Out With The Old, In With The Old

I expect we'll be seeing a whole lot more stories like this one and this one complaining about Republicans wasting money now that the R's are in charge of the House. These are the same people digging us into trillion-dollar holes less than a month ago, but we do have a word for that: democrisy.

People on the left wonder why we can't take them seriously, and it's probably because their such freakin' hypocrites (among other things). Their faux concern for the poor--the ones they can manipulate best--coupled with their utter contempt for those who actually create jobs and push the economy leaves any smart person rolling their eyes. How could any serious person take them seriously? I mean, stunts like this one, from the group of job-killers that just got ousted, is laughable at best. Cue derisive laughter.

It would have been too much to ask that Democrats stop behaving like Democrats even for a day. I realize that. But watching them try to explain why the 2/3 lock on government they have doesn't make them responsible for everything in Washington is pretty disgusting.

Good-bye and Good Riddance to the 111th Congress

What a mess Democrats have made of things over the last two years. It's not wrong to remind Americans what Democrats have done to them over the course of the last four years: high and long-term unemployment, reckless and pointless spending, increased job-killing regulation and more intrusion into our lives. Worse was the arrogance with which Democrats did all these monstrous things to us. This Wall Street Journal piece sums it up nicely:

For today's left, the main goal of politics is not to respond to public opinion. The goal is to impose the dream of an egalitarian entitlement state whether the public likes it or not. Sooner or later, they figure, the anger will subside and Americans will come to like the cozy confines of the cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Democrats are betting that once Americans start receiving "free" medical care, the demands for higher taxes on "the rich" will be overwhelming. And who knows? They might be right. When 1/2 of Americans aren't paying any income taxes at all and demanding more services, it's hard to argue that they won't want someone else to pay even more for them. My hope is that Americans truly aren't so stupid and greedy as Democrats rely on them to be.

Prediction: Filibuster Reform Will Be About Principle...

Until Republicans control the Senate.

Liberals love the arcane rules of Congress until those rules start gnawing their own posteriors. Then, of course, it's an abuse of power. Kinda like recess appointments and executive orders were during the Bush administration. It was a crime when GWB did it, but liberals embrace these tactics now Their Guy is in charge. I expect the same to be true in the 112th Congress.

Here's What Democrats Will Be Doing for the Next 2 Years

Namely, complaining that Republicans have a voice in government.

If the Villager victory dance over this deal today is any indication, liberals have just been dealt completely out of the narrative and it's now simply a battle between conservatives, Tea Partiers and the president. And all the important parties agree that it is a perfect template for future "compromise."

I suppose in Digby's eyes compromise previously was telling Republicans to shut up and vote for their budget-busting, economy-cratering ideas.

Then there was this:

Of course, you have to keep in mind that the Republicans gave up nothing real in this deal. Since they never expected to keep the estate tax at zero all they gave up was a fake desire to make the tax cuts permanent -- they always wanted the issue for the election -- and an equally phony pose that they didn't want to extend unemployment.(Even they aren't dumb enough to pull that much money out of the economy at the moment) That's it, the full extent of their contribution to the "compromise." So keep your eyes peeled for the next irrelevant shiny object they throw out to the Democrats as compromise bait. I'm sure they have them all lined up.

Digby's wrong, of course, about what Republicans wanted from the Deal. Republicans did, in fact, want the threat of tax increases gone and didn't want the death tax reinstated at all. As for unemployment, there's debate about whether letting people live on the dole as long as desired is a good thing or not (it's really not, but liberals think you want everyone to starve if you point out human nature and the tendency not to change until forced to). And does Digby honestly think $313 billion in extra spending is an "irrelevant shiny object"? This from the same people complainig about not raising taxes in a recession.

I think the compromise was as good a deal as Barack Obama was going to get and he took it. Republicans possibly could have done better in the next Congress, but that would have required allowing tax rates to jump January 1, along with the attendant bad press, and I can't see John Boehner wanting that to be the new face of the Republican-Controlled House (although Democrats would love it).

One thing the crying and whining from Democrats over the last six weeks makes clear is that anything that doesn't add more debt and make people more dependent is going to be viewed as Making People Starve. I'm sure there are some non-thinking people who will find this appealing, but most people are going to see fiscal restraint as a good thing.

Eric Boehlert Needs Some Cheese With His Whine

Media Matters' resident jerk Eric Boehlert is complaining because journalists don't call Senate Republicans "obstructionists" at every reference. I have to say, given journalists' usual penchant for demeaning R's, it is a little surprising that one doesn't see this term in every news story, but I chalk that up to nuance.

