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.

We Were in Favor of Oversight Before We Were Against It

Remember when oversight was the favorite word of Democrats? Back in 2006, Democrats were interested in oversight of the environment, welfare, and the FCC. Democrats were really hot for oversight when it meant trying to hobble a Republican president.

Of course, oversight is just another word for putting the brakes on stuff we don't like, which is why it's ok when we're exercising Congressional oversight powers over a Republican president (cuz he's gonna destroy us) but is a shocking power grab by the rat bastards when exercised by Republicans against a Democratic president. In this case, oversight comes in the form of a provision of the 1996 Congressional Review Act.

House Republicans will have carte blanche next year, and will be able to pass as many of these "resolutions of disapproval" as they want. The key is that a small minority in the Senate can force votes on them as well, and they require only simple-majority support to pass. If they can find four conservative Democrats to vote with them on these resolutions, they can force Obama to serially veto politically potent measures to block unpopular regulations, and create a chilling effect on the federal agencies charged with writing them.

Considering the midterm elections were all about reining in government, you'd think Democrats would be all squiggly about doing the will of the people and fulfilling their constitutional duties to provide oversight to the president. But that only applies if the president is a Republican. I'm sure Democrats will love any ramp-up of executive power as long as the guy wielding it has a "D" after his name.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Buh-Bye

The military's ridiculous Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is now history and that's only 15 years too late, IMO.

Call it a leftover from my more liberal days, but the military policy regarding homosexuals never made a lot of sense to me, especially once we weren't kicking people out for being homosexual (just for answering someone who asked if one were). I understand that Don't Ask, Don't Tell was just a compromise to force the government to stop punishing people for being in the military and being gay, but this policy always left me scratching my head.

These days, I'd just as soon everybody kept this information to themselves. You're gay? Fine. You can talk about your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your spouse and what y'all had for dinner. But I don't want a lecture about gay rights on Dancing With the Stars or any other television show I bother watching. That's about as equal as it gets around here.

UPDATE: I won't link to the stupid American Family Association which takes a "teh sky is falling!!1!!" approach to the subject of gay people in the military not hiding it anymore, but Confederate Yankee discusses the whole thing.

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.

The Presidency of Barack Obama Is History-Making For Many Reasons...

And encouraging opposition from your base is just the latest.

Modern presidents are never challenged from their base, always by the people who didn't love them going in. You're not supposed to get a serious primary challenge from the people who loved you. But that's the talk of what may happen with Mr. Obama.

I think this is still a lot of political thumb-sucking, personally, and the reason is found farther down in the article:

The Democrats' problem is that most of them know that the person who would emerge, who would challenge Mr. Obama from the left, would never, could never, win the 2012 general election. He'd lose badly and take the party with him. Democratic professionals know the mood of the country. Challenging Mr. Obama from the left would mean definitely losing the presidency, as opposed to probably losing the presidency.

Most of the things I read (from news sites and blogs, mainly) indicate that liberals are unhappy with Barack Obama, but the alternative from the GOP (Sarah Palin is always the boogey man) scares them enough to stay loyal to Obama. Republicans angry with the GOP, wanting to "teach them a lesson," stayed home in 2008. They didn't vote for the opposition. I can't imagine liberals wanting to destroy their party over DADT or tax cuts or the public option.

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.

New Poll: Americans Want Everything and Don't Want to Cut Anything

Brace yourselves, the great intellect of the American public has spoken and says it wants it all:

Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is “dangerously out of control,” only under two conditions: minimize the pain and make the rich pay.

The public wants Congress to keep its hands off entitlements such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, a Bloomberg National Poll shows. They oppose cuts in most other major domestic programs and defense. They want to maintain subsidies for farmers and tax breaks like the mortgage-interest deduction. And they’re against an increase in the gasoline tax.

The story goes on in that vein, explaining all the areas Americans don't want the federal government cut, and who they think should pay for it, namely, the mythical rich.

I agree that the cap on earnings covered by Social Security taxes should be lifted. But if Social Security is means tested, it will become just another welfare program and a lot of people in the middle class will be angry with the results. If you're making $75,000 a year, the system is going to tell you why you should be paying for yourself.

Charles Krauthammer called the latest tax deal the swindle of the year, but that hasn't stopped Democrats from scuttling the whole thing. It's probably a good thing Obama's letting Bill Clinton be president again.

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."

On the Tax Cut Deal...

I like it. Anything that pisses off so many liberals so quickly must be a good deal.

OTOH, it isn't perfect. The death tax is still there and much too high, and extending unemployment for another 13 months gives people another 13 months to sit around fretting and doing nothing about finding a job. It's not perfect but probably the best we could hope for.

The Painful Truth about Unemployment

This pathetic Think Progress piece reminds me why solving the unemployent problem is going to be so difficult. The TP loons are upset with Newt Gingrich for saying this:

I would agree to a short-term extension of unemployment. But I have proposed, since we spent $134 billion last year in unemployment, that we change the entire program into a worker training program and not give anybody money for doing nothing.

