To Chris Van Hollen, Boehner Is Just A Profitable Piñata-- Not The Disaster He Is For Working Families

I got a call the other day from a frustrated Democrat in a red state who works on the Democratic Party's coordinated campaign effort for the state. He was fuming because he feels the DSCC and DCCC come into his state to raise money by talking about how bad extremist Republicans are, collect a bunch of money and then instead of using it in the state, use it to bolster conservative Democrats elsewhere. We've been talking about that for a while here at DWT, presumably why the guys called me. Yesterday, Greg Sargent, who might not be aware its something people Outside-the-Beltway think about, touched on it in an interesting column in the Washington Post about DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen. Sargent confirms what we've been saying: the Establishment Democrats create bogiemen to run against-- Boehner is the example in this case (and always a good one)-- but have no intention of defeating him, only in scaring and suckering money out of concerned voters, which can then be used to reelect the very Democratic Blue Dogs who vote with Boehner against the Democratic agenda! Van Hollen doesn't want to lose his good parking spot and fancy office with a view.

Van Hollen said the DCCC would advise Dem candidates to seize on Boehner's speech.

"The Boehner speech is Exhibit A that they want to take a U-turn back to Bush policies that failed," Van Hollen said of Republicans. "We will be using it to encourage our candidates to draw a clear distinction between continuing on the road to recovery or turning back the clock to the failed Bush economic agenda."

Van Hollen added that Boehner's speech-- which presented an extension of the Bush tax cuts as a panacea but added few other policy prescriptions-- had only helped Dems by giving them a target, because it would enable Dems to present the election as a choice, rather than just as referendum on them.

"No longer is the Republican plan a blank slate," Van Hollen said. "Their proposal is Bush economics on steroids. By making that clear, he has sharpened the choice in these races. What he's proposing will provide ammunition for our candidates."

When I pointed to evidence this message isn't sinking in-- a recent polling memo circulated by Dems found only 25 percent believe the GOP wants a return to Bush policies-- Van Hollen didn't respond directly. "Boehner's speech opened up greater opportunities to have that conversation," he said.

This morning, the NRCC announced that they will be amplifying Boehner's call for Obama to fire Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, by pressuring Dem candidates to say whether they agree. But Van Hollen dismissed this strategy as a transparent stunt.

"People will see that as pure political gamesmanship," Van Hollen said. "If they focus on just that piece it will demonstrate that they lack any seriousness. The Geithner Summers piece is obviously a political effort at distraction."

Is Boehner a monster? Absolutely. But Van Hollen and his ilk don't give a rat's ass. Ditto for Paul Ryan, another dreadful character they are working hard to demonize but not defeat at the polls. Ryan, in fact, is in a blue-trending district, filled with high profile Democratic state politicians, a district Obama won in 2008, but the DCCC drove Paulette Garin out of the race and had her replaced with a sad and implausible patsy, exactly who Ryan would have chosen to run against had he been able to pick. There's a very different situation in OH-08, where Boehner, who's never had a competitive race before, is up against a fighting Democrat, Justin Coussoule.

The DCCC (and DNC) constantly beg loyal Democratic voters for money to "fight Boehner," but they refuse to even acknowledge Coussoule is running. As you probably know, Blue America is trying to support Coussoule's run and, with your help, we've got our second billboard and our second TV ad up now. Van Hollen and Wasserman Schultz have been hostile but thank God for Ed Schultz, who's helped invigorate grassroots Democrats from Butler to Mercer and everywhere in between.

As Coussoule is showing voters in southwest Ohio, the selfish and greedy Big Business policies Boehner has been pushing for his entire two decades at the public trough have hollowed out the American economy and hollowed out the middle class. He's, first and foremost, a low-wage fanatic. His trade policies-- he pushed NAFTA and everything remotely like NAFTA and even tried making them worse for American workers-- have been catastrophic for our country. Now he's running around the country shrieking, "Where are the jobs, Mr. President," and the DCCC should be helping Justin Coussoule to run around OH-08 asking "Where are the jobs, Mr. Congressman?"

