McCain, 1999: Ethanol subsidies should be phased out…we don’t need ethanol subsidies. It doesn’t help anybody.
McCain, 2003: Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality.
McCain, 2008: I support ethanol and I think it is a vital, a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects
McCain, 2011: Ethanol is a joke [and government programs promoting the corn-derived fuel are wasting money].
Tag: GOP
They don’t want civility. They want silence from the Republicans. And the sitting together being kissy-kissy is just another way to try to silence Republicans, and also to show – to keep the American people from seeing how few of them there are in the U.S. House now. Then when people stand up to – what the Democrats are going to be doing when Barack Obama spews out all his venom, then, um, if they’re scattered throughout all the Republicans, then it won’t be as noticeable as if we’re sitting apart. So it is a ruse and I’m not in favor of it and I’m talking about it and I hope other members of the Republican conference in the House will not take the bait.
Paul Broun (R, GA), truly reveling in the new era of civility. Spewing venom is a good thing in Georgia, right? Jus some ole time plain folk talk.
To the dirty fucking hippies in the audience: Broun’s onto you! Hide your stash! It’s a trap!
To the dirty fucking hippies in the audience: Broun’s onto you! Hide your stash! It’s a trap!
Obamacare as we know is the crown jewel of socialism. It is socialized medicine. The American people spoke soundly and clearly at the ballot box in November and they said to us, Mr. Speaker, in no uncertain terms, repeal this bill. So today, this body will cast a vote to repeal Obamacare and to those across the United States who think this may be a symbolic act, we have a message for them.
[…]
This is not symbolic, this is why we were sent here and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the position of the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill.
Michelle Bachman (R, MN), seemingly pushing yet another Constitutional amendment, this time to “repeal” the Senate. Say what you will about her, but that’s some strict original intent right there.
The sentence containing “president in the position of the White House” is left as an exercise for the student.
The sentence containing “president in the position of the White House” is left as an exercise for the student.
Another several of the big lies laid out by a single table. Last I checked, 590+-610=-20. This is something I learned in Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun starring Troy McClure, which did have a decidedly liberal math bias now that I think back…
Full document available if you click. Note to Democrats: print out, laminate, and refer to often.
Job Killing vs. Actual Killing
Steven Pearlstein writes about the GOP’s latest tick: adding “job-killing” to the front of basically any Democrat-related noun. He finds just one teensy problem with the practice:
Repealing health-care reform, for instance, would inevitably lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because of an inability to get medical care.
Although lack of effective regulation led directly to the deaths of 78 coal miners last year in West Virginia, Republicans continue to insist that any reform of mine safety laws is bad for miners’ employment.
Republicans also continue to oppose food safety legislation that could save the lives of hundreds of Americans killed each year by contaminated food, just as they oppose any regulation that would effectively keep assault weapons out of the hands of convicted criminals and narco-terrorists who kill thousands of innocent victims on both sides of the Rio Grande.
Indeed. Read the whole thing.
Milbank!
Well, I guess at least the GOP’s rampant and immediate hypocrisy is becoming something of a narrative over to the WaPo:
For two years, Cantor and his colleagues campaigned against high deficits. Now, in the new majority’s first major act, they plan to vote to increase the deficit by $143 billion as part of a repeal of health-care reform.
For two years, Cantor and his colleagues bemoaned the Democrats’ abuse of House rules to circumvent committees and to prevent Republicans from offering amendments. Now, Cantor confirmed on Tuesday, Republicans will employ the very same abuses as they attempt the repeal.
For two years, the Republicans complained about unrelenting Democratic partisanship. Now they’re planning no fewer than 10 investigations of the Obama administration, and the man leading most of those has already branded Obama’s “one of the most corrupt administrations” in history.
For two years, the Republican minority vowed to return power to the people. Now the House Republican majority is asking lobbyists which regulations to repeal, hiring lobbyists to key staff positions and hobnobbing with lobbyists at big-ticket Washington fundraisers.
Now, of course, Dana just can’t resist larding on a lot of straw man false-equivalency crap about being “just as arrogant and overreaching” as the recent Democrat Majority that was so clearly operated by and for Lord Satan. But I’ll take what I can get. The A|B comparison stuff runs first after all. And Lord Jesus and the MSM knows the innernets are making us stoopid and shortly as measured by span of attentions.
