The Apex of Conservative Budgetary Batshit

Congressional Republicans have proposed their collective legislative wet dream of long-term fiscal policy:

A Republican plan for the 2012 budget would cut more than $4 trillion over the next decade, more than even the president's debt commission proposed, with spending caps as well as changes in the Medicare and Medicaid health programs, its principal author said Sunday.

[...]

Ryan said Obama's call for freezing nondefense discretionary spending actually locks in spending at high levels. Under the forthcoming GOP plan, Ryan said spending would return to 2008 levels and thus cut an additional $400 billion over 10 years.

Here are the highlights from their plan:

A "premium support system" for Medicare. In the future, older people would choose plans in the marketplace and the government would subsidize those plans. Ryan said that would differ from the voucher system he has proposed in the past. Those 55 and older would remain under the present Medicare system.

Translation: A market solution that will allow the Invisible Hand to magically dictate enormously higher prices just as the government announces it will be shifting costs to the consumer and moving away from the current Medicare system of direct payments from the Treasury.

A statutory cap on actual discretionary spending as a percentage of the economy. While Ryan did not specify the amount during the interview, he said it would be at a lower level than proposed by Obama and would return the government to its "historic size."

Otherwise known as a statutory imposition of the conservative ideology that will make the federal government fiscally ungovernable and unable to respond to economic cycles. This is very similar to Republican-imposed two-thirds vote requirements for raising taxes in state legislatures, which has had disastrous consequences for the state of California. As the economy shrinks, government spending would be lawfully required to shrink accordingly, which is antithetical to classical economic theory of managing a contracting economy.

Pro-growth tax changes, including lower tax rates and broadening the tax base. Ryan said overhauling taxes would boost the economy. The plan will not propose tax increases.

Or for those of us that didn't live under power lines or grow up eating paint chips as a kid, that's massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy which magically raises more revenue by virtue of ensuring that those with the most money pay the very least.

Ryan didn't mention how the budget plan would address Social Security.

Their plan is so regressive and controversial that they're not ready to comment just yet.

Republicans are very serious about the budget and the deficit - so serious that they have exempted cuts to defense spending, raising revenues, and wants to ensure that the government is bound by their ideology and thus limit its options for dealing with future crises. This is all very obvious and dull, but it should be concerning given the shit show that the budget negotiations have been up until this point. The Republicans demand that we cut $60 billion, the Democrats counter that maybe they could live with $55 billion. Ok, fine, you're right: $58 billion. What? No? Okay god...you drive a hard bargain: $65 billion. 

The Republicans have moved the goalposts so far to the right in this instance that it's just somewhat terrifying to me to see what the Democratic "counteroffer" will be.

Oh Look, New Opportunities for More Wars

Maybe we should round up some allies and start lobbing cruise missiles at this one too:

CAIRO — Military troops opened fire on protesters in the southern part of Syria on Friday, according to news reports quoting witnesses, hurtling the strategically important nation along the same trajectory that has altered the landscape of power across the Arab world.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a, on the border with Jordan, and in some other cities and towns around the nation took to the streets in protest, defying a state that has once again demonstrated its willingness to use lethal force. It was the most serious challenge to 40 years of repressive rule by the Assad family since 1982, when the president at the time, Hafez al-Assad, massacred at least 10,000 protesters in the northern Syrian city of Hama.

Human rights groups said that since protests began seven days ago in the south, 38 people had been killed by government forces — and it appeared that many more were killed on Friday. Precise details were difficult to obtain Friday because the government sealed off the area to reporters and denied access to the country to foreign news media.

Or maybe we have to wait until Syria is using its air force to bomb its dissidents and rebels. I'm not sure. I can't really keep up with our justifications for launching misguided conflicts anymore, but there's a humanitarian crisis brewing, so we should probably throw a billion or two at the problem while telling our own citizens to tighten their belts and get used to 9% unemployment.

Freedom Isn't Free

Via Balloon Juice, it's time to bring on the shared sacrifice: 

With U.N. coalition forces bombarding Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi from the sea and air, the United States’ part in the operation could ultimately hit several billion dollars -- and require the Pentagon to request emergency funding from Congress to pay for it.

