Reaganism is the Zombie Doctrine

Paul Krugman over at the New York Times today is trying to figure out just why it is that Ronald Reagan is somehow dominating the conversation going on Washington over the public option:

Call me naïve, but I actually hoped that the failure of Reaganism in practice would kill it. It turns out, however, to be a zombie doctrine: even though it should be dead, it keeps on coming.

Let’s talk for a moment about why the age of Reagan should be over.

First of all, even before the current crisis Reaganomics had failed to deliver what it promised. Remember how lower taxes on high incomes and deregulation that unleashed the “magic of the marketplace” were supposed to lead to dramatically better outcomes for everyone? Well, it didn’t happen.

To be sure, the wealthy benefited enormously: the real incomes of the top .01 percent of Americans rose sevenfold between 1980 and 2007. But the real income of the median family rose only 22 percent, less than a third its growth over the previous 27 years.

Moreover, most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years. President George W. Bush, who had the distinction of being the first Reaganite president to also have a fully Republican Congress, also had the distinction of presiding over the first administration since Herbert Hoover in which the typical family failed to see any significant income gains.

And then there’s the small matter of the worst recession since the 1930s.

Krugman then goes on to describe that "politicians in the thrall of Reaganite ideology dismantled the New Deal regulations that had prevented banking crises for half a century, believing that financial markets could take care of themselves."

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals,” said Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937. “We know now that it is bad economics.” And last year we learned that lesson all over again.

Or did we? The astonishing thing about the current political scene is the extent to which nothing has changed.

Someone Saw This Economic Crisis Coming...

Rachel Maddow points out that contrary to claims from many politicians, the current state of the economy was actually predicted by those who have an appreciation of history:

Rachel Maddow and Meghan McCain

Rachel Maddow's interview this evening with Meghan McCain wasn't particularly exciting, but was definitely a change of pace from what you normally see from these discussion shows.  Both Maddow and McCaing were exceptionally sensible!  

I especially love that Meghan McCain admitted that she doesn't know anything about the economy, and that Maddow accepted that response without being at all condescending!  Nice change of pace.

I do, however, take issue with the fact that while McCain admitted on Maddow's show that she doesn't know anything about the economy, it doesn't stop her from saying "a second stimulus doesn't make sense." 

If she's just saying she doesn't know anything about the economy as an excuse to not justify her views, my respect for Meghan will dwindle.

Part 1:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Part 2:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jon Stewart Blasts Santelli and CNBC Coverage

Here's the video clip of the segment I Twittered about last night...Great stuff!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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Joke of the Day

Jindal: Rail is Stupid. Gimme some.

In the lackluster Republican response to Obama's speech earlier this week, Bobby Jindal mocked the inclusion of rail spending by citing the GOP's favorite imaginary "magnetic levitation" train line from Disneyland to Sin City:

While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called volcano monitoring.

Of course, the bill doesn't actually include a train line between Vegas and Disneyland, but Republicans have never let the facts get in the way of their arguments before.  Why start now?

On Tuesday of this week, it was entirely ridiculous, but by Friday, Bobby Jindal's very own Department of Transportation applied to get a piece of that $8 billion of wasteful rail spending.

You can't make this stuff up, people.

Bobby Jindal Loves Extending Unemployment Benefits...

...when he doesn't have plans to kick Obama out of the White House.

Back in 2005, shortly after a different crisis, good old Jindal co-sponsored a bill that extended unemployment benefits 52 weeks after the day the area was declared a disaster. So a federal extension of 52 weeks is entirely okay, but the 20 weeks Obama wants is out of the question?

Being unemployed as a result of a hurricane and being unemployed as a result of an economic collapse have the exact same effect: you still need to eat, and you still don't have a job.

Republicans Love Being the Victim

The Republican quest to perpetually be the victim is alive and well under the Obama administration, this time evidenced by a conversation between the lovable criminal G. Gordon Liddy and Rick Santelli, a new hero to the right. It's fun when Republicans are so desperate for heroes that they start coming from the much maligned NBC network.
First, let's be clear what Gibbs, Obama's Press Secretary actually said:

I’ve watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely
sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school. I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that.

