…we only get to live in it.

Default Here We Come

by John Cole

Just watched the Orange Speaker spew a bunch of bullshit and toe the teahadist line. Looks like default is what is for dinner.

At this point, all the Republicans will be focused on is how to blame Democrats for the fall-out.

Yep.

Previously: Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): by “all” I really mean “some” (July 22, 2011)

Senator Roy Blunt (r) repeats republican spin via Twitter, without mentioning the, you know, actual fine print:

@RoyBlunt Senator Roy Blunt

Disappointed Senate Dems ended debate on #CutCapBalance. Nearly 2/3 of US support the bill & Dem-controlled Senate has yet to offer a plan.22 Jul

[emphasis added]

There is some fine print in the poll Senator Blunt alludes to:

[….]

CNN/ORC [pdf]

Interviews with 1,009 adult Americans conducted by telephone by ORC International on July 18-20, 2011. The margin of sampling error for results based on the total sample is plus or

minus 3 percentage points.

The sample includes 856 interviews among landline respondents and 153 interviews among cell phone respondents.

[….]

24. Now I’m going to read you some of the specific proposals for cutting government spending and increasing taxes that have been suggested as part of the discussions on the debt ceiling. For each one, please tell me whether you favor or oppose that proposal as a way to reduce the amount that the government owes.

Cutting federal subsidies to farmers

Favor 31% Oppose 66% No opinion 2%

Cutting pensions and benefits for retired government workers

Favor 30% Oppose 68% No opinion 2%

Cutting defense spending

Favor 47% Oppose 52% No opinion 1%

Cutting the amount the government spends on Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor

Favor 22% Oppose 77%

Cutting the amount the government spends on Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly

Favor 12% Oppose 87% No opinion 1%

Cutting the amount the government spends on Social Security

Favor 16% Oppose 84% No opinion 1%

Increasing the taxes paid by oil and gas companies by ending federal subsidies for those businesses

Favor 73% Oppose 26% No opinion 1%

Increasing the taxes paid by businesses that own private jets

Favor 76% Oppose 23%

Increasing the taxes paid by people who make more than 250 thousand dollars a year

Favor 73% Oppose26%

Those polled want all of the things the republican obstructionists in Congress don’t….

As if we’d expect anything different from Washington lobbyists’ best friend?

From a White House spokesTwitter:

@pfeiffer44 Dan Pfeiffer

Stories saying that POTUS rejected a bipartisan proposal are false, Sen Reid never agreed to a short term deal per @AJentleson 55 minutes ago via web

From the White House:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 25, 2011

Statement by the Press Secretary

The President has been advocating a balanced plan that would reduce our deficit by $4 trillion by making large cuts in domestic and Pentagon spending, reforming entitlement programs, and closing tax loopholes for corporations, millionaires and billionaires.  This sort of approach won support from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, but the House Republicans walked away after insisting that the budget be balanced on the backs of seniors and the middle class.

Now, faced with the “my way or the highway,” short-term approach of the House Republicans, Senator Reid has put forward a responsible compromise that cuts spending in a way that protects critical investments and does not harm the economic recovery.  All the cuts put forward in this approach were previously agreed to by both parties through the process led by the Vice President.  Senator Reid’s plan also reduces the deficit more than enough to meet the contrived dollar-for-dollar criteria called for by House Republicans, and, most importantly, it removes the cloud of a possible default from our economy through 2012. The plan would make a meaningful down payment in addressing our fiscal challenge, and we could continue to work together to build on it with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that includes additional spending reforms and closing tax loopholes for corporations, millionaires and billionaires.

Senator Reid’s plan is a reasonable approach that should receive the support of both parties, and we hope the House Republicans will agree to this plan so that America can avoid defaulting on our obligations for the first time in our history. The ball is in their court.

###

[emphasis added]

Teabaggers are running the show in the House.