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline.

The ultimate total that the United States spends will hinge on the length and scope of the strikes as well as on the contributions of its coalition allies. But Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday that the U.S. costs could “easily pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well things go.”

[...]

"The operation in Libya is being funded with existing resources at this point. We are not planning to request a supplemental at this time," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.

Extra emphasis on the 'not planning to request emergency supplemental at this time.' When that time comes, you know we'll pony up the dough without hesitation, because there's nothing we like better as Amurikans than pissing billions down a hole in foreign conflicts as we export freedom and democracy and Jesus to the huddled masses. And no one could have predicted that foreign wars cost a lot of fucking money, because we certainly don't have any recent and relevant historical data from which we could derive that conclusion.

And this just cracks me up:

Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Richard Lugar, R-Ind., says Congress should have had the opportunity to weigh in on what he said will be “a very expensive operation, even in a limited way.”

Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Lugar said, “It’s a strange time in which almost all of our congressional days are spent talking about budget deficits, outrageous problems. And yet [at the] same time, all of this passes.”

I actually have some respect for Sen. Lugar, primarily because he's one of the very few non-batshit Republicans when it comes to foreign policy (I can't really speak to his domestic politics; I'm sure he probably toes that party line). But what does he honestly expect from a group of feckless idiots who spend their time writing letters to the President asking him to do what they should already be doing as legislators:

Dear President Obama:

As the Administration continues to work with Congressional leadership regarding our current budget situation, we write to inform you that we believe comprehensive deficit reduction measures are imperative and to ask you to support a broad approach to solving the problem.

As you know, a bipartisan group of Senators has been working to craft a comprehensive deficit reduction package based upon the recommendations of the Fiscal Commission.  While we may not agree with every aspect of the Commission’s recommendations, we believe that its work represents an important foundation to achieve meaningful progress on our debt.  The Commission’s work also underscored the scope and breadth of our nation’s long-term fiscal challenges.

They can't be bothered to the lead on the budget, so they sure as hell aren't going to do something as audacious as try to enforce their check on the executive for exercising foreign wars. They didn't even try. I'm pretty sure they all just rushed to the part where they flood cable news to give their uninteresting opinions on the matter. And Democrats are especially guilty of this - most of the time they sit and whine about a lack of leadership from Obama, rather than get off their collective asses and show some leadership of their own.

But back to the price tag of freedom:

Ultimately, the length and scale of the operation -- and of the U.S. role in it -- will be key to how much it costs. A weeklong operation involving a limited number of U.S. troops would be manageable within the existing defense budget. But if Odyssey Dawn drags on for weeks and months, the Pentagon would likely have to do some maneuvering to replenish its accounts.

For now, the United States continues to lead operations, although U.S. military leaders insist that control will soon be transferred to an as-yet unnamed coalition leader.

Complicating matters, however, is the fact that most of the coalition nations’ militaries, which operate on a fraction of the Pentagon’s yearly allowance, are grappling with budget pressures of their own. While the Defense Department hopes to transfer control to coalition partners in the coming days, the longer the operations over Libya continue, the more difficult it will be for allies to take the lead.

“If it goes on more than a month, we’re going to be in the forefront [of operations] or we’re going to let Qaddafi stick around,” predicted former Defense comptroller Zakheim, who served under President George W. Bush. “The choices aren’t very pleasant.”

So in the somewhat likely event that this drags on longer than anticipated, and the major players (France, Britain) in our coalition grow uneasy and want to back off, you know who won't hesitate to fill that void.

I know I have beat this point to death, but it just simply amazes me that we continue to finance our prized export of freedom at any cost while basically telling our own citizens to fuck themselves, get used to 9% unemployment, say goodbye to your Social Security because we need to send confidence and warm fuzzies to the free market Jesus, and suck it up and tighten your goddamned belts because all of this is going to be borne on the backs of the lower 90% of the population because we sure as hell aren't raising taxes, ever. It's just disgusting.

