Today’s big news (via FiredUp!) is that Ann Wagner is leaving her will-she/won’t-she phase and is coming clean about her plans to run for the House seat from the 2nd district. Her willingness to come out of the closet about her political aspirations intensifies speculation that Rep. Todd Akin, the GOP incumbent representing the 2nd, is finally, after weeks of flirting, ready to commit to a run for the Senate.

Akin is considered by many to have secured his initial term in the House by stealthily down-playing his radical, Christian-nation proclivities – large numbers of his West County constituents, long-time moderate Republicans, still have no idea that he espouses radical religious intolerance of the sort associated with David Barton, whose views he has endorsed. However, he has allowed some potentially damming statements about his social policy positions to go on the record, indicating his opposition to Medicare and Social Security, for instance. In the interest of Rep. Akin’s political future, I am going to suggest that he take a few lessons from the almost always bland and cautious Roy Blunt. (Although even ol’ Roy has had a few unguarded moments when he thinks he’s alone with his homies.)  

One need look no further for an example of Blunt weasel-speak than this press release, titled “Senator Roy Blunt: Government is not the answer.” It offers a classic example of the way that Blunt (or the relevant staffers) can manage to pack right-wing, red-meat into mundane-seeming, conservative boilerplate – while still providing wiggle-room should future developments demand that Senator Blunt be able to back away. The topic is the budgetary face-down of early April, and while the rhetoric is seemingly straightforward, note the crafty evasions and vital omissions in the three short paragraphs analyzed below:

A government shutdown is not the answer. Senate Democrats’ unwillingness to come to the table to make real budget cuts is not a responsible solution.

These seemingly straightforward two sentences exemplify one of the most salient characteristics of Blunt-speak, which is to simultaneously seek to occupy both the high and the low ground. The first sentence implies that Blunt, like the GOP, is above low politics. The second sentence, however, lands a very low blow indeed. Asserting that the culprits threatening a government shutdown were Democrats – who had the temerity to insist that the concept of a deal means concessions from both sides – conveniently ignores the rabid GOP Tea Partiers who were at that very time cheering on just such a shutdown. Here we have two simple-seeming sentences packed so full of posturing and characterized by the omission of so many relevant facts that they almost, but don’t quite become bare-faced lies.

Having signaled his strategy, Blunt then escalates and immediately crosses over into blatant dishonesty, albeit, it is important to note, dishonesty sanctioned by prevalent GOP spin – Blunt almost never sets foot on virgin ground, fib-wise:

Make no mistake – we’re in this predicament because Senate Democrats abdicated their duties and failed to pass a budget last year.

It is true that the Senate Democrats failed to pass a budget in 2010, but only because Senate Republicans, wielding their favorite weapon, the filibuster, insured that it could not pass with less than 60 votes. But since everyone in the Republican party seems to have forgotten this tiny fact, Daddy Blunt can get away with pushing the blame onto those darned Democrats.

Congressman Ryan’s plan puts solutions above politics and takes on the crippling debt that threatens America’s jobs creation and future prosperity.

This simple statement exemplifies the true beauty of Blunt-speak. If you don’t listen carefully, it sounds like Blunt, who, in his senatorial campaign, did his best to scare seniors about what he misrepresented as Democratic plans to cut Medicare, is endorsing Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. And let us be clear, Ryan’s proposal will effectively dismantle Medicare under the guise of addressing the deficit – while, incidentally,  adding an estimated five trillion dollars to the deficit over the next decade according to a CBO estimate.

But before you assume that you caught Blunt in an honest moment, look again – he doesn’t talk about what the Ryan budget actually does,nor does he explicitly endorse its proposals, but rather he  praises Ryan for the process he has initiated, for “putting solutions over politics,” and “taking on” the burden of “crippling” debt. Plenty of room to weasel out later if the blowback threatens to get too nasty – which judging by the response at Ryan’s recent town halls, just might be the case.

Of course, Akin is on record for having voted for the Ryan Budget. He has, however, also made well-publicized statements to the effect that the poor and elderly should rely on private charity for their health care, and that Medicare and Social Security are part of the apparatus of a “sniveling” entitlement state. If Brother Todd wants to graduate to the Senate, he could certainly do worse than to study the rhetorical modus operandi of our other Missouri GOP Senator, Roy Blunt, and learn to talk out of both sides of his mouth while distorting inconvenient facts – and do it in such a stunningly vapid style that nobody will remember anything he said in the first place.

