A recent ad put out by Roy Blunt smugly invites us to read his job creation plan which he summarizes as lower taxes, less red tape, and more American energy. So I took the time to look at the specifics and found, sad to say, nothing more than the expected plate of stale bread and cold potatoes.

It is something of an understatement to say that Blunt’s plan doesn’t deviate from current and past GOP orthodoxy. Speaking of John Boehner’s “two-step” job creation plan, Ezra Klein remarks

So on the one hand, a measure that will make a small dent in the deficit. On the other hand, a measure that will lead to a huge  increase in the deficit. There’s no theory of the economy in which this really makes sense.

This criticism applies equally to the Blunt plan if one adds that there is also no way in which it makes sense to claim that it will actually create jobs. To give Blunt credit, he does offer somewhat more detail than Mr. Boehner – six steps (missteps?) instead of two, which I’ll write about in greater detail in individual posts over the next couple of weeks – there are, after all, lots of little side embellishments – like destroying net neutrality –  not to mention questionable assertions, that deserve to be pointed out and considered in greater detail.

The short version is that Blunt proposes to extend the Bush tax cuts and cut corporate taxes even more; cancel the unexpended stimulus funds; re-deregulate, gutting financial reform legislation and deep-sixing the new consumer protection agency; repeal the Affordable Care Act and “replace” it with a few giveaways to the insurance industry (which he calls “sensible” health care reform); pare down welfare spending, cut entitlements (Social security? Medicare? Blunt quite carefully doesn’t spell it out); and enact measures like subsidizing nuclear power and making sure that coal producers get theirs. All that’s left to do is to tie the package up with a pretty ribbon and hand it over to the corporate biggies who have paid Blunt’s campaign bills lo these many years.

Did I already say this is all old news?. Like maybe a recipe for a rerun of the Bush years?  Surely you remember those  eight years of anemic job growth, culminating in economic disaster and massive job loss?  Roy Blunt was, of course, one of the chief enablers of similar measures then, which is why it is almost inexplicable that anyone is taking him seriously when he asks us to give him a do-over using the same tools from the same tarnished economic tool-box. (If you doubt the effect of the Bush policies on the American middle class, just take a look at this chart comparing how different economic segments of the population have fared under recent Democratic and Republican administrations.)

President Obama made the same point far more eloquently when he described the GOP economic philosophy that is exemplified in Blunt’s putative economic blueprint in a speech yesterday in Cleveland:

… There were no new ideas.  There was just the same philosophy we already tried for the last decade – the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place:  cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.  Instead of coming together like past generations did to build a better country for our children and grandchildren, their argument is that we should let insurance companies go back to denying care to folks who are sick, and let credit card companies go back to raising rates without any reason.  Instead of setting our sights higher, they’re asking us to settle for a status quo of stagnant growth, eroding competitiveness, and a shrinking middle class.

There you have it – Blunt in a nutshell.

Image from the GoldGuys Blog via Wikimedia Commons.

Robin Carnahan has maybe realized that she really stepped in it when she voiced her support for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans last week. After all, it isn’t as if retaining the tax cuts is even a popular position, but quite the opposite. According to Jo Mannies at the St. Louis Beacon, Carnahan:

… clarified her position on the Bush tax cuts by saying that she eventually may support a phaseout of tax reductions for the wealthiest Americans once the economy was back on track.

Can we take that as an effort to wade out without losing face?

She’s still seriously wrong. The tax cuts for the wealthy –  which, as Paul Krugman points out, means cutting “checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country” – will cost us big at a time when government revenues are seriously depleted, and give us little to nothing in return. However, given that she’s facing off against Roy Blunt, arguably one of the most corrupt wheeler-dealer blasts from the BushCo past, we may have to accept it for what it is.

Aside from this pander – which, by the way, in light of the cost of the tax cuts, directly contradicts the point of her earlier deficit pandering – Carnahan is preferable to Blunt on so many levels it almost hurts to think about it.  The same Beacon article, for instance, quotes her remarks at a meeting of the National Educational Association (NEA) where her views on No Child Left Behind legislation not only seem sane and sensible, but also underline the role Roy Blunt played in its failure:

Carnahan said that Blunt deserved part of the blame because he had voted for No Child Left Behind but also voted against the additional money that backers say was needed.

As little as it may be, this type of distinction is important. Think for a minute about Social Security. Do you have any doubt that Blunt would gut it, privatize it, whatever, in a heartbeat?  Carnahan’s recent performance might make some worry about how easily she would cave in a hard fight, but at least there’s a good chance she would do the right thing. Nor is the question academic since I guarantee this particular fight will be coming to a theater near you soon.

So the sad moral of this story is (enthusiasm deficit, anyone?): Boo Blunt! Go Carnahan! But maybe, jut maybe, Robin, try to stand up for Democratic principles in the future – then maybe you won’t have to back down with your dinner all over your chin. I promise that there are some of us who won’t extend the benefit of the doubt a second time.  