What I Learned About War This Weekend

1.  The UN Security Council resolution circumvents the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (and Congress doesn't seem to give a shit about this either - go figure)

2.  Bombing Muslim countries and policing the globe is totally fine, so long as you have the token approval of the Arab League as they sit on the sidelines, and an international coalition. 

3.  War is always a national fiscal priority and never has to be paid for. These things are free:

The Americans, working with the British, French and others, flew a wider array of missions than the day before, when Navy cruise missile barrages were their main weapons. They deployed B-2 stealth bombers, F-16 and F-15 fighter jets and Harrier attack jets flown by the Marine Corps striking at Libyan ground forces, air defenses and airfields. Navy electronic warplanes, EA-18G Growlers, jammed Libyan radar and communications. British pilots flew many of the bombing missions, and French, British and American planes all conducted ground attacks near Benghazi, American commanders said.

You'll note that opening up a third foreign war won't be making it's way into the budget debate (unsurprising considering Congress could not even be bothered to exercise their power to restrict the Executive branch from unilaterally conducting wars), but we better get right on defunding NPR and home heating oil subsidies for dirty lazy poor people.

4.  We have no clue what the fuck we're doing over there (sound familiar?), or what we will do if/when the air strikes do/do not succeed.

5.  The usual assholes are already calling for escalation:

“I hope it’s not too late,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said on the CNN program “State of the Union” Sunday. “Obviously, if we had taken this step a couple of weeks ago, a no-fly zone would probably have been enough,” he said. “Now a no-fly zone is not enough. There needs to be other efforts made.”

Would have never guessed that guy would be on another Sunday talk show either. Weird.

The early reports are not confidence inspiring to say the least. There seems to be a common thread that Qaddafi is digging in and that the air strikes are not having the immediate effect to which they were expected. Granted, it's very early, but this still isn't a good indication, especially given the fact that the United States does not "lose" wars and will throw every bomb, bullet, and soldier at their discretion at the problem, no matter how bleak or Pyrrhic the situation may be.

So bring on the "shared" sacrifice! I don't know about you, but I am totally stoked about having my Social Security gutted to pay for bullshit like this.

Poorest Nation on Earth

Reality and facts once again present challenges for Republicans and the fabricated fantasy land in which they live:

House Speaker John Boehner routinely offers this diagnosis of the U.S.’s fiscal condition: “We’re broke; Broke going on bankrupt,” he said in a Feb. 28 speech in Nashville.

Boehner’s assessment dominates a debate over the federal budget that could lead to a government shutdown. It is a widely shared view with just one flaw: It’s wrong.

“The U.S. government is not broke,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “There’s no evidence that the market is treating the U.S. government like it’s broke.”

The U.S. today is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007. Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren’t attracting unusual investor demand.

Yup...we're so broke that we can't pay our bills, and investors around the world frown upon us so greatly for being poor bastard deadbeats that they continue to view us as an AAA investment and accept record-low rates of return on Treasury securities. This is yet another example in the long line of bullshit served up by the Republicans, robotically embraced and repeated by the media, and the typical absolute failure by the Democrats to offer a competing vision other than a scaled back version of whatever the Republicans are demanding (i.e. agreeing that we must make budget cuts, but just smaller budget cuts than what the Republicans are proposing).

Steve Benen offers the following obvious comment, which is yet another truth that is never given the time of day:

And despite all of this, Republicans still say debt reduction is more important than economic growth, and are prepared to make unemployment worse, on purpose, because of their twisted priorities.

But if Boehner or his office were ever serious about defending the lie, perhaps the Speaker could explain why we're "broke" now, and not when he was adding $5 trillion to the debt during the Bush era. Is it just a coincidence that we're "broke" because we have a Democratic president who inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit from his Republican predecessor?

Duh - America isn't broke when you're doling out trillions of dollars in tax cuts to millionaires, fighting two endless wars on deficit spending, and a massive unfunded Medicare prescription giveaway to seniors (magically timed just before the 2004 election). I'm sure there are more than a few truly impoverished nations around the world that would love to have the problem of a $15 trillion economy.

