The Problem: Eric Boehlert at Media Matters sums it up:

This act is getting tired.

In recent years, conservative activists, under the guise of renegade journalism, have been churning out undercover “sting” videos supposedly capturing reprehensible behavior by their mostly liberal targets. Those targets have included low-level workers at ACORN, a fundraiser at National Public Radio, and now officials at Planned Parenthood, among others.

The activists release a series of videos in an effort to build a big takedown story, and the press usually plays along. Meanwhile, activists coordinate with right-wing media players and members of Congress to generate simultaneous outrage over the clips.

The problem for the activists, and the problem for journalists who excitedly treat the clips as news, is that the videos invariably turn out to be doctored, filled with deceptive edits, and missing context in an effort to manufacture scandal.

The whole cycle has become a media cliché, but it’s one that conservative partisans cheer. And they’re cheering again this month as the Center for Medical Progress releases edited clips to claim Planned Parenthood officials have been caught discussing how the organization “sells the body parts of aborted fetuses” and “haggling” over prices for “baby parts.”

The Evidence: Both Planned Parenthood videos have been edited in order to offer a false narrative. If you want the details, take a look at one or more of the following sources: Media Matters, or FactCheck.org. Media Matters also links to and summarizes the responses of the media outlets that have pushed back against the dishonest videos.

The Experiment: So what do members of Missouri’s congressional delegation have to say about the situation? I searched their Webpages looking for formal statements on the topic. This is what I found on the pages of those who had prepared statements available:

From Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s (R-4) press release:

Last week and this morning, new videos were released detailing how Planned Parenthood harvests and sells the body parts of aborted children.  For decades Planned Parenthood employees have tried to diminish the humanity of the unborn by belittling them to blobs of tissue. […] This is human life we’re talking about.  We cannot stand by while aborted baby parts are being sold for profit [Emphasis added].

Rep. From Ann Wagner’s (R-2) press release:

[…] I rise today to express my continued outrage at now two abhorrent videos that have been released in the last week, in which two of Planned Parenthood’s senior doctors describe the process by which they and their coworkers kill unborn children and harvest their organs for sale. […] Yet here we stand on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, to discuss whether the sale of human body parts harvested from aborted children violates basic human dignity and perhaps even the law. [Emphasis added]

From Rep. Jason Smith’s (R-8) press release:

This week, Congressman Jason Smith cosponsored two bills to block all federal funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. The action comes after two disturbing videos were made public showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing selling body parts of unborn babies, potentially in violation of federal law.  […] Smith went on to say,  “I have never wavered from my firm belief that life is precious and must be protected. Americans deserve a full-scale investigation into Planned Parenthood’s immoral, potentially criminal conduct. Taxpayer money should be spent on taxpayer priorities, not unethical, unaccountable, unreasonable actions.  I will continue to fight against Planned Parenthood and its affiliates until they shift their priorities and work to protect the miracle of life.” [Emphasis added]

From Rep. Sam Grave’s (R-6) press release:

… after the two gut-wrenching videos of Planned Parenthood executives discussing their tactics were released, it is clear that the organization is much more radical than we ever could have thought,” Rep. Graves continued. “The fight against Planned Parenthood and its affiliates will continue until they show they can respect the lives of all people – born or unborn.[Emphasis added]

Conclusions:

1. Nobody at Planned Parenthood is “selling baby parts.”  

2. Our Republican representatives, who have the same access to the evidence discrediting the videos that we all do, are blatantly lying every time they repeat their catchphrase “selling baby parts” or use other provocative language to gin up misplaced outrage.

3. Since “baby parts” are not being “harvested” for sale, they must justify congressional hearings based either on either or both of the following:  (a) they don’t like the way that doctors talk about their everyday work, or (b) they disapprove of abortion – which, last I heard is still legal, a status that is supported by a large number of Americans.

