Tag: GOP

Last year, American oil production reached its highest level since 2003. Let me repeat that. Our oil production reached its highest level in seven years. Oil production from federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time high. For the first time in more than a decade, imports accounted for less than half of what we consumed. So any notion that my administration has shut down oil production might make for a good political sound bite, but it doesn’t match up with reality.

Barack Obama, apparently forgetting that the facts do not matter. Without a coordinated messaging system to repeat this all day every day for 10 years it won’t even make a dent.
But, since we’re pretending facts are things that can be reported on, let’s add: “drill baby drill” won’t and can’t work. There isn’t enough oil in all of ANWR to make a dent in global demand, even if removed today by magic and all at once. As it stands, the best estimates of full production there would be between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030. Read: not enough to matter, ever, under any imaginable circumstances on the global market as we know it. But why let that kind of crap thinking get in the way of national energy “policy?”
Every drop of oil in US territory that is thought of as technically recoverable (read: the over optimistic blue sky estimate) amounts to about 134 billion barrels; surely Sarah and the rest of the hockey Moms out there can get most of that extracted for us by tomorrow and all will be well with the world and gas will never rise above $1 a gallon again!
Oh, by they by, we used 20,680,000 bbl a day in 2007. Why, that means there’s US black gold enough to last us clear through 2014 if we really watch it and know-how our way to new and exciting technologies.
But: yawn. Charlie Sheen, everyone!

Shortly after the Democrats’ “shellacking” last November, I phoned a friend in the White House who had served in the Clinton administration. “It’s 1994 all over again,” he said. “Now we move to the center.”

Robert Reich: Why Obama Isn’t Fighting the Budget Battle.
This is, to say the least, deeply troubling. The administration (and the Beltway media as well) have been all-too-willing to lap up the standard FOXnews and talk-radio line about Obama governing from the “far left” and being a “radical socialist” and so forth. Has not and is not.
In fact, he’s been governing from the center, or even center right all along. That’s simply how it is. Look at the record. Lowered taxes, passed a previously GOP-pushed version of health care reform, pushes previously GOP position on environment, GOP position on torture, GOP position on Guantanamo, GOP position on everything. It’s just that the GOP (wisely, from their viewpoint) promptly disavows these positions and moves the Overton Window ever further to the right. Thus, Obama’s “move to the center” described here will conceivably locate him somewhere to the right of Reagan. Which is what the GOP would certainly enjoy (and but simultaneously of course still criticize his supposedly socialistic positions), but it’s not what the voters who elected Democrats in three straight elections culminating with Obama’s own election want.
The sad fact is that Democratic “strategists” took exactly the wrong message from the “shellacking,” as usual, and are telling all Democrats to forget their ideas, get as far into a defensive crouch as possible, and “weather the storm.” When they lose again in 2012, it’ll me more of the same: this isn’t an example of voter fury with no clear outlet or focus or unifying leader to channel it one way or another (beyond “throw the bums out!”), this isn’t the fault of our lack of strong positions, of not fighting for the will of the people, of not presenting a compelling and alternate vision for America, it’s because we weren’t far enough to the right.
The problem is that it’s not true, hasn’t been true, won’t be true. Ever. This is why they fail.

EXTRA: USA NOT BROKE, JUST RESTING

Bloomberg delivers some shocking, shocking stuff:

“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. And tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so.

Print out in the largest type possible and stick to the teleprompter of every Serious Person currently inhabiting the media. Likewise, Obama and his proxies need to be talking about this. A lot. So often that we can’t stand it anymore, and then a few million more times on top of that. Then you can start a serious discussion about revenue, which is the only truly serious way out of this mess. Sorry, but it is.

EXTRA: USA NOT BROKE, JUST RESTING

Conservative Radio Hosts Called by Scripted Actors

Premiere On Call is our new custom caller service,” read the service’s website, which disappeared as this story was being reported (for a cached version of the site click here). “We supply voice talent to take/make your on-air calls, improvise your scenes or deliver your scripts. Using our simple online booking tool, specify the kind of voice you need, and we’ll get your the right person fast. Unless you request it, you won’t hear that same voice again for at least two months, ensuring the authenticity of your programming for avid listeners.

The report notes that the “service” is part of the overall operation that syndicates Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity among many others. I keep thinking that one day one of these “shocking revelations about the conservative message machine” will stick, but then we’ve long known that W. Bush and his administration planted editorials, basically employed journalists to run preferred stories, and openly bragged about controlling various “mainstream” media outlets and programs (notably Meet the Press, but also obvious ones like Hannity and etc…). None of those seemed to register with people and the MSM has an obvious vested interest in letting such stories drop. Quickly . This one probably won’t register either, though it does get at their precious, precious two hours hate…and we certainly can’t have that.

