A couple of days ago Digby drew my attention to Paul Krugman’s definition of the term “derp”:

Derp” is a term borrowed from the cartoon “South Park” that has achieved wide currency among people I talk to, because it’s useful shorthand for an all-too-obvious feature of the modern intellectual landscape: people who keep saying the same thing no matter how much evidence accumulates that it’s completely wrong.

Based on that definition, many of you may notice that there’s lots of examples of derpiness around SMP in the past few days as well. I allude to all the posts about the doings of Kansas Governor Brownback and the economic disaster that he has created in Kansas with his tax-cuts for the wealthy friends of the GOP (see here, here, and here). Nevertheless, in spite of the emergency created by epic budget shortfalls and ranking 44th in job creation this year, there are those who persist in their embrace of derp, claiming that the “Kansas experiment” has been at least a moderate success, or, given time, will succeed colossally.

Notable among Kansas-disaster deniers is billionaire Rex Sinquefield who set out to buy himself enough compliant politicians to take Missouri down the same road. Sinquefield wants the Kansas experiment to be successful so badly that he doesn’t scruple to re-engineer the facts as he did in a recent Forbes Magazine article. Of course maybe that’s an example of plain garden-variety dishonesty rather than derp.

Sinquefield’s dollars though have had their effect on many of the Republican members of the Missouri legislature who passed their own gift to the very well-heeled, S.B. 509, last year. The standard rationale for ignoring what similar cuts did to Kansas: it’ll take more time for the positive effects of the Kansas tax-cuts to be felt. In other words, unless you belong to the  intrinsically deserving 1%, you should suffer now since we’ve heard that there’ll be pie in the sky someday. Maybe. This is classical derp, folks.

The same kind of derpiness makes Scott Walker a viable Republican presidential candidate. Walker cut taxes for Wisconsin corporations and the wealthy by almost $2 billion dollars over his tenure, and, in spite of trying to pay for the cuts on the backs of the poor and middle class via massive cuts in education, other public spending, and tax “reforms” that cost the poor and seniors, he is facing a  $283 million budgetary shortfall this year alone. He also failed to create more than half the jobs he promised would follow his tax-cuts.

How can we still regard the Republican economic philosophy as financially fiscally responsible when it leads a governor to put his state into debt default as Walker has done? What responsible, clear-thinking individual could even entertain the thought that after destroying the prosperity and endangering the public well-being of Wisconsin, Walker should be entrusted with the keys to the White House? But hey, he’s still singing the same tune and he won re-election. Derp at its best.

Examples of red-state tax-cutting failure abound. Most recently, we’ve read about how Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindall and his Louisiana legislative cohorts are begging Grover Norquist, instigator of the GOP endorsed anti-tax pledge, to let them off the hook so that they can salvage the Louisiana economy from the effects of their tax-cuts.

Want another example? Here in Missouri we’ve recently been learning about how the municipal courts have been used to generate revenue for small jurisdictions that would be unable to pay the bills otherwise. But what about a whole state that works on a similar principle? I’m talking about Albama here:

AL.com points out some of the examples of costs that are now paid for by court fees, not tax revenue: “In Chambers County, drug offenders pay into the fire and rescue fund. In Madison County, since 2000 fees for serving court papers have paid for county employees to get a raise. In Lawrence County, court costs help fund the county historical commission, so ostensibly future generations can learn about a time when Alabama adequately funded its court system.”

The State of Alabama has become so dependent on money extracted from increased court fees that, in 2014, Cleburne County officials were apoplectic when they realized that construction on nearby I-20 had cut traffic tickets in half.

[…]

The result? Working class people are paying for the cost of giving tax cuts to the wealthier residents of these states.

That last sentence? It’s true about Kansas, Wisconsin, Missouri, and red states everywhere. What allows this situation not only to persist but to become even more prevalent? Which is to say, how does the wrecking crew get re-elected? Easy-peasy. Misinformation: think Fox news, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, spin and outright lies from elected officials. Deflection: steer the conversation to abortion, guns and gays (did it ever occur to you that Obama took so much heat for a similar observation because it hit too close to home?). Fear: ISIS is coming, or Sharia law, or the U.N jack-booted troops. And last, but not least: derp: if you don’t wanna believe the facts, don’t; if they’re inconvenient, disregard them.

