat is in the White House. But now they see this as the opportunity to take us back to the good old days on the excuse that we just can't afford to be the America we've become.

If it was merely a matter of budget deficits and revenue, this discussion would have been over long ago. But it's really about going back to the days when the white heterosexual Protestant men were in charge; minorities knew their place, children were seen and not heard (but contributed to the work force), women didn't vote, there was no income tax, and Republicans didn't govern; they ruled. That's what this is all about.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Top Ten Cloves: Things overheard during last night's SOTU

By J. Thomas Duffy

News Item: Obama's Second State of the Union (Text)

10. "We should pass a bill that mandates the SOTU be like Twitter -- 140 characters or less."

9. "I see that Kucinich brought his own sandwich tonight."

8. "Being the Bears fan that he is, I heard he might give Jay Cutler a medal or something."

7. "What's going to happen first, Joe Biden falling asleep or John Boehner crying?"

6. Someone claims Joe Wilson shouted out "Only thing missing is the Mighty Mouse theme music."

5. "Hey, get this, John Thune is going around telling people no way is he going to invest in Sputni."

4. "Well, at least Paul Ryan doesn't look like that 30 Rock page guy.)

3. "Did you see Palin called Reagan "America's Lifeguard" the other day? Is she trying to say Obama belongs at that Pennsylvania swimming club?"

2. "What's the difference between Obama and Taco Bell's meat? Nothing -- neither Taco Bell nor his speech has much beef."

1. "Instead of letting the Tea Party have her, maybe we should have Bachmann give our official response. What's the worst that could happen?"

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)