4. Fetal tissue from abortions is being utilized to help find cures (pdf) for disease. Thank fetal tissue research for polio, rubella and varicella vaccines. It is also being used to explore cures for such diseases as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, Down’s Syndrome, SIDs, and heart disease.

5. Missouri’s congressional Republicans have so little real respect for the “unborn human life” they endlessly carry on about that they are willing to have it incinerated along with garbage rather than being utilized to save actual living “born” people.

Future Actions: First, Don’t let these liars waste legislative time and taxpayer dollars on another big propaganda circus that is clearly calculated to help provide immunity for an attack on women’s reproductive health during an election year. Second, if hearing go ahead, make sure they are as discredited as the videos that inspired them. Third, hold our Missouri politicians, the folks we sent to Washington, accountable for their lies.

Edited slightly post-publication, content added in last paragraph.

   

I visited the Web pages of the entire Missouri Republican House delegation, Reps. Ann Wagner (R-2), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), Vicky Hartzler (R-4), Jason Smith (R-8), Sam Graves (R-6), and Billy Long (R-7). I wanted to see what they had to say about the President’s State of the Union Address (SOTU).

So how did the Missouri arm of the carping and always obstructionist Party of No react to the President pointing out a few facts. Are they embarrassed about how they behaved in the past now that Obamacare seems to be performing as intended, the United States economy is ginning up and putting the lie to the austerian economic policies still advocated by the GOP although they are failing dismally in Europe, slow and cautious foreign policy is showing signs of succeeding in a dangerous world where  military bluster of the sort advocated by the GOP has proven disastrous, and French economist Thomas Piketty has shown us that we need to rescue the middle class with a big dose of redistributive religion, which is just what the President has ordered?

The answer is not much. There was only one notable coinage; Rep. Wagner has dubbed the new GOP Congress The New American Congress. I think she hopes it’ll catch on. Otherwise our Republican guys and gals in Washington followed the rulebook and kept their statements short, simple, and on the tried and true message. The basic themes: Washington is the source of all bad, they are only going there to clean it up. Then they all thumbed their collective noses at the President’s hubris in suggesting that he could initiate any new programs since the Grand Old Poobahs have said no, and they were elected by the majority of the 33 percent of Americans who bothered to vote in 2014, an overweening mandate in their eyes. They conveyed this message with lots of repetition, using the same words and phrases almost interchangeably, with only minor stylistic fillips to distinguish them from each other. For instance:

— Phrases used to describe Obama, his goals and policies:

“expand the reach, size, and scope of the federal government”

“tax and spend”

“redistribute ” (i.e., income, prosperity, etc.)

“trying to divide us along class and income lines”

“same old, tired, Washington-based ideas”

“a top-down economy controlled from Washington”

“politics as usual”

” big-government policies”

“ill-conceived vision”

” failed policies”

“the American people deserve better.”

“political score-keeping”

“my way or the highway”

“the president wants to go at it alone”

“hurt our nation’s family farmers and small businesses”

“burdensome regulations”

“health-care costs are skyrocketing”

“premums skyrocket”

“Americans are struggling to find jobs”

“ignore the will of the people”

“policies and proposals that the American people rejected”

Phrases used to describe GOP, their goals and agenda:

“Government must get out of the way”

“job creation”

“a new direction”

“grow America’s economy – not Washington’s economy”

“remove burdensome regulations like Obamacare”

“unleash America’s energy resources”

“get Americans back to work”

“placing America’s priorities first”

“a healthy system marked by a legacy of opportunity”

“we can get Washington out of the way”

“we can do better”

“forge a new direction”

“a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda”

“bipartisan solutions”

— Phrases used to describe what Republicans want from the President:

“work with us”

“work with this Congress ”

Obama must “stop issuing veto threats before common-sense pieces of legislation even get to his desk”

Given the relevant context it isn’t hard to interpret those last points. Translate “work with” into “roll over” and you’ve got the gist. As for the rest, I know, I know. You’ve heard them all before. And there’s lots of obvious fibs, misrepresentations, and wrong-headedness. Obamacare is doing just fine, jobs are being created faster than since before Bush, healthcare costs are going down, etc., etc. I’m sure you’re all getting as tired of trying to set these folks straight as I am, especially since it doesn’t do any good.  