Anyway and once again: they are lying to you with malice aforethought. Your entire media construct is bought and paid for with the express intent of fucking you out of what is yours so that the folks at the top can extract an additional fractional percent at your expense this quarter. They call that “shared sacrifice.” There are more of you; one would think the center could not hold. Not forever, anyway. Thanks for consistently proving me wrong on this. It’s really made my day. Over and over and over again. That is all.

(via militantagnostic)

Conservative Radio Hosts Called by Scripted Actors

If it’s Jobs Friday, It’s John Boehner

Boehner, January 7th, 2011: Any signs of job growth are encouraging, but 9.4 percent unemployment and a $14 trillion debt are by no means adequate to get our economy growing. Hard work lies ahead to reduce uncertainty, start creating jobs again, and restore confidence in our economy. It isn’t new faces Americans are looking for – it’s new policies that will cut spending and grow our economy. These are the priorities of the new House majority. We have already implemented reforms to make it easier to cut spending, and cut our own budget to demonstrate our commitment to making real cuts and tough choices. Today, we will take the first steps towards repealing the job-killing health care law, so we can replace it with reforms that will lower costs and protect jobs. Our economy will ultimately recover, but it will do so because of hard work and entrepreneurship, not more wasteful Washington spending.

Boehner, February 4th, 2011: The president’s spending binge is hurting job creation, eroding confidence, draining funds away from private investment, and spreading uncertainty among job creators

Boehner, March 4th, 2011: The improvement seen in this report is a credit to the hard work of the American people and their success in stopping the tax hikes that were due to hit our economy on January 1. Removing the uncertainty caused by those looming tax hikes provided much-needed relief for private-sector job creators in America.

Lemkin: So, to review, jobs numbers were up in January because of generalized excitement around forthcoming and fantastical GOP policies, down in February because of “Obama’s spending binge” that somehow managed to overshadow those still forthcoming and fantastical GOP policies, and then up in March because of non-tax hikes that didn’t take place in the future. Makes perfect sense to me.

GOPoison Control

While a single visit to an emergency room can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars (often paid for by the government), a call to a poison center costs the government only $30 or $40. A study in the Journal of Medical Toxicology estimated that the poison centers saved the State of Arizona alone $33 million a year. Louisiana eliminated its centers in the 1980s but restored them when it realized how much money they saved.

Classic GOP: borrow a billion to save a few million and demolish a demonstrably effective government program. The problem is, no government program large or small can be seen to work. Thus it must go, costs be damned.

If the GOP wants it, you can rest assured it is going to create a bad policy outcome. Bad policy outcomes are catnip to the GOP.

GOPoison Control

The improvement seen in this report is a credit to the hard work of the American people and their success in stopping the tax hikes that were due to hit our economy on January 1. Removing the uncertainty caused by those looming tax hikes provided much-needed relief for private-sector job creators in America.

House Speaker John Boehner, taking credit for the recent and notably improved employment report.
Of course, the uncertainty engendered by the fact that the entire federal government may shut down for an indeterminate period in a couple of weeks has nothing but salutary effects on the economy as well. And, the uncertainty caused by the massive layoffs that seemingly every analysis yet performed says will inevitably result if the GOP economic agenda comes to pass, well that’s also just a massive opportunity for good ole ‘Merican know-how and will, in fact, increase jobs, pay, and consensual reproductive sex between one man and one woman across this great land of ours.

Unified Field Theory

First principles:

  1. The recently House-passed continuing resolution only makes a government shutdown more likely by both caving to perceived GOP demands to “cut” while also exhausting the supply of low hanging fruit that Obama has already come out in favor of cutting.
  2. The GOP has the media high-ground, as always, because serious people know that cuts must be necessary, and since the GOP is at dollar value X, and the Democrats are, for all intents and purposes, at dollar value $0 (spending freeze as opposed to new cuts), the serious person answer must be $X/2. That’s the “grand bargain” that Democrats wisely point out will still submarine the economy and the GOP flatly refuses to even discuss. See: shutdown and default in 2011.
  3. Serious People furthermore agitate for deep cuts to Social Security, despite its dedicated funding source and minimal deficit impact in the near future, because, well, because that’s what serious people do. Acceding to the demands for cuts to Social Secuirty is 2012 suicide for the Democrats. It just is.

