Tag: GOP

GOP: Officially Defunct

There is no serious dialogue between the Democrats and the GOP. How can you possibly form any governing coalition between groups when one half of those groups refuses to accept empirical reality?

This is a post about Joe Wilson, but not about him specifically. But let’s start there. He’s the one who lied when he called out “You Lie!” in reference to coverage of illegal aliens. Facts are troublesome things to the modern GOP; one need not read any further than the name of the appropriate subsection to see what’s what, but Politifact goes one further:

…health reform leaves in place the status quo on illegal immigration, and certainly does not provide any new benefits particularly for illegal immigrants

If this outburst were limited only to the sad fucktard that is Joe Wilson, that’d be one thing. But Dana Milbank lays out the entire sad situation:

Wilson was only the most flagrant. There was booing from House Republicans when the president caricatured a conservative argument by saying they would “leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.” They hissed when he protested their “scare tactics.” They grumbled as they do in Britain’s House of Commons when Obama spoke of the “blizzard of charges and countercharges.”

When he asserted that “nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have,” there was scoffing and outright laughter on the GOP side. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) shook his head in disbelief. Several Republicans shouted “What plan?” and Rep. Louis Gohmert (Tex.) waved at Obama a handwritten poster he made on a letter-size piece of paper: “WHAT PLAN?” Gohmert then took that down and replaced it with another handmade poster that said “WHAT BILL?”

The essential outcome of all this is something the media seems to forget on a daily basis: There is no GOP anymore as a functional political party interested in governance. Full stop. All policy debate, healthcare or otherwise is being conducted by Democrats: liberal and conservative. They then have to pass said policy through a perfectly mysterious 60-vote supra-majority in the Senate that the media can never see fit to explain either. Just why is it that the Senate cannot move on 51-vote majorities? Why is that anti-democratic policy in place and ruling our worlds? Easier to repeat whatever it is Drudge is peddling, I suppose. But consulting the MSM, you will never, ever find out what’s behind those mysterious 60-vote requirements. But, rest assured, there is no dialogue, because there is no (functional) GOP. It seems more and more likely that the ultimate outcome of the current situation is a new third party that, over time, first relegates the GOP into a regional, state-level party, and then into Whig-town.

And but Obama is exactly right, though probably a few decades late, in issuing this warning:

[When] we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter, we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

One might add that we also lose the ability to govern the country at all.

You’d hope that the powers-that-be in the GOP (or the public at large) will see this sequence as a tipping point, and Joe Wilson will become the Joe McCarthy of his era (though, in his case, managing to be his own Joe Welch). Based on the various FOXnews reactions last night, I seriously doubt it. Things will only get much, much worse as Joe Wilson is held out as some sort of conquering hero and sets about creating a whole crew cast in the vapid image of Sarah Palin.

You Lie!

Your Liberal Media hard at work again. But one example from the link:

Politico’s Glenn Thrush hailed Wilson’s heckling as the night’s “defining moment” in a piece headlined, “Wilson’s rallying cry.” But was Wilson’s boorish accusation true? Did Obama “lie” when he claimed Democratic health care reforms would no offer up free care to illegal immigrants? On that count Politico remains politely silent.

You Lie!

Whoa there, Trigger

Why are the Republicans so afraid of the Power of the Market? Here’s (extremely conservative) Democrat Ben Nelson saying why he’d support a so-called “trigger” option that would, at some hypothetical point in the future, activate a public plan built into some version of the forthcoming insurance reform (emphasis added):

“If, somehow, the private market doesn’t respond the way that it’s supposed to [to other aspects of health care reform], then it would trigger a public option or a government-run option,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “but only as a failsafe, backstop to the process. And when I say trigger … I don’t mean a hair trigger. I mean a true trigger – one that would only apply if there isn’t the kind of competition in the business that we believe there would be.”

Naturally, the Republicans are against even this idea (emphasis in original):

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Republicans aren’t likely to be receptive to public option “trigger,” which would kick into effect only if private insurers fail to meet benchmarks.

“I don’t think so,” Gingrich said on Fox News Sunday.

