You remember Crossroads GPS? Carl Rove’s consortium of shadowy big bucks donors who finance what we laughingly designate “issue” ads prior to big political campaigns? I’m betting that the Daddy Warbucks behind the group are sitting back and congratulating themselves on their wisdom in investing in helping the public understand Roy Blunt’s issues in 2010. They are perhaps beginning to see some concrete returns on their investment.

According to PoliticMO, Blunt has gone from muttering invectives against the President, who has the gall to propose increasing taxes on “job creators” (i.e., rich people), and sputtering about “job-killing” regulations, to proposing a little action. Or, actually, make that inaction, since he  is co-sponsoring legislation that would ban any new regulations for a year.  According to Blunt:

I’ve met with countless job creators in Missouri who have told me that regulatory uncertainty is one of the greatest obstacles to growing their businesses

There’re those job creators again. Makes you wonder how much Blunt takes in after a listening session with well-healed corporate contributors, uh … job creators.

Also of note: the reference to business “uncertainty” coming from a member of the party that threatened to shut down the government, and may be planning to repeat the whole hostage process again; caused the first-ever U.S. credit downgrade; and helped overturn a longish period during which the stock market seemed to be recovering. Doesn’t Senator Blunt think that politically motivated hi-jinks like these might be responsible for some of that uncertainity he is so worried about?

And while we’re talking abut chutzpah, what is it in our political environment that permits a politician like Blunt to propose, with a straight face, to kill regulations – across the board, with no consideration of their goals and the situation they are designed to address – after we have just experienced a near depression that is uniformly acknowledged to have been the result of lax financial regulation for which he personally, as a member of past GOP leadership, bears no small smattering of blame.

As I said earlier, the Crossroads GPS money men are no doubt more than satisfied with their boy Blunt. So much so, in fact, that they are already beginning their assault on Claire McCaskill’s Senate seat.

Take look at this photo over at FiredUp! of Huey, Dewey and Louie … er, ex-senator Kit Bond, Senator Roy Blunt and wanna-be senator, Rep. Todd Akin (R-2). FiredUp!‘s Shannon implies that Bond and Blunt may have decided to make do with Akin as the best potential candidate the Missouri GOP can hustle up to run against Claire McCaskill next year.  

Shannon makes no bones about her assumption that potential Akin challenger, John Brunner, just isn’t ready for prime time, and I personally can’t see two such cagey movers-and-shakers as Bond and Blunt extending much of a welcome to “loose cannon” Sarah Steelman unless they are forced to do it. This leaves them having to grin-and-bear radical fringe-winger Akin.

On the surface, Christian dominionist Akin seems to be a world apart from two fat-cat Republicans like Bond and Blunt. Of course, the two senate veterans are also realists, and Akin’s ability to see socialism in a grain of sand is not really that incompatible with their ultimate goals as servants of the corporatocracy. The ideological extremes have actually proven to be rather useful in that regard as the Koch Brothers’ utilization of the über Tea Party group, Americans for Prosperity, demonstrated during the fight over health care reform.

There is another dimension to the formation of this convivial threesome as well.  Greg Sargent gets it right when he remarks about last night’s GOP Tea Party primary debate that:

… the GOP keeps spinning farther and farther from the general election median voter every week. And, in many cases, reality – do these folks really believe that the biggest economic problem today is runaway inflation? That Americans are desperate to rid themselves of Social Security? That policies enacted by Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2009 (whatever you think of those policies) caused a recession that began in 2007? That “exceptionalism” is the beginning and end of foreign policy? I know, one expects rhetoric that plays to the audience, and I’m sure that most of these positions and the rhetoric that goes with it is carefully polled and focus-grouped (as well it should be). And that’s the real story here: The audience has been trained by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and the rest of that squad – and therefore a careful, cautious, Republican presidential candidate who is perfectly well-versed in the issues, solidly conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, and knows exactly what he or she needs to do to win the Republican nomination is going to sound like a nut half the time.

