Failure Is the GOP’s Only Option

There’s movement among House and Senate Dems to force a vote on extending the Bush middle-class tax cuts, defying Republicans to vote against them. And they didn’t do this sooner, why?

If the message the Dems got from the mid-terms is that they have to fight back, then maybe the loss was a good thing. We’ll see. Glenn Thrush at Politico is skeptical that the Senate will actually pass anything, but to get Republicans to vote against a tax cut is an accomplishment in itself.

Elsewhere in Put Up or Shut Up News, Ezra Klein writes that senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts) have introduced a bill called the “Empowering States to Innovate Act.”

The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort. If a state can think of a plan that covers as many people, with as comprehensive insurance, at as low a cost, without adding to the deficit, the state can get the money the federal government would’ve given it for health-care reform but be freed from the individual mandate, the exchanges, the insurance requirements, the subsidy scheme and pretty much everything else in the bill.

A variation of this idea was inserted into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by Wyden and Senator Bernie Sanders (S-Vermont), but it won’t go into effect until 2017, three years after everything else kicks in. The Wyden-Brown bill allows states to have their alternative programs in place by 2014, when everything else kicks in.

The Republican fantasy, of course, is that they can find a “free market” solution to health care reform. What this bill says is “go ahead — try it. Good luck making it work.” It also would allow progressive states like Vermont to enact a statewide single payer system, which Senator Sanders advocates.

This law also would kick the legs out from under right-wing efforts to repeal the mandate and other parts of the PPAC Act. The Republicans are flapping around saying they want to repeal the law and enact “real” reform. So, let them try, I say. Make them take their stupid theories off the shelf and actually try to make them work in the real world. I predict at least some Republicans will resist this idea, because they know in their hearts their theories were never meant to be tried out in the real-world light of day. They’re all just empty talking points, meant to keep the lemmings moving.

It’s that real-world thing that always trips up right-wing ideology. A couple of days ago David Leonhardt of the New York Times published a post that argued the Bush tax cuts were a colossal failure, so why are we talking about extending them? He followed up with another post responding to reader criticism of his data.

Bottom line, any way one measures it, there is no data showing that the Bush tax cuts spurred economic growth, created jobs, or encouraged entrepreneurship. All they did was drain the treasury of revenue. Not that you’ll get a True Believer to admit any of that.

Paul Krugman today writes about Repuplican efforts to stop the Federal Reserve from creating jobs. The only rational answer for what Republicans are doing is politics — it benefits Reublicans if the economy remains stagnant, so the government must be stopped from doing anything that might make it better. It’s all they can do; they can’t succeed, so in order to sell themselves to voters they have to make Democrats fail, too.

11 thoughts on “Failure Is the GOP’s Only Option

  1. it benefits Reublicans if the economy remains stagnant.

    Maha, you misspelled Rubelicans.. Typo, intentional, or Freudian slip?

  2. No improvement in the economy, because that wouldn’t help the Republicans politically. No more jobs – good, bad, or indifferent. The coming SS and Medicare slashing, because, you know, rich people really can’t be taxed another nickle, the poor dears…
    Well, despite all of that, I think I figured out how I’m going to survive into my old age. I don’t have to live in an old refrigerator box under an overpass, dumpster diving for my meals, or “cleaning” peoples car windows for spare change. NO! I can do what every older person can do. There’s a place where you get 3 hot’s and a cot every day, free medical and dental care (maybe not the best food or care, but it’s something): PRISON!
    I’m not joking. We have tons of prisons. We have new, unoccupied detention centers. Now, the key is not to end up in a Maximum Security facility. Those suck. The key is Medium, or Minimum, Security. The real badasses are in the Max’s. So, the aim is either a long string of misdemeanor’s, or robbery without hurting anybody. I mean, you can’t go into a bank, armed to the teeth. You might get hurt!!! No, pull up to a window, and on your own deposit slip, write a note asking for cash. Then sit and wait for the cops. You committed a crime, so they have to charge you. You get a public defender, and count on their incompetence. If you get a good one, ask for someone new. And since politicians are always having to show how tough on crime they are, you’ll be sent away. If you don’t carry a gun or a knife, you’ll probably get a few years in a lower echelon prison. Tell them you keep Kosher, even if you’re not Jewish – the food’s better. Or, Halal, same thing – and that may have the benefit of adding a couple of more years to your sentence, since you might be a Gray Muslim Panther/Terrorist.
    Now, if/when you’re released, you go and do the same thing. I know, you won’t have a car. But don’t let that deter you. Call a cab from prison, have them take you to the drive up window, and pass another note. Wait for the cops. Now, you’re a repeat offender, and you’ll get an even longer sentece – and this is what you want. And every time you’re released – rinse and repeat. Plus, they bury you for free, too, I hear.
    So, prison’s my retirement plan – and I’m sticking to it. Hey, it’s better than my current one of hitting the NY State lottery.

  3. Disregard the previous comment..you did spell it correctly..just a more sophisticated spelling..a European flair!

  4. I suspect there was no vote earlier because of concerns about a Blue Dog/GOP coalition being able to pass an amendment extending the tax cuts for everyone. Now, with the election over, folks can vote their actual beliefs.

  5. Bush tax cuts were a colossal failure, so why are we talking about extending them?

    It depends what the real goal was. If the goal was to stimulate economic growth, job growth and raise (median) incomes, obviously it was as miserable a failure as everything else the lazy chimp did.

    If the goal was to make the rich richer, well they succeeded in that.

  6. Gulag, don’t test your theory in Polk Co Fl, the home of Sherriff Grady Judd, his boys have a scorched earth policy which the righties LOVE.

  7. “The only rational answer for what Republicans are doing is politics — it benefits Reublicans if the economy remains stagnant, so the government must be stopped from doing anything that might make it better. It’s all they can do; they can’t succeed, so in order to sell themselves to voters they have to make Democrats fail, too.”

    Which really is an act of treason–they prefer to destroy the country if that’s what they have to do to take down the Democrats. These guys a traitors and as Un-American as you can get. They should be tried, convicted, and thrown into Gitmo with all the other people who hate America.

  8. erinyes.. Writing your stick up note on your own deposit slip is par for the course in Pasco County. I think Gulag might survive an encounter with Grady’s boys because he’s white. But you never know..with Grady getting a fresh supply of bullets in the new budget. Anyway, if Gulag wants to retire in sunny Polk County, Florida he’d be wise not to be wearing dreads when he implements his retirement plan.

  9. Swami,
    I ‘dread’ to say this, but I no longer have the great head of hair I had back in the ’70’s and early ’80’s.
    I’m bald as a polished marble statue of a bald eagle. With a head just about as hard.

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