* Slightly edited in for clarity and style.

Here’s Rep. Todd Akin (R-2) wailing about the threat posed by the deficit:

It is imperative that we address the unsustainable growth in entitlement spending and debt service, which is now eating up the entirety of government revenue.  If we fail to address those facts we will be facing a total economic meltdown. …

Here’s Senator Roy Blunt doing his wooden imitation of someone wailing abut the threat posed by the deficit:

I believe we’re facing an historic crossroads in our nation’s long-term financial health. Voters sent a clear message last fall that they expect us to make the tough choices to rein in Washington’s out-of-control spending, and they expect us to do it now.

Keeping in mind that both of these gentlemen were members of Congress during the Bush years, take a careful look at the chart below (from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) which outlines the individual drivers of the federal debt:

Let’s see – great big parts of the debt seem to be due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although the Bush tax cuts are undoubtedly the biggest contributor. Both of these expensive exercises,  may I remind you, were heartily endorsed by Messrs. Akin and Blunt during their years in the GOP ascendancy. The other big piece of deficit pie seems to be the decline in revenue that resulted from the economy going smash. This event, as I am sure you remember, came about as a result of the mismanagement practiced by the regulation averse Bush administration, aided and abetted by a GOP congress heavily in hock to corporate interests that wanted to keep on playing without adult supervision. TARP and the stimulus (labeled “recovery measures” in the chart), favorite targets of GOPers like Akin and Blunt, were small potatoes in the deficit pantry.  

Tell me now, how do these folks who time and time again voted to raise the debt ceiling for Mr. Bush, justify sanctimonious little diatribes like those above? Or, envision putting all our economic welfare on the line in order to play politics with the debt ceiling when it’s the Democratic Mr. Obama in the White House? Of course, I already know the answer. As Jonathan Capehart said today in reference to the  graph above, memories are, lamentably, short, which, I would add, means that con artists like Akin, Blunt and their ilk seem to be able to get away with just about any made-up story they want to tell.  

Jonathan Chait calls Paul Ryan’s budget a “War on the Weak” and observes:

Ryan’s plan does do two things in immediate and specific ways: hurt the poor and help the rich. After extending the Bush tax cuts, he would cut the top rate for individuals and corporations from 35 percent to 25 percent. Then Ryan slashes Medicaid, Pell Grants, food stamps, and low-income housing. These programs to help the poor, which constitute approximately 21 percent of the federal budget, absorb two thirds of Ryan’s cuts.

Ryan spares anybody over the age of 55 from any Medicare or Social Security cuts, because, he says, they “have organized their lives around these programs.” But the roughly one in seven Americans (and nearly one in four children) on food stamps? Apparently they can have their benefits yanked away because they were only counting on using them to eat.

Ryan casts these cuts as an incentive for the poor to get off their lazy butts. He insists that we “ensure that America’s safety net does not become a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency.”

Question: Is Ryan channeling Sen. Jim Lembke (unemployed workers won’t “get off their backsides”) or vice versa? Or are they both channeling Ben Stein, whose personal survey reveals that:

The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work.

[emphasis in original]

Nice of him to qualify his hasty generalization with the word “generally”, but Think Progress disagrees:

The current recession is a global phenomenon caused by the collective bad behavior of the world’s largest financial institutions. Before the recession, the unemployment rate hovered around six percent; it is ludicrious to say that [fifteen million] Americans suddenly got lazier and less able to work within the span of a few months.

But, to return to the subject of Ryan cutting federal revenue by extending the Bush tax cuts, a P-D letter writer pointed out: “There are two parts to a budget. One is revenue. That is not the part you cut.” More specifically, according to WillyK:

if we do nothing about spending, but just let the the Bush tax cuts die a natural death, we would halve the deficit by 2021.

Here at home, that lesson is lost on Lembke et. al., who are slashing state revenue by turning down tens of millions in federal funds already appropriated for us. They claim it’s a protest about federal overspending, though their action does not cut the federal deficit by one cent. But the Lembke loonies aren’t the only Republicans who don’t understand that balancing the budget gets harder if you cut revenue. Both chambers have voted to eliminate our corporate franchise tax, thus costing Missouri $87 million a year.