The lunatic rightward drift of the GOP is just as true at the state level. Old time realists and money men like Bond and Blunt can read the writing on the wall as well as anybody, and have probably just decided that now is the time to take a deep breath, relax, and embrace their totally nutty inner GOP child, and if that means indulging folks like Akin when they throw tantrums about various species of evil-doers and the flaming, big-government socialists out to destroy Western civilization, so be it.

Yesterday, via Twitter:

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

View my weekly newsletter […] 19 hours ago

Okay, we’ll bite:

View From the Capitol – Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler’s Newsletter for the Week of September 5-9, 2011

….There is a jobs proposal that can work and is being advanced by House Republicans. Our pro-jobs plan addresses our economic challenges, encourages investment, and supports job creators without raising taxes on working families and small business owners. Our plan reduces many of the regulatory government burdens on small businesses, simplifies the tax code which has become too complicated and cumbersome, and includes passage of the pending free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea – agreements that will create 250,000 jobs and that are being withheld by the President.

In addition, the House Republican plan empowers families, small businesses and entrepreneurs by maximizing domestic energy production to ensure an energy policy for the 21st century. This includes promotion of lower energy prices through increased domestic production and by encouraging all forms of energy production.

Finally, we are working toward significant spending cuts to pay down America’s unsustainable debt burden and force Washington to start living within its means as American families must do each and every day. Advancing these ideas will create jobs and move us toward a balanced budget. We will continue to promote these proposals in the weeks to come, while looking for areas of agreement with the White House. The American people deserve action – but smart action that will advance the cause of job creation without spending our way further into economic insolvency….

[emphasis added]

Yep, it’s more of the same republican corporatist drivel.

Do you think someone actually asked small businesses anything?:

“Fog Of Uncertainty”: Speaker Boehner Ignores Business Owners’ Actual Concerns

September 02, 2011 11:20 am ET – Matt Finkelstein

….As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, “The main reason U.S. companies are reluctant to step up hiring is scant demand, rather than uncertainty over government policies, according to a majority of economists in a new Wall Street Journal survey….”

Posted on Thursday, September 1, 2011

Regulations, taxes aren’t killing small business, owners say

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Politicians and business groups often blame excessive regulation and fear of higher taxes for tepid hiring in the economy. However, little evidence of that emerged when McClatchy canvassed a random sample of small business owners across the nation.

“Government regulations are not ‘choking’ our business, the hospitality business,” Bernard Wolfson, the president of Hospitality Operations in Miami, told The Miami Herald. “In order to do business in today’s environment, government regulations are necessary and we must deal with them. The health and safety of our guests depend on regulations. It is the government regulations that help keep things in order….”

….None of the business owners complained about regulation in their particular industries, and most seemed to welcome it. Some pointed to the lack of regulation in mortgage lending as a principal cause of the financial crisis that brought about the Great Recession of 2007-09 and its grim aftermath…..

Regulation, who needs regulation?:

DECEMBER 24, 2001

ECONOMIC VIEWPOINT

By Robert Kuttner

The Lesson of Enron: Regulation Isn’t a Dirty Word

In the wake of the Enron…collapse, defenders of deregulation are mounting a heroic effort to insist that the debacle was merely a business model gone bad, not an impeachment of freer markets. But the claim won’t wash. In fact, Enron suggests the need for tougher regulation in three distinct areas.

The first is financial standards. Enron could bilk investors because, despite the razzle-dazzle, nobody outside the company could figure out Enron’s game. Demands for greater financial transparency were resisted at every turn. The more we rely on markets to achieve efficiencies, the more we need transparent reporting. Otherwise, a deregulated environment becomes too tempting an arena for scams. Only regulators (and their proxies, such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board) can force corporations to disgorge potentially embarrassing information. They didn’t with Enron. In this respect, the Enron collapse is reminiscent of Long-Term Capital Management: financial geniuses with a formula that couldn’t fail (but did), operating beyond the purview of regulators and taking investors and banks down with them….