Is our problem that, like the Japanese emperor,  Gov. Nixon has been sleeping with the Sun Goddess?  Is that the reason that new college grads are facing a job seeker’s stone wall and that former shift supervisors are working part time at Home Depot and Hardee’s in an attempt to make the mortgage payments?

Or is it something more insidious, like, say, a thirty year trend of rising military spending, rising CEO pay, rising Wall Street bonuses, rising gap between the wealthiest and the rest of us, rising productivity, rising poverty rates among children, rising dropout rates?

An AP article points toward the latter explanation. Seems that a barely-worth-mentioning 1% of economic growth after the Great Recession has gone to wages and salaries. 88% of growth went to corporate profits. The proportion is 88 to one? It didn’t always used to be like that. The last three recessions illustrate the pattern of change. 1991-92 is an anomaly (that I’d like somebody to explain), but the trend is clear: corporations are getting richer and they ain’t concerned about the rest of us.

Percent of economic growth that went to:

Wages and Salaries                                           Corporate Profits

1981-82                                        

25%                                                            28%

1991-92        

50%                                                           none

2001    

15%                                                            53%

2008-11

1%                                                             88%

The trends above are national, but they are abetted at the state level by the course that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) tells Republican state legislators to steer. And boy howdy, do they steer it ALEC’s way in Missouri: cut funds for schools, for example, and then complain about lazy teachers with tenure who do an ineffective job–all this in hopes of eventually privatizing school systems that the wealthy would run. And the excuse given for cutting school funding is that the state is broke.  

Of course it is. We haven’t changed the state’s top tax rate since the thirties. It’s $9,000. Which means that some poor sucker earning $8,999 is paying the same rate of tax to the state as the CEO of Express Scripts. Democratic leadership in this state moans about how broke the state is. Why not howl, instead, about a solution voters would love. By a margin of two to one, U.S. voters, in poll after poll, support raising taxes on incomes over 250 thou a year. Even 43% of Republicans approve the idea. Democrats should be baying at the moon. They need to find a way to present a united front and smack Missouri voters upside the head with the notion that if they were in the majority in the state house, they would work to see taxes raised on the wealthiest.

Let Claire run the Medicare ads; that’s a federal issue. But our state legislators have a winner on the tax issue if they would grab it.

Because in the end, those hateful trends I mentioned won’t change without lots more progressives in office, both at the federal and state level. Getting Gov. Nixon to kick the Sun Goddess out of bed isn’t going to cut it.

Previously:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D): and you shall know her by her political enemies, part 2 (July 8, 2011)

McCaskill v. Rove: bet on Claire (July 19, 2011)

Patriot Majority USA PAC is running an independent answer to the republican right wingnut astroturf organization created ads in Missouri attacking Senator Claire McCaskill (D). The ad doesn’t mention Claire McCaskill or the 2012 senate race. It does talk about republicans and their plan to eliminate Medicare as we know it:

The transcript:

Announcer: Missourians know we need to cut spending. What’s the Republican plan?

Video excerpts: The Republican plan repeals Medicare.

They voted to kill it.

End Medicare as we know it.

Announcer: The Wall Street Journal says, their plan will essentially end Medicare.

Costing seniors six thousand a year and putting your health decisions into the hands of insurance companies.

Video excerpts: People who’ve worked their whole life. Now the Republicans are saying, no, no…

Announcer: No to Medicare, no to seniors. That’s the Republican plan.

Heh, republicans can’t help touching those third rails, can they?

Forgetting, via Twitter:

@FredBarnes Fred Barnes

Trillion dollar deficits and a rapidly growing national debt are effects. The cause is spending at levels never before seen in peacetime. 19 hours ago

The mindless repetition via Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (r):

@PeterKinder Peter Kinder

MT @FredBarnes: Trillion$ #deficit , rapidly growing nat’l #debt r effects. Cause= #spending levels never before seen n peacetime #tcot #pdk 19 hours ago

Getting called on it:

@ssnich Sean

Peacetime? MT @PeterKinder MT @FredBarnes: Trillion$ #deficit… Cause= #spending levels never before seen in peacetime #pdk 16 hours ago

@ssnich Sean

cc: @PeterKinder RT @MotherJones: We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for July 25, 2011 mojo.ly/mTZevb 1 hour ago

U.S. Army Pfc. Sean Jamison with Company D, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) provides security atop a mountain during Operation Sarak Basta II at Paktika province, Afghanistan, June 19. The operation eliminated an illegal route between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. U.S. Army photo.