Boehlert's complaint goes to the heart of the liberal view of the MSM. It isn't there to report what happens. Reporters are there to shape what you think of the news. So, if Democrats, say, run across the border to stop redistricting in Texas, that's not labelled "obstructionist," but Senate Republicans exercising their right to shape the legislative agenda is.

What makes Boehlert's complaint so silly is that the problem isn't Senate Republicans; it's Harry Reid, who didn't have to bring up other legislation to challenge Republicans. And if anyone thinks Democrats in a similar situation wouldn't use the filibuster to block particularly noxious legislation, they're delusional. The difference is that the country is closer to Republican ideas than the poisonous, disasterous legislation Democrats have tried to cram through Congress. Besides, Democrats poisoned this well with the Obamacare votes--particularly on Christmas Eve--and it's a little late to complain about civility now.

From Health Care...

To feeding your kids.

Because the government knows better than you do.

Liberal Think

When the Senate voted against cloture on the bill for money for the 9/11 responders health care, liberals were (as is their usual stance these days) outraged. From an acquaintance on Facebook:

Sure, let's all quit paying taxes. If you want to drive somewhere, your backyard is as good a place as any. Who needs an educated populace or wants to bring crime down and production up by making it available to everyone. Let's let senio...rs die of disease and hunger. Not to mention children eating free and reduced lunch. All while their parents make less and less to feed the coffers of those who are most wealthy, because they are "entitled" even with all the infrastructure provided by the government - Federally insured deposits, government loans, tax cuts for sending jobs abroad, roads, bridges - to keep their "own" money. Because by gawd, these are self-made people who made their own way. Bullshit.

You get that? If you think Congress should have to figure out how to pay for the goodies it hands out, you want children and old people to starve. This kind of disgusting behavior has worked well over the years for Democrats, but it's time to call bullshit on their "Bullshit!" screams.

Nobody's talking about recinding all taxes. This kind of extremist argument is self-serving only. Believing that raising taxes in a recession, and that the Senate's first responsibility is to deal with the tax cut issue, isn't the same as wanting infrastructure to lapse.

What we have here is the classic problem of willful two-year-olds. Anyone who's had children recognizes the symptoms.

1. Child misbehaves.
2. Parent redirects child to appropriate behavior.
3. Child continues misbehaviing.
4. Parent redirects child to appropriate behavior, reinforcing the solution to the problem.
5. Repeat Steps 1-4 again, then child throws temper tantrum.

What we're seeing is the temper tantrum ("You can't make us deal with tax issues first!").

I don't mind taxation for things the federal government should be doing, but the Facebook comment above shows why liberalism leads to economic and personal slavery. Not only is your government responsible for national security and keeping the streets paved, but ensuring that all children eat breakfast and lunch at school (which, these days, has nothing to do with starvation or poverty) and old people--with or without resources--are comfortable.

The Next Time Liberals Mock Republican Infidelity

Remind them that Democrats have sex with their daughters.

Liberal Lies on Taxes

Here is just one of the lies Democrats tell about tax rates (and expect to see this chart everywhere):

The idea is that, somehow, only millionaires benefit from extending all the Bush tax cuts. But the reality is, more people benefit under Republican policies than Democrat ones. The difference is that Democrats don't want everyone to benefit. They want to play class warfare and call small business owners making $250,000 "millionaires."

The Democrats' Tax Cut Dilemma

Nate Silverman (not my favorite pollster) has an interesting article on the dilemma facing Democrats over raising taxes (by letting the Bush tax cuts expire on someone or anyone). What popped out at me first was this statement:

It’s a little bit more difficult to identify the preferences of Democrats, because there are more divisions within the party: between the president and Congress, between moderate Democrats and liberal ones, between Democrats who are electorally vulnerable and those who aren’t. It is safe to say, however, that on balance, the Democrats would prefer to extend the tax cuts only below the $250,000 threshold, and not above it.

This goes with something Aphrael said last week, which was that to many Democrats, raising taxes only on a segment of the populace is a compromise, because some Dems would like all the tax cuts to expire. At the time, I didn't really give this much thought, because it seemed crazy to me that in a bad economy, there were people who wanted to raise taxes on everyone, including the poorest people. But in the last day or so, I've heard arguments from some liberals that amount to the same thing; these are people complaining that we need to go back to "Eisenhower era" tax rates or "Reagan era" tax rates.

The people making this argument, of course, are only concerned about the top marginal rate and how much "the rich" will pay. But the truth is that going back to the tax rates of the Eisenhower administration wouldn't have quite the effect liberals want. For one thing, that 92% tax rate was for people making millions of dollars. And, as with raising tax rates back to the levels of Ronald Reagan, there were significantly more loopholes in the tax system so that virtually no one paid that higher rate.