Does anybody in the state legislature besides Jeanette Mott Oxford speak up for the sanest way to increase Missouri revenue: that is, by raising taxes on the wealthier Missouri families? Our top tax bracket is $9,000. As in $9,000! That was a munificent salary when it was instituted in 1931. It was like making $300,000 in today’s economy. But as a top tax bracket in 2011, it’s ludicrous. August Busch IV is in the same tax bracket as people renting one room apartments in urban ghettos.

Meanwhile, the meanies in Jeff City are doing their best to shove more Missourians out of the top tax bracket. They’ve undone another of our citizen initiatives by ruling that minimum wage workers won’t get automatic Cost of Living Adjustments. They’re making war on unions. Ideally, Republicans would like to pass Right-to-Work-for-Less, but if they can’t get that one through the lege this year, they’ll settle for enfeebling unions by legislating that employees must give their consent before a union can use their dues for political purposes.

We can only wait to see how many of these bad ideas Jay Nixon will veto.

If Missouri workers don’t begin to notice that the GOP views them as parasites and the rich as their rightful rulers, the situation will continue to deteriorate.

By now everybody knows that House Republicans have proposed massive cuts to discretionary spending in the name of cutting the deficit – never mind that such cuts, while wreaking havoc in the lives of middle and working class Americans, will do almost nothing to deal with the actual deficit. Or never mind that the deficit could be halved by 2021 if these same GOPers weren’t so hellbent on preserving the Bush tax cuts – cuts that are one of the main reasons we have a deficit to start with. Or never mind that many of the cuts will actually drive up federal spending and increase the deficit in the long run (see also here).

Many of us have been somewhat bemusedly watching these antics, hoping that the Senate’s usually rather spineless Democratic majority will, for once, provide a bulwark against the GOP cost cutting charade. Recently, in an effort to pressure the Senate to do just the opposite, our obstreperous little GOPers have produced one of those group  publicity stunts letters wherein they figuratively stamp their collective GOP feet and demand that the Senate Democratic majority follow their ill-informed, ideologically driven lead and pass the self-assertion exercise disguised as a budget that they have sent forward, national welfare be damned.  Prominent among the signers of this epistle is Missouri’s own Billy Long (R-7) and Vicky Hartzler (R-4).

In fact, as the Turner Report notes, in her  latest newsletter, Miss Vicky waxes eloquent about the heroic resolve to deal with the depredations of big government spending that led her to sign this insolent opus:

The previous Congress failed to pass a budget for 2011, forcing new Members to deal with the mess left behind. We have come up with proposals that cut spending and create jobs, but the Senate will not do its job. Mr. Reid, pass a bill!

I’d like Senator Reid to pass a bill too – just not the slap-dash atrocity put together by the intellectual midgets that the Tea Party sent to Washington D.C. For one thing, contrary to Hartzler’s assertion, their proposals will do the exact opposite of creating jobs – their simple-minded approach to cost-cutting could actually lead to a 700,000 job loss. That’s not a comforting prospect to those of us who live in the real world and who want to see the economic recovery continue.

The other problem with Hartzler’s zeal, however, lies in the fact that she supports a bill that ignores some real budgetary fat – oil and agricultural subsidies, for instance. I know that Miss Vicky knows about at least one of these unnecessary giveaways because she’s one of those on the dole. As ABC’s Good Morning America noted today:

… some of the Tea Party’s leaders have a case of “Hill Hypocrisy” for attacking government spending while taking millions in government money. ABC’s senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl reported “the Tea Party movement is all about slashing federal spending, but at least five House members  with Tea Party connections have themselves collected more than $100,000 each in federal farm subsidies, totalling [sic] more than $8 million since 1995.

One of those five agricultural welfare recipients is little Miss Vicky. So before Hartzler – who likes to boast about her Christian credentials – signs any more letters demanding that the Senate Democrats cut spending that benefits the poor and the middle class, not to mention our economic recovery, she ought to consider the scriptural admonition, found in John 8:7, that only he who is without sin should cast stones.

 

Last Saturday (March 5), Claire McCaskill spent an informal hour visiting with several members of the group Progressive Democrats–STL. My impressions of the meeting can be summarized by referencing a post in which, early in this blog’s history, I compared her to the little girl in the poem who, when she is good, is very good indeed, but when she is bad, is … , well, maybe “horrid” would be an overstatement.  It’s difficult to be too hard on somebody who seems so willing to put all her cards on the table.