I'm almost getting sick of writing about the budget/deficit, because it is just so damned incredibly stupid and wrong. And unfortunately, there's just probably no chance of it ever improving. Sure Chuck Schumer cited the NBC/WSJ poll that shows that Americans overwhelmingly support raising taxes on the wealthy, and sure a Democratic representative has introduced a bill raising taxes on millionaires, but giving lip service to a poll and actually passing progressive legislation are two entirely different matters. And with the GOP in control of the House with a sizable margin, you will simply never, ever see any legislation out of that chamber that includes any form of tax increase, unless it's on poor people or overpaid assholes that suck at the public teat and are ruining this country, like teachers and firefighters. It is heartening to see the Democrats actually introduce legislation that would seek to enact a progressive tax code, however. Even though it won't ever pass, measures like these are the first step in getting away from toeing the GOP line of doing nothing but cutting spending from trivial portions of the federal budget, and in actually presenting a coherent alternative.

But on the subject of our alleged poorhouse status, no one has come close to stating it better than Michael Moore:

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

This can not be repeated often enough.

The Democratic Embrace of So-Called Fiscal Conservatism

Digby:

What this adds up to is that last December, with a Democratic House and Senate our president agreed to extend massive tax cuts for the richest Americans and then in March, with only a Democratic Senate he agreed to massive spending cuts. I'm not really sure why I should applaud such a thing, particularly in light of the fact that every economist I respect says that this is the opposite of what any pragmatic technocratic, common sense leader would do in our current economic situation, much less a transformational progressive Democrat. I'm sorry, no clapping from me. The idea that we are supposed to accept the nonsensical idea that massive tax cuts for the rich combined with massive spending cuts to essential programs for ordinary Americans is a "victory" under those circumstances just doesn't make sense. 

I understand the politics, but it's simply not correct to say that the only possible way to govern is to slash spending, cut taxes and gush a lot of happy talk about "investments" and "winning the future" while hoping against hope that the economy improves enough (and the opposition is lame enough) to get reelected. Not when you have the presidency, the US Senate and a fractious, divided, opposition that should be easily leveraged against itself. 

Last session I was told that the president was powerless without more than 60 votes in the Senate and even then there wasn't much he could do. Now, he's powerless in the face of a GOP majority in the House and the smaller majority in the Senate will save us all from the Teabag dystopia. At this point I would think that the executive branch is fairly useless and we ought to get rid of it except for the odd fact that it seems to be able to function quite efficiently when the GOP is in power.

I will add that as the general election heats up, we will likely hear the same empty message from OFA/DNC that we heard in the midterms that Obama's supporters will come home to roost eventually, the economy sucks but we just need a little more time because you people are impatient and expect everything over night, and there was that whole healthcare thing so we should all be really excited about that, and never mind that the administration spent the last two years shitting on liberalism, swallowing GOP ultimatums, and failing to take a decisive antithetical stance to the GOP's retarded, draconian, failed, disproven fiscal policies, in the end 2012 will probably turn out all right.

If Obama and the Democrats truly believed in something other than Republican-lite fiscal policies, maybe we would actually see them fighting for them. Sen. Jeff Merkley shows us what that might look like:

The GOP budget plan will destroy 700,000 jobs. The last thing our nation can afford right now is further job losses. We need to be creating jobs, not destroying jobs.

There are common-sense budget cuts that could reduce our deficits without wrecking the economy or attacking working families. We can start by cutting back on the bonus tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires that Republican leaders insisted on just ten weeks ago. We could end tax subsidies for oil companies and save tens of billions of dollars in the process.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner summarized his perspective on the Republican budget as follows: if people might lose their jobs, "so be it." You might think the House Republican leaders would show some humility after their failed agenda turned record surpluses into massive deficits in 2001, or after their policies reduced the wages of working Americans during the modest expansion in the middle of the decade, or after they burned down the economy with unregulated derivatives and predatory mortgage securities in 2008.