I’m tempted to suggest that the GOP needs to convene some new focus groups, get some new material. They don’t have to make it complicated; we know slow, simple and familiar works with the folks they try to please. But do they have to be so predictable? But then, who reads press releases anyway – apart from bloggers with OCD.

*Corrected; last item from 2nd list moves to last list.

Yesterday:

….Voting in an effort to apply political pressure for the approval of a pipeline to transport corrosive Canadian tar sands across the United States to be refined in Texas for export to China benefits energy availability in the United States and carbon emissions in China (and the world) how?

We were just asking.

From Bloomberg News:

Keystone Weirdonomics Means Gas Prices Won’t Be Getting Any Cheaper

By Tom Randall Apr 25, 2014 2:40 PM CT

….The answer is that Keystone isn’t meant for U.S. consumption.

In Keystone’s weirdonomics, the pipeline would actually increase prices of gasoline for much of the country, according to at least three studies that have looked into it. Keystone would divert crude from Midwest refineries to Gulf Coast refineries, where it would then be shipped to more expensive markets. Bypassing heartland refineries could drive up prices at home.

For people living in the Midwest, Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, it could add 20 cents a gallon to the price at the pump…..

….It would also add to the threat of climate change by speeding up production of oil-sands crude, which is about 17 percent more carbon-intensive than the conventional barrel.

One thing that’s not at stake: cheaper gas prices.

Be sure to thank the republicans (and Missouri republicans) in the U.S. House of Representatives for voting yesterday to raise our retail gas prices.

It certainly won’t save Mary Landrieu’s seat in the United States Senate.

Previously:

We need the Keystone XL pipeline because? – part 2 (November 14, 2014)

Charles P. Pierce is meaner (November 14, 2014)

And then all hell broke loose (November 13, 2014)

We need the Keystone XL pipeline because? (November 13, 2014)

Darn that President Obama and his totally misguided national energy policy… (September 29, 2014)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) – in Warrensburg – August 22, 2014 (August 23, 2014)

Sounds of silence (gasoline) (December 16, 2013)

What cost, you say? (November 15, 2013)

Still going down… (November 7, 2013)

It upsets right wingnuts… (November 4, 2013)

Thank goodness that Keystone pipeline is up and running (October 28, 2013)

We’re on an express elevator to…going down (October 14, 2013)

Water is wet (October 9, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): we don’t need no stinkin’ objective reality (January 21, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): not especially prescient (January 9, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): strange silence, still (December 19, 2012)

Quick, blame Obama! – part 3 – trickle down (December 8, 2012)

Quick, blame Obama! – part 2 (December 5, 2012)

Quick, blame Obama! (December 1, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): make it stop… (November 18, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): the price keeps dropping and we’re running out of gas puns (November 15, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): on an express elevator… (November 12, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): wait, wait, don’t tell me (November 8, 2012)

Vicky Hartzler (r): it’s so quiet when the price keeps dropping (October 31, 2012)

Vicky Hartzler (r): What’s that? Did you say something? Apparently not. (October 29, 2012)

Vicky Hartzler (r): the sound of silence (October 23, 2012)

The past, the gas, and isms (September 24, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): let’s pass the gas – part 2 (June 6, 2012)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): let’s pass the gas (May 27, 2012)

Today, via Twitter, from Representative Jason Smith (r):

Jason Smith ‏@JasonSmithMO

In Dexter last night for Stoddard Co Lincoln Day. Spoke about my work fighting against Obama war on rural America#MO8 [….] 10:44 AM – 2 Mar 2014

Yeah, we know. If this situation was imposed on us by another nation it would be a casus belli:

Editorial: Poverty is not a punch line in Missouri’s 8th District

February 16, 2013 6:15 am  •  By the Editorial Board

….That makes the 8th District the perfect place to look at how America’s commitment to its neighbors has been neglected by those who are in service to the rich.

