Luetkemeyer, Wagner want to help Equifax roll consumers

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Tags

Ann Wagner, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Credit, Credit Reporting agancies, Equifax, financial regulation, Freedem from Eqifax Exploitation Act

Immediately after the recent Equifax hack that potentially put close to 150 million Americans at risk for identity theft, I wrote about how the event proved that the bias of Ann Wagner against any regulation of the financial industry, and especially her vendetta against the oversight role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was contrary to the interests of the everyday Americans she ostensibly serves. Surely, I thought, these folks can be made to realize that enabling disaster in the wake of disaster may be going just a bit too far.

Well no. The concept of wise stewardship always seems to be too difficult for the Republican brain, as evidenced by this little financial tidbit in the LA Times:

Even as millions of consumers grapple with fallout from the Equifax data breach, Republican lawmakers are quietly backing legislation to deregulate credit agencies and make them even less accountable for wrongdoing.

Bills are pending in Congress to limit class-action damages for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and to give credit agencies more latitude in profiting from identity theft protection products.

The legislation is part of sweeping efforts by Republican lawmakers to reduce oversight of banks and other financial-services firms, and to cripple or eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has notched a successful track record of holding industry players accountable for unfair and illegal practices.

And who’s the engineer steering this “quiet” anti-citizen effort? Why no one other than Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), a member, along with Rep. Wagner, of the House Financial Services Committee, and Chair of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, which just held hearings on the proposed legislation – possibly inspired by successful , and, for the profitable credit reporting agencies involved, expensive, oversight exercised by the CFBP in the recent past. Luetkemeyer declared that the new legislation would ” streamline regulatory requirements and eliminate inefficiencies” and “better allow financial companies to serve their customers.”

Sadly for Luetkemeyer’s credibilty, the response of the LA Times reporter, David Lazarus, is closer to the truth when he observes that what “the legislation would do is reward credit agencies with greater regulatory elbow room and diminished accountability for screw-ups.” As far as I’m concerned, they’ve got far too much of that elbow room already – as Lazarus notes:

Consumer advocates say the Equifax breach should serve as a wake-up call for Americans that the three leading credit agencies — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — are focused primarily on earning cash from people’s personal information, not keeping such information under lock and key.

“Consumers are not customers of these companies — they’re commodities,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. “We have no say over what they do with our data.”

There are, of course, Democrats on on the Financial Services Committee and its various subcommittes; Missouri Rep. Lacy Clay (D-1) serves on Luetkemeyer’s subcommittee, for example. But they’re there as representatives of the minority party in a congress which Republicans have publicly determined to run solely in service of Republican druthers, and, given the amounts of cash that the financial industry throws at sympathetic members of these plum committee posts, the Democrats are not likely to be heard if they do stand up. Same reasons hold when considering the inevitable death march of a Democratic bill offered in response to the Equifax farce, the Freedom from Equifax Exploitation Act.

Actually, the proposed Democratic legislation, mild as it is, probably doesn’t go nearly far enough. ~~Michael~~ Kevin Drum who has long noted the essentially abusive nature of our credit reporting system and urged greater regulatory oversight of the credit reporting agencies, observesd last week that:

… The credit reporting agencies have gotten away forever with treating consumers like bothersome children: screwing up their credit records, ruining their lives, making it deliberately difficult and expensive to lock accounts, and making money off the whole thing by offering “insurance” against problems that they themselves cause. Someone in Congress who allegedly cares about ordinary working folks should introduce a bill to regulate the hell out of these folks. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s hard to think of any industry that more richly deserves it.

Well somebody in Congress does care – Democrats mainly – but a fat lot of good it’ll do us. Because financial industry toadies like Luetkemeyer and Wagner are sitting pretty in their well-funded catbird seats and they aim to keep that campaign cash cushion well-padded.

Which Missourians voted for or against the Trump-Schumer/Pelossi deal

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

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Ann Wagner, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Chuck Schumer, Claire McCaskill, Debt ceiling, Donald Trump, Emergench Relief, Hurricane Harvey, Nancy Pelossi, Roy Blunt, Vicky Hartzler

The House of Representatives voted today to pass a bill authorizing 15.25 billion dollars in emergency relief aid for the victims of hurricane Harvey; it was attached to a continuing resolution that would raise the debt-ceiling and fund the federal government through Dec. 8. The vote tally was 316 yeas and 90 nays. All ninety nays were Republicans including the ~~five~~ six Republican members of the Missouri House delegation.