And then there’s Wall Street. Anyone into putting the totality of their retirement into Wall Street? Just checking.

And you might ask the tourism industry on the Gulf Coast what they think of environmental regulations.

Let’s see, what do you think the effect of cutting government jobs would be on the unemployment situation? “…Finally, we are working toward significant spending cuts…” Wrong again, Representative Hartzler (r). Let’s take a look at what happened as state and local governments have cut their budgets:

From Media Matters Political Correction.

For those right wingnuts who have a chart reading impairment this shows that private sector employment (blue) has gone up and public sector employment (red) has gone down. Uh, the net effect is static job growth. Now, tell us again who’s been insisting on those budget cuts at the expense of employment?

Shall we look at the impact of President Obama’s jobs plan on Missouri?:

THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT: IMPACT FOR MISSOURI [pdf]

…Of the investments for highway and transit modernization projects, the President’s plan will make immediate investments of at least $716,900,000 in Missouri that could support a minimum of approximately 9,300 local jobs….

…These funds would help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, and will provide $565,200,000 in funds to Missouri to support up to 9,100 educator and first responder jobs…

…investment in school infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools – investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. Missouri will receive $422,200,000 in funding to support as many as 5,500 jobs….

[emphasis added]

It’s the jobs.

Spotted on a vehicle in west central Missouri.

…do you think teabaggers would have voted for him?

(Documentaries about Sept. 11, 2001 are gut wrenching to watch. Too many Americans, though, let their thinking processes stop at the event. A letter writer in the Sunday Post-Dispatch thought beyond the events of that day, though–just as Byron has done. I’ll post part of his letter at the end of this diary. – promoted by hotflash)

“A second plane has hit the World Trade Center”, was the announcement on the radio early in the morning on the West Coast. Awakened to a horror that millions were witness to-soon capturing the attention of billions around the world. None of it seemed real. And then the buildings came down.

The first plane to hit WTC was American Airlines Flight 11, which on September 11th, smashed into the North Tower instantly killing all on board and fatally trapping 1,344 people.

Only a day before 9/11, a friend of mine, singer-songwriter Lea Longo, had travelled on the same AA flight path as Flight 11-Boston to LA-and was shocked when she heard the news about which planes had been hijacked and diverted.

We wrote a song called “Remember This Day” and performed it on several cable channels in Southern California in the aftermath of 9/11. You can listen to it by clicking on the video link here, or watch the embedded video on this page.

“Remember This Day”

I didn’t believe that it was true

Couldn’t believe that no one knew

What the future of our lives could ever be…

Like a picture from a movie scene

Like a moment in a terrible dream

Fire was falling from the sky

People were running for their lives…

Remember this day

For all of the ones that lost…

Remember this day

For all of the blood it has cost…

Remember this day

The innocents who fell down

Their Spirits all live on forever

And we will make it through somehow

If we remember this day…

Remember this day…

As I wrote last May in a piece entitled Our world beyond 9/11,

“9/11 fundamentally changed our way of life, the way we travel, it instigated wars leading to hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded, displaced; we’ve wiretapped without warrant, tortured, and sent the drones in. Protected civil liberties have been sacrificed for security.”

It is altogether fit for us to pause and reflect on the tenth anniversary of that life shattering event, never forget its impact upon our reality-and dedicate ourselves to investing time and energy toward incrementally building an environment of care, compassion and strength through which the repetition of that catastrophe is as close to impossible as possible.

From hotflash: Here’s the LTE.

While we remember the massacre that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, I hope Americans don’t wallow in short-sighted self absorption but take a clear-eyed look at what happened and carefully evaluate our response over the past decade.

We have allowed our surprise, shock and grief to redefine ourselves as a nation. We reacted with greater emotion than insight, lashing out with the massive destructiveness of our unparalleled military capabilities. We were so enraged at the actions of a few that we struck back indiscriminately at entire nations. We succeeded in roiling the political dynamic of the Middle East but in ways that were and are unpredictable and that give us no good reason to believe they will be advantageous to our national security.