In terms of median income, children living in poverty, and various health outcomes such as infant mortality that are often directly tied to poverty conditions, Missouri’s 8th District is very much in need of a Robin Hood.

It is the poorest congressional district in Missouri. The pain is spread throughout the southeastern quadrant of the state that makes up the 8th.

Of the 10 counties with the lowest median income in the Show-Me State, all but one are in the 8th.

Shannon County brings up the rear at $26,600 per household, far below the statewide average of $45,000 – which is about $5,000 below the national average.

What does the 8th District get for all that poverty?

Malnourished babies. Abused children. Dead kids.

Texas County, home of the new mean center of the U.S., comes in at 108th out of 115 Missouri counties in terms of child deaths. Mr. Smith’s Dent County ranks just one better.

Infant mortality? Teen deaths? Dropouts?

For as much as Missouri’s rural lawmakers like to talk about poverty as an urban issue, the statistics in their counties, particularly the 8th, are as bad or worse….

….This is the paradox of the modern-day Republican Party in Missouri.

It campaigns against the needs of the very people it represents. Too many of the party’s voters encourage such behavior by demonizing the federal government that they don’t realize is helping to keep them and their children alive….

Oh, wait, it’s not Obama’s war…

From the U.S. Census Bureau (2012 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates):

Congressional District 8, Missouri

Income and Benefits

(In 2012 inflation-adjusted dollars) Estimate

Total households 289,287

[Income]

Less than $10,000 30,619

$10,000 to $14,999 26,265

$15,000 to 24,999 42,920

$25,000 to $34,999 39,278

$35,000 to $49,999 46,272

$50,000 to $74,999 53,412

$75,000 to $99,999 22,929

$100,000 to $149,999 20,040

$150,000 to $199,999 4,499

$200,000 or more 3,053

Access to health insurance in the 8th Congressional District, from the U.S. Census Bureau (2012 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates):

Health Insurance Coverage Estimate

Civilian non-institutionalized population 729,868

With health insurance coverage 625,689

With private health insurance 435,651

With public coverage 290,108

No health insurance coverage 104,179

Civilian non-institutionalized population under 18 years 172,506

No health insurance coverage 10,231

[emphasis added]

The poverty level in the 8th Congressional District, from the U.S. Census Bureau (2012 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates):

Percentage of Families and People whose Income in the Past 12 Months is Below the Poverty Level Estimate

All families 14.4%

With related children under 18 years 23.2%

With related children under 5 years only 23.9%

Married couple families 7.9%

With related children under 18 years 10.6%

With related children under 5 years only 11.3%

Families with female householder, no husband present 40.7%

With related children under 18 years 51.7%

With related children under 5 years only 49.4%

All people 19.7%

Under 18 years 26.8%

Related children under 18 years 26.2%

Related children under 5 years 29.6%

Related children 5 to 17 years 25.1%

18 years and older 17.5%

65 years and older 12.6%

People in families 16.0%

Unrelated individuals 15 years and over 35.7%

Oh, there’s a war all right, just not from Obama.

Republicans like to tell stores about being “fiscal conservatives” who oppose irresponsible spending. They’ve managed in the process to impede economic growth while successfully fighting off efforts to cut that large segment of our irresponsible spending which takes the form of subsidies to highly profitable industries like Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and big what-have-you – which big entities often happen, in turn, to be very generous when it comes time to fund political campaigns.  

Nowhere, though does GOP hypocrisy show through more than in the recent budget and debt level negotiations. The Washington Post‘s Wonkblog today identifies the members of the exclusively Republican “default caucus,” made up of the 135 representatives and 17 senators who voted first for the omnibus spending bill, and then against raising the debt limit that would pay for it. They essentially decided that the United States should not pay the bills that they themselves had voted to run up. Try doing that at home, Mr. and Mrs. Average American. As Wonkblog’s Christopher Ingraham puts it, “the fact a significant faction in Congress can vote to run up debt, refuse to pay for it, and bill themselves as “fiscal conservatives” shows just how much that term has lost its meaning.”

