Is Krugman Wrong?

In this article, Paul Krugman says that Republicans don't want social security and medicare anymore. Is this right?

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose.

This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. As many analysts have noted, the Obama health reform — whose passage was met with vandalism and death threats against members of Congress — was modeled on Republican plans from the 1990s.

A Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party has made these decades-old agreements (SS, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, etc.) into arguments again. They want to roll it back to pre-1930. Just listen to the books Glenn Beck recommends. Heck, his whole show last night was about Freud's nephew and advertising to control people's minds. But I digress.
The question remains... do Republicans still support Social Security/Medicare, etc? Do they just not want to fully fund it? Do they want it, but don't want to pay taxes for it? WHAT is the deal?

Tax & Spend Conservatives

Joshua Holland has an interesting piece on Alternet about the "9 Biggest Conservative Lies About Taxes and Public Spending". They do try to confuse the public about the numbers, and this article hopes to clear up some of those misconceptions. It shall therefore be ignored. So, here are the 9 points, click through to the article to see them explained in glorious detail:

1. Cutting Taxes Leads to More Money for the Government
2. Conservatives' Favorite Economist Proves the Point
3. Taxes on the Rich Keep 'Wealth Producers' from 'Creating Jobs'
4. The Opposite: Tax Cuts for Upper Earners Spur Job Growth
5. Only Half of American Families Pay Taxes
6. Americans Are Taxed to Death
7. We're Being Killed by Runaway Government Spending
8. Conservatives Favor Low Taxes and Limited Government
9. Taxes on Top Earners Are Actually Taxes on 'Small Businesses'

Simpson/Bowles a Strike!

Hearing both sides bellow and crow about the Fiscal Responsibility Commission recommendations has me laughing so hard my sides almost split. Hey folks, this commission's report is basic, "just the facts, ma'am" math. Like the recommendations or not, that thar is a path to a balanced budget.

So now we can begin to have intelligent conversations about where to cut and how much. And where to raise taxes and by how much. If one thing can be gleaned from the report, it is that we will need a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to reach a balanced budget. "Simply" growing the economy won't be enough this time.

I would think that Tea Baggers would be lovin' all over this thang. (I picture a Tea Poodle humping Erskine's leg, but that's just me). Major cuts across the board of all government agencies, it's like, just the thing they were asking for! But I'm not hearing a lot of support. Change can be difficult.

I like a lot of what John A. Farrell says about the recommendations:

"Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp are shouting down from heaven, “Take the deal! Take the deal!”...

Take it from me, Republicans. You won’t win this one by listening to my old pal Grover. We are in too deep not to do this without raising taxes.

Take the deal. Or, if you like, move to Singapore. And Australia, I hear, has great beer and fine-looking gals and lads and lots of empty real estate."

Update: He thinks Democrats should get on board, too.

I say, hey, at least now we have a "base line". Now it's time make some compromises. Let's get to work!

Hard to believe that Tea Baggers are fighting the debt reduction right now, by refusing to tax the Top 2% at Clintonian rates. That's $700 Billion over 10 years right there. About the same dollar amount as one of the wars we're fighting (so far). Why do the Tea Baggers love the very rich so much that they want to give them each like $100,000, instead of balancing the budget? Where are their priorities?

Kabul, We Adore You!

And so we will build one of our fanciest palaces, uh, I mean embassy/compound/secret government complex thingies for us, uh, I mean for you. Us/you....hey, we're all in this together. Please take over Half a Billion Dollars form our indebted taxpayers (via our loan shark China), and we will build the palace to ensure all future safety in Iraq. Oops, I mean Afghanistan. I smell jobs:

"The project started earlier this year and currently employs about 500 Afghans. Once construction gets under way, more than 1,500 Afghan workers will be employed, Eikenberry said.

Over the last two years, the U.S. has signed contracts to expand American diplomatic facilities in Kabul and consulates in Mazar-e Sharif and Herat provinces that total $790 million, he said. The figure includes the embassy expansion, which should be completed by June 2014."

2014? Hey.... aren't we supposed to be out of there by then? Boy, that Billion could have come in handy for debt reduction.... right Tea Baggers?

Update: Tom Engelhardt finds this palace disturbing as well:

“$790 million is more than ten times the money the federal government allotted for the State Energy Program in FY2011. It's nearly five times the total amount allocated for the National Endowment for the Arts (threatened to be completely eliminated by the incoming Congress). If that sum were applied instead to job creation in the United States, in new hires it would yield more than 22,000 teachers, 15,000 healthcare workers, and employ more than 13,000 in the burgeoning clean energy industry."

Mo' Tea, Sir? Yes, with Phallus, please.

"Irrational Phallus Worship: The Missing Link That Helps the Tea Party Make Sense"
The title alone is priceless. Missing link? Get it?

"...the problem that arises when you obsess over appearing like an invulnerable tough guy is there’s always a fear that your phallic power is going to be rendered as vulnerable as the actual, real life penis is. The result is paranoia. Though there’s no real world reason to believe Obama and Eric Holder are out to symbolically castrate gun nut America by taking away their phalluses/guns...supporters...nonetheless believe it with all their heart and soul. It’s hard not to suggest they feel like losing an election has made them feel like they’re not omnipotent, and they can’t help but believe that a more literal taking away of their phallic totems is next....

...The beauty of provoking anxieties about sex and gender is that it’s a shortcut to shutting down all rational thought and allowing a bunch of impulses and fears to fill the void. A steady drumbeat of fears about emasculation can quickly be aimed towards creating fears about Muslims (to justify imperialist wars), to creating fears about racial minorities (to create the ground work for voter suppression and a rollback of the social safety net), and general anti-intellectualism to keep the fear party going."