Go to this website and see your friend Vicky listed as an ALEC alum.  Also my own Blaine Leutkemeyer and Kansas City’s Sam Graves.  These are all people who sucked at the teat of ALEC’s cash cows and are now paying their dues.  It’s much worse than fighting the light bulb thing.  They literally want to destroy our country – one mine, one drill rig, one poisoned farmfield at a time.

Labor’s Educational and Political Club Independent (LEPCI) held their annual dinner at Harrah’s in Kansas City on Friday night, this year honoring Jim Williams, President of Teamsters Local 955 and Teamsters Joint Council No. 56, as  Labor’s Representative of the Year. Chere Chaney, of CWA Local 6450, was honored as the Seth Slocum Union Advocate of the Year.

Speakers included Senators Victor Callahan, Kiki Curls, and Jolie Justus; Representative Tim Meadows; State Treasurer Clint Zweifel; Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders; and former Governor Roger Wilson.

Senator Jolie Justus (D) at the podium. From left to right, Senator Victor Callahan, Verna Williams, Jim Williams,

former Governor Roger Wilson, Senator Justus, Senator Kiki Curls.

Senator Victor Callahan (D), like several other of the evening’s speakers, addressed the coming challenges to organized labor.

Senator Victor Callahan (D): ….You know, an old politician, and I want to warn you all, an old politician told me once when speaking to an audience you should try to make them happy and tell them what they want to hear. Uh, and so, in keeping with that I would, I wish to extend warm greetings and, uh, the deep regard for the labor movement from the Missouri state legislature. [laughter]

But, term limits, term limits have given you the rarest of all things, a politician who will tell you what you need to hear not necessarily what you want to hear.

Uh, the stark reality is that this, the political map, Wisconsin is not, it’s much closer than you think in this state.  If unchanged we could be looking at the last decade of labor. If Missouri, within the next year or two, right to work, the loss of prevailing wage, among other things could become an immediate valley.

There are many reasons for this. In too many elections labor could be described this way: a few did much, some did a little, and many did nothing. Too often labor could be likened to a fish in a bowl I believe. And the glass of a fish bowl is distorted, to the point where you can’t see out, outside into the big room in which the fish, fish bowl sits. Inside you can’t see the big room in which it resides. You can’t see the people sawing the legs of the table on which the fish bowl sits. You can’t see the cat waiting to eat the fish inside the fish bowl. And of course, you can’t see that elephant in the room who’s about to stick his trunk in the bowl and drink all the water.

We’re at, we all tonight….many in this room dug a well that my generation and the young apprentices and the young members of labor drink from. They drink from a well they did not dig. I’m not sure they always understand that. But we are at a de, a defining and pivotal moment in labor. Our parents and grandparents built a movement that created a middle class in the middle of a great depression and through two world wars. The battle we face now will require more than a rally, a picket or a field trip to the state capitol. It will require the commitment and sacrifice that our parents and grandparents…who faced far worse than us. [applause] This battle will define who we are not who we were. It will require the resources and hard work. It will require that we leave the comfort and security of our fish bowl and act like humans. Thank you very much. [applause]

Former Governor Roger Wilson (D) acted as the master of ceremonies and offered closing remarks:

Former Governor Roger Wilson (D): ….This is one of the most serious, serious sounding meetings that I’ve been to in the last ten years. This one. Legislators have warned you, other leaders have warned you that there are some tough things that we’re gonna have to do ahead. That’s not just the labor union, it is United States of America. It’s bigger than the State of Missouri.  With this credit default you and I could see something that we would never believe could happen to our country in this world. Now, some of it sounds discouraging. If you were born in the United States of America you are better off than ninety-five percent of the people in the world [applause] when you take your first breath. Yeah.