McCaskill is an attractive politician who comes across as sincere in her efforts to please her constituents, balance their often conflicting demands in the best way possible, and remain true to at least a modicum of her own beliefs. She seems painfully aware of what a difficult challenge this formula poses for a Missouri Democrat, and has clearly pinned her hopes on the ever-swinging center – and she deserves respect for not equivocating about that fact, even in a roomful of hard-core progressives.

In response to concerns about Democratic messaging, McCaskill seemed to me to be right on the money when she noted that it must be shaped by the current Republican overreach. She noted that Roy Blunt’s winning margins in the counties he took in the last election were less than hers in 2006, and, in so many words, observed that while some independents who had previously voted for her were willing to buy the GOP message in 2010, it is unlikely that they realized then that they were voting for the wholesale attack on the middle class that the GOP is now orchestrating in both Washington and on the state level. In short, she seems to think that Democrats have a chance in Missouri in 2012.

So far, so good – McCaskill is not just very good when she’s good, she’s obviously also very smart about politics. The latest GOP-led orgy of corporate giveaways, financed by benefits looted from the tax-paying middle class, does seem to be alienating lots of regular, every-day, working people who are waking up to the fact that they, not some mythical welfare queens, are the ones under attack.

Subsequently, however, McCaskill’s very good persona shone a little less brightly. While she affirmed her intention to stand firm against cuts in Social Security benefits, as I observed in an earlier post, the question comes down to how one defines benefits – and, last Saturday at least, McCaskill made it clear that she will probably go along with efforts to up the eligibility age.

The Senator rationalized this position by noting that such changes would be pushed so far into the future that they would affect “babies not even born yet.” She contended that if such measures are not taken, the Social Security burden will become unmanageable in the future, partly, she suggested, because average life spans are increasing. These statements are, of course, disputable from several points of view, and it would have been interesting to hear how McCaskill responds to arguments against them, had time and the nature of the gathering permitted that type of back-and-forth.

     

The same constraints governed the discussion about her signature deficit cutting crusade, although it was evident that she is firm that fixing the deficit is a major here-and-now priority, rather than an admittedly real problem that might, nevertheless, more effectively be dealt with after we dig ourselves out our current economic hole – a position that many serious economists hold. To her credit, she did, if I remember correctly, concede that the deficit is not only a spending problem, but also a revenue problem.

Finally, I was interested to hear McCaskill’s response to a question about how we can counter the potentially ruinous effects of the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision. She believes that transparency legislation, specifically the Disclose Act,  would have effectively curtailed the damage. She claimed that corporations would be shy about being identified with attacks of the sort that we saw during the last election. Here, as is often the case, the proof is in the pudding, and, as McCaskill noted, given the way the congressional votes stack up, it doesn’t look like we’re going to get to sample any of that Disclose Act pudding. We will not be able to learn, at least in the short term, if transparency is sufficient to discourage dishonest partisan political “speech” on the part of corporations.

One of the goals of the meeting, I believe, was to try to communicate to Senator McCaskill the depth of progressive longing for elected Democrats who are unafraid take a strong, values-based stance – and how that longing, if thwarted, might end up turning on her. It was clear that she understands that she runs that risk; but it was also clear that she thinks that, as far as progressives go, she can count on the fear and loathing excited by the extreme GOP candidates (think Ed Martin and Sarah Steelman) who have so far entered the race.

The meeting did succeed in suggesting ways that groups like the Progressive Democrats-STL can work with the Democratic party to counter GOP inroads in Missouri, thanks to the fact that McCaskill was willing to share her considerable knowledge of practical Missouri politics with the group. One of the other attendees remarked that the progressive task is not to move McCaskill more toward more progressive positions, but to do what is necessary to move Missourians in that direction.  True that – although it doesn’t mean that we should ever let McCaskill off the hook. Leaders, after all, are supposed to lead.

Via TPM, in a fund-raising letter Senator Claire “Deficit Scourge” McCaskill pledges not to cut Social Security benefits:

I don’t think anyone is going to propose cutting Social Security benefits — if they do, I’ll vote against those cuts,” she writes.

Of course, the proof is always in the pudding and what people mean by “cuts” varies. Lots of politicians, for instance, don’t seem to realize that raising the age for social security eligibility is in effect a benefit cut.  Nevertheless, this is heartening, and I agree with TPM’s Brian Buetler that, given McCaskill’s weak position, “this suggests the poltiifcs [sic] of Social Security is still on the side of those who don’t want to see benefit cuts.”