For me, the irony is that I had said something similar that very morning without knowing anything about Gingrich's idea. It simply makes sense to me that people unemployed for a year or more are going to be very hard to fit into today's job market and it's crazy to pay people not to work. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who will, in fact, do nothing until their unemployment runs out, and with the latest unemployment extensions, it means someone could be sitting around unemployed for nearly four years. Does anyone honestly think a person who hasn't worked in four years is going to find employment quickly after the unemployment checks quit coming?

Yet reading the Think Progress piece, you'd think we were talking about slave labor here, rather than getting people to be self-supporting again.

The economy grows by nearly two dollars for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits “because recipients typically spend all of their benefit payments quickly.” The money “ripples through the economy into supermarkets, gasoline stations, utilities, convenience stores.” Flush with the revenue provided by these new consumers, those businesses are then able to hire additional workers and diminish the ranks of the unemployed.

Except for the fact that somebody is having to work in the private sector to pay for those benefits "rippling through the economy," and that person has less of his own money to spend. It's hard to imagine who it is who can't find a job in three years, but I guess if you're a trade show organizer, there probably aren't many of those jobs out there these days. You might have to take a job that's beneath you. Well, in another 13 months. In the meantime, I'll continue working my two jobs to support you.

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.

Democrats Are Only Interested in Compromise When They Can't Cram Their Agenda Through Procedurally

Steve Benen is complaining that there's no compromising with Senate Republicans.

Obama practically begged congressional Republicans to work with him on everything from the stimulus to health care, financial regulatory reform to energy. The GOP minority not only refused to compromise or negotiate, they conceded, publicly and on the record, that this was a deliberate strategy -- even in a time of crisis, Republicans decided it was important to deny Democrats victories for their own partisan purposes.

Does "begging the GOP minority" include snarky exchanges that demean the GOP?

As he left the White House, House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina was asked about Republican complaints that Democrats aren’t listening to what their GOP colleagues have to say. “We’re responding to the American people,” he said. “The American people didn’t listen to them too well during the election.”

And then there's President Obama attacking Republicans for disagreeing with him on issues like health care, financial regulatory reform, and energy. Does begging include Obama using the GOP as a punching bag even when Republicans compromise?

We've seen what the Democrat playbook is going to be the next two years: Those mean ol' Republicans won't compromise with us. Of course, compromise to Democrats means rolling over and doing what Democrats propose, ruining the country in the process. Well, in the words of James Clyburn, the GOP is responding to the American people and the American people didn't listen to the Democrats too well during the election.

I Hope Republicans Remember Democrat Dirty Tricks When They Take Over the House in January

For two straight years, we've heard Democrats whining and complaining about how much they tried to work with Republicans to get "bipartisan" legislation. Of course, everyone knew that was horseshit, but today's maneuvers to raise taxes on Democrats' preferred target is probably the best example yet of just how horseshitty Democrats actually are.

This afternoon, House Democrats will hold an up or down vote on vote on President Obama's plan to extend tax cuts to income below $250,000, and they've figured out a way to prevent the Republicans from pulling procedural tricks that might sink it -- a straight vote on whether or not wealthy people deserve an additional tax break. Today, at his weekly press conference, House Minority Leader John Boehner compared the move to fertilizer.

"I'm trying to catch my breath so I don't refer to this maneuver going on today as chickencrap, alright?' Boehner said. "But this is nonsense."

Brace yourself for some procedural jargon: Dems once believed they were faced with two mixed options for holding this vote. The first was to hold an up-or-down vote under the normal rules. But that would give Republicans the opportunity to introduce what's known as a motion to recommit -- a procedural right of the minority that would have allowed them to tack an extension of tax cuts for high-income earners on to the legislation.

The second option -- suspending the rules -- would have foreclosed on that right, but would have required a two-thirds majority of the House for passage: 290 votes, an impossible hurdle.

But Democrats figured out a way to avoid this. They're attaching their tax cut plan as an amendment to a separate bill [the Airport and Airway Extension Act, to wit]. That legislation already passed the House, and has just been returned from the Senate. The rules say it can't be recommitted. So the GOP's hands are tied.

That's what Democrats call bipartisanship.

Media Blah Blah Solutions

I always like reading Bob Herbert's nonsense in the New York Times, not because he says anything important, but that, next to Glenn Greenwald, he uses more words to say nothing than any other writer out there.

Take the column linked to above. Herbert bemoans the class divide, the bloated balance sheets of Wall Street fatcats and the meager choices available for the poor (which includes people who bought more house than they could afford and are now in foreclosure). His solution?

What’s really needed is for working Americans to form alliances and try, in a spirit of good will, to work out equitable solutions to the myriad problems facing so many ordinary individuals and families. Strong leaders are needed to develop such alliances and fight back against the forces that nearly destroyed the economy and have left working Americans in the lurch.

Yeah, that's a workable solution. Because there are so many "alliances" out there wanting to work "in a spirit of good will" to help lower the unemployment rate. I hate to tell Herbert, but the alliance to help "working Americans" was formed November 2 when Republicans won a historic ass-kicking. But I really doubt Herbert will appreciate the way the GOP will "fight back."

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.