Apparently not. Their proposals are exactly the same: give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest, shred the safety net, and eliminate investments that would help restore American economic leadership.

But Obama won't say that because it might hurt the GOP's fee-fees, and we all know how terrified Obama is of doing that. And as Greg Sargent notes later in that post, imagine what the 2012 election landscape might look like if Dems actually united behind such a message.

In Case You Haven't Been Paying Attention

For the last two years, the GOP was wholly obsessed with the deficit and hammering the Democrats over unemployment and jobs. Now that they control the House, they have been preoccupied with redefining rape and a calculated assault on women's reproductive rights. Oh yeah, and the deficit. Sort of. When they're not busy wanting to cut things that would ostensibly increase the deficit, such as their attempt to gut the IRS' budget. If you follow the link, it states that the IRS returns approximately $10 for every $1 it spends in federal funding. Pretty good deal, unless you're a Republican, because this is a partisan issue since the IRS forces rich people to actually pay what they owe. Or something.

But the one thing that you don't hear anymore, really from either party, is about jobs or unemployment. There's a number of reasons for this - everyone in DC is a bunch of weathy, out of touch assholes; the stimulus wasn't large enough and the pussy Democrats completely ceded the messaging war to the GOP to the extent that the same pussy Democrats are terrified of proposing any further or similar legislation that might actually seek to address the jobs crisis. But one recent mention of jobs that I have found extremely interesting are the reports from Goldman Sachs, Moody's Analytics, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the current GOP budget proposals would be absolutely devastating on employment.

Goldman Sachs:

Goldman Sachs economic forecaster Alec Phillips said the GOP plan could slow economic growth by up to 2 percent. Even a compromise deal, with $25 billion in cuts could slow growth by 1 percent.

Moody's Analytics:

A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday.

Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.

Ben Bernanke (and this is hilarious):

U.S. Representative Kevin McCarthy thought he had an ally in Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on the impact that Republican budget cuts will have on jobs.

McCarthy, of California, the third-ranking House Republican, said this week the spending cuts won’t cost the nation jobs, pointing to Bernanke for support. Within hours, Bernanke testified on Capitol Hill that the budget reductions may lead to the loss of 200,000 jobs.

The Fed chief said the House Republican plan to slash $61 billion from 2011 government spending could also subtract “a couple of tenths” of a percentage point from U.S. economic growth over several years.

So we have several different sources now all pointing to the same conclusion: the GOP's myopic slash-and-burn campaign on the budget is going to make an already lagging economy much, much worse. But what about Britain and Ireland? Their economies crashed harder and faster than ours did, and their austerity measures could serve as an important benchmark. Here's the luck of the Irish (via Atrios):

Unemployment is up to 13.8 percent (it was as low as 4.2 percent as recently as 2005); public spending has been savagely and repeatedly cut since 2008; the deficit has risen to 14.3 percent; and current predictions suggest that 100,000 people will emigrate in the next several years, from a population of 4.3 million. The bill from the struggling banks may, in the end, total upward of $135 billion 100 billion euros, in an economy with a G.D.P. of $220 billion 160 billion euros.

And our friends across the pond:

For David Cameron in the spring of 2010, the crisis became an opportunity to cut the size and scope of government. In October, the new government unveiled its austerity measures, which called for cutting 500,000 public-sector jobs, slashing the deficit, hacking aid to local governments and eliminating middle-class entitlements. It also signaled that the Value Added Tax would rise from 17.5 percent to 20 percent come January 2011.  The theory: Consumers and businesses would carry on with a stiff upper lip, and the global boom would boost demand for exports.

So how is that austerity thing working for the Brits? Not so great.

The U.K.'s economy didn't come out of recession until the fourth quarter of 2009, and grew only 1.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010. Worse, the U.K. reported last week that its GDP fell .5 percent in the fourth quarter. The government blamed the decline on bad weather. But even if England had been atypically sunny in the quarter, the economy would "be showing a flattish picture."