The Senate voted on the measure on Thursday and passed it on a 80-17 roll call vote. Both Missouri Senators, Republican Roy Blunt and Democratic Claire McCaskill, voted for the measure.

McCaskill’s vote is no surprise, but ol’ Roy? Maybe no surprise there either. It’s not necessarily a case of the the tiger changing its stripes – it’s just that some of those stripes are more attractive than others. In short, Blunt is a pragmatist, a corrupt, power-seeking, self-interested pragmatist, true, but he does understand what’s involved in raising the debt ceiling. And he knows that the economic nightmare that would result from a default would not serve anyone’s interest.

In 2013 Bunt indicated that he couldn’t support using the urgent need to raise the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to deny funds to Obamacare, remarking that “I think holding the debt limit hostage to any specific thing is probably not the best negotiating place.” So now he’s reversed himself, showing admirable flexibility; the new circumstances, he implies, justifies the contingency. He observed that that tying the debt ceiling to Harvey aid is “one way to do it, ” i.e., raise the debt ceiling, a crucial must-do, adding that the need to address the destruction left in the wake of the hurricane is “another reason as to why you’d want to keep the government open.” Even though it looks like a flip-flop, Blunt’s consistent about one thing. No debt ceiling default. Ever.

Sadly, the other members of the Missouri GOP delegation don’t get it. Perhaps it’s because they don’t actually understand that extending the debt ceiling has nothing to do with increasing Government spending, but simply permits Treasury to pay the bills Congress has already run up.Or maybe they want their constituents to believe that they had a “fiscally responsible” reason for voting to leave Harvey victims high and dry (so to speak), while undermining the functioning of the federal government and maybe even wrecking the heretofore sterling credit worthiness of the United States.

Here’s a sample of the debt flim-flamming we’re hearing from our Missouri congressional representatives:

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2): “I promised the people of St. Charles, Jefferson, and St. Louis counties that I would go to Washington to cut up the government’s credit card and put a stop to wasteful federal government spending.”

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), also thinks that raising the debt limit so that Treasury can pay the bills that he and other congressmen have already run up represents a failure to “curb future spending.”

(You’d think that folks who’ve worked so assiduously as Luetkemeyer and Wagner to assist the financial industry would understand what the debt ceiling is and how it works. But, evidently, you’d be wrong.)

Rep. Billy Long (R-7) explained his “no” vote by declaring that “simply raising the debt limit is not the answer to fixing our nation’s fiscal mess. (Note to Billy: nobody said it was. The answer, that is, to a supposed fiscal mess. Different topic totally).

Give Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) points for originality: she purports to think that extending the debt ceiling for three months “freezes defense spending at current levels and ties the hands of our Defense Department, preventing them from making desperately needed investments to meet the threats we are facing.” Nu-uh, Vicky! Talk about deflecting from the actual topic.

What really puts these excuses to the lie is the fact that House and Senate leadership wanted to go for an eighteen month extension of the debt limit. They were hoping to avoid the inconvenient messiness that would be sure to ensue when the limit has to be negotiated again at the very beginning of the midterm political season come December. Are you willing to bet good money that had that deal come down the line, all of these GOPers – even go-along-to-get -long types like Wagner – would have oppposed it?

And, in case you are persuaded by occasional claims that these folks were willing to vote “yea” on Harvey relief, but balked at voting on the debt ceiling because they believe the debt ceiling vote ought to be “clean,” with no need-to-pass riders, just think back to the behavior of almost all of these stalwarts when it came time to take debt ceiling hostage during the Obama years. Dead-enders, every one of them.

Addendum (9/9/2017, 11:56 am): You will notice that there’s nothing in the post above about the positions of Jason Smith (R-8) and Sam Graves (R-6). That’s because I couldn’t find anything. Too early? It struck me that the absence of online info about these two lawmakers actions is pretty predictable. Takes them a while to issue a statement if they ever do. Don’t their constituents care? Do folks in their districts just reflexively vote Republican, relieving them of any obligation to take care with their votes or to explain them? Do I need to subscribe to their newsletters? Do they have newsletters? Guess I’ll have to check it out.