With our military still present a full decade after we were attacked, is it any wonder that the citizens of the countries we moved against see us as occupiers? We are responsible for the deaths of many more innocents than the 3,000 who were taken from us.

Perhaps most difficult to face is the way in which our response played into the hands of our attackers. We began to disregard some of the most basic tenets of our Constitution. In our rage, we undermined our own financial security, wasting billions of dollars here and abroad. We squandered the lives of many brave and patriotic young Americans. All of this was self-inflicted and deleterious to the real security of our homeland, damaging our nation in ways that have exceeded the fondest hopes of our enemies.

We don’t need a 10th anniversary of sentimentalized navel-gazing. We could use a day of no-nonsense reflection, a determination to abandon our self-pity and a resolve to look forward with maturity and self-awareness as we continue to grapple with defining our place in this rapidly changing world.

Think maybe some in the GOP might be trying to figure out how to cover their backsides on the jobs thing? Of course, when it comes down to brass tacks, they’re going to obstruct and obstruct again since the only thing they’ve got going for 2012 is to ensure that Obama fails, but I think they may be figuring out that they aren’t looking too pretty as they go about trying to bury the economic recovery.

Take, for example, Roy Blunt’s effort to dismiss Obama’s jobs speech before he ever heard it by suggesting that it wasn’t worth a joint congressional session:

“The pressure,” Blunt said, “is much greater than it would have been if he would have decided to come out with those same job proposals at a manufacturing facility somewhere.” He added, “Or as Mitt Romney did, at a Truck Body shop, or somewhere.”

A body shop? Dissing the president for sure, but doesn’t it also sound like he’s thinks he and his oh-so venerable colleagues in the congress are just a little too good to dirty their hands with America’s umemployment problem?

Be that as it may, Blunt was certainly trying to construct some kind of cover when he lobbed an email  titled “A Special Message From Senator Roy Blunt” into our inboxes early this morning. It is clearly intended to provide a safe place where Blunt can hide and take potshots at the President while avoiding doing anything substantive about unemployment.

The pervasive theme of Blunt’s little opus is the pretense that our economic problems should be laid at Obama’s feet, conveniently ignoring the fact that the economy was creeping forward, far too slowly to be sure, but jobs were being added right up to the point where the austerity measures and spending cuts that the GOP insisted on began to kick in. Then, presto-bingo, zero jobs growth.

Blunt, a leading player in the Bush era congress that got us all prepped for the big crash of 2008, wants us to believe that Obama’s handling of the economy has resulted in a situation massively worse than it was when we were teetering on the edge of the abyss. To make this  point he cites lots of comparative figures that are meant to prove that things are lots worse right now.

Unfortunately, Blunt’s comparisons omit context that might otherwise leave him, as one of the architects of our current dilemma, with pie on his face. For instance, he seems to really relish the fact that insurance premiums are higher now than in the past. Well, duh … health care costs were careening upwards long before Obama, whose Affordable Care Act (ACA) was engineered to slow rising costs – which is very likely to happen over the long haul after the ACA is fully implemented in 2014 – or in some cases, even sooner.

Of course, some of the comparisons Blunt offers are also just wrong. For instance, he claims that gas prices are 98% higher now than they were in 2008. Does he mean something other than the price of fuel at the pump? Because not only do I remember prices over $4.00 a gallon at the pump in 2008, I can document it as well. And I believe that gas currently costs somewhat over $3.00 a gallon. Does he just pull these figures out of the air?

And what do you think Mr. Blunt suggests as the solution to our high unemployment? If you said cut taxes for the wealthy, and gut regulations you would have hit the nail on the head. Goes to show you can’t teach an old dog new tricks: Blunt got this mantra down during the Bush years and, never mind that it nearly brought our economy down, he isn’t giving up on it now.