But these things don't matter, because Goldman Sachs is lying, Zandi is a liberal (except for when he's working on McCain's presidential campaign), Bernanke is just making shit up, and Ireland and Britain are dirty socialist euro trash economies, and if Reagan were alive today, he would solve this in a heartbeat and make sure that draconian budget cuts trickled down all over the place, bitches.

But to sum up this whole point, Ezra Klein is entirely too gracious in making the following comment:

You could say, perhaps, that the GOP is taking a longer-range view: they're willing to lose jobs now to prevent a debt crisis later. But their efforts to repeal the health-care law will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, add more than $200 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, while their spending cuts would remove merely $64 billion. And they want to extend all the Bush tax cuts -- without offsets -- at a cost of $4 trillion or so to the deficit over 10 years. So it's hard to take their stated concern for the deficit seriously, either.

I'm not going to ask "where are the jobs?" The House Republicans have only been in office for a few months, and they don't control the whole of the government. What I do want to know is where is the policy that would create jobs?

There IS no policy that will creates jobs, and there WON'T be a policy that will create jobs. The Republicans do not give a shit about jobs. They are doing exactly what they set out to do upon regaining power in one chamber of power on Capitol Hill: pursue a wholly ideologically driven agenda that has no basis in reality and does nothing to solve the problems facing our country and the middle class, but does everything to serve their own interests and those of their corporate masters. 

Ezra is partially right about one thing: the GOP is taking a long-range view, but it has absolutely nothing to do with preventing a debt crisis, and everything to do with ensuring that the economy remains firmly in the shitter come 2012. In about 6-8 months, the dialog will again turn to jobs and pointing the finger at Obama and the Democrats for not doing anything to turn the economy around. And when their budget cuts cause the nation to hemorrhage jobs and slow or reduce GDP, it will be because of Obama's government-takeover of everything, and how mean he has been to CEOs and banksters and hurt their fee-fees, and that his anti-business agenda has made business so scared and uncertain that no one has the confidence to invest in the economy. 

This is not about budget cuts - this is about the next election.

The Looming Specter of "Entitlement Reform"

It was only a matter of time, but Speaker of the House Otto the Orange John Boehner has brought the topic of "entitlement reform" into the ongoing, entirely odious budget/deficit "debate:"

House Speaker John Boehner plans to begin taking steps this spring to tackle ballooning Social Security and Medicare costs — proposing major cuts to the programs and selling those sacrifices to the American people — and maybe even joining with President Barack Obama to lessen the political risk.

“People in Washington assume that Americans understand how big the problem is, but most Americans don’t have a clue,” Boehner said in an interview with theWall Street Journal published Friday morning. “I think it’s incumbent on us, if we are serious about dealing with the big challenges, that we go out and help Americans understand how big the problem is that faces us.”

“Once they understand how big the problem is, I think people will be more receptive to what the possible solutions may be,” he said.

All I can say to that is this: what a fucking asshole. I can't wait to hear to hear from a man with a net worth well into the seven figures tell us about what a Very Serious Problem that Social Security and Medicare have become, and walk with us as he educates us on how to fix the Very Serious Problem. Here's a hint: his "fixes" and "reforms" won't have anything to do with raising revenue or adjusting the payroll tax/payroll tax cap to make it more robust and solvent. It will be solely driven by cuts and fucking over future recipients, because he wouldn't dare risk the ire of elderly white Social Security/Medicare recipients, otherwise known as the GOP's most reliable voting bloc. 

But there's another part of the article worth highlighting:

And, Boehner said, he’s asked Obama to join those efforts.

“I offered to the president we could lock arms and walk out and begin the conversation about the size of the problem,” he said. Obama responded “positively” to the suggestion.

Incredibly stupid colloquialism and visual image notwithstanding, we are basically screwed. With how this White House negotiates, expect their opening position to be raising the retirement age to 80, and then clapping themselves on the back and grinning like idiots in smug satisfaction, having taken a step toward their beloved demigod of bipartisanship, as they wait for Republicans to "meet them in the middle." And then Republicans come back and tell them to fuck themselves and that the retirement age should be raised to 90, because people are living longer these days you know, and that the payroll tax also needs to exclude millionaires and that won't accept anything less.