McCaskill also deserves kudos for targeting her deficit cutting zeal toward some areas that really are wasteful and unnecessary. In that regard, she sets herself apart from our House GOP delegation which unanimously voted this week to preserve huge taxpayer subsidies for the oil industry. She says very succinctly:

One of the first items on the chopping block should be subsidies for big oil corporations which are among the richest and most profitable companies in the world.

To which I say … Amen lady!

Read the entire letter here. Lots of good-sounding stuff, but I’ve been misled by McCaskill in the past when she’s wanted money, so I’m still waiting to see what she delivers.

Rep. Billy Long (R-7) seems bemused about how physically large the U.S. budget document is:

FY2012 hit my desk, 4 Volumes – Budget – Historical Tables – Analytical Perspectives – Appendix & it weighs more than any Bass I ever caught

If you go to his Web page, however, you will better understand his apparent surprise that a sophisticated, powerful country with a population north of 300 million people might need more than a three page budget. That good ol’ Billy, who’s been on a budget cutting spree with his GOP homeboys, is a man of few words is readily apparent in the section devoted to his views on spending cuts and debt which reads in its entirety:

Spending Cuts and Debt affect us all and dealing with these issues are important to my work in Congress.

Is this what people mean by “laconic”? In case you think he dealt with the issue elsewhere, here’s Billy on the related topic of the economy and jobs – and, I assure you, there’s no more than this:

The issues of Economy and Jobs are important to our district and to my work in Congress.

Billy may not know all the facts – or any of the facts – but he does seem to want to keep quiet about it. Not so Vicky Hartzler (R-4) who had this to say about President Obama’s 2012 budget:

Citizens of the 4th District want their government to cut spending and help create jobs, … This budget proposal fails these tests in every respect. We’ve got to do better for our children and grandchildren.

Somebody ought to tell her what John Boehner acknowledged today – the budget cuts that the House – including little Vicky – wants to enact  will cost mucho jobs*. And what’s worse, Boehner admitted that he and, presumably, his rank-and-file GOP House members, don’t really care. Vicky ought to check in with her leadership now and then. At the very least, she needs to know what it is she owes to the children and grandchildren, doesn’t she?  

And while Vicky’s working on her attitude, she ought to have a word with Rep. Akin (R-2) who seems to be reading from the same script. I suspect if I were to visit the pages of the rest of our House GOP members, I would find statements that indicate that these folks are all equally careless about the nature of the real world and the role of finance.

After all, the incessant GOP babble about “fiscal reality” is coming from people who went after the 2011 budget like a troop of blind-folded axe murderers. If enacted, their proposed cuts would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and put vastly more vulnerable people at risk.

In fact, the Center for American Progress (CAP) tells us that the House Appropriations Committee shoe-horned a hack-job on the budgets of 12 of the 15 federal agencies into a two week period. This time frame means that:

… not only will those voting on the proposal have little opportunity to understand it but the authors themselves will not have fully vetted or completely understood what they are proposing. There have been no hearings, no requests for testimony, and no opportunity even for staff charged with proposing the cuts to do agency-by-agency analysis of the possible negative consequences. Members will vote next week on the package without fundamental knowledge of how major budget changes in literally thousands of federal programs will impact the country in general or their own constituents in particular.

Then, of course, there is the fact that the cuts, although plenty destructive, don’t really amount to a hill of beans when it comes to deficit cutting:

The $44 billion that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is insisting we take out of the domestic spending is “peanuts.” With a $1.5 trillion deficit it could be lost as a rounding error. But applied to only a selected sliver of the entire budget it could do immense damage to critically needed government infrastructure and services.

There is also the fact that in many of the agencies these cuts will mostly result in  personnel cuts – CAP gives the example of the FBI –  where termination costs will wipe out most of the savings, not to mention the expense that will be incurred when displaced stafff move onto the unemployment rolls. But, oh frabjous day, the hatchet job will have the effect of rendering agencies like the FBI nearly toothless.

I’ve read that ol’ Billy Long is sitting back and savoring the pleasures of a job completed in regard to the 2011 budget the House has produced: “we got her done” he is quoted as saying. I wonder if he and the rest of the gang has any idea what it is they’ve actually done? Are our elected GOP officials even capable of a process that, as CAP puts it, “insures we all understand what we are cutting and what benefits and costs of those cuts will be”? Yet indications are that these same thickwits are aching to shut the government down in the name of budget cuts the impact or effectiveness of which they don’t begin to fully fathom – all so some Tea Partiers can make a “dramatic statement.”

