2018 And GOP Over-Reach

I had a pleasant dinner the other night with an old friend who's in private business now. He used to work at the Treasury Department and he was on Hillary's Treasury transition team this year. He's a young guy who I met when, practically straight out of Harvard, he ran a great congressional campaign in a very red district. He didn't win but he's been using what he learned from the experience to help other candidates since then. I was meeting with him to see if he would consider running again in 2018, his district now distinctly purple and turning blue rapidly. For a variety of reasons-- including the fact that his hometown has been drawn out of the district-- he demurred. Wednesday I'm having dinner with a super-progressive, young state legislator who I;m hoping to persuade to run for what's likely to be an open deep blue seat in his state, a seat currently occupied by a conservaDem.

I find myself devoting more and more of my time not to blogging but to working on 2018 congressional recruitment. That's something that can't be left to a DCCC that has already proven itself ill-suited to do it well. And the good news last cycle was that when strong progressives got in early and introduced themselves to voters, the conservative, big-money hacks the DCCC recruited often lost the primaries. In PA-07, Mary Ellen Balchunis beat the DCCC recruit 74-26%. In TX-21 Tom Wakely beat his conservaDem opponent 59-41% and in WI-07, Mary Hoeft beat her less conservaDem opponent 81-19%. The bad news, of course, was that the DCCC then sabotaged each one of these primary winners and abandoned the districts to Republican incumbents. That's part of the reason Pelosi finds herself in so much trouble with her own caucus right now. If the DCCC changes its Rahmish ways, it'll stand a reasonable chance to win back the House in 2018. If it keeps trying to do the same old song and dance-- recruiting and nominating Republican-lite hacks and then running corrupt campaigns that benefit no one but revolving door consultants-- it will continue losing and losing and losing.

History shows that usually-- but not always-- voters favor the opposition party in the first midterm after a president is elected. These are how the opposition party fared in the last 10 first midterms:

• 1982- Republicans lost 26 seats (after Reagan's election)
• 1986- Republicans lost 5 seats (after Reagan's reelection)
• 1990- Republicans lost 8 seats (after HW Bush's election)
• 1994- Democrats lost 54 seats (after Clintin's election)
• 1998- Republicans lost 4 seats (exception to the rule after Clinton's reelection)
• 2002- Democrats lost 7 seats (exception to the rule after Bush's election)
• 2006- Republicans lost 30 seats (after Bush's reelection)
• 2010- Dems lost 63 seats (after Obama's election)
• 2014- Dems lost 13 seats (after Obama's reelection)

But this cycle there likely to be more at work than just historical trends. With the GOP in charge of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, there's every reason in the world to expect some major overreach-- and into areas where the voters will push back in a big way. Trump's execrable appointments so far-- particularly monstrosities like Betsy DeVos, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions and Wilbur Ross. Each of those monsters have to be worth at least 2 Democratic pickups each. And God knows what else he has coming down the pike. But the Democrats have to win back exactly 24 seats to have a 218-217 majority. Considering all the treacherous and corrupt Blue Dogs and New Dems who will sell out to the Republicans consistently, I'd say the Democrats need at least 30 seats to be sure of control. Is it possible? You bet it is. And Paul Ryan is the key.

Ryan see's his life's ambition-- scrapping Medicare and Social Security-- dangling in from of his nose. And he has no intention of letting a confused and disoriented Trump or a bunch of de-clawed congressional Democrats stand in his way. Robert Pear laid out out plainly in yesterday's NY Times-- and made it clear that Ryan isn't the only Republican with that objective. "[W]ith Election Day behind them, emboldened House Republicans say they will move forward on a years-old effort to shift Medicare away from its open-ended commitment to pay for medical services and toward a fixed government contribution for each beneficiary."

For nearly six years, Speaker Paul D. Ryan has championed the new approach, denounced by Democrats as “voucherizing” Medicare. Representative Tom Price of Georgia, the House Budget Committee chairman and a leading candidate to be Mr. Trump’s secretary of health and human services, has also embraced the idea, known as premium support.

And Democrats are relishing the fight and preparing to defend the program, which was created in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. They believe that if Mr. Trump chooses to do battle over Medicare, he would squander political capital, as President George W. Bush did with an effort to add private investment accounts to Social Security after his re-election in 2004.

Democrats will “stand firmly and unified” against Mr. Ryan if he tries to “shatter the sacred guarantee that has protected generations of seniors,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader.

Republicans have pressed for premium support since Mr. Ryan first included it in a budget blueprint in 2011. As he envisions it, Medicare beneficiaries would buy health insurance from one of a number of competing plans. The traditional fee-for-service Medicare program would compete directly with plans offered by private insurers like Humana, UnitedHealth Group and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

The federal government would contribute the same basic amount toward coverage of each beneficiary in a region. Those who choose more costly options would generally have to pay higher premiums; those who choose plans that cost less than the federal contribution could receive rebates or extra benefits.

Supporters say this approach could save money by stimulating greater price competition among insurers, who would offer plans with lower premiums to attract customers.

Democrats say that premium support would privatize Medicare, replacing the current government guarantee with skimpy vouchers-- “coupon care for seniors.” The fear is that the healthiest seniors would choose private insurance, lured by offers of free health club memberships and other wellness programs, leaving traditional Medicare with sicker, more expensive patients and higher premiums.

“Beneficiaries would have to pay much more to stay in traditional fee-for-service Medicare,” said John K. Gorman, a former Medicare official who is now a consultant to many insurers. “Regular Medicare would become the province of affluent beneficiaries who can buy their way out of” private plans.

Republicans say their proposal would apply to future beneficiaries, not to those in or near retirement. But the mere possibility of big changes is causing trepidation among some older Americans.

“I am terrified of vouchers,” said Kim Ebb, 92, who lives in a retirement community in Bethesda, Md., and has diabetes, atrial fibrillation and irritable bowel syndrome. “You get a fixed amount of money to draw on for your expenses. Then you are on your own.”

Charles R. Drapeau, 64, of East Waterboro, Me., said he was rattled by the Republican plans.

“I’m scared to death,” said Mr. Drapeau, who has multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, and takes a drug that costs more than $10,000 a month. “We don’t know exactly how it will work, but just the fact that they are talking about messing with Medicare, it’s frightening to me.”

Indeed-- and it should be frightening to all Americans, regardless of age. I spent the last 2 years fighting cancer, a battle that culminated in an experimental stem cell replacement operation. I stopped counting the costs as they zoomed over a million dollars but they surely at least doubled since then and I have to get a "tune up" every 3 months. No one can afford that except the richest one percent of Americans, the very people Ryan and congressional conservatives are trying to please with their proposals. I don't know what would have happened without Medicare, but I have a feeling I wouldn't be sitting here writing posts.