Bipartisanship gone bad: The Israel Anti-Boycott Act

20 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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ACLU, AIPAC, Ann Wagner, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Claire McCaskill, H.R. 1697, Israel, Israel Anti-Boycott Act, J Street, Jason Smith, missouri, S. 720, Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.720 and H.R.1697) is very bad legislation. It’s also that rarity, a bill that truly has bipartisan support. It’s laws like this proposed legislation, I suspect, that gives being bipartisan a bad rep.

The bill essentially bans boycotts or economic sanctions against countries “friendly” to the U.S. , specifically, but not necessarily limited to, Israel:

The bill amends the Export Administration Act of 1979 to declare that it shall be U.S. policy to oppose:

requests by foreign countries to impose restrictive practices or boycotts against other countries friendly to the United States or against U.S. persons; and

restrictive trade practices or boycotts fostered or imposed by an international governmental organization, or requests to impose such practices or boycotts, against Israel.

The bill prohibits U.S. persons engaged in interstate or foreign commerce from:

requesting the imposition of any boycott by a foreign country against a country which is friendly to the United States; or supporting any boycott fostered or imposed by an international organization, or

requesting imposition of any such boycott, against Israel.

The bill amends the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 to include as a reason for the Export-Import Bank to deny credit applications for the export of goods and services between the United States and foreign countries, opposition to policies and actions that are politically motivated and are intended to penalize or otherwise limit commercial relations specifically with citizens or residents of Israel, entities organized under the laws of Israel, or the Government of Israel.

The legislation would levy significant fines not only for participating in boycotts or sanctions, but also for simply requesting information about such actions. Legislation like this would have precluded the boycott of South Africa that was at least partly responsible for the fall of apartheid. People on the left and on the right oppose this bill for much the same reason: it is improperly coercive, too broad in scope, and violates the Constitution. If its support is bipartisan, so is its opposition.

Who opposes the Israel Anti-Boycott Act?

The ACLU wrote in a letter to the Senate that “the bill would punish businesses and individuals based solely on their point of view. Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment,” adding that:

“… this bill cannot fairly be characterized as an anti-discrimination measure, as some would argue. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prevents businesses from discriminating against customers based onrace, color, religion, and national origin. This bill, on the other hand, aims to punish people who support international boycotts that are meant to protest Israeli government policies, while leaving those who agree with Israeli government policies free from the threat of sanctions for engaging in the exact same behavior. Whatever their merits, such boycotts right ly enjoy First Amendment protection.

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, on the other end of the political spectrum, is in perfect agreement:

Whatever one thinks about the BDS [i.e., boycott, divestment, and sanctions] movement and related international efforts to pressure Israel to change its occupation policies, it is deranged to try to criminalize protected political speech and association. As the ACLU points out, that is what this bill does. This legislation is plainly unconstitutional, and I assume it would be struck down in court if it were ever signed into law, but the deeper problem is that so many elected representatives think it is appropriate and desirable to trample on the constitutional rights of Americans to defend another government’s illegal occupation. …

J-street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that advocates for a two-state solution to conflict between Israel and the Palestinians but which has stopped short of endorsing boycotts and sanctions, also opposes the legislation. In an email to congressional staffers, the J Street Vice President of Government Affairs, Dylan J. Williams, wrote that in its present form, the bill would:

…undermine decades of US policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bolster the settlement enterprise and harm the prospects for a two-state solution. […]

[…] we recommended that Members consult with free speech experts on possible Constitutional concerns with the bill. Accordingly, I want to make sure that you saw the letters issued by the ACLU yesterday opposing both the Senate and House versions of the bill on the grounds that they would impose penalties in “direct violation of the First Amendment.”

So who does support this bill?

AIPAC. But that goes without saying.

Who else? At least 237 members of the House of representatives, 63 of whom are Democrats, are cosponsors of the bill, and 45 Senators, 13 of whom are Democrats, are also cosponsors . Others will probably, due to either conviction or the pressures of the prevailing political wisdom, help vote it into law.

Missouri Supporters

As for whom in Missouri supports this legislation, here’s the list of House cosponsors from our fair state: Rep. Wagner, Ann (R-2), Rep. Sam Graves (R-6), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4), Rep. Jason Smith (R-8), and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3). And in the Senate, who else but that consummate bipartisan wannabe, Senator Claire McCaskill, has signed on. So far, at least, Senator Blunt is keeping his hands off this one. Do you think he might actually have a few Constitutional scruples?