I would suggest that a better label than “default caucus” for these lawmakers would be “deadbeat caucus.” That, after all, is what we call folks who don’t want to pay their bills. There are several members of the deadbeat caucus from Missouri:

Senator Roy Blunt (R)

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2)

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3)

Rep. Vickky Hartzler (R-4)

Rep. Sam Graves (R-6)

You can click on the names of Representatives listed above that have links to go to their press releases designed to tell us why voting for the spending bill they later refused to fund was such a good idea – not that they mention anything about the relationship between the two votes. I think that they hope we won’t figure that one out. Sam Graves simply ignores his yea vote on the omnibus funding bill, but did issue a statement patting himself on the back for voting against the extension of the debt limit. His reason for the nay note? He somehow seems to think that the debt limit extension vote is the place to cut the spending he approved in the earlier vote. So what do  you think? Are they all dumb as posts? Or cynical panderers? Whatever else they are, they’re certainly willing to play fast and loose with the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government – along with our welfare.

Ingraham allows as how those folks who voted against both the spending bill and the debt limit hike necessary to accommodate it should at least be admired for their consistency. And they are consistent, but you might temper your admiration when you remember that it stems from a totally nutty and discredited conception of economics, to wit, austerian theories that these folks probably don’t even understand apart from platitudes abut the “free market” and the evils of “big government.” Nothing but extreme economic ignorance coupled with total irresponsibility could explain their willingness to risk the disastrous consequences of default on the debt. Consequently, in recognition of the harm they do to us all, I’d like to label these folks the “nutjob caucus.” (You’re probably all aware that many members of the deadbeat caucus are, on other occasions, only too happy to claim membership in the nutjob caucus.) In Missouri, the members of the budgetary nutjob caucus includes:

Rep. Billy Long (R-7)

Re. Jason Smith (R-8)

So what do we call congresspeople who swallowed some of the bitter pills in the omnibus bill (cuts to food stamps, anyone?) in the interest of breaking gridlock and staving off another expensive government shutdown, and then, like responsible adults, voted to extend the debt limit to pay for the spending they had just authorized? Real legislators – you know, the people who are doing the hard job of governing without temper  tantrums. And it also looks like this time around we call them Democrats – including Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who didn’t vote on the omnibus spending bill for whatever reason – maybe a few of those bitter pills were just too bitter – but came through when it was time to raise the debt limit and honor the spending decisions that his colleagues, including many in the GOP delegation, had already made.  

All of Missouri’s Republican House delegation joined the 144 Republican House members who voted no on the budgetary continuing resolution sent to them from the Senate, which amounts to five votes from Missouri to keep the shutdown going. To a man or woman, these members of the Missouri Shutdown Hall of Shame tried to justify their votes with references to those all-purpose boogymen, the deficit and “out of control spending” (see also here).

To a man or woman, they have all also refused to admit they initially went to war with the nation’s well-being for no reason other than to defund the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – even though the ACA reduces the deficit long-term. Nor are they willing to admit that the main ACA concession they demanded as a sop when it became clear that the rest of the Congress and most of the country regarded their anti-Obamacare jihad as laughable, a repeal of the medical devices tax, was a special interest boondogle that would have undercut the ability of the ACA keep government costs down. All that reasonable bystanders can conclude from this is that our GOPers are either dishonest, severely deluded, or dumber than fenceposts.

According to S&P estimates, the antics of these shutdown diehards cost the U.S. economy $24 billion and cut 0.6% off of yearly fourth quarter GDP growth. Tell me how this reflects concern with the economy. Think Progress has compiled a partial list of government expenditures that could have been financed by the amount of money lost in the shutdown:

— The net cost of to the government from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP): $24 billion

— The Department of Agriculture’s proposed budget: $22.6 billion

— NASA’s approved budget: $16.6 billion

— All air transportation programs, including the Federal Aviation Administration, security, research, and other costs: $21.9 billion.