The other day we looked at how Ryan's plans to roll back overtime pay and minimum wage guarantees are going to be a wake up call for Trump voters. And that's nothing compared to what Ryan will do to Medicare and Social Security-- and what voters will do to Republicans in 2018 in return. (If you want to back Blue America's efforts to elect a more progressive Congress in 2018, please consider contributing here.) There is no chance to win back the Senate before 2020-- none whatsoever, if fact, the Democrats are likely to lose more Senate seats in 2018-- so please consider just concentrating on House races (and state legislative races) this coming cycle.

Will The First Bill Trump Signs Be A GOP Crusade Against Overtime Pay?

We just spent over a year explaining why Hillary Clinton, an avatar of the status quo, would be a terrible nominee for the Democratic Party. But that isn't what this post is about. This post is about why Donald Trump is a terrible choice of president for the United States of America. Kellyanne's quote above gets into it a bit. But you couldn't have been paying any attention in the last year and be unaware that Trump has preyed for his entire lifetime on working people-- and enriched himself by ripping them off. From his earliest days as a businessman he hired cheap foreign labor-- even during the campaign while he was preaching against it-- instead of American workers, and outsourced manufacturing jobs overseas at every opportunity to make a nickel more. As president, he claimed on the stump, he would use his knowledge of these practices he was so expert at to crack down and work for American working families. And, yes, there were workers in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri who bought it.

So wouldn't it be ironic if among the first bills he signs are Ryan Republican schemes to further disadvantage the very working men and women who, unexpectedly landed Trump in the White House. Like the GOP age-old and unending desire to abolish the whole concept of overtime pay and a minimum wage. Conservatives, of course, have always fought against both and true believers like Ryan have tried turning back the clock countless times. Yesterday Rachel Bade and John Bresnahan, reporting for Politico, outlined how Ryan plans to use the Trump presidency to accomplish his virulently anti-worker agenda.

Rolling back DAPA, an executive order that gave the parents of DREAMers legal status to stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation-- may please plenty of Trump voters and few of them will give a hoot about Ryan's intention of reversing Obama's fiduciary rule, which was designed to eliminate conflicts of interests for financial advisers who were balancing corporate clients and individual investors. But the one that could shake their support for Trump is Ryan's intention to eliminate an overtime rule that requires companies pay overtime to employees making $47,000 or less a year. That, they may ponder, isn't what Trump campaigned on, at least not in their neighborhoods.

Weeks before the 115th Congress even begins, House Republicans are laying the groundwork for a major push to repeal President Barack Obama’s most recent regulations, using the Congressional Review Act. The 1996 law allows the House to reverse regulations enacted within the previous 60 legislative days-- and the Senate to pass a repeal by simple majority instead of the upper chamber’s typical 60-vote threshold.

While Obama is still president, the Republican controlled-Congress has no chance of repealing his regulations. But once Trump is inaugurated, that all changes.

Another boon for the right: The 1996 law is written such that the 60-legislative-day clock resets at the beginning of each Congress for all rules enacted in the 60 legislative days prior to the final day of congressional adjournment. That will give Congress months longer to tear up regulations issued late this year.

...House Republicans are currently in the process of making lists of regulations that fall within their time frame and could potentially be repealed early next year. One of the major ones they’re eyeing is Obama’s overtime rule that requires companies to pay time-and-a-half to employees who make under roughly $47,000.

The rule is set to go into effect Dec. 1 and will be a top priority for Republicans to reverse, multiple sources said.

“We have heard over the past year that it would have truly dramatically bad effects, not just on employers but on employees across the country,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.), a former labor lawyer. He said the University of Alabama expects the rule will cost the institution $14 million a year, which will likely be passed on to students via higher tuition.

And “I can give you the names of a ton of private-sector businesses who will either have to eat that cost or pass that cost on to their customers,” Byrne said.

Bernie's and, somewhat reluctantly, Hillary's strong plans to raise the minimum wage went out the window exactly one week ago. Conservatives-- from both sold-out parties-- are jubilant. Most anti-minimum wage Democrats (Blue Dogs and New Dems) have been defeated but Kurt Schrader (OR) and Collin Peterson (MN) are still drawing breath and anti-worker fanatics Colleen Hanabusa (HI) and Brad Schneider (IL) were just returned to Congress while among the new Democratic freshman, you can expect all the worst from those from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party: Lou Correa (CA), Ro Khanna (CA), Tom O'Halleran (AZ), Stephanie Murphy (FL), Darren Soto (FL), and Josh Gottheimer (NJ). As for the Republicans... hey, in July they forced Puerto Rico to accept a $4.25 minimum wage-- a harbinger of things to come? When Alan Grayson and Norma Torres offered an amendment to get the $4.25 minimum wage out of the rescue bill, every Democrat backed them but only 15 Republicans agreed-- and of the 15, six-- Chris Gibson, David Jolly, Richard Hanna, Mike Fitzpatrick and Bob Dold-- won't be returning to Congress next year.



Last May, when the White House announced new rules expanding overtime pay for as many as 4.2 million white collar workers, Republican obstructionists in the House immediately objected and started threatening law suits. Ryan led the charge against it and the NY Times editorial board explained why Ryan had it all wrong.

Under federal law dating to 1938, an employer does not have to pay time-and-a-half when salaried employees work more than 40 hours a week if they earn enough to qualify as executives, professionals or administrators. The problem is that the salary threshold that defines a white-collar job-- at least $455 a week, or $23,660 a year-- has not been fully updated for inflation since 1975. As a result, workers who earn modest salaries are often deemed ineligible for overtime pay.

The new rules, which take effect on Dec. 1, 2016, raise the threshold to $47,476. An estimated 4.2 million workers will become newly eligible for overtime and another nine million who should be earning overtime now (because of the nature of their work), but often don’t get it, will no longer be denied the pay that is rightfully theirs. In all, about one-third of salaried employees will be eligible for overtime pay under the new threshold, compared with a mere 7 percent currently.

Opponents of the new rules include retailers and low-wage employers who often require unpaid overtime from low-salaried employees. They have said that employers will cut base pay if forced to pay overtime, but that appears to be an idle threat, since pay cuts would be deeply unpopular with workers and would very likely create more turnover. If a business does not want to pay overtime, it could hold salaried employees to no more than 40 hours a week. Or it could hire new people to do work previously performed by those who put in unpaid overtime. Alternatively, it could raise the pay of salaried workers above the new threshold, and thus be exempt from the overtime rule.

The Labor Department originally proposed a new threshold of $50,440, which would have accounted more fully for inflation. That proposal also called for annual updates to the threshold; the final rule calls for adjustment every three years. These changes were made to respond to objections from low-wage employers, mostly in Southern states, who said the new rules would be too onerous.

Because the rule has been issued near the end of the Obama administration, Republican leaders in Congress could try to use end-of-session maneuvers that would let them vote next year to repeal it. A repeal would be vetoed if a Democrat won the White House, but it is unclear what the presumed Republican nominee, Donald Trump, would do. For now, in a rare victory for fair pay, the new rules are on their way to becoming a reality.

That's Ryan's agenda, not necessarily-- we'll soon see-- Trump's. It will be interesting watching how he and those around him navigate the treacherous waters so early in his presidency.