Once the "debate" over Social Security and Medicare begin in earnest, expect it to be just another display of our failure of a representative democracy. NBC/Wall Street Journal commissioned a poll this week that couldn't be a clearer illustration of this fact. Here's a graph summarizing what respondents saw as unacceptable cuts:

And a corresponding a graph showing respondent's preferences for deficit reduction:

I almost wish they had presented the same choices in both questions, because I'm willing to bet they might have been close to perfectly inverse. But regardless, it's evident that very few people want to cut Social Security or Medicare, but instead favor a whole other array of fiscal measures that are, for all intents and purposes, off the table and will never be seriously discussed in Washington. Those measures, as displayed above, include a tax on millionaires, ending the Bush tax cuts, ending oil and gas subsidies, and cutting defense (unnecessary weapons). And then there's this:

And Ezra Klein nails it:

We do have fiscal problems in this country: health care, for instance. We have to get growth in that sector down or we'll bankrupt the country. But that's not the case with Social Security. Social Security is just a question of priorities. And the legislators who are saying that we can extend the Bush tax cuts without offsets but that we need massive benefit cuts in Social Security are showing where their priorities lie, not stating a sad economic reality.

And it's absolutely true: if you had even a handful of members of Congress that actually faced the possibility of depending upon Social Security for economic security during their retirement, it would be absolutely untouchable. DC politicians do not need Social Security. Because who really needs Social Security when you have the private sector?

Thirty Five Percent

Highest corporate tax rate in the world! It's a favorite Republican/teabagger talking point:

Bachmann also said there’s a business bubble because the U.S. has the “highest corporate income tax rate in the world.”

It is the tax code she blames for the “business bubble.” She said, “We need to get rid of the blood-sucking tax code. It’s got to go, just scrap the current tax code,” adding that it is “a weapon of mass destruction.”

Only that it's a complete red herring:

BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share. The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay “ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.” 

BOEING: Despite receiving billions of dollars from the federal government every single year in taxpayer subsidies from the U.S. government, Boeing didn’t “pay a dime of U.S. federal corporate income taxes” between 2008 and 2010. 

CITIGROUP: Citigroup’s deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 amounted to a grand total of $0.00. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. “John Havens, the head of Citigroup’s investment bank, is expected to be the bank’s highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million.” 

EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the American Treasury. Meanwhile the total compensation of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO the same year was over $29,000,000 

GENERAL ELECTRIC: In 2009, General Electric — the world’s largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government. They managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas.  

WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia. Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation “more than double” as he earned “a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million.”

Ironically, get this - I agree with Bachmann to some extent. The US corporate tax code does need to be scrapped/reformed, because it's precisely the cause of this insanity. Except in Bachmann's batshit insanity happy fun time land, she thinks the corporate tax code needs to be abolished because it is too punitive, whereas back in the reality-based world, it needs to be reformed so that it actually compels corporations to pay taxes.

Remember this from the Mother Jones story?

Individuals have been shouldering the brunt of US tax revenue for years, and in the current economic recession, Republicans are calling for corporate tax cuts and 'shared sacrifice' (translation: fucking over the middle class and poor people so businesses and the super rich can maintain their homes in the Hamptons). And American businesses are doing just fine:

The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever.

American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms

[...]

Corporate profits have been doing extremely well for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output.

I know this makes me a Crazy and Unserious Person and a socialist, but it's long overdue that they start paying their fair share.

Repeat After Me

Republicans don't care about the deficit, Republicans don't care about the deficit, Republicans don't care about the deficit:

The new Republican rules will gut pay-as-you-go because they require offsets only for entitlement increases, not for tax cuts. In effect, the new rules will codify the Republican fantasy that tax cuts do not deepen the deficit.

It gets worse. The new rules mandate that entitlement-spending increases be offset by spending cuts only — and actually bar the House from raising taxes to pay for such spending.