Today Claire McCaskill did it. She voted with all Senate Republicans and nine Senate Democrats to pass the House’s Keystone XL authorization. Of course, nine Democrats won’t be enough to override a presidential veto, so maybe she was hoping to get some red Missouri love without having to make anyone pay too big a price.

That line of thought might, though, give McCaskill too much credit. Even most Republicans have to know in their secret hearts that as far as jobs go Keystone XL is very small potatoes indeed. As Steve Benen writes today:

As for the substance, let’s recap our discussion from a few weeks ago, noting just how straightforward the case against Keystone is. At issue is a proposal to build a pipeline to transport oil, extracted from tar sands, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Critics have said the tar-sands process is environmentally hazardous, which is true. They’ve said the project would have no real impact on already low gas prices, which is also true. And they’ve said Keystone would be largely meaningless to the U.S. unemployment rate, which, once again, is completely true.

And on the other side of the aisle, Republicans have an equally straightforward rejoinder: they really, really, really like this project. Why? Because they really, really, really do

And for some reason, McCaskill, the only Democrat I’ve got representing me in Congress, seems to share the GOP infatuation with the pipeline. She seems to really, really, really like it too. Even pertinent reminders of the problems that plague oil pipelines, events like this month’s disastrous spill into Montana’s Yellowstone River, fail to sway her infatuation with the project – and if you think such spills are rare events, take a look at this list of hundreds of such spills in the United States in the last 14 years alone. And no, engineers can’t really make credible promises to do better. As a USGS engineer observed apropos the problem of protecting pipelines routed beneath rivers, “it’s nature […]. Is it going to follow the equation? I don’t know for sure.”

So does this mean that McCaskill, who seems uber-cautious when it comes to politics, is inclined to be reckless when in the throes of fossil-fuel passion? There must be some explanation for McCaskill thowing her constituents under the bus. And don’t let anyone fool you. The answer can’t be jobs. The Keystone impact will be so small that Chuck Todd and some of his fellow NBC news staff members, deride the entire effort as laughably “small ball politics.”

Steve Benen has a persuasive take on why Republicans keep batting that diminishingly small ball back and forth:

Rather, Keystone has become a totem of sorts. Its actual value has been rendered meaningless, replaced with post-policy symbolic value that ignores pesky details like facts and evidence. Indeed, the more Democrats and environmentalists tell Republicans this is a bad idea, the more Republicans convince themselves this is The Most Important Project In The World. It’s ideologically satisfying.

Taking this one step further, my suspicion is that GOP officials find all of these circumstances quite convenient. Republicans don’t have a jobs agenda, or much an economic vision in general, but they have a Keystone bill that those rascally Democrats won’t accept.

And when pressed for an explanation on why congressional Republicans aren’t working on economic development, they immediately turn to their talking point of choice: “Keystone! Keystone! Keystone!”

So that explains why Republicans are doing what they are doing. It’s just another Benghazi in a long list of Benghazis, symbolically loaded tags that come in handy when you’re asked why you and your political allies can’t do anything worthwhile.

But this still leaves us with the question of Senator McCaskill and her Democratic allies. Surely, their goals aren’t to provide cover for GOP ne’er-do-wells. Surely, they can’t think that siding with idiots who are running for cover will provide them with the same type of cover. Haven’t they noticed the President’s spiking approval numbers now that he’s showing a tendency to stand up for a progressive agenda? Isn’t that proof that there are still people out there who reward leaders who can act the part?

The Associated Press reported today that Missouri GOP gubernatorial contender Dave Spence had to repay part of a grant he had received from the state of New York. The grant was associated with a plastics business he acquired in that state. It seems that Spence, who is running on his record as a job-creating businessman, failed to meet the job creation targets upon which the grant was contingent.

Embarrassing, sure; surprising, not especially. Businesses succeed and fail for a number of reasons. It does, of course, undermine Spence’s job-creator chops, the single qualification he presents to persuade us he deserves to be elected governor of Missouri. As the AP put it, “Spence was not able to create jobs in New York.” Of course, success in business is, on its own, at least, a pretty weak qualification for a political career since government’s goals and methods are much broader than that of for-profit business.