Voters Everywhere Wish They Could Get A Chance To Vote For Their Governors Again

Yesterday Democracy Corps released a survey showing that buyer's remorse among voters is far from unique to people living between Buffalo and Rochester in NY-26. Paul Ryan and allies like John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Dick Cheney (above), as well as in the corporate media, can spin all they like-- and compare his fight to take health care away from seniors to Winston Churchill's fight against the right-wing Hitler regime 'til the cows come home-- and that still won't change that the narrative has shifted away from GOP nihilism. Voters have made up their minds-- for now at least-- the Republican Party means them and their families no good. As Democracy Corps put it, the election of Kathy Hochul in the most conservative district in New York "is an advance indicator of a sharp pull back from Republicans, particularly those in the House."

Disapproval of the Republicans in the House of Representatives has surged from 46 percent in February to 55 percent in April to a striking 59 percent now.  Disapproval outnumbers approval two-to-one; intense disapproval by three-to-one. For the first time in more than a year, the Democrats are clearly even in the named Congressional ballot-- an 8-point swing from the election-- and Obama has made a marked gain in his job approval and vote against Mitt Romney-- with the President now leading by 4 points. This period captured the introduction of the Republican budget plan and vote by the House-- and voters do not like what they see.
 
Perhaps most notably, this survey flags a major retreat from the Republican approach to deficits and spending, the economy, and jobs.  As the Republicans have unveiled their plans and approach during this four-month debate on the deficit, priorities and the economy, they have pushed many voters away.

Since November, the net Congressional vote has shifted 9 points-- with Democrats now actually ahead of the Republicans 46 to 45 percent.

...Voters rate the Republican Congress at a chilly (unfavorable) 43 degrees on our thermometer scale-- with cool ratings (under 50 degrees) now exceeding warm ratings (over 50 degrees) by 9 points-- a 17-point decline since February.

The Tea Party is contributing to the problem-- suffering a drop from 35 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable in February to 30 percent favorable, 44 percent unfavorable currently. They are viewed negatively by a net 14 points and are creating a headwind for Republicans.

Among Independent voters, a group largely responsible for electing the Republican House, criticism of the work of the Republicans in Congress has jumped 15 points from February (now 60 percent).

Among seniors, we see a 14-point increase in criticism of Republicans in Congress, from 43 percent negative to 57 percent negative.

Now look at this:


Last year's crop of Republican governors who have been instituting ideologically extremist-- in some cases, like in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, blatantly fascist-- agendas would all be voted out of office if do-overs. Two of the worst, Snyder in Michigan and Walker in Wisconsin, look likely to face recall elections next year. Every poll shows John Kasich in Ohio doing worse than the one before it. Rick Scott's approval, probably already the lowest in Florida history, is heading straight into single digits. Yesterday Margie Omero, president of Momentum Analysis, a Democratic polling firm, wrote about rampant buyer's remorse for Republican governors across the nation.

The big stands House Republicans have taken so far--defunding Planned Parenthood, keeping tax breaks for the wealthy, nearly shutting down the government, and ending Medicare as we know--have all been wildly unpopular. Even with Republicans. ... Since February, Democratic firm PPP released surveys in eight states asking voters "if you could do last fall's election for Governor over again, how would you vote?" In seven of the eight, the Democrat now would win, with all seven showing double-digit improvements in their margin. (Only Rory Reid in Nevada still trails.) The chart below shows both the actual 2010 margin and the new margin, sorted by the shift.

Beneath the surface, these Republicans are losing ground with independents. Nationally in 2010, independents gave Republicans a +19 advantage. In the five states above for which we have exit poll data (FL, IA, OH, PA, WI), the Republican won among independents. Yet in six of these eight re-do polls, independents now say they would vote for the Democrat.

Will Republican Over Reach At Every Level Tank The Florida GOP In 2012?

As you probably know, Blue America has been more active in House races than in gubernatorial or even Senate races. And we've never found any presidential candidate worthy of asking our donors to contribute to. Blue America looks for solid progressive leaders with a values and principles-driven world view-- like the half dozen we've endorsed so far this cycle. So when we see the constant stream of news about how Scott Walker is destroying the Republican Party brand in Wisconsin and Rick Snyder is doing the same in Michigan, in each case through ideologically-driven over reach, the first thing we start thinking about are the opportunities to win back House seats that Republicans grabbed in 2010. Yesterday the news-- for us-- out of Ohio was good: In One Month, 214,399 Ohioans Sign Petition To Stop Kasich's Anti-Worker Law. And thanks to Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand-inspired attack on Medicare, voters in Ohio know that the problem isn't just with the deranged Kasich but with an entire political party-- the Republicans-- that has gone seriously off the tracks and veered dangerously far from the mainstream of American thought.

Even normally somnolent, complacent Floridians are picking up the vibe that something has gone terribly wrong-- and that they need to rouse themselves and do something about it. Ryan's attack on Medicare is a disaster for seniors in every single state. But guess which state's seniors get hit the hardest-- yes, Floridians, where so many seniors have gone to retire. According to Congress' Joint Economic Committee, out-of-pocket health expenses for the typical Florida 65 year-old traditional Medicare enrollee in 2022 would be $7,145.14. If Ryan's plan-- which virtually every Republican in the House voted for-- is ever signed into law, that same senior would instead be paying $14,528.31-- an increase of $7,383.16. Their out-of-pocket costs more than double! It's cruel that Florida should bear the biggest burden of any state. And every single Florida Republican voted for it; not a single one had the guts to buck their party and stand up for Florida's hard pressed senior citizens. Realistically, this one vote alone should jeopardize the House seats of Daniel Webster, Sandy Adams, Allen West, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, David Rivera, Steve Southerland, Richard Nugent, Bill Young, and Dennis Ross.

And then there's the role that Florida's radical right governor is playing to further tarnish the Republican image in the minds of voters. As the Daily Beast reported Friday, "The cycle of over-reach and backlash is in over-drive these days."

The latest sign: on Tuesday, Alvin Brown became the first Democrat elected mayor of Jacksonville-- Florida's largest city-- in 20 years.

Just seven months ago, Republicans swept the Sunshine State with Tea Party-backed candidate Rick Scott winning the governor's office with a 1.2 percent margin of victory.

But instead of consolidating support by reaching out and winning over the reasonable edge of the opposition, as popular past Republican governors like Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist have done, Scott continued with his campaign posture of refusing to talk to the press. He canceled a $2 billion federal high-speed rail project and is seeking to delay (and functionally deny) implementation of an anti-gerrymandering reform ballot referendum overwhelmingly passed in 2010.

Now Rick Scott finds himself the least popular newly elected governor in Florida history. It's not just a matter of the honeymoon being over-- this looks like a drunken Vegas marriage heading for a shotgun divorce.
 