Despite all the noise about Roy Blunt’s nasty little subliminal “Robin-Carnahan supports 9/11 terrorists” message, the really big news for progressives yesterday was a tweet from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Tony Messenger:

News from @robincarnahan: the dedmocrat [sic] says she supports extending ALL the Bush tax cuts. “now is not the time to raise taxes, she says.

As unexpected as a slap in the face from your friendly neighborhood grocery clerk. In both cases there can be only one response: Why?

Duanne Graham, in his excellent blog, The Erstwhile Conservative, suggests that because progressives really hate Roy Blunt, Carnahan thinks she’s got us between a rock and a hard place and can afford to diss us in order to go after the knee-jerk center. Graham speculates that she thinks that she has more to gain by courting folks who are more easily bamboozled by the “biggest tax increase ever” fiction disseminated by Republicans fighting tooth and nail to keep the good times rolling for their wealthy constituency.

Maybe Graham’s right, or maybe Carnahan really has had a change of heart and is acting from conviction. Personally, I’d rather believe that she’s trying to be strategic rather than that she’s stupid; and Graham’s contentions about her “triangulating” ploy seem at least somewhat credible when we consider that, as the The Hill  reports, this is a rather sudden change in her position:

In a February radio interview, Carnahan had said she favored extending tax cuts for the middle-class but not for the wealthiest Americans. She said then that the nation couldn’t afford it.

Carnahan said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press that her position has evolved because of an additional six months of difficult economic times, which she blamed on policies backed by Blunt.

Excuse me! Am I hearing correctly? Carnahan wants to fix a recession caused by policies backed by Blunt and his BushCo gang by continuing those same policies?  If we couldn’t afford these tax cuts then, how can we afford them now? Please, Ms. Carnahan, I would just love to know what you’re thinking – or, alternatively, what you’ve been smoking.

I have also heard stories that Carnahan might parse this support for the upper bracket tax cuts a little more narrowly, claiming that she believes that if they expire, it might hurt small businesses whose success conventional wisdom deems essential to recovery. This line is also, incidentally, the exact position that is currently being pushed by Senate Republicans.

Will increasing the top bracket from 35% to 39.5% actually discourage small businesses from expanding and hiring? Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, Howard Gleckman demonstrates that the increase will actually affect only affect a very small number of business that have a positive business income of over $700,000 – and that whether or not it will slow their job creation is moot. Surely Carnahan knows this? *

Even if one truly believes that letting the top bracket cuts expire would harm small businesses, there are alternative, less costly approaches. As Alan E. Binder, Professor of economics at Princeton University and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board remarks:

Some tax-cut enthusiasts — showing signs of latent Keynesianism — have pointed out that all tax increases reduce spending, which is not what we want now. They’re right. That’s why any higher taxes should be paired with policies that more than replace the lost spending. Examples abound. We could raise unemployment benefits, as was recently done. Or boost food stamps. Or help hard-pressed state and local governments forestall layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters. Dollar for dollar, these and other options would more than offset the spending lost by letting the tax cuts expire.

Isn’t this the type of economic policy we progressives think that Democrats like Carnahan ought to stand up for? Of course, it’s difficult to explain in sound-bites, so she might loose the center to the tax-and-spend slogans that Blunt tosses around with  such abandon.

There is, though, another side to the coin. There’s been lots of talk recently about the enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans, and watching our candidates parrot intellectually weak, Republican talking points will do little to bridge it.

* URL added.

Apropos of the Republican obstructionism which is on the verge of driving the economy into a double-dip recession, Matt Iglesias writes:

… the way the American political system works, the minority party that prevented the majority from addressing the crisis will accrue massive political benefits as a result of the collapse.

Conservatives won’t admit it today, but what we’re looking at is a major breakdown of the logic of the American political system.

What he is talking about is the fact that Republicans, who during the Bush years drove the economy pell-mell off a cliff, have, as an electoral strategy, steadfastly worked to ensure that Rush Limbaugh gets his wish that the President fail – and if that sinks the economy for the next decade, well, the devil take the hindmost. They have fought everything that we know, based on historical precedent, to be sound economic policy, and they succeeded in hobbling the initial stimulus by paring it to half of what it should have been.

The main GOP tool for wreaking self-righteous havoc: like the liar screaming fire in a crowded theater, they rampage through the media screaming something to the effect that the deficit is coming and it’s going to eat your children – after running up record deficits under every Republican president since Reagan. They’ve managed to bamboozle economically ignorant Americans who actually believe cable news sound-bites offering simple formulas that distort the complex relationship between short-term stimulative spending and long-term debt.

Nor are GOPers one-trick ponies; they have one more especially potent tool: go on the offensive and lie like a dog. Deny the demonstrable fact that even a weak stimulus moved us toward recovery – which might mean that a bigger stimulus could spur a bigger recovery.  Deny that the growth of the national debt, as Ezra Kleiln points out, reflects “a massive drop in revenues, not $4 trillion in spending over the past two years… .”