[–]

Gov. Pawlenty says “all it does is delay the inevitable… if Republicans embrace the trigger, all  they’re going to do is shoot themselves in the foot.”

I see. I see. What we have here is the old accidental truth seepage. If you’re in front of cameras, lying, for long enough…eventually and by accident some truth will get out of you. The GOP leadership in charge of messaging knows damned well that the mythical “market” of insurance won’t work at all. Healthcare is not and has never been a traditional market. It’s the nature of it. Thus, they know, KNOW that a trigger option, no matter how non-hair-trigger it might be will, in fact, be triggered. In one fell swoop such a trigger would show both the inability of the markets to solve every problem on this Earth, and (b) implying a role for government in, you know, anything not abortion or gun-ownership related.

Fuck the general welfare and well-being of The Republic. This would undermine the fundamental, guiding principles of the GOP: government isn’t part of the problem, government is the problem. And, just like with S-CHIP, such things cannot be allowed, no matter what the human cost.

True Patriotism

Back in July, John Kyl wished all stimulus spending would come to an end. Eric Cantor has come out today in the same vein. Why would they say such a thing?

I’d wager it’s because of the undercurrents of recovery that lead to this Wall Street Journal Headline:

U.S. Economy Gets Lift From Stimulus

You see, the real issue is that (from the GOP’s point of view) the stimulus must be seen to fail. And miserably. For the stimulus to be regarded as an unqualified (or even a marginal) success is to destroy everything the GOP has been working for. In fact, for it to be successful even in light of being rather randomly pared down to meet arbitrary “centrist” specifications would be an unmitigated disaster for the GOP heading as it is into the 2010 election cycle. Because, you see, they realize that only a fraction of the stimulus has yet become active. Indeed, witness this paragraph from the above linked WSJ:

Much of the stimulus spending is just beginning to trickle through the economy, with spending expected to peak sometime later this year or in early 2010. The government has funneled about $60 billion of the $288 billion in promised tax cuts to U.S. households, while about $84 billion of the $499 billion in spending has been paid. About $200 billion has been promised to certain projects, such as infrastructure and energy projects.

[…]

For the third quarter, economists at Goldman Sachs & Co. predict the U.S. economy will grow by 3.3%. “Without that extra stimulus, we would be somewhere around zero,” said Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman.

Thus the logic for the GOP is rather simple. The stimulus is working; the stimulus Must Be Stopped. It’s the only patriotic position possible. The GOP needs that growth to be “somewhere around zero” for their 2010 campaign ads, after all.

Yglesias is Right

Matt Yglesias again comes down on the right side of the argument. The nut of his take:

there is one crucially important difference [between Democrats and Republicans when holding the majority power]. Democrats hand out committee chairmanships by a blind seniority rule. Republicans do not. Chairman need to rotate out of their positions after fixed terms, which then gives the caucus as a whole input over who takes over next. Consequently, the Senate leadership has some meaningful leverage over Republican Senators—even Senators from liberal states. If they’re really determined to make Snowe (and Collins) vote “no,” they have tools at their disposal to make that happen. By contrast, the Democratic leadership heads into tough fights basically disarmed with no real tools of discipline and leverage at their disposal

Yep. True discipline will only occur when some of these senior Senators face losing their beloved power-levers. You vote “No” on cloture over a keynote issue like healthcare, you should lose all seniority. Period. Furthermore, the Democrats could make serious hay by simply offering moderate Republicans like Snowe and Collins certain perks they’d never, ever get by simply party-lining it along with the rest of the GOP. Better committee, Chair of something, bigger office, whatever the hell it takes to procedurally sweeten the pot: do it. That’s how to begin, begin rebuilding anything resembling the much sought after bipartisanship that high-Broderism so values.

Let’s review: healthcare reform is and always has been a debate between liberal and conservative Democrats. To the extent that any GOP votes can be found in the Senate, those individuals should be rewarded by receiving treatment that any conservative Democrat with equal seniority might enjoy. But you can basically forget the GOP as honest negotiators or compromise partners in this debate. Not going to happen. Thus: absolute requirement that every Democrat vote for cloture. Or else.