Oh, I think you get it, alright!

Obama HAS ALREADY Lowered Taxes for 98%

That's right, 98% of Americans have lower taxes thanks to President Obama. Hey, the Top 2% should feel good, too, because overall, all taxes are down under Obama, near the lowest levels ever. Huh. Guess you don't learn that on FOX News, but David Corn has a great article for those leaning into the Tea Bag:

"Speaking of taxpayers, should tea partiers be ticked off about taxes? Not at all. Taxes are down for most Americans and at a historic 60-year low, partly due to Obama's tax cuts. USA Today, that bastion of left-wing economic thought, reports:

Federal, state and local income taxes consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010 . . .On average, though, the tax rate paid by all Americans -- rich and poor, combined -- has fallen 26% since the recession began in 2007. That means a $3,400 annual tax savings for a household paying the average national rate and earning the average national household income of $102,000.

If Obama could get his way, he would indeed raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans -- those making over $250,000 a year -- but not on anyone beneath that high level. In fact, one-third of Obama's stimulus package -- which tea partiers decry -- was tax cuts that reached about 98 percent of Americans. Earlier this year, Bruce Bartlett, who was domestic policy adviser for President Ronald Reagan, observed, "Federal taxes are very considerably lower by every measure since Obama became president." Are tea party folks peeved Obama lowered taxes?"

Read the whole article to find out how the Prescription Drug Benefit, passed by Bush and the Republican Congress, will cost us more than the bailout, the stimulus and Obamacare....combined. Where is the outrage from the Tea Party there?

Tread on This, Tea Baggers

Tea Party folks, you need to wake up. You're being sold a false bill of goods. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce does not share your interests. From John Aloysius Farrell at US News:

"I see snakes in the Tea Party’s Eden. Its members are being played, like foolish rubes and codgers, by the slick beltway Republicans, and seem doomed to crushing disappointment in the coming years.

For proof, look no further than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that big marble temple across the street from the White House, which Glenn Beck and other TPR champions have been hailing as a wonderful defender of the good old America that existed before the evil elites hollowed out the industrial base, stole our money to bail out Wall Street insiders, and allowed those awful immigrants to wreak havoc on our culture.

Because the Chamber is in a squirting match with President Obama over whether its secret donors represent foreign interests, the TPR types have rallied to its defense. After all, as any good Islamic terrorist will tell you: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But have Beck and the others looked at what the chamber stands for? Have any of you read the policy priorities on its Web site?"

Some examples:

Immigration:

"The chamber promises to use the Republican Congress to “push for comprehensive immigration reform” with an “earned pathway to legalization for undocumented workers already contributing to our economy” and a “guest or essential worker program to fill the growing gaps in America's workforce.”"

Keep Jobs in US? Naaaah:

"the chamber supports new trade talks toward “a commercially meaningful Doha Round agreement” and some more of those NAFTA-like trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama and “investment treaties with China, India, and Vietnam” and the welcoming of Russia to the World Trade Organization."

Wall Street reform:

"it’s for all sorts of Wall Street plums--like “customized OTC derivatives at a reasonable price and without the burden of margin requirements” and a continuation of the big bonus system for Wall Street executives, “which promotes long-term shareholder value and profitability” and “does not constrain reasonable risk taking.”

Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not your friend.

More Contractors Killed Than Soldiers

This year, more private contractors have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than soldiers. Congratulations, we have privatized our military.

"More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields.

More than 250 civilians working under U.S. contracts died in the war zones between January and June 2010... In the same period, 235 soldiers died, according to Pentagon figures.

This milestone in the privatization of modern U.S. warfare reflects both the drawdown in military forces in Iraq and the central role of contractors in providing logistics support to local armies and police forces, contracting and military experts said."

We're outsourcing our military. Jobs that used to be for military folks are now for "contractors". I wonder what a strict reading of the Constitution would say about that? Maybe a Tea Partier can help me out here?

Update: A Republican friend asks:
"And the problem here?"

Well, I don't think we should be hiring private companies to act as our military. If we're going to do that, maybe we should hire a bunch of cheap labor to act as our soldiers? Why should we have to fight at all? Let's pay "them" to do it. That may be all well and good until "they" decide they want the power. I guess that's when we're supposed to defend ourselves using "2nd Amendment Guarantees".
I've written about this before...

Lindsey Graham Gets a Taste of Tea Bag

SC Senator Lindsey Graham (capital R) got a taste of the tea-bagger medicine at a recent town hall meeting. Lunatic fringe anyone?
From Alternet:

"Angry attendees in the crowd interrupted Graham with cries of, 'You're a country club Republican,' 'Sotomayor!,' and 'You lie.' Outside the event, right-wing activist Julliet Kozak picketed the town hall with a sign decrying all 'Unconstitutional Anti-Christ Socialist Federal Deficit Spending Programs.'"

Brad Johnson, meanwhile, collected reactions to Graham from prominent far-right blogs, where the South Carolinian has been called a "fake Republican," "RINO" (Republican in name only), a "traitor," "disgrace," "asshat," "democrat in drag," and a "wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy."

It's worth taking a moment to acknowledge Lindsey Graham's voting record here. The right is livid about his vote to confirm Sotomayor and his support for reforming U.S. energy policy, among other things. But given the apoplexy, one might think Graham had suddenly moved to the center. He hasn't.

In the always-helpful VoteView analysis, Graham is the 83rd most conservative senator in the current Congress, meaning only 17 senators are to his right. Graham is not only more conservative that most of the Senate, he's more conservative than most Republicans."

Green Tea Bag