McCaskill’s presence is the most easily explained. She’s good at the political calculus and you can bet there’s some payoff here, or at least she hopes there will be, in 2018. The woman’s great strength is her pragmatism. It’s also, alas, her frequent downfall.This case falls into the latter category.

What really bothers me, though, are all those Republicans in the House who support this bill. Don’t most Missouri conservatives get all teary-eyed about the right of bakers and the like to refuse to do business with the LGBT folks – or whoever else their personal Jesus tells them to dis? Yet they don’t want to let businessmen or individuals who have moral qualms about the activities of foreign countries refrain from doing business that supports those activities? It’s not exactly the same question – there’s lots of issues to unpack here – but, on the surface at least, it seems just a little hypocritical.

More importantly, weren’t lots of these chuckleheads elected during the Tea Party “uprising” by voters who went around in tricorner hats waving pocket copies of the Constitution? It was pretty clear, even at that time, that few Tea Partiers had actually bothered to read the document and fewer still understood it, but don’t you think that the folks they sent to Washington ought to at least show a little deference to the legal underpinnings of of our great Democracy?

*2nd to last paragraph slightly revised for clarity (12:03, 7/21/17).

True believers

15 Monday May 2017

Posted by Michael Bersin in US Senate

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ann Wagner, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Congress, Donald Trump, Jason Smith, missouri, Roy Blunt, Sam Graves, Trumpism, Trumpistas, Vicky Hartzler

There’s no such thing as a “moderate” republican.

FiveThirtyEight (Nate Silver’s place) is keeping a running tally of the votes in Congress and how they align with Donald Trump’s wishes:

Tracking Congress In The Age Of Trump
An updating tally of how often every member of the House and the Senate votes with or against the president.

Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (r) [2014 file photo].

In the House of Representatives [How often a member votes in line with Trump’s position]:

Jason Smith R MO-8 96.6%
Billy Long R MO-7 96.6%
Sam Graves R MO-6 100.0%
Emanuel Cleaver D MO-5 12.0%
Vicky Hartzler R MO-4 100.0%
Blaine Luetkemeyer R MO-3 100.0%
Ann Wagner R MO-2 96.6%
Wm. Lacy Clay D MO-1 14.3%

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) [2015 file photo].

Representative Billy Long (r) [2013 file photo].

Voting for Donald Trump’s agenda 96.6% of the time is an unqualified endorsement. 100% is a true believer.

In the U.S. Senate [How often a member votes in line with Trump’s position]:

Roy Blunt R MO 100.0%
Claire McCaskill D MO 45.0%

Well, look at that, Roy Blunt (r) is no moderate.

Roy Blunt (r) [2016 file photo].

There’s no such thing as a “moderate” republican. They own Donald Trump (r) and his agenda.

Time to exorcise the NRA’s 2nd amendment demon?

03 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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Ann Wagner, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, gun control, Jason Smith, Mental illness, missouri, Roy Blunt, Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler

Representatives Sam Graves (R-6), Vicky Hartzler (R-4), Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3), Billy Long (R-7), Jason Smith (R-8), and Ann Wagner (R-2). The entire Republican Missouri U.S. House lineup. Remember each one of these names next time there’s a mass shooting and Republican Senator Blunt or some other NRA apologist comes out and says, as Blunt did after one or another in the spate of mass shootings we have experienced in the past few years, that the problem isn’t guns, it’s mental illness.

These five congresspeople voted today to rescend an Obama administration rule that prohibited the sale of guns to mentally ill persons. Specifically:

The House voted 235-180 largely along party lines Thursday to repeal an Obama-era rule requiring the Social Security Administration to send records of some beneficiaries to the federal firearms background check system after they’ve been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs.

The rule, when implemented, would affect about 75,000 recipients of disability insurance and supplemental insurance income who require a representative to manage their benefits because of a disabling mental disorder, ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia. It applies to those between age 18 and full retirement age.