The real slap in the face was that Roy Blunt, proud member of the GOP – the clowns who nearly shut down the government in April, then took the economy hostage in July, resulting in a first-ever credit downgrade and months of market instability, and who did all this with a show of utter disdain for their duly elected Democratic colleagues and for the President – has the gall to call the President to task to work for “real, bipartisan change.” I can only point out to Senator Blunt that today the stock market cratered once again, dragging my 401(k) ever closer to the mud. The reason? The market’s uncertainty that the GOP will permit the congress to pass the President’s jobs bill. Which means, as Robert Reich has pointed out, it’s gonna be the GOP’s double dip – and I’m not talking about ice-cream.

You want to read Senator Blunt’s “special message”? Go ahead – it’s reproduced below the fold.

September 09, 2011

Dear Friends,

During my travels throughout Missouri in August, I met with countless business owners, farmers, local leaders, families, and other people who are concerned about Washington’s out-of-control spending and want President Obama to get serious about policies that will help spur private sector job creation.

Unfortunately, last night Americans heard more empty rhetoric from the President as we continue to face skyrocketing debt and unemployment under his administration’s policies. Just last week, we learned that zero jobs were created during the month of August. Meanwhile, America’s unemployment has increased 17%, our federal debt has increased 39%, gas prices are up 98%, home values have decreased 11%, and health insurance premiums have increased 19% since the President took office in 2009.

Clearly, the President’s approach has failed – it’s time for real, bipartisan change if we’re going to right our nation’s economy. I hope President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Senate will take this opportunity to work with Republicans to rein in reckless spending, eliminate onerous regulations, and pass pro-growth tax policies in order to give small business owners the certainty they need to grow jobs and jump start our nation’s economy.

I also joined my colleagues this week in calling for President Obama to send Congress the job-promoting trade agreements pending with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. With every day these trade deals linger, America is losing jobs and market share to competing countries. Agriculture is one of the few sectors of our economy with a trade surplus, the agriculture industry in Missouri and across America would benefit greatly from this expansion of global exports.

Finally, as we approach the 10th anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, we honor those who lost their lives, and I remain thankful that our nation has remained safe from another attack over the last decade. This accomplishment is in great part thanks to our intelligence professionals and all of the men and women in uniform who have made the ultimate sacrifices to protect our safety and our nation’s freedoms.

Today, we face another very real crisis in America – one that requires the same bipartisanship, leadership, and resolve that we witnessed in the aftermath of those deadly attacks on 9/11. Our nation’s economy is in crisis, and just as we witnessed 10 years ago, I am confident that we can harness that same sense of unity today as we work together to get America’s financial future back on track.

As always, I encourage you to continue the conversation by visiting my website, or connect with other Missourians and get  frequent updates from me, by joining me on Facebook or on Twitter.

It finally sank in somewhere that the republicans won’t compromise on anything. Period.

This morning in Richmond, Virginia:

President Obama:….we gotta give them a little help to do the right thing. [voice: “That’s right.”] So I’m asking all of you to lift up your voices, not just here in Richmond, anybody watching, listening, following online, I want you to call, I want you to email, I want you to tweet [laughter], I want you to fax, I want you to visit, I want to, you to Facebook [laughter], send a carrier pigeon [laughter]. I want you to tell your congressperson, the time for gridlock and games is over. [applause] The time for action is now. [cheers] The time to create jobs is now. [applause] Pass this bill.