While Gibbs is clearly pointing out the disparity between the neighborhood Santelli lives in and what most Americans are experiencing, being a Republican, Santelli is forced to abandon all reasoning and take that as a personal threat from the White House. Good old Liddy is more than happy to jump in and join him in his pity party:

SANTELLI: He started that press conference saying, “I don’t know where he lives,
I don’t know where his house is.” This is the Press Secretary of the White
House. Is that the kind of thing we want? Is that —
LIDDY: It’s a veiled threat.
SANTELLI: It really is. […] I don’t really want to be a spokesman,
but I really am very proud of a) the response I’m getting, which is
overwhelmingly positive, and b) discourse, that is debate. That if the pressure
and the heat I’m taking from the White House – the fact my kids are nervous to
go to school – I can take that, okay.

Bobby Jindal, Conservative Hero

It's official...Bobby Jindal is sticking to his principles and refusing federal money from the "porkulous" stimulus package.  His principles have forbidden him from accepting a whopping two percent of federal funds intended for Louisiana, and also preventing 25,000 LA families from receiving unemployment benefits.  

Hopefully this will get him the street cred he so desires among the Neo-Hooverites, and also will pave the way for a Palin-esque "Thanks, but no thanks" sound bite when he runs for President in 2012.

Please ignore the fact that his reasoning for rejecting the bill is entirely false.  As the expansion in unemployment benefits is covered by the federal government for three years, Louisiana would simply need to establish a sunset clause for the alteration in the law, and unemployment insurance would remain unaffected for business owners.  But hey, he's a member of the GOP.  Anything goes.

UPDATE:  Yglesias notes another reason why Jindal might be refusing the money:

If Louisiana makes its unemployment benefits less generous than what’s available in other states, then maybe unemployed citizens will leave Louisiana for Texas and other neighboring states, thus creating an artificial appearance of an improved economic situation. It would be the equivalent of Mike Bloomberg fighting poverty by demolishing all the low-income housing in New York and hoping the poor people all move elsewhere.

Bobby Jindal is a Fool

So today, Bobby Jindal, the future of the Republican Party, announced that he would not allow the unemployed of Louisiana to have a 20 week extension of federally funded unemployment benefits, nor would he allow the pool of eligible individuals to expand.

Why?  Who knows.  However, like most foolishness that comes out of the mouths of Republicans, he claims it is because he is concerned about small businesses.  He believes that these two changes to the unemployment system will result in increased unemployment insurance rates on Louisiana businesses.  Heroic, right?

Unfortunately, his very own press release highlights the fact that no such increase would be necessary.  By his own admission, the program is entirely funded for three years, at which point, they could simply end the program.

It's good to see the future of the Republican Party will maintain its opposition to basic reasoning.

Also, I wholeheartedly expect the same folks who were constantly referring to "Barack Hussein Obama" during the 2008 campaigns to refer to Bobby Jindal as "Piyush Jindal."  And the folks who questioned whether or not Obama was actually an American had better be demanding birth certificates from Jindal, as well.

On a related note to the future of the GOP, remember one of the few victories the Republicans got in 2008?  Joseph Cao was able to defeat the legally troubled Jefferson, and Republicans were so proud that they adopted the slogan "The Future is Cao."  It was an exciting moment in an otherwise depressing time for the party.

Unfortunately, some folks have already launched a recall petition against him.  Too bad.

Obama's First Presser...

Barack Obama held his first press conference this evening, and of course, the focus was on the stimulus package that will hopefully come up for a vote tomorrow.  My favorite part came in response to a question from conservative Mara Liasson, who asked what lessons the President has learned from this whole stimulus debate.  

Now, just in terms of the historic record here, the Republicans were brought in early and were consulted. And you'll remember that when we initially introduced our framework, they were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about the tax cuts that were presented in that framework. Those tax cuts are still in there. I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that's the lesson I learned.

But there was consultation. There will continue to be consultation. One thing that I think is important is to recognize that because all these -- all these items that you listed are hard, that people have to break out of some of the ideological rigidity and gridlock that we've been carrying around for too long.

And let me give you a prime example -- when it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility. Again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

It seems a lot of people who attack the President for his lack of bipartisanship always fail to mention that Obama initially had 40% of his stimulus going to tax cuts because that is precisely what Republicans wanted. Rush Limbaugh, the de facto leader of the GOP, railed against Obama's bill and proposed his own "plan", which portrayed Obama's plan as 100% spending, and then Rush demanded that 46% of the stimulus go to tax cuts.  

The Republican side of the debate looks as if it's based entirely in the realm of intellectual dishonesty.  God bless consistency.