What especially struck me, though, was one statement from the Democratic Party response:

A party spokesman pointed to various speeches in which Spence has said he doesn’t like “corporate welfare” and believes businesses should have to repay government incentives if they don’t follow through on their job-creation agreements.

The Democrats are on to something, but seem not to have a very firm grasp of all the implications. My question is if Spence doesn’t like “corporate welfare” what’s he doing accepting government subsidies under any circumstances?  Whether or not he created jobs with corporate welfare government money is irrelevant.

If memory serves me, Spence got Alpha Packaging, his big Missouri business success, going strong thanks to a Small Business Administration Loan, and then, of course, there’s his  support for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP)  – he sat on the board of a bank that took TARP money and then defaulted. Seems to me that Mr. Spence has been more than happy to take advantage of corporate welfare. You could even say he owes much of his success to just that particular form of government largesse.

But when it comes to government looking out for the folks who occupy those jobs he claims he wants to create, he’s not so generous. He may be willing to accept government help to insure his welfare and to endorse policies that permit government to help businessmen like him, but he wants that same government to leave workers’ welfare to the “free” market, via  right-to-work-for-less legislation and totally abolishing the minimum wage.

Which brings me to a simple question that Mr. Spence’s many trips to the government trough suggests: Why isn’t what’s good for the goose, good for the gander? If government subsidies help businessmen like Spence “create” jobs, why isn’t government oversight to guarantee a fair share of the proceeds for the workers just as good? There might not be any proceeds, after all, if weren’t for our tax money – including those of union and minimum wage folks. Why should we subsidize a “free” market that offers us slave wages?

And, lest you be misled by Mr. Spence’s claim that unions and minimum wage requirements are what made it impossible for him to succeed in New York, bear in mind that as recently as 2011, New York led the nation in job creation and is ranked third in job growth by Kiplinger this year.

Most of us have heard our more retrograde legislators and cable news pontificators gleefully proclaim the stimulus a failure – despite evidence that it softened the recession fallout considerably (see also here). Wiser observers, such as the Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman, note that more rather than less stimulus was what was really needed if we wanted to give the economy the boost required to rev up the jobs engine:

What we’re in right now is the aftermath of a giant financial crisis, which typically leads to a prolonged period of economic weakness – and this time isn’t different. A bolder economic policy early this year might have led to a turnaround, but what we actually got were half-measures. As a result, unemployment is likely to stay near its current level for a year or more.

Sadly, Krugman is probably correct when he notes that efforts to augment the stimulus with realistic job-creation measures will probably fall victim to the current political climate. The result, according to Krugman, will be “years of terrible job markets, combined with political paralysis.”

Krugman’s grim observations were brought vividly home to me when I came across Claire McCaskill’s comments on the topic of a potential Senate jobs bill:

I think we’ve got to be really careful in thinking we can spend government money to get us out of recession,” said Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who called for low-interest loans for small businesses.

Nothing too cringeworthy in that pious little observation – but nothing too promising in the vision and courage departments either.  

While the President may set the direction, no president, no matter how visionary or politically savy, can do what needs to be done alone. He needs the support of smart legislators with the courage to take the necessary political risks, not those who, like McCaskill, tiptoe around issues out of fear of offending the sensibilities of the small-minded.

What I want to hear from McCaskill and the rest of the Missouri delegation – the Democrats at any rate, since the Republicans are a lost cause – are serious ideas.  They don’t even have to do the heavy-lifting; there’s lots of good thinking out there for them to draw upon.

Consider, for instance, the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Five-point Plan to Stem the Jobs Crisis, which recommends a WPA style program, along with investments in infrastructure, transportation, and education. The EPI estimates that it would create an estimated 4.6 million jobs in the first year alone, and could be funded by a financial transaction tax, which, in the best progressive style, would hit only wealthiest ten percent.

Why isn’t McCaskill at least addressing ideas like these rather than taking refuge in Republican-lite rhetoric? And why doesn’t she tell us why she is so negative about cap-and-trade? Even honest conservatives like Lindsey Graham admit that controllling CO2 emissions and shifting to a green economy could  power up the economy.

It’s early days yet after all. The President’s job’s forum will take place just tomorrow, initiating the new emphasis on jobs, and there will be time in the coming months for McCaskill to develop her thinking and to communicate her ideas.  Perhaps she’ll blow our socks off.  And perhaps she won’t.