— The Child Tax Credit: $22.1 billion.

— The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (formally known as welfare): $17.7 billion.

— The cost of Head Start, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Women Infants and Children (WIC) program combined: $25.2 billion

I hope you noticed that all or parts of these expenditures were or are bitterly opposed by these same GOPers who insist that we can’t afford them. Nevertheless, they’re all more than willing to run up similar costs in the service of empty symbolic gestures meant to impress their base. But as Think Progress also noted, these pols have been making the same types of choices from the getgo:

The shutdown was just the latest budget crisis that has been costly to the economy. A recent report found that the uncertainty created by fights over funding the government and raising the debt ceiling that have cropped up since 2010 has cost the economy nearly a million jobs.

And, to cap it all off, there are already rumblings from the GOP crazy caucus, with whom Missouri’s GOPers seem to have allied themselves, that they’ll be willing to give the ol’ shutdown routine a go once again early next year when yesterday’s agreement runs out. However, as Michael Tomasky wrote today, one thing may have changed:

. . . At least the American people did get to see what assassins the Republicans are. That was valuable. Many of us have been trying to say for many years now about Washington’s polarization and dysfunction that yes, both sides are to blame, there are no Boy Scouts here, but the sides are not remotely equally to blame, and this is a crucial point, and journalists and commentators who keep insisting on framing things this way out of some devotion to “balance” that is out of whack with the facts of reality are disserving the republic; lying, basically. I don’t think now any commentator can seriously maintain that fiction. . . .

Reps. Ann Wagner (R-2) and Jason Smith (R-8) want furloughed federal workers to know that they too share the pain of the government shutdown. The two Republican Missouri lawmakers, along with Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, have joined the other congessmen and women – 138 as of last Friday – who decided that something had to be done about the bad smell that was rising from the Republican shutdown and contaminating all of Washington D.C. These legislators have all publicly stated that for the duration of the shutdown they will either defer their congressional salaries or donate them to charity.

It ought to mean a lot to those federal employees, many of whom live pay-check to pay-check and who now have to scrape by on nothing, that congressmen whose median net worth hovers at around a $1 million want to make a symbolic gesture in their direction. Wagner, for example, is actually one of the wealthiest members of the House.

The gesture on the part of the 73 Republicans participating in this exercise in optics might mean more if they were also willing to end the standoff that they started with their outrageous ultimatums. As it is, it stands as a classic example of too little, too late and no way to make amends.

If, to return to the example of Ann Wagner, she really cared about the mess she has helped her party create, she could lean on the House leadership to bring a clean budgetary continuing resolution (CR) to the floor – which could pass with the support of Democrats and those Republicans who have already signalled their disgust with their party’s antics. Or she could stand up and let her colleagues and the GOP leadership know that she would support a discharge petition and vote for the CR if Nancy Pelosi tries to use that tactic to bring it to the floor.

Instead, as today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes, Wagner is “out front pressing Democrats to negotiate on the Affordable Care Act before she will agree to end the shutdown.”  And even worse, as a Post-Dispatch editorial observed last week, shutdown cheerleader Wagner may be motivated as much by perceived political exigency as from conviction. Astutely assigning blame for the current shutdown, the PD observed that:

Narrowly the blame here lies with the approximately three dozen Republicans from solidly safe districts who have confused right-wing messaging with leadership. They are joined by several dozen more GOP members, including Ann Wagner of Ballwin, who are more worried about primary challenges from the right than fulfilling their constitutional duties. They are putting personal political interests ahead of the public interest.

Refusing to take an unneeded salary in order to defer criticism? A so-so gesture at best. Actually trying to do the best thing for one’s constituents and one’s country? Priceless – and, in today’s GOP, very, very rare.