Fifty-five percent of Florida voters disapprove of Scott's job in office, while only 32 percent approve, according to a mid-April PPP poll. The Suffolk University poll found that 41 percent of respondents said the new gov's first months in office had been "negative and damaging" while only 26 percent described it as "positive and productive." The analysis by Suffolk Political Director David Paleologos is worth quoting at length: "It's taken Gov. Scott less than 100 days to begin a free fall in popularity and to generate negative perceptions about job performance and damaging the state he was elected to lead…There has been a backlash in public opinion on both sides of the aisle in response to his aggressive and uncompromising leadership style."

Reflecting on the upset in the Jacksonville mayor's race, St. Petersburg Political Editor Adam Smith said, "Jacksonville is a Republican stronghold, but even with that relatively conservative electorate polls show Barack Obama more popular than Rick Scott. That election in Florida's largest city was not about Obama or Scott, but there's no question that Scott's talk about draconian cuts to school budgets and other services helped elect a Democrat arguing that cuts need to be targeted and strategic. One of the best days for Democrat Alvin Brown came when Rick Scott came to Jacksonville to campaign for the Republican mayoral nominee at a Tea Party rally."

Back to the Blue America-endorsed candidate for the House seat that includes big chunks of Orange, Volusia, Brevard and Seminole counties in central Florida, Nick Ruiz. He hopes to keep reminding Florida voters about Sandy Adam's unhinged extremism and her eagerness to gut Medicare. He can use some help in getting out his message. This morning, when I asked him for a comment, he said, "We have to understand, no matter how much certain dysfunctional personalities (e.g. Rep. Paul Ryan WI-1) try to make America about personal ambition-- it will never be so. America is not about personal enrichment. America is about community well-being. And that is a concept people like Paul Ryan, or Newt Gingrich, or Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN-6) will never understand. So the Republican budget proposes massive cuts to the U.S. Social Safety Net-- in particular, senior citizens, and their much relied upon Medicare health insurance. Do you think that senior citizens can afford $7,000+ more dollars out-of-pocket for health insurance when they are already on a tight fixed income? Absolutely not. And what's the trade? Some expected brownie points from rich old tyrants for these Republican wealth seekers? In 2012, reject these political careerists, and morally corrupt opportunists-- put a progressive Democrat in Congress."

Not just a Democrat-- FL-24 tried that with conservative corporate shill Suzanne Kosmas and it went terribly wrong-- but a progressive Democrat, in the mold of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, people who understood the use of government to make the lives of ordinary citizens better and more rewarding.

The White House Has A Serious Bully Problem-- Even Beyond Standing Up For LGBT Youth

I know that not everyone has studied-- or paid attention to-- history and some people may look blankly on mention of the Sudetenland, the Munich Conference, Neville Chamberlain and Czechoslovakia. In Frank Capra's documentary, above, Hitler assures Europe that the sliver of Czechoslovakia bordering Germany is "the last territorial claim" he had to make in Europe. Watch Chamberlain-- now a universally despised and loathsome figure-- declaring he "had achieved peace in our times" by giving in to Hitler. History-oriented Democrats could not have helped but think of the scene when they saw Obama celebrating his capitulation to a laughable John Boehner Friday night. Though it's ironic that this comes in the midst of the White House's anti-bullying campaign, lets have a look, for example, at what Robert Reich had to say about the efficacy of placating bullies Saturday. Is there anyone who doesn't have a personal story like Reich's cupcake war?

When I was a small boy I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than everyone else. They demanded the cupcake my mother had packed in my lunchbox, or, they said, they’d beat me up. After a close call in the boy’s room, I paid up. Weeks later, they demanded half my sandwich as well. I gave in to that one, too. But I could see what was coming next. They’d demand everything else. Somewhere along the line I decided I’d have a take a stand. The fight wasn’t pleasant. But the bullies stopped their bullying.

I hope the President decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning-- the equivalent of my cupcake.

Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich-- $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending-- basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the poor-- has been slashed.

The right-wing bullies are emboldened. They will hold the nation hostage again and again.
In a few weeks the debt ceiling has to be raised. After that, next year’s budget has to be decided on. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan has already put forward proposals to turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private insurance companies, turn Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that give states discretion to shift them to the non-poor, and give even more big tax cuts to the rich.

There will also be Republican votes to de-fund the new health care law.

“Americans of different beliefs came together,” the President announced after agreement was reached. It was the “largest spending cut in our history.” He sounded triumphant. In fact, he’s encouraging the bullies onward.

All the while, he and the Democratic leadership in Congress refuse to refute the Republicans’ big lie-- that spending cuts will lead to more jobs. In fact, spending cuts now will lead to fewer jobs. They’ll slow down an already-anemic recovery. That will cause immense and unnecessary suffering for millions of Americans.

The President continues to legitimize the Republican claim that too much government spending caused the economy to tank, and that by cutting back spending we’ll get the economy going again.

Even before the bullies began hammering him his deficit commission already recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Then the President froze non-defense domestic spending and froze federal pay. And he continues to draw the false analogy between a family’s budget and the national budget.

He is losing the war of ideas because he won’t tell the American public the truth: That we need more government spending now-- not less-- in order to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.

That we got into the Great Recession because Wall Street went bonkers and government failed to do its job at regulating financial markets. And that much of the current deficit comes from the necessary response to that financial crisis.

That the only ways to deal with the long-term budget problem is to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes, and to slow down soaring health-care costs.

And that, at a deeper level, the increasingly lopsided distribution of income and wealth has robbed the vast working middle class of the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going at full capacity.

“We preserved the investments we need to win the future,” he said last night. That’s not true. The budget he just approved will cut Pell grants to poor kids, while states continue massive cutbacks in school spending-- firing tens of thousands of teachers and raising fees at public universities. The budget he approved is cruel to the nation’s working class and poor.

It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they’re going too far.

But was Obama's back against the wall? Or was the celebrating actually real because this is the outcome he wanted all along? Today at noon, 5 of the Democrats from New York City who voted against Obama's and Boehner's compromise-- Jerry Nadler, Charlie Rangel, Carolyn Maloney, Eliot Engel and Anthony Weiner-- are holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall, along with civic leaders to "protest imminent federal spending cuts that will slash tens of billions of dollars from vital national programs, decimate funding for New York’s hardworking community organizations, cut jobs and services, and destabilize local neighborhoods during the ongoing recession. With the imposition of an extremist GOP social and economic agenda, local leaders will address the real world cost of the planned cuts... Among the hundreds of critical local programs that will be drastically cut are:
 

• Community Development Block Grants, which provide vital services to low and moderate-income families and communities across the city.  The grants fund career training, homeless shelters, assistance for victims of crimes, and help preserve affordable housing, among many other initiatives.

• Community Services Block Grants, which fight poverty, fund programs for youth, seniors, immigrants, and families, and spur community development.

• Workforce Investment Act, which provides job training and placement for tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

• Title I funding for Education for low-income kids.

• Head Start, which provides free childcare and educational programs for pre-school and kindergarten-aged kids.

• Child Care Development Block Grants, which provide childcare for low-income families.

• Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which provides food assistance, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income women, infants and children.

• Public Housing Capital Fund, which funds major capital needs for the New York City Housing Authority.

Are these Democratic leaders, each of whom is far more experienced politically than Barack Obama-- not to mention far more progressive-- correct? Or did Obama have no choice? Was he up against the wall? Even Charlie Cook, the voice of mediocre Beltway conventional wisdom, thinks the Republicans have overplayed their hand and alienated voters with their extremism, giving our famous poker-playing president a strong position... if he wanted it.

One of the biggest and most frequent mistakes in politics is for a party to misread its mandate. When it happens, independent and swing voters get angry and punish a candidate or a party on Election Day. Because American politics is a zero-sum game, punishing one party means rewarding the other party-- even when the latter is not necessarily deserving of support. Frequently, the party that benefits from the spanking mistakenly interprets it to mean that the public is embracing every aspect of its agenda. Republicans shouldn’t forget that their party had dismal favorable/unfavorable poll ratings last fall. They won because they weren’t Democrats.

There is no question that the Republican base, conservatives, and supporters of the tea party want to take a meat ax to government spending. When Republican congressional members return home and meet with their constituents, they are encouraged to vote against continuing resolutions and for deep spending cuts. These supporters have intensity, and they adamantly oppose any compromise with Democrats.

It would be a blunder, however, to think that such views drove the election. Republicans, conservatives, and tea partiers did not throw Republicans out of their House and Senate majorities in 2006, and they did not vote to increase the size of the Democratic majorities and elect Barack Obama president in 2008.

Independent voters were the ones who cast their ballots for Democrats by an 18-point margin in 2006 because they were mad at President Bush and upset about the war in Iraq, not to mention Republican scandals and the general performance of the GOP Congress. Two years later, these same voters were still angry at the president, were afraid of the financial crisis, and didn’t care for GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

In 2010, these independent voters were unimpressed by the economic-stimulus package, didn’t like cap-and-trade environmental regulation, and really didn’t like the Democratic health care package. Those over or approaching 65 years of age also feared that health care reform would erode Medicare benefits. Even those unaffected by the reforms rallied to defend Medicare.

Polling is very clear. Most voters want to see the federal budget balanced and spending cut. However, they don’t want Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid touched, and, oh yes, they don’t want taxes increased. Now, anyone with an IQ over room temperature knows that all of this is impossible. Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with interest on the national debt, amounts to approximately half the federal budget.

There is no doubt that significant budget cutting is necessary and that Medicare and Medicaid must be reformed. No one can doubt the courage or sincerity of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. But it’s little short of suicidal to drop a Medicare reform package-- even a voucher plan that would be optional for those currently older than 55-- into tough budget negotiations stymied over Republican demands for deep spending cuts. Democrats have some experience with older voters going ballistic, even with changes that wouldn’t affect them.

For many seniors, doing anything to Medicare that can’t be portrayed as an increase is essentially a cut, and they will fight it to their last breath. From a political standpoint, Medicare reform is very dangerous territory. House Republicans are not just pushing the envelope-- they are soaking it with lighter fluid and waving a match at it.

One can understand why Republicans are pushing so hard. Their base is demanding that they do so. And if congressional Republicans resist, many of them can look forward to primary opposition next year. But it seems that GOP members of Congress have become so consumed with pleasing their base that they are ignoring general-election voters and the independents who drive the wild gyrations in American politics.

Congressional Republicans would be well advised to pay attention to the results of the latest Pew Research Center poll (conducted March 30 to April 3 among 1,057 adults) that asked Americans whether they would prefer that their lawmakers stand by their principles even if it meant that the government would shut down, or whether they would rather have their lawmakers compromise on a budget even if they didn’t agree with it. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the tea party movement, 68 percent said they would rather have a lawmaker who stands by his or her principles. But among all Republicans, only 50 percent said stand by their principles, while 43 percent said compromise. Among all adults, 55 percent said compromise; among independents, 53 percent said compromise, with 36 percent siding with the principles option.

The bottom line: GOP primary voters are very different from general-election voters. It would be a very shortsighted strategy for Republican members-- especially those in swing districts-- to focus too much on primary voters. A lot of Democrats did the same thing in 2009 and 2010. Many are now former members of Congress.

Wisconsin Voters Express Their Disdain For Republican Overreach On GOP Candidates

No reader of DWT could have possibly been taken by surprise when a compendium of Ayn Rand's tawdry novels came to life as a Republican action plan to disembowel the New Deal, courtesy of her top congressional acolyte, the very light Paul Ryan. There are good reasons Paul Krugman has accused him of peacockery and dubbed him the Flim Flam Man, and christened him Ryan The Ridiculous yesterday but, in truth, these are the same reasons Wall Street loves Paul Ryan above all its other willing and eager shills in both parties. The nonsense and fantasy he presented yesterday cuts Medicare and other vital programs in order to finance a huge tax cut for people who don't really need it. Don't expect to hear the corporate media echoing that point; they're paid very handsomely not to.

Ryan wasn't on the ballot in Wisconsin yesterday. Neither was his pal, Scott Walker. But unless they're kidding themselves, the two class warriors for the ruling elite must have gotten loud, clear messages from Wisconsin voters as they watched the race for Walker's old job as Milwaukee County Executive end in an absolute rout for the GOP. With 99% of the votes counted little known Democrat Chris Abele beat Walker crony Jeff Stone 130,063 (60%) to 86,100. That's a pure anti-Walker landslide, especially because Abele stumbled his way through the campaign. Stone is best known for having introduced-- twice-- a Voter ID bill that is meant to hold down minority voting. Minorities turned out big time last night-- not so much for Abele as against Stone and Walker.

Before Walker and the GOP went off the deep end and declared war on working Wisconsin families, there was a non-partisan, open primary to elect a Supreme Court judge. That was Just 2 months ago, February 15, and the well-known Republican incumbent, David Prosser, was way out ahead with 55%. A little known Assistant Attorney General JoAnn Kloppenburg came in second with 25%. It looked like Prosser would glide to victory in the runoff. Last night he didn't glide anywhere but to a 50-50 stalemate. A judicial doppelganger of Walker and Ryan he, like Stone, is a victim of Walker's over reach and the fact that for many Wiconsinites the Republican brand has been turned to shit. Prosser had bragged that "This election is about a 4-3 commonsense conservative majority vs. a 3-4 liberal majority, and nothing more.” Two days ago he ran to Greta Van Susteren on Fox to beg Fox viewers to turn out, asking even them to not think about Scott Walker when they were in the voting booth. That's a real 180 from when he was braying that he would "serve as a complement to Scott Walker" just a few short months ago. There has been heavy spending from third-party groups and the Koch Bros have funneled a fortune into a media blitz on behalf of Prosser who was badly wounded when it came out he actively participated in covering up for a serial rapist in the Catholic Church, who was shunted off to rape more young boys after Prosser refused to prosecute him.