With all that in mind, what the Democrats need is a concentrated, coordinated effort that steals this idiotic media high ground surrounding the (perceived) absolute necessity of “cuts and a lot of them.” Karl Rove taught us nothing if not the fact that making your enemies’ strengths into their weaknesses is a potent political tool. Think Swiftboating. That The Democrat assiduously avoids the use of this tool is why they fail.

Therefore: the GOP is talking at least $100B in cuts, and immediately. Right or wrong, that’s going to have to be your number too. However, and critically, the GOP wants those cuts to come entirely from the non-military discretionary budget, somewhere around 14% of the whole government budget. This, then, is where and how you attack them. And you’re going to do it specifically and with dollar amounts.

You go down the list of GOP hobby horses: faith-based initiatives, the military, oil subsidies, agribusiness subsidies, general corporate welfare, abstinence-based education, all of it; but you don’t stop with spending, you also target revenue: capital gains taxes, estate taxes, social security taxes (as in: uncapped), and ultimately the tax code itself, which could use a few new brackets up top.

Secretary Gates can likely provide you with a long list of outdated or otherwise no-longer-needed military programs. Lots of them will seem ridiculous or hopelessly out of touch. Mock them and mock the GOP for continuing to support them.
Same goes for oil subsidies. These are the richest companies on Earth and the GOP wants to give them corporate welfare while asking for “shared sacrifice” from the poorest of the poor?

When you’ve run out of spending to cut from GOP programs, you go to work on revenue. That’s right, I said it. You need to too. First: revenue is revenue. Capital gains, management fees, bonuses, and everything else falls under regular pay. Next, you set about raising effective rates on corporations and the rich. The corporate side can be most effectively done by eliminating shelters and loopholes. Any country in which ExxonMobil pays $0 in taxes needs, needs corporate tax reform. Period. Still haven’t hit the number? New tax brackets. Still haven’t hit the number? Uncap Social Security. And so on.

You then pack the whole thing together and unveil it as the “alternative” plan and hoist the GOP upon it each and every day, all day. Because they are guaranteed to hate it. But will have to explain why they prefer to make these cuts on the backs of the poorest instead of the richest and furthermore call it “shared sacrifice.”

You’ve got less than two weeks to put this together. Recent history with the tax cut extension “fight” suggests you haven’t even considered something along these lines yet. But it’s how to win. That’s why it looks so strange to you. Yes, it’s simple minded. But simple minded is what works. You are the last few hundred people in America to come to this realization.

I’m not saying this bill would be what was passed, or that it would even reach the floor in a serious way…but it would drive the conversation in a way that benefits you, The Democrat, and not so coincidentally us the American people.
Currently you’re battling over the 14% that contains the most painful cuts possible. You shouldn’t be. You furthermore don’t even need to be. Change the conversation to terms that have the potential to benefit you. Right now revenue doesn’t even come up. It needs to. It needs to be the first question off the lips of the serious people. Until it is, you will fail.

…how much more concrete could our current situation be? Republicans — and, unfortunately, some Democrats too — are pushing for an economic austerity plan that will keep unemployment high and the job market loose. The result is downward pressure on wages, which keeps middle-class incomes stagnant and corporate profits high. This benefits the executive and investor class, and while it’s a shortsighted benefit, it’s a benefit nonetheless. And it’s not thanks to globalization or returns to education or anything like that. It’s due to a deliberate political decision that favors the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Kevin Drum
If only we had a particularly skilled orator in high office somewhere who could use some sort of bully pulpit to explain this concept in simple terms once or twice a day from now until the thought finally sinks in and takes root. Meh: So it goes.

I’m not optimistic about [Wyden-Brown] going anywhere. The Affordable Care Act has taken on too much symbolism for the Republican base as something that must be destroyed. It doesn’t matter if Wyden-Brown actually gives Republicans what they’re asking for in terms of policy.

Adam Serwer is mostly right here, but the fact is that anything Obama wants has automatically “taken on too much symbolism” for the GOP to allow it to happen. By taking up a position as anything but against Wyden-Brown, Obama has absolutely doomed it.

Obama and his staff are still assuming that the facts matter. That a media exists to notice and discuss his sober position that essentially gives the GOP what they want on a key issue. That the serious people actually care about policy outcomes despite 40 years of evidence to the contrary. That the GOP movers and shakers will be seen doing anything, anything that even remotely agrees with a position the President has taken up. All of this is squarely why Wyden-Brown will fail, no matter how good or bad it might be: Obama wants it, and has signaled as much. It doesn’t stand a chance.