You want an example? I give you Roy Blunt trotting out, rather lackadaisically, I admit, the GOP two-pronged tool box, the lazy pol’s substitute for a campaign strategy, but one that he clearly expects reward him with a Senate seat:

Paul Krugman tells us that our political culture is sick:

… a culture that rewards hypocrisy and irresponsibility rather than serious efforts to solve America’s problems. And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable, if they choose – and they have so chosen.

My question: why would anyone want to send one more irresponsible hypocrite like Roy Blunt to the senate where he gets to help wield the filibuster for the benefit of the cronies and campaign contributors whose welfare kept him so busy in the House?  Why should we reward him for failure in the past just because he promises to do the same thing in the future?

…an astroturf “populist” lobbyist, and a few ankle biters.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) busted the chops of the republican leadership of the Missouri General Assembly over their hypocrisy when it comes to using federal money. The Twitter flurry started on February 10th.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): What portions of the stimulus funds do Missouri republicans not want?

From Allen to Claire

The Twitter posts from Senator McCaskill:

Sent letter yestrday askng budget chairs in Mo legis what programs they’d cut if they didn’t have almost billion $ in stimulus this year.    8:58 AM Feb 10th   from web  

Mark Reardon at KMOX:

MO House Budget Chair Allen Icet responds to @clairecmc and the letter she sent on the Federal Stimulus $$ this afternoon.    1:17 PM Feb 10th   from web

@clairecmc I will ask him. You are more than welcome to join us at 3:20p. It would be a blast!    1:42 PM Feb 10th   from web  in reply to clairecmc

Senator McCaskill responded:

@MarkReardonKMOX Not really.He didn’t answer the ?. Either he can’t or won’t.Time to be honest w/MOians about their dependence on stimulus.    1:32 PM Feb 10th   from web  in reply to MarkReardonKMOX

@MarkReardonKMOX Don’t let him skate,this not about capntrade or healthcare About stimulus preventng massive educ cuts during deep recession    2:13 PM Feb 10th   from web  in reply to MarkReardonKMOX

@AFPMissouri My question: if you want us to pull back remaining stimulus $ tell me what will be cut, how will MOians be hurt? Fair question.    2:17 PM Feb 10th   from web  in reply to AFPMissouri

What’s that, a fake grassroots lobbyist you say? What did Carl Bearden write to prompt a response from Claire McCaskill?:

AFPMissouri

They dnt wnt the stimulus $$ but if MO residents r paying @clairecmc ‘s earmark big debt bill, how cld they not spend it? RT @ChadLivengood    2:15 PM Feb 10th   from TweetDeck

@clairecmc now that gun has bn held 2 leg head, they r n box. Ur vote forced Missourians 2 pay 4 the big debt so how cld leg not spend $$?    2:19 PM Feb 10th   from TweetDeck

@clairecmc Leg shld not have spent $$ 2 begin with, MO wld pay taxes 4 ur vote 2 indebt them. They shld start by not spending $$ on HB22.    2:22 PM Feb 10th   from TweetDeck

@clairecmc my point is using orig $$ which they hd no real choice 2 do places them in a hole. I wld sprt tkng $$ bck & hvng thm mke decisns    2:33 PM Feb 10th   from TweetDeck

@clairecmc U ddnt ask how they wld spnd b4 voting 2 put MOians n debt so asking now is pol. Vote 2 pull remaining $$ & lt thm do thr job.    2:44 PM Feb 10th   from TweetDeck

@clairecmc decisions 2 cut always tuf but stimulus $$ jst delayed it & now made decisions harder.    2:45 PM Feb 10th   from TweetDeck  

Senator McCaskill finishes with:

Going forward,if we pull back unspent stimulus $, how will the budget in #MO be balanced? Who will take the billion $ cut?Impt to be honest    2:24 PM Feb 10th   from web  

The usual right wingnut suspects – teabaggers, tenthers, and numerous and sundry members of the political lunatic fringe join the fray:  

Another great moment in right wingnut critical thinking:

24thstate Since @clairecmc took office in 2007, the national debt has gone from $9 trillion to $12 trillion. Heckuva job, Claire!   1 day ago from web

And who was president from 2001 to January 2009 and left a really big mess for someone else to clean up? Just asking.

Bioethike Sen. @clairecmc : Asking MO budget chairs which programs they’d cut without fed money is paternalistic colonialism. #fiscalresponsibility   2 days ago from web

Paternalistic colonialism? Because there’s no such thing as a Constitution?

Danstlmo @clairecmc It does not matter “WHO” takes the cut, it is about we “Must” make the cuts. This is not sustainable.   2 days ago from web

[with a “Don’t Tread on Me” avatar]

PoliticalTheft @clairecmc A politician even typing the word honest gives me chills.. If by honest you mean a Madoff ponzi scheme, then yes, I get it.   2 days ago from web

Ritzer @clairecmc I’m sick of all the damn spending. You all don’t get it! #MO   2 days ago from Nambu

markparkinson @ChadLivengood @clairecmc with or w/o the stimulus money, our budget must be balanced, per our Constitution.   2 days ago from Tweetie

That’s someone familiar. And on and on and on…

They remind me of a crowd somewhere.