Prosser's 180 notwithstanding, on the eve of the election Walker's chief counsel, Brian Hagedorn, sent a vicious e-mail to Republicans urging them to vote for Prosser, saying keeping him on the court is essential to advancing Walker's agenda.

Here are the results in the 10 biggest counties. The first number is Obama's 2008 percentage, followed by Walker's 2010 percentage, followed by Kloppenberg's percentage last night:

Dane (Madison)- Obama- 73%; Walker- 31%; Klopperburg- 73%

Fond du Lac- Obama 45%; Walker- 64%; Klopperburg- 39%

Kenosha- Obama- 59%; Walker- 51%; Klopperburg- 53%

Marathon (Wausau)- Obama- 54%; Walker- 58%; Klopperburg- 46%

Milwaukee- Obama- 67%; Walker- 38%; Klopperburg- 57%

Outagamie (Appleton)- Obama- 55%; Walker- 54%; Klopperburg- 43%

Racine- Obama- 53%; Walker- 56%; Klopperburg- 44%

Rock (Janesville)- Obama- 64%; Walker- 46%; Klopperburg- 60%

Waukesha- Obama- 37%; Walker- 72%; Klopperburg- 27%

Winnebago (Oshkosh)- Obama- 55%; Walker- 54%; Klopperburg- 48%

Statewide- Obama- 56%; Walker- 52%; Klopperburg- 50%
This morning AP reports Prosser with 736,878 to Kloppenburg's 736,043, too close to call. Absentee ballots will have to be counted and there will be a recount. Meanwhile, Wisconsin voters in Ryan's district came out strongly for Kloppenburg-- and starting today they're seeing this:



Moments before publication of this post:

What Are You Doing Monday?

You made it to April. It's been tumultuous but the new Gallup poll that came out yesterday shows that most Americans are not enthralled with what the sociopathic breed of new Republican governors-- Snyder (MI), LePage (ME), Scott (FL), Walker (WI), Christie (NJ), Corbett (PA) and Kasich (OH)-- have been trying to do to undercut ordinary working families in their states. Less than 40% of Americans-- and only 33% of women-- support their bloodthirsty jihads against unions. and Monday there will be a national day of action to support the basic rights we all have to come together and bargain collectively with the high and mighty would could crush us all individually. Hundreds of thousands of working people are coming together on April 4 to honor the anniversary of Dr. King’s death in Memphis, where he was assassinated while supporting striking sanitation workers, and to commemorate his lifelong commitment to civil and labor rights. So far there are close to 900 events currently listed on the We Are One website.

People are energized after seeing what ideologues-- not just the crazies on the extreme right in Washington like Paul Broun, Michele Bachmann and Steve King-- in their own states are trying to do. The We Are One activities Monday offer a huge range of events-- over 150 teach-ins, hundreds of worksite mobilizations, community forums, vigils, visibility in towns-- whatever people wanted to do to best show their solidarity. There are events in all 50 states, and folks in Paris, Mongolia, and Afghanistan have reached out to add their events as well! People are galvanized-- something that's reflected in the success the Wisconsin grassroots is having in the arduous task of gathering recall signatures for Walker's Republican senators-- while the Koch-funded/Mormon backed GOP efforts have flopped. Yesterday Wisconsin reached the requisite number of signatures for the first of their targets Dan Kapanke of La Crosse.

Recall organizer Pat Scheller said volunteers have gathered more than the 15,588 signatures needed and that they plan to take them to Madison after a noon rally today at La Crosse City Hall.

It is expected to be the first completed of 19 active recall efforts registered between Feb. 24 and March 2 against 16 senators.

Kapanke did not return messages Thursday, but has said the recall is “part of the process.”

Wisconsin has been in the headlines. And governors as bad as Walker in Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Arizona, etc have kept those states in the national headlines as well. But as off the rails New Hampshire went last November-- elected two right-wing congressmen and a corporate shill for a senator AND huge GOP majorities in the state legislature, a moderate governor, John Lynch (D) has been able to tamp down the worst mischief these nihilists have been up to. Remember, New Hampshire legislators were quick off the mark to try to take the national spotlight of right-wing insanity away from Kasich, Brewer, Walker, et al.

There are currently 19 Republicans and only 5 Democrats in the state Senate while the Republicans hold a 298-104 advantage over the Democrats in the lower house. And Republicans have moved quickly to put New Hampshire back on a right-wing, pre-2006 course. They are working towards overturning marriage equality, reinstating the death penalty, cutting back on women's choice, and putting up barriers to union organizing. [T]he Boston Globe reported that the state legislature is moving towards taking away students' right to vote.

Yesterday our old pal in Concord, Colin Van Ostern, published an OpEd in several of the state's leading newspapers decrying the damage the teabag-crazed Republicans are doing to business in New Hampshire.

Wake up, New Hampshire business leaders. Our state's technology-- and manufacturing-- based economy was strong enough to weather the national recession. But can it really withstand the foolhardiness of the New Hampshire Legislature?

After Gov. John Lynch proposed a downright conservative budget that would have made yesterday's Republicans let out a victory cheer, today's new partisans couldn't help themselves. Community technical colleges that fuel our state's labor force? Millions more in cuts. Lynch's proposal to boost the successful research and development tax credit? Gone.

As if to prove their zeal is unrelated to any genuine interest in balanced budgets, the House at the very same time is boosting spending on its own political staff by $1.4 million and repealing $16 million in cigarette tax revenue. Is this really the best way to strengthen our state's economy? Cut technical education and R&D so that we can fund more political staffers and make a pack of cigarettes a dime cheaper?

In the state budget debate thus far, outside light has rightly been shined on the dangerous cuts to our social safety net, and much heat has been generated by the undemocratic efforts to strip public workers of collective bargaining rights. But away from the light and heat of those debates, the Legislature's decision-making reveals a naive disregard for our state's economic climate - which should be their top priority.

Earlier this month, the state Business and Industry Association and New Hampshire High Technology Council released an investigation by the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies into our state's critical economic sector: smart manufacturing and high-tech companies. The 47-page report analyzes the competitive advantages, challenges and opportunities facing the SMHT industries, which contribute one in every five payroll dollars in the state.

The business report concludes with four policy recommendations, including three that are specifically ignored - or worse, undermined-- by the New Hampshire House budget. To preserve our economic advantage, lawmakers should be "[1] encouraging workforce development and education, [2] investing in infrastructure, and [3] implementing tax policies that promote manufacturing and high tech growth."

In fact, the report's conclusions specifically cite the success of research and development tax credits and point to the need for robust technical education to maintain a well-educated workforce that will fuel continued economic growth. In other words, New Hampshire's employers are asking state lawmakers point-blank not to make the state economy a casualty of their anti-government zeal.

These are not partisan recommendations. If anything, the business community is a traditionally Republican-leaning force in politics. But today's New Hampshire Legislature is systematically ignoring their good advice. Even when no government spending is involved, the Legislature is on an anti-government crusade-- such as their work to lower the minimum dropout age.