Ronald Reagan's tax plan was drastic because it cut out most tax shelters (for example, no more credit card interest deductions) while flattening the rate structure. But there would be at least one unintended consequence to going back to either of these levels: it would hurt the working poor.

If Congress passed a new tax law pushing the rates back to Eisenhower (or Reagan) levels and Barack Obama signed it, items like the Earned Income Tax Credit and higher deductions for children would go away, not to mention that tax rates would go up for just about everyone. Even Silverman notes that letting all the Bush tax cuts expire would detrimentally affect everyone in a bad economy, which is why there is almost no talk about doing it.

So why are some liberals still talking about this idea like it is the cure-all we've been needing? My only guess is that the fringe left is so wedded to the idea of sticking it to "the rich" that they aren't concerned about the consequences their policies would have for everyone else. That policy isn't even sane and is far more cruel than anything the Evil Republicans can dream up.

Raising Taxes, By Any Other Name (Including "Letting Tax Cuts Expire"), Is Raising Taxes

Voters R Stooopid

That's what liberals always say when voters choose Republicans over Democrats.

At a recent discussion on the Nov. 2 election hosted by the local Society for Professional Journalists, UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin was expounding on why Republicans emerged triumphant, in Wisconsin and throughout the land.
In my questions to Franklin, I noted that the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who'll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.
Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point. "I'm not endorsing the American voter," he answered. "They're pretty damn stupid."

Liberals think that anyone who isn't a millionaire should vote for them so the voter can take the millionaire's money. But voters understand that when Democrats promise to screw over only "the rich," the voter is going to get screwed. Why? Because "the rich" employ a lot of those voters or sell goods to those voters who will end up paying for the screwing.

Liberals mock anyone who votes for candidates based on more than their personal prurient interest (such as the pro-lifer who votes for candidates who don't think babies are fair game until kindergarten). Yet the same liberals argued all through the past election cycle that voters should vote for Democrats because of Obamacare (which wasn't supposed to affect anyone who already had insurance *snicker*), immigration and race issues.

In 2006 and 2008, Democrats lied to voters about what they would do and what would happen if Democrats were voted into office. They promised not to raise taxes, then promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year, then about who were the uninsured, whose health insurance would change and whose would not, and how much it would cost (remember when Democrats said you could have healthcare like Congress?). Democrats lied about the stimulus bill and unemployment. They flipped off every American over Obamacare, and now they have the nerve to argue that the voters are stupid for not wanting more Democrat bullshit?

Democrats have insulted voters for years (remember What's the Matter with Kansas?) when voters use their brains to vote out Democrats. Let's hope Democrats will have more opportunities to insult the electorate in 2012.

How to Balance the Budget

Barack Obama's bipartisan commission has released an outline of its recommendations to reduce the national debt.

The plan calls for deep cuts in domestic and military spending, a gradual 15-cents-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax, limiting or eliminating popular tax breaks in return for lower rates, and benefit cuts and an increased retirement age for Social Security.

Among the popular tax breaks to disappear is the home mortgage deduction, the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit.

Liberals like Echidne are wringing their hands at the idea of the home mortgage deduction going away because--gosh--rich people don't care about home mortgage deductions.

Take the mortgage deductions for an example. They have always been a bit tricky to justify from an equality point of view, because they give a tax cut to those who can afford to buy rather than to rent and because the size of the price reduction they create is larger the more taxes you would otherwise pay.

But removing that deduction will also have odd equality effects: It's the middle classes who depend on that deduction to buy a house. The rich don't need it to be able to afford to buy.

Reducing or eliminating the mortgage deductions, combined with tax cuts of the types shown here, will do -- what? They must mean a move towards a larger relative tax burden for the middle classes, unless public spending is really really slashed.

Well that's not really what would happen. To start with, people shouldn't be buying houses for the mortgage deduction, and if you can't afford the house, that deduction isn't going to help. Secondly, anyone who thinks rich people don't care about tax deductions is either blind, stupid, or willfully ignorant. Rich people take all the deductions they can get, just like middle class people. Isn't that why liberals were so anxious to raise the tax rates?

Of course, the commission's proposals gore everyone's ox, whether you are a tax-and-spend liberal or a military-lovin' conservative. And there's no account here of how these severe changes in taxing and spending would affect the economy. It will be interesting to see the debate to come.

See more opinion here.