One of the sharpest economic minds writing about trade policies in the country is Dave Johnson at Campaign For America's Future. He covered this ground pretty well this week with a post called Boehner Trade Plan: Go Back To Disaster. Before getting into Boehner's anti-family trade policies, Johnson looked at the overall economic approach he took in his Big Speech on Tuesday:

In the speech Boehner said we have an "economy stalled by ‘stimulus’ spending." But according to FOX News' Wall Street Journal, yesterday the CBO reported that "the impact of the stimulus program estimated ... the plan lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points." In addition, the Washington Post reported, "The CBO said the act also increased the nation's gross domestic product by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent in the second quarter, indicating that the stimulus may have been the primary source of growth in the U.S. economy."

Boehner also said that "each dollar the government collects is taken directly out of the private sector." This is the old "taxes take money out of the economy" argument, which is intended to trick people into thinking that the money just disappears instead of being used to pay for the schools, courts, agencies and infrastructure that enable businesses to thrive and drive the country's prosperity. If you think that President Eisenhower's spending on the Interstate Highway System "took money out of the economy" you really need to see someone about your problems and not take them out of the rest of us.

Taking direct shots at democracy, Boehner complained about "big government"-- namely We, the People making decisions instead of a few wealthy corporate owners making decisions for us-- and said, "As Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, recently said, "You'd really be amazed at how much government you'd never miss." Boehner really has a problem with this whole "We, the People" thing.

As for Boehner's approach to trade... it's been devastating to Ohio and it's been devastating to the United States in general. Look at the chart up top showing the U.S. trade balance in advanced technology since Boehner was first elected until now. This is Republican economics-- creating a low wage economy that works well for a few wealthy families and screws everyone else. This is why Americans banished the Republicans from power for 4 decades starting in the 1930s. But they're back and Boehner hasn't learned a thing. As Johnson points out, "he called for 'passing free-trade agreements' with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. He doesn’t mention what is IN these agreements, only calls for passing them." They were conceived of during the Bush administration and are even worse-- if you can imagine-- than the devastating NAFTA agreements. Boehner's idea of "free trade" would only accelerate this:

[T]hese "free trade" agreements create a worldwide race to the bottom, allowing companies to bypass the protections that democracies fought to provide for their citizens, pitting exploited, low-wage workers against citizens in democracies, forcing wages and standards ever lower.

These "free trade" agreements need to be reviewed and reformed, so they protect wages, the environment., worker's rights and small businesses around the world. We have a chance to lift each other up instead of push each other down. In February I wrote about Whirlpool closing a refrigerator plant in Evansville, moving the jobs to Mexico where workers are paid $70 a week. The problem is that Mexican Workers Paid $70/Week Can't Buy Refrigerators! If they were paid decent wages, we could sell things we make to them, while they sell things they make to us. But if we follow Boehner's trade ideas everyone just gets poorer and eventually the economy stops.

Oh, wait, we DID follow Boehner's trade plans, and everyone DID get poorer, and the economy DID stop! But a few of his buddies got really REALLY rich. So he wants to do more of that.

This speech by Boehner is just more calling for a return to the policies of the past: we’ve been seeing the trade deficit soaring in the last few months, as the economy tries to go back to old economy. China is 96% of our trade deficit. Boehner saying lets go back to the path we followed when we were borrowing $2 billion a day, it took away 2.8% growth in 1st quarter, sapping the recovery. This notion that Boehner calling for continuing course shows a perverse blindness to changes country has to make.

Do Van Hollen and Wasserman Schultz not get this? Try "not care about this." How do I know? Well, they are actually encouraging the same reactionary anti-Choice, antigay, anti-healthcare, pro-Wall Street Blue Dogs who habitually vote with Boehner to run ads against Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic agenda! (Greg Sargent broke the specifics on this one.) They're spending the millions of dollars they suck up by scaring voters about Boehner to reelect conservatives like Jason Altmire, Bobby Bright and Glenn Nye who vote with Boehner as a default position. Now look at the ads Altmire, Bright and Nye are running. The DCCC are spending over two million dollars on these three clowns and won't even give Justin Coussoule a dime!