When the state increased the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 a few years ago, the high school dropout rate plunged. The number of students leaving high school early was roughly cut in half. It didn't cost tax dollars-- it was just smart policy. And now, given the choice between more students graduating from high school or happy Free Staters who simply oppose any government regulations at all, the Legislature is choosing the Free Staters.

Like Walter Peterson and Jeanne Shaheen before him, John Lynch knows that a governor's job is to put competency first and ideology second. That's why he is so popular (and, by the way, it is why he should not rule out running for re-election in 2012). But under Speaker Bill O'Brien, the House of Representatives has adopted the opposite of the Lynch method: It is putting ideology over competency. If the state Senate can't summon up the courage to stand up to the House, it risks losing the future for our state.

And back to Monday, here are just a few of the hundreds of public activities taking place involving AFT members and leaders:

April 4- Rally in Philadelphia at Temple University to protest budget cuts proposed by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. AFT President Randi Weingarten will speak at the event.

April 4- March and rally in downtown San Francisco. AFT Secretary-Treasurer Antonia Cortese will speak at the rally.

April 6–8- AFT Washington and a large coalition of civil rights groups, immigrant rights groups, labor unions, student groups and faith-based groups will convene three days of action on the Capitol grounds in Olympia, Wash.

April 9- New York State United Teachers will lead a rally to support workers’ rights in Times Square in New York City. AFT President Randi Weingarten will speak at the event.

April 9- Thousands of union members and progressive allies are expected for an all-Illinois rally in downtown Chicago.

The American Federation of Teachers, and most Americans, are pissed off that the wealthy and their pawns in politics and the media are bashing and blaming teachers and other public employees for state and even federal budget problems they did not cause, They're pointing out that the unhinged Republican governors, using their budget crises, are trying to eliminate the voice of educators, nurses, firefighters and other public employees in their workplaces and to recklessly cut education funding and other public services. A particularly egregious example is the move by Rick Scott to slash payments for group homes and other rehabilitation organizations for people with disabilities in the Medicaid waiver program.

AFT affiliates are sponsoring or participating in hundreds of “We are One” events nationwide next week to fight for economic dignity and fairness, so that those who have the least get the most help, and to ensure that the services we deliver are the best they can be. More than 38,000 people also took the pledge on the AFT’s website to make a difference and stand together with the union and its allies by participating in activities to support fairness, economic and educational opportunity, justice, democracy and workers’ voice.

“This is a time for our nation to turn to public employees, instead of turning against them. But we can’t do it all. To govern is to choose-- and some governors across the country are making damaging choices,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said. “These political ideologues have launched an all-out assault on the men and women who teach our children, care for our sick, and keep our neighborhoods clean and safe.”

“This is not just a moment in time but a movement by citizens of all stripes who are standing up and fighting for democracy, fairness, and policies that put the needs of everyday people ahead of politics and profits,” Weingarten said.

Republicans Who Thought They Or Their Agenda Were Popular Last Year Were Sorely Mistaken

What the GOP is doing in Congress and in state after state where they managed to grab governorships and state legislatures last year is the most classic case of overreach anyone has ever seen. Voters may have been disappointed in Democrats and, certainly Koch cash had been used to rile up the toothless and the brainless among us, but as a society we didn't vote in November to defund NPR, Planned Parenthood, public education and solar energy, nor did we make a decision to gut all social progress since Teddy Roosevelt's day. But that's precisely what extremists like John Kasich, Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Paul LePage, Rick Scott, Jan Brewer, Nathan Deal and Rick Perry-- to name some of the worst-- are trying to do... not to mention the sociopaths in Washington from Jim DeMint to John Boehner. And the voters are pissed off. Still, serious people interested in the smooth functioning of government and, more important, society at large have to consider how to deal or negotiate with this rampaging mob of entitled nihilists in suits and ties.

Newt Gingrich may not be serious about running for president-- most astute observers say he's just looking to bolster the bottom line of his professional fundraising scam-- but that doesn't stop him from continuing to lob bombs and croak out destructive advice to any reactionaries willing to listen. It's the perfect exemplar of why Obama, not to mention Harry Reid, are having so much difficulty negotiating with Republicans-- who, after all, have a vested interest in failure and collapse, not progress and success. They've pained themselves into a corner: if the economy gets better, if America prospers-- they lose. Gingrich is urging Republicans in the House and Senate "to package the debt ceiling increase with the repeal of the health care reform law and dare Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama to oppose it... [He] challenged Obama to support the combined measure or risk an economic crisis if the U.S. does not raise the debt ceiling soon." But, he's always been a shit down the government kind of guy.

“I personally favor passing the repeal of Obamacare, putting it on the debt ceiling, going to the country. The House Republicans have the votes to put it in the debt ceiling. They should do it very early. And then they should go to the country and focus attention on the Democrats in the Senate. There are 23 Democratic seats up in 2012,” Gingrich said, according to a transcript of the interview. “And we ought to try to bring enough pressure to bear on individual Democrats like [Sens.] Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bill Nelson of Florida that we are able to actually get the repeal of Obamacare through the Senate, and then say to the president, if you want to meet your constitutional obligations and avoid a crisis on the debt ceiling, you either have to sign the repeal of Obamacare, or you have to provide a comparable $2 trillion in savings.”

Gingrich also said House GOP leaders should not fear the backlash over a government shutdown, contending that the shutdown of 1995 paid dividends for Congressional Republicans in the 1996 elections. The government would shut down on April 9 unless Members reach a deal on a long-term spending plan or agree to pass another continuing resolution.

“I don’t understand the fear that’s involved. We were elected in 1994 under the 'Contract With America.' Part of the contract was to balance the federal budget. We set out to balance the federal budget. The Clinton White House did not want to initially and fought us over it. There was a government shutdown,” Gingrich said. “When we got to the election of 1996, no Republican House had been re-elected as a majority since 1928. And after the shutdown, we were re-elected as a majority. We lost a net of two seats from what we had won in 1994. And so I wonder, when people say to me, ‘Boy, that was really politically expensive,’ my question is to who? Our base wanted somebody who was serious, and this is part of what’s going on in the country right now. People are serious about controlling spending. They are serious about repealing Obamacare.”

This was an interesting headline in one of the Beltway trade papers yesterday: Pew Poll: Obama Would Deliver Shellacking To Generic Republican. And the actual ones are worse than the theory of one! I've never been a fan of Rahm Emanuel's and I bristled last year when he dismissed progressive complaints about Obama with a curt, smug "Where are they gonna go?" Looks like he was right.

House GOP Decides-- On A Strictly Party-Line Vote-- To DeFund NPR

In violation of his own 72 hour rule, Boehner forced through a vote yesterday to defund National Public Radio, using as a pretext the doctored, trumped up, and utterly irrelevent tapes manufactured by a discredited (even by Glenn Beck!) far right-wing stalker. As easy as it may be to take in eager acolytes like Boehner and Cantor and their dysfunctional caucus, House Rules Committee Ranking Member Louise Slaughter (D-NY) refused to be distracted by their circus:

“This bill has not received one iota of input from the American public. Instead Republicans are rushing a bill through what they describe as an emergency meeting of the Rules Committee and violating their own pledge to allow 72 hours for members to ‘read the bill’. There have been no committee hearings or markups. This is hardly the open and deliberative process we were promised by the majority.”