If you want construction workers on the white, work site, pass this bill. [applause] If you want teachers in the classroom, pass this bill.  [applause] You want small bus, business owners to hire new people, pass this bill. [applause] You want veterans to get their fair share of opportunity that they helped create, pass this bill. [applause] You want a tax break, pass this bill. [applause]

Prove you will fight as hard for tax cuts for workers and middle class people as you do for oil companies and rich folks. Pass this bill. [applause] Let’s get something done. [applause]

The next election is fourteen months away. [voices: “Four more years.”] We cannot wait. The American people do not have the luxury of waiting another fourteen months for some action. Some of you are living paycheck to paycheck, week to week, day by day. [applause] Now is not the time for people in Washington to be worrying about their jobs. It’s time for them to be worrying about your jobs. [applause] Now is the time to put Americans back to work. Now is the time to act. [applause]

We are not a people that just look and watch and wait to see what happens. We’re Americans. We make things happen. [applause] We’re tougher than these times. We are bigger than the smallness of our politics. We are patriots and we are pioneers, and innovators and entrepreneurs, who through individual effort and through a common commitment to one another will build an economy that is once again the engine and the envy of the world. [applause] And we will write our own destiny.

It’s within our power. [voice: “Uh, huh.”] But we’ve got to seize the moment. So let’s just shake off all the naysaying and the anxiety and the hand-wringing. Enough of that. Let’s get to work. [applause] Let’s show the world once again why America is the greatest nation on Earth. Thank you, everybody. God bless you.  [applause] God bless America.[applause]

Others haven’t quite figured out that the word “compromise” to republicans only means that they are entitled to get everything they want. Yesterday:

McCaskill statement on President’s address to Congress

…Weeks on the road getting input from Missouri’s manufacturers has led me to believe we can keep creating more jobs with some commonsense ideas-more efficient job skills training, a crackdown on unfair trade practices that put our companies at a disadvantage, guarding against any excessive regulation, and making sure our small businesses have the tools needed to succeed.  The devil is in the details, and I’ll be taking a hard look at the President’s ideas in the next few days. But the bottom line is that Congress must come together and compromise to tackle this challenge.  If there’s one message I hope Congress left with tonight, it’s that putting more folks back to work is more important than who’s going to win the next election.

[emphasis added]

Uh, you think Lucy isn’t gonna pull the football away Charlie Brown?

The usual republican suspects blather their memes and talking points:

Congresswoman Hartzler issues statement in response to President Obama’s jobs speech to Congress

…President Obama needs to visit with small business owners, as I have, and ask them why they are not hiring. It’s not due to the cost of the proposed salary that could be averted through tax credits: It’s due to the onerous policies of Washington. President Obama would have been better off proposing a repeal of his health care bill which is causing skyrocketing increases in health care premiums; repealing the Dodd-Frank banking bill which is stifling credit for our business owners; reducing the cost of energy by promoting the use of American energy; and sending us the Free Trade Agreements that he has been withholding for too long. These proposals would go further toward creating jobs than championing another spending bill. Last year’s $800 billion stimulus package didn’t create private sector jobs. I don’t believe these proposals will either.

There’s something familiar there. Do you think the samples of either “manufacturers” and “small business owners” had anything in common? Just asking.

Did they talk to unemployed and underemployed people? Just asking.

Back to Representative Vicky Hartzler’s (r) bold statement: “…Last year’s $800 billion stimulus package didn’t create private sector jobs…”



Oh, really?

Here’s another statement (along with an explanation):

The ARRA created 1.503 million jobs

Many readers have asked me to comment on a recent paper by two US academic economists which is being promoted by Greg Mankiw that estimates the employment impact of the spending component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The authors say that the fiscal stimulus spending destroyed (net) around 600 thousand jobs in the private sector. When I read their paper, using their rules of interpreting their results I concluded they found that ARRA created 1.503 million jobs. But if I use the rules that the profession typically employs I find that their paper finds nothing of interest at all. Their econometric models yield no worthwhile results. The question that Greg Mankiw should answer is why is he promoting such a non-result as if it is important?….

….I would think that given the gravity of this sort of study, you would want to be very certain that your results were robust. At the very least a 5 per cent level of significance (the norm) would be chosen. Going to a 10 per cent level would be a very odd decision indeed….

[emphasis added]

Go. Read the whole thing. You’ll easily understand it if you aren’t vacuous.