I'm Sure Glad Glenn Beck's Rally Is Over

I just couldn't take any more of the civility and biparisanship on display from the Left.

What Is the Legal Argument at Ground Zero?

I'm going to steal this from Hugh Hewitt. It's an excellent explanation of the opposition to the Ground Zero mosque and the legal side of the argument.

The trouble is that opposition to one mosque in one place does not a bigot make, though certainly there are anti-Muslim bigots in America. The various straw men put forward and beaten down by Bloomberg et al serve only to deepen the anger of those opposed to one mosque in one place because of their concern over the politicization of Ground Zero, and the other line --taken by Pelosi in the comments above-- that the mosque at Ground Zero is a "local land use decision"-- is instantly understood as not only quite obviously absurd but also political cowardice, especially after the president entered the debate.

As a lawyer who has long represented churches and religious schools in land use disputes, the basic law is this: The government may not constitutionally treat one proposed religious land use differently from similarly situated other religious land uses, and the government may not single out religious land uses for discriminatory treatment in ways that uniquely burden those uses.

By contrast, the government can and does zone land to serve the general good,and in the course of doing that, it may treat religious land uses as one category of land use that will be treated in specific ways, provided those ways are not intended to burden or discriminate against that class of land uses or a particular denomination.

Thus New York City or the state or even the federal government could chose to protect the entire area around and including Ground Zero from all uses that are intended to exploit proximity of the hallowed ground to send messages of any sort. None of these governments could single out the Muslim faith for special burdens or prefer a different faith seeking a shrine nearby.

Neutral principles fairly applied are the heart of Free Exercise Clause's protection of religious land uses.

This approach is, for the benefit of the president's speech writers, a fairly recent development. "The writ of the Founders" did not, for example, stop the attempted extermination of the LDS church in the 19th century.

With Nancy Pelosi calling for investigations of anyone opposed to the mosque, we need to stop pretending that Democrats are simply misguided or have different views from Republicans and conservatives. If the demonization of the Tea Party and talk radio wasn't enough evidence, surely wanting to use the power of the federal government against people speaking their minds should. Nazi and communist references are worn, but, honestly, is there any other way to characterize calling for investigating people for speaking their minds about a national issue? This is, frankly, revolting, and Pelosi should be condemned for it.

Conservatives Aren't the Extreme Ones

Poor Democrats. At private fundraisers with no cameras or microphones, Barack Obama crows about passing the "most progressive agenda in decades," but in front of the cameras? No, he's a middle of the road guy. It's too bad he thinks Americans are so stupid they will fall for the tricks.

Fortunately, we have ads like this one to remind people who the extreme ones are.

Great Ad

Via Ace of Spades.

Howard Dean: Never Let Facts Get in the Way of a Good Talking Point

Especially when you get to bash Fox News.

A Video's Worth 1,000 Words

This video (the full version) tells the story that this viral video didn't.

The short of it: Shirley Sherrod tells a story at an NAACP meeting about her own racist attitude and behavior toward a white farmer she was supposed to help while working at a nonprofit. That's the story that made the circuit this morning.

But the real story was more nuianced, as the video shows. Unfortunately, the White House forced her to resign over this, which shows how scared they are of racial issues. This was clearly a case where the WH overreacted, which, given their usual languid response to issues (*cough* gulf oil spill *cough*), is unbelievable.

I Agree with Paul Krugman

Or, at least, his conclusion:

What I expect, instead, if and when the midterms go badly, is that the usual suspects will say that it was because Mr. Obama was too liberal — when his real mistake was doing too little to create jobs.

But, of course, Barack Obama hasn't done anything to create jobs precisely because of his liberalness. Obama has pursued a course that Americans have objected to vociferously, yet it has done nothing to stop the assault on the American economy.

Some of my friends argue that Obama seeks to ruin our economy and replace it with socialism, communism, or some form of dictatorship, but I'm not that conspiratorial. I do believe BO thinks his policies are best for solving the country's problems, but his answers are all wrong. While Krugman complains that the stimulus package was simply too small to turn around our economic woes, most of us recognize that personal bad economic times don't get better by continuing to rack up giant credit card bills. It gets better by (a) cutting spending and (b) increasing income. In the case of our country, this would mean holding the line on discretionary spending (no increases) and giving businesses incentives for hiring and producing. This could be accomplished in a variety of ways, including assuring businesses that you weren't going to add a bunch of new regulations that are going to cost them billions to implement (such as Obamacare).

Instead, what we have are Democrats behaving like Democrats, then shrugging when Americans reject it. For them, the problem isn't their arrogance and terrible policies; the problem is America.