* Link added to TPM article describing the scope of job loss.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D), via her blog:

Jan 3, 2011

Sometimes it’s important to fight your party’s leadership.

I believed over a year ago that spending caps were an important part of our effort to fight the deficit. Jeff Sessions(R-AL) and I worked hard and came very close to passing the Sessions -McCaskill spending caps. While I was able to secure 16 of my Democratic colleague’s support, we fell just short of the 60 votes needed. The leadership in my party was opposed to our effort and fought to defeat these caps. Keep in mind that this was a cap on BOTH domestic and defense discretionary spending that took into account our current fragile economy, and placed caps on spending for the next three years. It was supported unanimously by the Republican senators…

Senator Jeff Sessions (r)? Really?

Blue Girl, over at They gave us a republic…:

And that’s when my head exploded…

by: Blue Girl

Mon Feb 14, 2011 at 14:00:00 PM CST

I swear, I watched it three times.

Honest…Three times…and no one should EVER watch a segment of a Jeff Sessions interview three times, I don’t care how strong ones constitution is. It just shouldn’t be done, because if the person being subjected to his nonsense repeatedly isn’t a ridiculously hyper-partisan douchebag, or if you don’t handle cognitive dissonance very well and can’t just let it roll off your back, you run the risk of a cranial event like the one pictured that I just experienced.

I’m going to share the video, but please, promise you will only subject yourself to it once…

No — don’t watch it again — he really did say that the trillion dollars in debt reduction in President Obama’s proposed budget is chump change and does nothing to get us on sound financial ground — right before he touted the same savings as ‘significant’ when in the context of what republicans want to do budget-wise.

Here are his exact, transcribed words when asked about the Obama budget that was rolled out today:

“No, it’s not. This is a ten-year budget. It sets the president’s plans and what the country should do for the next 10 years…. $1 trillion reduction is insignificant and does not get us off the right course.”

And here are his exact transcribed words on republican plans to reduce the deficit:

“[E]ven the $100 billion House proposal in reducing spending will amount to $1 trillion. And that’s a step. I mean, because, you carry it out for ten years and you save $1 trillion in that fashion.”

Keep in mind — this obviously-addled joker is the top republican on the Senate budget committee.

I weep for my country. Care to grab a box of kleenex and join me in a good cry?

The republicans aren’t serious about the deficit and the national debt. You know it. We all know it. You even showed everyone in attendance at your Concordia, Missouri town hall:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): town hall in Concordia, Missouri (August 11, 2010)

[….]

Hey, we use that CBPP chart all the time!

[….]

Their behavior created the mess and now they’re suddenly deficit hawks?

And you helped them add to it (the “other purposes”)?:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): evidently any concern about the deficit has been alleviated (December 15, 2010)

….And the final vote on the deal, perpetuating dubya’s tax cut windfall for the top 2%:

Question:  On the Motion (Motion to Concur in the House Amdt. to the Senate Amdt. with Amdt. No. 4753 to H.R. 4853 )

Vote Number: 276 Vote Date: December 15, 2010, 01:02 PM

Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Motion Agreed to

Measure Number: H.R. 4853 (Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2010, Part III )

Measure Title: A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend the funding and expenditure authority of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, to amend title 49, United States Code, to extend authorizations for the airport improvement program, and for other purposes.

Vote Counts: YEAs 81

NAYs 19

Bond (R-MO), Yea  

McCaskill (D-MO), Yea

….Do us a favor. Spare us those lectures on the deficit. Otherwise, you’re just telling us it’s raining.

The “bipartisanship” continues in a press release from Senator McCaskill’s office:

McCaskill & Corker Introduce Bill to Cut Spending Over 10 Years

Bipartisan ‘CAP Act’ would put binding cap on all federal spending

February 1, 2011

WASHINGTON – As the Congressional Budget Office reports a record $1.5 trillion U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2011, U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) are introducing legislation to force Congress to dramatically cut spending over 10 years.

“At a time when many families have been forced to tighten their pocketbooks, Congress must also learn to do the same. This bill isn’t just about cutting back this year or next year; it’s about instilling permanent discipline to keep spending at a responsible level,” Senator McCaskill said.