“NPR plays a valuable role in providing millions of Americans with in-depth reporting and is often the only source of reliable news in rural parts of the country. NPR doesn’t try to blur the line between opinion, fact and political agenda. It is under attack in the name of fiscal responsibility and yet a preliminary report by the Congressional Budget Office has determined the legislation does absolutely nothing to reduce the deficit. With millions of Americans still unemployed, we can’t afford to fritter away valuable time pandering to a few far-right ideologues.”

Although NPR is crucial to under-served rural communities across the country where radio is a vast wasteland of nothing but religious indoctrination and Hate Talk hysteria, it was Manhattan's Jerry Nadler who put forward the most cogent analysis yesterday of what the GOP was up to:

“Today’s action by House Republicans to defund NPR is absolutely outrageous. NPR provides critical news and information to millions of people throughout the country, and federal funding to maintain its programming is supported by the vast majority of Americans. 
 
“This is just the latest assault by the House Republicans to cut funding based NOT on what will save the most money, but on what will score the most political points. It is reckless, irresponsible, and shameful. In fact, the Republican assault on accurate information is simply breathtaking. The Republican Party is clearly acting in response to politically motivated vendettas against perceived pillars of liberal strength.
 
“The Republicans are not trying to create jobs, they are not acting in the best interests of the middle class, and they are not focusing on the economy. Instead, they are running the House based on a severely regressive and narrow-minded ideology. Shame on them.”

This was the statement the White House released just before the vote:

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 1076, which would unacceptably prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the use of Federal funds by public radio stations to acquire radio content. As part of the President’s commitment to cut spending, the President’s Budget proposed targeted reductions in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small amount of funding for NPR, and the Administration has expressed openness to other spending reductions that are reasonable. However, CPB serves an important public purpose in supporting public radio, television, and related online and mobile services. The vast majority of CPB’s funding for public radio goes to more than 700 stations across the country, many of them local stations serving communities that rely on them for access to news and public safety information. Undercutting funding for these radio stations, notably ones in rural areas where such outlets are already scarce, would result in communities losing valuable programming, and some stations could be forced to shut down altogether.

In the end the Democrats offered a motion to recommit that failed-- strictly along party lines-- 184-235 and then Doug Lamborn, the radical right congressman from Colorado Springs, presented his defunding resolution, H.R. 1076 (no cosponsors) which passed 228-192. Every single Democrat plus seven lonely Republicans, primarily from rural districts with a great deal of NPR-listenership-- Sean Duffy (WI), Chris Gibson (NY), Richard Hanna (NY), Steve LaTourette (OH), Dave Reichert (WA), Patrick Tiberi (OH) and Rob Woodall (GA)-- voted NO and teabagger Justin Amash (R-MI) voted "Present." Is this what voters thought they would be getting when they made their decisions in November? Here's Anthony Weiner mocking the GOP for their inability to do anything for the country other than partisan bullshit like defunding... Click & Clack:

Scott Walker, John Kasich And Their GOP Colleagues Want You To Share A Bunch Of Sacrifices... And STFU

New polling in Wisconsin indicates that there may soon-- although perhaps not soon enough-- be a lot fewer Republican state senators in the legislature. Right wing fanatic Dan Kapanke, for example, who tried unsuccessfully to defeat conservative Democratic Congressman Ron Kind in November, is probably going to be looking for honest employment for the first time in his life. Greg Sargent reports that "57 percent said they'd vote for someone else, versus only 41 percent who said they'd vote for Kapanke" and that was in a poll taken before the outrageous and extremely unpopular over reach that Kapanke helped Walker work out Wednesday night. Over reach that Keith Olberman described like this Wednesday evening:

Still having never learned to be calm, retract their claws, and sit around and act rationally in a situation that calls for panic, Wisconsin’s Republicans and their Corporate Puppeteers tonight guaranteed themselves an unprecedented and disastrous recall next January.

More over, they also guaranteed themselves that any cloak of stealth under which they have operated in their attacks on teachers, firefighters, policemen, unions, and the settled law of collective bargaining, has been stripped away. If you pass a supposedly urgent “budget repair” bill with key budget components cut from it, you forfeit the fiction that you are doing anything remedial, anything essential, anything except a naked power grab on behalf of corporations who will get the money stolen from organized labor-- civic or private.

And further, when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick-- after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation-- when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.

Like us, Bob Reich was quick to cast the GOP move in Wisconsin as a virtual coup d’etat, pointing out that their actions have "have laid bare the motives... By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn’t be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their goal has had nothing whatever to do with the state budget. It’s been to bust the unions." Labor leaders are calling Walker the greatest organizing tool of the decade, probably more so even than George W. Bush. And John Kasich (OH), Paul LePage (ME), Rick Snyder (MI) and Rick Scott (FL), to name just a few, are determined that they get a piece of Walker's spotlight. No one even thinks about southwestern sociopaths Jan Brewer (AZ) or Rick Perry (TX) any longer, although both are up to as much harmful mischief as Rick Scott and the Midwestern trio. It's all about "shared sacrifice"-- poor people sharing sacrifice while our political elites and 400 wealthy families share the stolen, un-taxed riches of America.

[Poll] after poll shows that, in fact, Americans are far more concerned with unemployment and favor surtaxes on the wealthy to close the deficit. And so, from time to time, these gilded Regular Joes are forced to regretfully admit that sometimes the people are like dotty old relatives who “just don’t get it” or that they just want a “free lunch”-- after which they promptly forget those findings and go back to pretending that the American people see things exactly the way they do. 

Even worse than that is the common assertion by these millionaire pundits that “we all” must sacrifice for the greater good and allow Social Security to be slashed. This is usually spoken with such a tone of lugubrious forbearance that one imagines they would like us to believe that while they might be forced to become Wal-Mart greeters in their elder years, patriotic duty demands we all pitch in. They seem to have no idea that the median wage in this country in 2009 was $26,261-- sadly, lower than it was in the year 2000. (Even when you average in the billionaires, it was only $39,269.) Clearly, the average political TV host takes home many times that wage, so this idea that “we” are all “sharing” in the proposed sacrifices is a bit much, particularly in light of the recent extension of the Bush tax cuts, hailed in the media as the greatest piece of legislation since the founding of the republic. 

Now, it’s true that these powerful media figures would get a smaller Social Security check and have to kick in more for their Medicare just like the rest of us if these programs are cut. But it’s highly unlikely they will suffer the same financial pinch as the person scraping together a retirement income based on a paltry Social Security benefit and whatever he’s managed to salvage from his wrecked 401(k) and lost housing equity. 

It’s very easy to prescribe “shared sacrifice” when you will not personally sacrifice anything at all.