Shocking News, Everyone
The Washington Post Editorial Board is beginning, beginning mind-you, to think that maybe the GOP isn’t quite so serious about deficits after all:
Deficit financing is fine, it seems, when it comes to tax cuts. But that’s not all. Under the new rules, not only are tax cuts exempted from the pay-go concept, but the only way to pay for spending increases is with spending cuts elsewhere. No tax increases allowed – not even in the form of eliminating loopholes or cutting back on tax breaks. Of course, if you wanted to expand the loopholes, no problem. No need to pay for that.
Having made clear that no tax cuts need be paid for, the rules then take the extra step of specifying which deficit-busting tax cuts the new majority has in mind. They assume the continuation of all the Bush tax cuts; extension of the new version of the estate tax; and the creation of a big tax break to let “small businesses,” which can be expansively defined, take a deduction equal to 20 percent of their gross income.
Tax cuts for the wealthiest are fully protected. But tax help for those at the other end of the income spectrum? Forget it.
Shocking stuff. Can’t be right…Seems like I read something, somewhere about this, a while back…but that must have been all wrong.
At any rate, that $4T can easily be made up by trimming waste, fraud, and abuse inherent in the discretionary, non-defense budget…which totals around$1.4T for 2010. So, cutting four times that amount (over 10 years, solely to pay for new deficit spending to protect tax cuts for the richest 2%, and most definitely not current levels which would also require similarly scaled cuts in the very same time-frame) shouldn’t be any big deal. And, of course, Boehner’s ~$30M cuts in the House member’s own budgets gets us 0.75% of the way there already.
Rest Assured, Austan: It’s Just a Game
Michele Bachman (R, MN): at this point I am not in favor of raising the debt ceiling
Mike Kelly (freshman R, PA): [Raising the debt ceiling would be] absolutely irresponsible.
Lindsey Graham (R, SC): [Failing to raise the debt ceiling] would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large, [but I’ll gladly hold it hostage] until a plan is in place [for the nation’s long-term debt that satisfies whatever GOP hobbyhorses are in play on the day in question.]
Austan Goolsbee: This is not a game. The debt ceiling is not something to toy with. […] If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity…. There would be no reason for us to default, other than that would be some kind of game. […] We shouldn’t even be discussing [default]. People will get the wrong idea. The United States is not in danger of default…. We do not have problems such as that. This would be lumping us in with a series of countries through history that I don’t think we would want to be lumped in with.
Lemkin: Which of these do you suppose will hold the media and popular opinion in its sway? This is probably the purest expression of GOP nihilism there is. They will destroy the country’s economic footing, irrevocably, and turn us into a land of gentle skin and pelt traders clustered down by the river if they have their way. At least that model eliminates any potential for minor to moderate increases in Social Security taxes on the wealthiest 2% of all future skin and pelt traders clustered down by the river; plus trade at those stands will likely be entirely conducted through valuable metal transfer. And that’s another big big win for their side. And winning the day is what it’s all about.
No, Tax Cuts Do Not Pay for Themselves
By Jordan Eizenga
One can understand the attraction for thinking that tax cuts should stimulate higher rates of economic growth. With greater after tax income, workers are more likely to work harder and longer and, facing fewer taxes, entrepreneurs are in a better position to start companies and hire new workers. The problem is that the data does not bear this out either. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a statistical agency in the United States federal government, notes that over the past decade of lower tax rates, the number of business start-ups has actually declined.
Even if tax cuts generated increased economic growth rates, both conservative and liberal economists agree that economic growth would not increase anywhere near enough to offset the cost of the cuts.
The whole thing is absolutely required reading.
Me Talk Presidential
Great inside tale from Matt Latimer, a former Bush speechwriter, set in and around the time what ultimately became TARP took shape:
When White House press secretary Dana Perino was told that 77 percent of the country thought we were on the wrong track, she said what I was thinking: “Who on earth is in the other 23 percent?” I knew who they were—the same people supporting the John McCain campaign.
Lemkin 