What’s really rich is that GOPers explained their vote by saying they were worried that the rule “stigmatized” folks with disabilities and “unfairly” deprived them of their 2nd amendment rights. This, mind you, is coming from the very people who think every Muslim is a terrorist until proven otherwise. Folks who don’t turn a hair when 100,000 people with totally legal visas are denied entry to the U.S. because they are Muslim. And they’re worried that denying guns to people too ill to handle their own affairs is overkill.

Maybe we should give blind drivers licenses so that they don’t feel unduly stigmatized.

Or we could permit folks on the terrorist watch list to purchase guns – oh, wait. I forgot the same cast of characters made sure that we already do just that.

Which members of the Missouri congressional delegation are for or against Paul Ryan’s Medicare phase out plan.

19 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by willykay in Uncategorized

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Ann Wagner, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Claire McCaskill, Emmanuel Cleaver, Jason Smith, Lacy Clay, Medicare, missouri, Paul Ryan, privatization, Roy Bunt, Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler

I have written here about the fact that House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan is planning to take advantage of Trump’s election to push his Medicare privatization plan, a plan that will essentially destroy Medicare as we know it. Please find below a checklist of Missouri politicians categorized by their response to Ryan’s privatization plan.

This list will be updated and reposted as politicians make their positions clear (or don’t).

Note that even if a particular politician indicates that they don’t support Ryan’s privatization phase out, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t open to fiddling with the system in often destructive ways. I also indicate which House members voted for or against the Ryan plan earlier when it was included in the proposed 2015 House budget and which have negative or positive voting records in regard to Medicare related issues.

Members of Missouri’s U.S. Congressional delegation who will oppose Ryan’s latest effort to destroy Medicare:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) (see here for source and discussion).

Members of Missouri’s U.S. Congressional delegation who have been contacted but have not committed to a position on Rep. Ryan’s phase out plan at at this point.

Roy Blunt (R) (Source: TPM list as per 11/19).Blunt has a record of voting for legislation that undercuts Medicare.

Rep. Sam Graves (R) (Source: TPM list as per 11/19 (list up dated regularly)). Graves voted for the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. He has a record of mostly voting to weaken Medicare.

Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-5) (Source: TPM list as per 11/19) Cleaver voted against the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. His voting record is mostly pro-Medicare.

Members of Missouri’s U.S. Congressional delegation who have not yet been contacted about their current position on Ryan’s Medicare phase out plan.

Rep. Lacy Clay (D-1) Clay voted against the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. His voting record is mostly pro-Medicare.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-4) Hartzler voted for the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. She has a record of mostly voting to weaken weaken Medicare.

Rep. Billy Long (R-7) Long voted for the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. He has a record of mostly voting to weaken Medicare.

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3) Luetkemeyer voted for the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. He has a record of mostly voting to weaken Medicare.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-8) Smith voted for the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. He has a record of mostly voting to weaken Medicare.

Rep. Ann Wagner (R-4) Wagner voted for the 2015 Budget proposal that included a similar privatization plan. She has a record of mostly voting to weaken weaken Medicare.

Why does the Missouri Tea Party support crony capitalism?

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Ann Wagner, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Clear Act, Dodd-Frank, financial industry, missouri, payday lenders, Retail Investor Protection Act, tea party

We don’t hear so much about the Tea Party these days, but it’s had a good run in Missouri, dominating the political narrative for a few years and managing to elect a slew of John Birch Society retreads who have joined forces with the rest of the GOP to work their backwards magic in Jefferson City. Although I would argue that many if not most of the Tea Party adherents were a bit confused about just what they stood for apart from the resentment occasioned by the first black president, some did talk the talk when it came to big banks and big money corruption in government. As recently as the last election, Virginia’s Tea Partying David Brat was able to defeat incipient GOP congressional star Eric Cantor in part by harping on big banks and the bailout.

Missouri’s Tea Party also vented about banks and bailouts. Nevertheless, when it came to selecting their representatives, Tea Partiers sent Wall Street’s dream team to Washington, Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2) and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-3). Both are charter members of what the Center for Public Integrity has dubbed the “Banking Caucus.” According to Alison Fitzgerald writing in Slate:

The group has been central to efforts […] to undo many of the financial reforms enacted in the Dodd-Frank law of 2010. At least 30 bills have been proposed to the House during the 113th Congress, aimed at chipping away at aspects of Dodd-Frank. Members of the banking caucus sponsored or co-sponsored 20 of those laws, […]

Wagner has done an especially enthusiastic job for Wall Street – most recently she got so worked up over a proposed Department of Labor rule that would require financial advisers to put their client’s welfare before their own bottom line that she proclaimed at a meeting of brokers and financial advisers that “we are at war.” And she quickly jumped into battle, introducing a bill, the Retail Investor Protection Act, to take the rule-writing ability away from the Labor Department and give it to the more easily swayed (by Wall Street) SEC.