Let’s don’t worry so much about our problems that we overlook our opportunities. The thing that labor has that it can join with other people and use it is organization. Because if you have organization then all you have to have is the right message. And let me tell you what, the people that are running this country right into the bank and the sandbar right now are gonna have to live with that message. And you know what? If they take it all the way down, if they burn it down, think about this, and thinking people will have to finally come to this conclusion, that you’re gonna have some heavy unrest in the streets. It’s probably not gonna be all right to have Wall Street and main street with the kind of divide that they’re creating right now….

….And we had better get deadly serious about what it is that we want to portray to the American people. And the labor union will have to be a very strong, if not the strongest part of that if we want to save what we have right now. I do not want to embarrass the people whose shoulders we are standing on. I was born on third base. Took me a while to understand it. But I know that. I was born at probably one of the best times in the United States of America. And I’ve gotten to enjoy it….

….We’re gonna have to be good. And we better get ready. But do not underestimate your strength. We have the ability to get this done to save this nation and to save a quality of life. But it is probably, like several speakers have said here tonight, it’s probably gonna be a little bit harder work than we’ve had in the past.

We are facing people right now that, I can’t understand them, I feel like I’m in the minority, I feel like there are so many people that are uninformed but so entitled that you can’t even get a word in edgewise because they will tell you what’s right. Well, let me tell you what, if this government shuts down you and I had better go to every person that’s been trying to kick Barack Obama in the shins, and Democrats in the shins and let them know that George Bush started this, put us on these shoals [applause] , put us on these shoals and Barrack Obama and his administration and the people he had with him in the first couple years actually averted a financial disaster. And if we insist on going ahead and having one I’m gonna put it right around their neck and make ’em wear it….

….I’d rather be where I am right now than any place else in the world. I’m among people who have helped millions of American families make it, prosper, get their kids educated, make this country stronger. You can’t hold that tide back. You can’t stop that. That’s our bedrock.

I love every one of you and there’s not a damn thing you can do about that. [laughter] Get home and have a good evening. [applause][cheers]

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) was really pleased with her vote on HR 2551 (via Twitter):

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

Are voting on Legislative branch approps bill. Am voting to reduce our office budget by 7%. We all must do w/ less to balance our budget! 22 Jul

What she didn’t mention was her vote on a right wingnut amendment to the bill to prohibit the House of Representatives from using compact fluorescent (energy saving) light bulbs in their capitol facilities:

H.AMDT.707 (A011)

Amends: H.R.2551

Sponsor: Rep Thompson, Glenn [PA-5] (offered 7/21/2011)

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:

An amendment numbered 15 printed in House Report 112-173 to prohibit use of funds to purchase, acquire, install, or use any medium screw base compact fluorescent lamp or light bulb (CFL).

STATUS:

   7/21/2011 9:03pm:

       Amendment (A011) offered by Mr. Thompson (PA). (consideration: CR H5367-5369; text: CR H5368)

   7/22/2011 10:56am:

       On agreeing to the Thompson (PA) amendment (A011) Failed by recorded vote: 130 – 283 (Roll no. 626).

Seriously, they’re that petty? Yep.

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 626

     H R 2551      RECORDED VOTE      22-Jul-2011      10:57 AM

     AUTHOR(S):  Thompson of Pennsylvania Amendment No. 15

     QUESTION:  On Agreeing to the Amendment

—- AYES    130 —

Graves (MO)

Hartzler

Long

Luetkemeyer

—- NOES    283 —

Akin

Carnahan

Clay

Cleaver

Emerson

[emphasis added]

That’s telling, the amendment was too nutjob even for Rep. Todd Akin (r) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (r).

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): what’s the number of working bulbs in that chandelier? (July 11, 2011)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): we’re running out of light bulb puns (July 12, 2011)