“Washington continues to borrow and spend, and despite the pleas of the American people, there is no end in sight,” said Senator Corker, “As we approach our debt limit of $14.29 trillion and more and more Americans – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – call on Washington to get spending under control and reduce our deficit, I see no better time to change course. What Senator McCaskill and I are offering is a legislative straightjacket, a way of forcing Congress to dramatically cut spending over 10 years. The beauty of the CAP Act is that it imposes fiscal discipline and smaller government, while incentivizing lawmakers to pass policies that promote economic growth.”

The Commitment to American Prosperity Act is a simple, 10-page bill that does four things:

1. The bill permanently limits all federal spending – both discretionary and mandatory – to a responsible level compared to our economy using historical markers to set limits.

2. It eliminates oft-used budget gimmicks in order to take into account the true reality of our economic situation.

3. It authorizes the Office of Management and Budget to make evenly distributed cuts throughout the budget to bring down spending if Congress fails to meet the annual cap.

4. It requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress to override the binding cap.

The Corker-McCaskill CAP Act is cosponsored by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

In 2009 the federal government spent $1.4 trillion more than it took in, borrowing nearly 40 cents of every dollar. The gap between spending and revenue is almost four times the historic average. Even when the U.S. reaches historic revenue levels, we are still projected to be spending nearly six percent more of our gross domestic product than we take in, and the gap will continue to widen. By 2035, on our current trajectory, U.S. debt will reach 185 percent of GDP. If this occurs, interest payments on our national debt will reach nearly nine percent of GDP – as much as we currently spend on national defense, education, roads, and all government agencies combined.

[….]

###

Have you asked Senators Corker (r), Alexander (r), Burr (r), Chambliss (r), Inhofe (r), Isakson (r), Kirk (r), and McCain (r) what they think of President Obama’s one trillion dollar budget cut, as opposed to the republican controlled House’s one hundred billion dollar cut (maybe over ten years)?

Senator Sessions (r) wasn’t available? Just asking.

And why don’t republicans ever bother to address the impact of dubya’s tax cut windfall for the top 2% on the deficit and wealth redistribution upward in this country?  

Apparently, it’s always raining in Washington, D.C.

Juke or Jook: fake, (football) a deceptive move made by a football player.  Synonyms: fraud, imposter, pseudo, fake, faker, pretender,  role player, shammer, sham.

How long will it take for Missourians to wake up to the fact that we’ve sent a pack of jukes to D.C. and to Jefferson City to take care of our financial welfare. You know what jukes are, right? Jukes point left and run right, carrying our ball right along with them, leaving us with nothing and no prospects for anything. Right now there’s lots of jukin’ going on.

The primetime juking is happening in Washington where the chawbacon economists that have hit the capital have been pointing left and screaming “I see a deficit,” while running right and trying to make sure that government can no longer do any of the things we want it to do. This week GOP House members announced their support for cuts in spending for infrastructure, national parks, scientific research, food assistance to low income women and children, community health centers, etc. There’s lots more pain in the their plans than I have space to list (see list of proposed cuts here), but the kicker is – get this – for all the suffering and lost opportunities these cuts represent, they won’t do diddly about the deficit. As Think Progress puts it:

In the grand scheme of deficit reduction, these cuts will do absolutely nothing, but they will have extremely detrimental effects for those who depend upon the targeted programs. This shows the folly of the GOP’s approach to budgeting, which leaves huge parts of the federal budget immune to cuts (like the Pentagon), while taking an axe to non-defense discretionary spending. These cuts outlined above total about $1 billion, while simply retiring (and not replacing) one carrier battle group and its aircraft wing would save $1.5 billion.

So, our GOPers in the house are planning to take a wrecking ball to vital government programs that have nothing to do with the problems they cited when they persuaded us to give them the wrecking tools. They’re doing this even though, when polled, Americans don’t support the proposed cuts and they will cost thousands of jobs. But that doesn’t bother our jukes; pols like, for instance, Missouri’s Billy Long (R-7) are sure they’ve done something big. According to the Turner Report, ol’ Billy  is patting himself on the back and fatuously proclaiming, “we got ‘er done.”  