In return, Wagner has been well paid by banking giants like Goldman Sachs, Oppenheimer Funds and big insurance trade groups. Between 2011 when Wagner was first elected to office and 2014, she took in $776,511 from the financial industry. I’m willing to bet that when you add in this year’s take, well over a million dollars of the reported $1.88 million] she now has in the bank come from similar sources, making her the “most prolific money-raiser” among the members of Missouri’s congressional delegation.

Luetkemeyer, for his part, hasn’t been a slouch. Not only does he carry water for Wall Street, he’s a go-to guy for the sleazy payday lending industry. His Clear Relief Act, has been characterized as a “sweeping deregulation bill for community banks.”He has also proposed several bills intended to chip away at the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren’s brain-child, which was created under Dodd-Frank to protect consumers from the worst depredations of the financial industry. For these Herculean efforts he reaped $788,181 from the financial industry between 2010 and 2014.

While Wagner and Luetkemeyer are working hard for Wall Street, they clearly aren’t working for everyday Missourians or any of the millions of Americans hit hard by the financial crisis of 2008 – unequivocally the result of the type of wholesale deregulation our dynamic duo are now peddling. Nor do their priorities seem to line up with the rhetoric of the Tea Partiers who helped elect them.

Jeff Spross suggests that the solution to this seeming contradiction may lie in the relatively privileged status of many Tea Partiers:

Much of the American right’s understanding of economics and its relationship to government is characterized by a lack of desperation. The idea that questions of security or starvation, dignity or destitution, could trump the abstract principles of “how capitalism works,” is just absent. The Tea Party arguably views Wall Street not as manipulative overlords, but as competitors in the sport of capitalism. Richer and more powerful competitors, obviously. But competitors still. And while they don’t want their competitors getting unfairly bailed out by the referees, they don’t want the game to be changed, either.

It is for less fortunate and less privileged Americans that the game itself is the problem.

Essentially, crony capitalism doesn’t mean the same thing to Tea Partiers that it means to you and me. As David Weigel has observed, “the Tea Party, after all, is not wholly set against the GOP’s business class. It’s just the latest populist movement funded and fueled by the Big Business.” He implies that the Tea Party has functioned as an unwitting front:

[…] What’s the business-friendly label that’s going to be more potent than the Tea Party? Every successful movement of economic conservatives has been led in public by the non-rich, from the anti-tax farms of the 1920s to the property-tax-hating suburbanites in the 1970s to the “family farmers” who are, we’re told, the real victims of the estate tax. How do you make Rove-ism or Goldman Sachs-ism as popular as the Tea Party is, even now?

Reps. Graves (r), Hartzler (r), Luetkemeyer (r), Wagner (r): “No” on Homeland Security

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Ann Wagner, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Congress, Homeland Security, missouri, Todd Graves, Vicky Hartzler

The vote today to finally approve funding for Homeland Security through September 30, 2015:

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 109

H R 240 YEA-AND-NAY 3-Mar-2015 3:14 PM

QUESTION: On Motion to Recede and Concur in the Senate Amendment

BILL TITLE: Making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015, and for other purposes

—- YEAS 257 —

Clay

Cleaver

—- NAYS 167 —

Graves (MO)

Hartzler

Luetkemeyer

Wagner

—- NOT VOTING 9 —

Long

Smith (MO)

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): Were you there? (February 28, 2015)

The SOTU gave Missouri House members the tried-and-true vapors

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Ann Wagner, Barack Obama, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Jason Smith, missouri, republicans, Sam Graves, State of the Union, Vicky Hartzler

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.

We need the Keystone XL pipeline because? – part 3

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Tags

Ann Wagner, Billy Long, Blaine Luetkemeyer, gas, gasoline, Jason Smith, Keystone XL, missouri, pipeline, Sam Graves, Vicky Hartzler

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.