Freedomworks, one of those astroturf groups birthed by the Koch billions, wants good little Tea Partiers to lobby their Representatives to shut down the government. Or defund Obamacare. Whichever happens first.

Of course, nobody’s going to defund Obamacare. A majority of us elected President Obama partly on the basis of his promise to reform healthcare delivery. He did. His reform is now the law of the land and it’ll stay that way.  Which means that the GOPers supporting this drive are simply aiming to shut down the government. The strategy is simple:

The Continuing Resolution (CR) that allows funding for the federal government expires on September 30th and must be renewed in order for the doors to stay open in Washington. The CR is the best chance we will get to withdraw funds from ObamaCare. This can be done by attaching bills by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) or Congressman Tom Graves (R-GA) to the CR, which will totally defund ObamaCare.

But for the Cruz/Graves effort to have teeth, Republicans in both chambers of Congress must all be committed to absolutely refusing to vote for any spending bill that contains funding for ObamaCare.  Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) are leading the charge to get their colleagues to commit to this approach, by putting their signatures to a letter affirming that they will refuse to vote for a CR that contains ObamaCare funding.

Actually, shutting down the government wouldn’t actually do much of anything to affect Obamacare, but it would affect lots of Americans in very unpleasant ways. While the exact consequences are hard to predict, there’s no doubt they would be unpleasant in the extreme. When the GOP last tried this in 1995-96 numerous services were impacted:

–Over 1,000,000 federal employees were sent home during the combined 1995-96 shutdowns. Major federal work force furloughs occurred in of the Department of Education, the Department of Veteran Affairs, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Social Security Administration, to name a few.

–National museums and monuments closed down, resulting in an estimated loss of 2 million visitors.

–368 National Park Service sites also closed, losing 7 million visitors and around $14.2 million per day in tourism revenue.

–20,000-30,000 foreign visa applications per day went unprocessed, as did an estimated total of 200,000 U.S. passport applications.

–Health, welfare, finance, and travel services for veterans were restricted.

–New Medicare applicants were turned away, and new patients at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center were not accepted.

–Furloughs at the Centers for Disease Control resulted in limited information regarding the spread of contagious diseases.

–Over 3,500 bankruptcy cases were suspended.

–Federal agencies managing over 20% over the total number of government contracts were affected.

The total cost to the taxpayer for the 1995-96 shutdowns was $1.25 billion. This sum reflects the straight-up  government costs; there would have been additional costs incurred in the private sector by government contractors as well as ripple effects elsewhere in the economy. A steep price tag to achieve little or nothing, especially given that the GOPers  pushing this idea harp constantly about wasteful government spending. Nor should you forget that this stunt would be enacted against the backdrop of economic harm already effected by the GOP sequester.

Nevertheless, almost every member of the Missouri GOP congressional delegation has signed on to co-sponsor either the Cruz (Senate) or Graves (House) legislation. The only exception is Sam Graves (not the Graves behind the bill) who, nevertheless, signed the Meadows letter, promising to vote to hold government hostage to his desire to do away with Obamacare. Newbie Jason Smith (R-8) is really gung-ho, both signing the letter and co-sponsoring the Graves bill.

Now just let me add that not even Republicans are united behind this exercise in wild-eyed, radical stupidity. The consensus of opinion right now is that the GOP can’t muster a united majority to support the shut-down. Nor do the defund Obamacare extremists have public support. A new poll out today shows that 57% of Americans oppose defunding Obamacare. This gives you an idea about how really special our Missouri Republicans are.

*Slightly edited.  

I was struck by this paragraph in an article by Michael Tomasky on the GOP poison-pill amendment put forward by Eric Cantor that scuttled the Farm Bill in the House last week:

It’s just amazing to me the way they [i.e., the GOP] keep finding new ways to kick poor people. One, deregulate everything so that banks can start placing bets against their own securities. Two, destroy the economy, so that millions more people lose their jobs and have to go on food stamps in the first place. Three, decide that poor people have to pay the penalty for all this financial hanky-panky, and cut the federal programs they depend on to the bone. Four, cut food stamps even more, and make the recipients work more.