Say, for example, that lawmakers want to bolster child credits for families at or near the minimum wage. One way to help pay for the aid would be to close the tax loophole that lets the nation’s wealthiest private equity partners pay tax at close to the lowest rate in the code. That long overdue reform would raise an estimated $25 billion over 10 years, but the new rules will forbid being sensible like that.

[...]

For example, the cost to make the Bush-era tax cuts permanent would be ignored, as would the fiscal effects of repealing the health reform law. At the same time, the new rules bar the renewal of aid for low-income working families — extended temporarily in the recent tax-cut deal — unless it is fully paid for.

Republicans only pretend to care about deficits when they're in the minority or a Democrat is in the White House or federal dollars are being appropriated for anything other than tax cuts (because in an adult, reality-based world, cutting revenue is indeed a cost) or when it will upset their base of rich, white oligarchs. As I've said before, Republicans would never run a business the way they want to run the government. Okay, so 2 years of throwing tantrums about the deficit, and now they immediately pursue irresponsible budgetary policies that will make the deficit even worse. What else?

A little-noticed detail in the new rules proposed by House GOP leaders would greatly increase the power of Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee. As National Journal's Katy O'Donnell reports, the new rules say that, for fiscal 2011, the chairman will set spending limits without needing a vote.

So whatever happened to all that bitching and moaning about unprecedented power grabs, back room deals, and ramming things through without transparency and deference to congressional process? Again, apparently such very serious principles don't apply when you're pursuing a blindly ideological, factually and economically bereft agenda.

Paul Krugman sums up the stupidity of the Republican tax cut fetish nicely:

After all, if you never have to offset the cost of tax cuts, why not just eliminate taxes altogether?

I'm sure they would if they could, all the while going on all the Sunday talk shows and Fox News and telling everyone that having no source of income for the Treasury does not need to be addressed or offset and that having zero taxes on any one or any thing will actually 'widen the base' and 'increase revenue.'

Priorities Revisited

We can't get a single fucking legislative act through Congress without getting the vapors about how it will be paid for, but endless war funding never faces the same scrutiny or debate:

Washington (CNN) -- The House of Representatives on Tuesday gave final approval to a nearly $59 billion emergency spending bill, the bulk of which would go toward the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan.

Specifically, the bill includes almost $33 billion for Afghanistan, along with over $5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, almost $3 billion for Haiti relief programs and $68 million for the oil disaster response in the Gulf of Mexico.

It now goes to the president for his signature.

This comes as July marks the highest number of casualties on record, and thousands of leaked documents show what a hopeless waste the war has become. Not only do we continue to piss away billions in a nearly decade old, ever deteriorating conflict, but pedantic things like funds to prevent teacher layoffs were viewed as wasteful spending:

Top Democrats struggled to maintain support for the bill among more liberal House members, who have increasingly turned against the Afghan war effort and are upset about the loss of funding for programs designed to prevent teacher layoffs, among other things.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wisconsin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, slammed the Senate for stripping domestic funding from the bill, including funding for teachers and other forms of education funding.

So apparently the moral of the story is that we have to invade our own country and go to war with ourselves before it becomes politically palatable to spend money on any domestic priorities. Perhaps if keeping our country from slipping into the third-world was considered a priority of national security, we could justify taking care of our own needs.

But since that won't be happening anytime soon, there's always this:

So, asked for an exit strategy, the administration instead offered up guidelines for an endless occupation.

And then last week, in a nearly unnoticed development at an international conference in Kabul, world leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed their "support for the President of Afghanistan's objective that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) should lead and conduct military operations in all provinces by the end of 2014."

That's right: The end of 2014.

"I was kind of struck that the 2014 didn't get more critical attention than it did," said Paul R. Pillar, formerly the CIA's top Middle East analysis and now a Georgetown University professor. "The war will have gone on 13 years at that point."

I'm sure a 13-year old war will go over real well with the public in the 2016 elections, but then again, we are too goddamned stupid and complacent to do anything (or elect anyone) that will take a position to the contrary.