The Products of American Socialism

Came across a great article over on Salon.com today exploring the unique predicament that modern day Republicans are in...Not only do the Rush Limbaughs and John McCains need to convince people that a continuation of Bush's policies will get us out of the mess precipitated by Bush's policies, but they also need to rewrite the history of the 1930's and the effectiveness of FDR's New Deal (which, strangely, often includes discounting the people that were employed by New Deal projects).

Most enjoyable about this article was the accompanying slideshow which shows "Great achievements in American socialism," apparently the very thing that the GOP is arguing against.

Obama's Weekly Address - Stimulus Package

Yesterday began with some devastating news with regard to our economic crisis.  But I'm pleased to say it ended on a more positive note.

In the morning, we received yet another round of alarming employment figures – the worst in more than 30 years.  Another 600,000 jobs were lost in January.  We've now lost more than 3.6 million jobs since this recession began.

But by the evening, Democrats and Republicans came together in the Senate and responded appropriately to the urgency this moment demands.

In the midst of our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the American people were hoping that Congress would begin to confront the great challenges we face.  That was, after all, what last November's election was all about.  

Legislation of such magnitude deserves the scrutiny that it's received over the last month, and it will receive more in the days to come.  But we can't afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary.  The scale and scope of this plan is right.  And the time for action is now.

New Stimulus Provides Fewer Jobs! Yay!

If there's one thing I think a stimulus plan should definitely NOT do, it's create jobs.  That would just be terrible.  Thanks to the "centrists" in the Senate, Paul Krugman thinks this bill will leave about 600,000 fewer people without jobs.

Speaking of Krugman, loved his performance on Morning Joe the other day...

Joe Scarborough: ...George Bush over the past eight years had the most disastrous spending policy.  They decided to cut taxes, they decided to increase the deficit.  They decided to increase entitlement spending while they were fighting two wars.  They made no tough decisions whatsoever.  You can't say that that's the traditional conservative approach to economics.  It was a disaster and I think we can all agree with that, can we not?

Paul Krugman:  You've got some mythical image of what a modern conservative is.  Reagan increased spending while cutting taxes.  Bush increased spending while cutting taxes.  Who is your ideal here?

Wait a Minute...

"A warning light is flashing on the dashboard of our economy, 

and we can't just drive on and hope for the best" 

George W. Bush (2001)

The primary argument Republicans seem to be voicing against Obama's stimulus package seems to be it's price tag, now hovering just under $800 billion.  While $800 billion DOES seem to be a hefty price tag, the Republican Party didn't seem to have any problems with the $1.3 TRILLION package proposed in 2001, when the unemployment rate was nearly half what it is today, and the foreclosure rate at 0.48% as compared to 1.19% today.

Paul Krugman on Thursday said it best on Thursday in the New York Times:

Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

Stimulate Without the Stimulation, Please.

While her jokes are more often miss than they are hit, I believe that Rachel Maddow is likely the most informed political pundit on television.  Whether you agree or disagree with her conclusions, Rachel provides solid data and examples explaining her position.  Her response to the debate in the Senate tonight over Obama's stimulus package is no exception.  While it runs a bit long at 8 minutes, it's definitely worth the time:

Rachel does a wonderful job of illustrating the cost/benefit analysis of something like infrastructure spending compared to the Republican idea of tax rebates.  While rebates are barely stimulative at all (at roughly $1.02 put back into the economy for every $1 the government spends), infrastructure spending yields $1.59 for every  buck the government throws at it.  That is precisely what we are trying to accomplish with this package.  To STIMULATE the economy.

The Republicans, however, are being entirely foolish.  

Even though food stamps are the single most effective way the federal government can stimulate the economy, they pouted and threw tantrums until it was removed.  

Even though there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that the impact of tax cuts on stimulating the economy is negligible, Republicans were able to get a whopping 42% of the bill to be dedicated to them.  While Karl Rove claims no Republicans wanted nothing but tax cuts, 36 of the 41 Senate Republicans voted for just that.

Republicans are putting their party loyalty over their desire to actually address the problems facing America.  

Therefore, they are boneheads.

Netflix CEO Says "No, Thanks" to CEO Pay Cap

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, came out against Obama's plan to cap executive pay yesterday.  Instead, he argued that instead of placing caps on executive pay for those companies that receive bailout money, a tax rate of 50% should be set on all incomes higher than one million dollars...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/opinion/06hastings.html?_r=3&ref=opinion#

I'm not a real big fan of capping CEO pay, and this is a plan I can definitely get behind.