It made me think of the recent special election for Jo Ann Emerson’s House seat in the 8th congressional district, which was handily won by Tea Party fellow-travelor Jason Smith, who promises to be just the type who will promote policy directions of the sort Tomasky decries. Pertinent fact here: according to Wikipedia, the 8th district “is the poorest district in Missouri and the 11th poorest congressional district in the country.”

It’s hard to believe that racism, trumped up rage, paranoia and conspiracy fears can be so potent when it comes to getting folks to vote against their own interests, but the evidence is hard to deny.  Obama was just telling the truth in 2008 when he talked about the power of guns, God, and, by implication, gays, to rile up folks who are scared silly by a changing world. You can call such language elitist all you want, but since we all have to live with the consequences of this silliness, we get to call it the way it is.

On the topic of taxes, especially progressive taxation, George Lakoff, the Berkeley linguist and expert on political language, has this to say:

Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there’s an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists – vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues – you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don’t. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we’re all paying for it.

There are many more ways that our tax system subsidizes corporations and the wealthy, but the idea Lakoff is presenting is still pretty clear and not at all hard to understand. Nevertheless, Republicans just don’t get it. Consider State Rep. Jason Smith, currently Missouri House speaker pro tem who, incidentally, just won the GOP nomination for Rep. Jo Ann Emerson’s recently vacated federal seat in the 8th district. Seems Smith shines when it comes to GOP anti-tax bile. Notable quote:

When they tax the rich to give to the poor, it makes us less American … less free.

This man serves in a state with failing infrastructure, 300,000 uninsured, a mediocre educational system, and which, for obvious reasons, attracts far too few of the more entrepreneurial businesses that could actually grow the state’s economy – as opposed to those industries that offer only low-paying scutt work.

But never mind about all that growth and prosperity stuff – none of which, rhetoric to the contrary, really seems to get Republican juices flowing. If Smith and his current cronies in the Missouri statehouse get their way, Missourians won’t have much, but they’ll be “freer,” which in this case means minimal taxes for the wealthy and for businesses, while the middle classes and poor pay proportionally more for government services – including those designed to insure that the haves get more.

This “freedom” song and dance is, of course, old hat. Conservatives frequently try to justify their druthers by appealing to freedom and other abstractions, rather than demonstrating the real-world ways that their proposed policies will make Americans’ lives better. They rarely specify that the right-wing concept of freedom pertains only to market economics. Michael Lind, one of the founders of the New America Foundation, points out that the right wing “idea of ‘freedom’ is a very peculiar one, which excludes virtually every kind of liberty that ordinary Americans take for granted”:

What would America look like, if conservatives had won their battles against American liberty in the last half-century? Formal racial segregation might still exist at the state and local level in the South. In some states, it would be illegal to obtain abortions or even for married couples to use contraception. In much of the United States, gays and lesbians would still be treated as criminals. Government would dictate to Americans with whom and how they can have sex. Unions would have been completely annihilated in the public as well as the private sector. Wages and hours laws would be abolished, so that employers could pay third-world wages to Americans working seven days a week, 12 hours a day, as many did before the New Deal. There would be far more executions and far fewer procedural safeguards to ensure that the lives of innocent Americans are not ended mistakenly by the state.

One thing Lind forgets to mention is that the wealthy and corporations would skate when it comes to taxes in such a right-wing, “free” republic, while the rest of us would probably foot most if not all of the bill for the minimal services government would deliver. Yet Missourians will most likely send Jason Smith to Washington to fight for more of that anti-tax freedom with its corresponding spending cuts, so that we too can enjoy the same type of austerity policies that have plunged Great Britain into double-dip recession.

*Lakoff quote amended to include material inadvertently omitted.