Short Attention Span Theater

John Boehner is really, really pushing the lack of ‘Mericans to store and recall any fucking fact, no matter how recently the were exposed to said fact:

“It’s a shame that the White House and their liberal allies are now trying re-write history. From the beginning of this debate, Republicans have tried to work with the President and Democrats on real health care reform that reduces cost and expands access for the American people. Instead, Democrats played the old Washington game, bribing and log-rolling special interests to produce a plan that will cost at least a trillion dollars and just won’t work.”

I see. So this is some other group than that GOP whose second-in-command in the Senate had said that “almost all Republicans” were likely to oppose reform, no matter how bipartisan its sourcing, up to and including a bill that the Republican members of the committee might (theoretically) have written themselves. Indeed this is entirely the fault of the Democrat. And that’s certainly good news for Republicans.

The Grassley’s Always Greener

Emphasis added to these collected statements:

[John Kyl], the Senate Republican whip, speaking to reporters on a conference call from his home state of Arizona, said that even if the Democrats do away with a government-run insurance option, the GOP most likely won’t support the bill that’s being written in the Senate.

“I think it’s safe to say that there are a huge number of big issues that people have,” Kyl said, referring to Republican senators. “There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill.”

Asked if he’d support a bill if it were deficit neutral, Kyl said Dems may find a way to pass reform without adding to the debt, “but that doesn’t mean the Republicans will support it.” Asked if he could tolerate a nonprofit insurance cooperative instead of a public option, Kyl added that a co-op is “a step towards government-run health care in this country.” The Senate Minority Whip added that “almost all Republicans” are likely to oppose reform, even if it’s the result of a bipartisan compromise.

So, let’s summarize: the GOP will not support a bill if it adds to the deficit or is deficit neutral. They will not support a bill that includes public options, co-ops, or anything like them. Kyl calls all of that a “Trojan Horse.” They furthermore will not support a bill that is the product of any bipartisan compromise. John Kyl is specifically saying that the GOP will not support a bill that they themselves create through the ongoing Baucus committee process with the Democrats.

Really, the only question left on the table is: would the GOP support a bill they themselves write? I think we all know the answer to that one. The party has repeatedly shown zero interest in governing. Even when they’re in charge of the government. So why should we expect anything to change now?

All Hands On the Bad One

And so we hear that the so-called Public Option is probably heavily weighted towards “option” and rather more lightly so toward “public.” We’ll end up with the Co-Ops, a watered down version of the already rather watery Public Option of so much debate. It’s too bad that thousands of grannies have already gone to their deaths at the behest of the various death panels that had yet to hear of these operative changes.

But I think Yglesias has it right:

Given that adding a robust public option into the mix would reduce costs, if you set up a system without a public option wouldn’t you be able to add the public option in later years as an uncontroversial application of the reconciliation process? It seems to me that doing so would count as a 100 percent legitimate deficit reduction play. The public option concept also polls substantially better than does health reform as a whole. Under the circumstances, the odds for securing 50 senate votes for adding one strike me as pretty good.

Yep. Follow the MA model more or less exactly. Get most of everyone insured, giving up cost-controls to the GOP as you go. Then you find: hey, without those cost controls, costs aren’t, uh, controlled. And you revisit cost controls because, what do you know, the program itself is damned popular. Even assuming the 60-vote majority has by then evaporated or diminished, you can ram it through on a Reconciliation basis because it’s absolutely 100% budget related and finally brings the costs under control.

The Year We Make Contact


Interesting results from the folks over to Gallup. Turns out that, despite major (and continuing) assistance from the MSM, ‘Merica is seeing right through this shit.

Seemingly forgetting the downright ruly 2-million person mob at their doorstep on Inauguration Day, seemingly forgetting that, in many cases, Obama carried their own districts by large, double-digit figures, seemingly forgetting that, you know, the economy is in freefall and that most everyone in America places blame squarely at the doorstep of the GOP; most of all, seemingly forgetting 2010.