Back home in Missouri, the local jukes are also hard at it. Remember how they whined about jobs and job creation before the election? And what are they doing to create jobs? Attacking unions, undercutting workers, doing their best to insure that if, by some miracle, any jobs are created, they’ll be the sort that nobody but the most desperate will take. These ideologically driven strategies are supposed to create a “business-friendly” climate, but as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observed:

Business-friendly is one thing. Business-promiscuous is quite another. Before the state goes past second base with these suitors, it would be wise to ask why – given all the pro-business initiatives of past years – the economy is still in a funk. Businesses were given tax breaks, tax credits, tax incentives, low corporate taxes and tort reform. So where are the jobs? Or did they just pocket the savings?

Of course not all jukes are created equal. And by that I mean competent; I also mean our new State Auditor, Thomas Schweich. When faced with the task of analyzing the financial impact of the proposed mega sales tax/income tax swap that is being engineered by political sugar daddy Rex Sinquefield, Schweich ended up looking like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.

The facts, after all, aren’t that favorable to the unfair tax, so poor little Schweich, fearing to offend King Rex from whom all favors flow, claimed that the job just couldn’t be done. Nope. No way.  No mathematical skills, models, or reasoned estimates could be employed  – although use of those tools is an everyday thing for financial types – like auditors – who are able to walk and chew gum at the same time. The upshot: Schweich looks like a fool;  he pointed left, but just hasn’t got what it takes to run the ball to the right.

The unFair tax proponents are themselves juking in a number of directions. One of the most interesting is the proposal to cap the sales tax at 7%. As numerous analysts have shown, such a low cap is absurd if one expects the swap-out to be revenue neutral. And, of course, those of us who raise this point are missing the whole jukin’ game. These daddies don’t have the slightest interest in revenue neutral – they want to force cuts, the more the better. Here, one should note that in some dialects being juked has another connotation – as in baby, you’ve been screwed.

GOP juke economics are ultimately an exercise in ideological strategy. If there is less money, there will necessarily be less government spending on those vital programs that so disturb the John Galt roleplayers and excite the wrath of Tea Partying grannies  whose bile rises at the thought of all those welfare queens living high on the taxpayer dollar. When the consequences fall on all of us, though,  Missourians who voted GOP will have nobody to blame but themselves.

Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) introduced some legislation last week, S163, the “Full Faith and Credit Act,” that confirms one’s suspicion that some of the folks who have been entrusted with our fiduciary well-being have a very shallow understanding of economics. The legislation would, as TPM’s Brian Beutler describes it:

… force the U.S. government to reroute huge amounts of money to China and other creditors in the event that Congress fails to raise its debt ceiling. …

If passed, Toomey’s plan would require the government to cut large checks to foreign countries, and major financial institutions, before paying off its obligations to Social Security beneficiaries and other citizens owed money by the Treasury — that is, if the U.S. hits its debt ceiling. …

At times Toomey speaks as if attaching such a big stick to the debt ceiling would force Democrats to go along with the outrageous cuts in spending that Republicans are trying to ram down our throats (remember that phrase?).* At other times, he seems to think that this bill would itself put to rest the argument that failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause the U.S. to default.* Go figure. Of course, it would do no such thing:

… his idea is unworkable,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin in a statement. “It would not actually prevent default, since it would seek to protect only principal and interest payments, and not other legal obligations of the U.S., from non-payment. Adopting a policy that payments to investors should take precedence over other U.S. legal obligations would merely be default by another name, since the world would recognize it as a failure by the U.S. to stand behind its commitments.

And the punch line? Among the 18 co-sponsors in the Senate, we find our own Roy Blunt. The same Roy Blunt whose campaign ads fear-mongered about Medicare cuts. Guess what this bill aims to do? If you guessed cut Medicare you’re right – and you can throw in Social Security, Defense, you name it, for good measure.

HR421, the companion legislation that Rep. Tom McClintock has just filed in the House, counts among its 15 co-sponsors Blunt’s successor in the House, Billy Long, who is the first, and currently the only Missourian to sign on – a situation that, given the general nuttiness factor in our GOP congressional delegation, will probably soon be rectified. Nevertheless, given that the early adopters, so-to-speak, in Missouri represent or have represented the same district in the House, one is tempted to think there might be something in that Ozark water that leads to the kind of foolishness that can justify giving priority to paying the Chinese and Japanese before Americans – or before simply raising the debt ceiling, something Republicans have been more than willing to do when there was a Republican in the White House.

* Edited slightly to clarify meaning.