The American Oligarchy and the State of Things

Things are getting really confusing. On Face the Nation last Sunday, House Speaker John Boehner said “We do not have a debt issue right now, but we see it coming. So let’s get ahead of this crisis.” Fair enough, everyone’s entitled to their opinion.

Oh, how quickly we forget. Last year, in October, the then Republican candidate Mitt Romney in  a fundraising message to supporters wrote, "By any rational measure, it's crystal clear we're in the middle of a jobs crisis. My priority is jobs. And from Day One of my presidency, I will lead us out of this crisis." I know, politics, right? Does anyone think he really meant it? Perhaps not. Three weeks after Mother Jones broke the “47%” comments, Romney would have done anything to convince voters he was not planning on using poor people as fertilizer to nurture the soil of his rich friend’s lawns.

Among other Day One promises Romney also pledged to end ObamaCare. In a move certain to set off a trade war which many of his business supporters would not have liked, he also pledged to label China a currency manipulator . He was also going to approve the Keystone pipeline and open every available space to domestic drilling. Then there was welfare reform, 5% discretionary spending cuts, outreach to Congress, labor reform. When we look at the complete gridlock in Washington and how a minority of the majority in one House of Congress has managed to stall progress on almost every single front, it all seems sort of quaint. And embarrassingly naïve.

But let’s not pretend Romney was the only one humping jobs as an election year concern. The Republican platform addressed the issue directly: “The best jobs program is economic growth. We do not offer yet another made-in-Washington package of subsidies and spending to create temporary or artificial jobs. We want much more than that. We want a roaring job market to match a roaring economy. Instead, what this Administration has given us is 42 consecutive months of unemployment above 8 percent. Republicans will pursue free market policies that are the surest way to boost employment and create job growth and economic prosperity for all.”

Since that statement was made the jobs picture has improved from 8.1% to 7.7%. I’m confused. So are we to believe that what was a job crisis then has morphed into a deficit crisis now? Job crisis over, onto the deficit?  

Both the President and the Speaker agree that there is no immediate deficit crisis. Ryan has echoed that. Back in the old days, like oh, say the fall of 2012, everyone seemed to agree that unemployment was major concern, a crisis even.  What happened to that? Black America is still mired in a depression with unemployment just a notch below 14%. Hispanics are only doing slightly better at 9.6%.

The corollary to this is poverty. 50 million in Americans live in poverty. About the same number, a few million less actually (47.0MM), received food security assistance from the government in January. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has stated that Obama encouraged the growth in the program in order to stimulate the economy. Others have called the program an extension of Obama's "taker" vote buying philosophy. By this reasoning people desperate enough to seek $125 in food aid per month would then be so grateful to Big Daddy government that they would then go the polls to vote Democratic. This argument has the sound of someone who has never needed Food Stamps, or knew anybody that did.

The "taker" argument falls apart when we account for the fact that about 40% of food stamp recipients have a member of the household that works, the clear implication that the wages they earn will not allow them to adequately feed their family. More than 6,000 military families receive food assistance, as do tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees. All takers I guess. Before we pile all this on Obama, the number of Food Security recipients went from 17 million at the beginning of Bush’s term to 28 million in 2008. The number has been on the rise for a long, long time, largely coinciding with the collapse of the middle class and their relatively well-paying manufacturing jobs. Jobs that have been replaced by low-paying no-benefit service jobs.  A smart  Republican would have noted the high proportion (58%, as reported by CBS News) of these types of jobs that have been part of the Obama recovery. None did.

With so many people in need, and both sides agreeing, at least somewhat recently that jobs, were a crisis concern, why is Paul Ryan, the head of the House Budget Committee proposing a budget that balances within ten years?  I looked through some of what Ryan proposes, and he actually suggests reducing deficit from over 3% of GDP now to below 1% in just two years. In raw dollars he proposes reducing the deficit from just over $800 billion in 2013 to under $100 billion in 2015.

This is where I get confused.

Is this a budget proposal or a Republican campaign platform for 2016?  It would certainly allow them to run on a jobless recovery. Oh wait, they already ran that campaign. Even I was shocked that most of the reduction, the real hard core stuff, comes immediately. Jobs crisis? What crisis? This is a prescription for recession. Even as a liberal I would prefer to see the President offer more forward leaning deficit reductions, especially on Healthcare, if only to quiet the wolves. As Steve Brill’s Time piece points out the amount of waste in the system is staggering. Medicare and Medicaid may be more efficient by a mile than private insurers, but that still leaves billions. Negotiating volume discounts on drugs is but one obvious example. Sad to say this would stymied by deficit hawk Republicans, more interested in protecting their pharmaceutical benefactors than cutting the cost of the programs.

That said the Ryan plan though short on specifics, is just plain mean. It would take the 50 million living in poverty and steer them towards the more comfortable environs of destitution.

The Ryan plan places its full faith in major tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.  This is not polemics it is fact, well obscured by Ryan, but fact nonetheless. Ryan’s 30% cut in Medicaid will have a very profound impact on the poor as would his proposed cuts to Pell Grants.  We can argue as to whether America can afford these programs at current levels, but we ought not to quibble about where the pain of these cuts fall.

Ryan essentially bets that dramatically increasing the wealth of a few million millionaires is the best thing we can do for poor people. Cut the number able to receive food stamps, Pell grants, and help to pay for day care for their kids, and then give the money to their rich neighbors and hope for the best. If Budgets say who you are and what you believe this budget says I don’t give a crap about the poor, working or otherwise, military families, especially those coming back in desperate need of support from the VA, or the state of our educational system. Ryan's budget perpetuates and accelerates the transfer of the nation’s wealth from the middle and bottom rungs of our society to those so far up they cannot see the real suffering around them from the great height of their lofty perch. It is the definition of trickle down. It is a four square argument that says giving more to those at the top is the surest way to aid those at the bottom. I believe the election which just passed is a pretty strong affirmation that this is not who we are, I really do. But this is, nonetheless, a horrific statement of policy.

There are good things in the Ryan Budget, including means testing for Medicare. He takes another whack at Government waste, which everyone knows is a problem, but noone ever does anything about. No real money there, but what the hell. But in a real indication where the money lies, it is mostly just an assault on the poor, middle class, and entitlements. Ryan really has no choice since he wants to fund the tax cuts and balance the budget all at once.

Give Ryan credit for leading with his chin. He wants deep cuts and he wants them now. Well sort of. Much like a Democratic Senator from a purple state expounding on gun control, excuse me if the Ryan plan resonates solely as a political document designed to hit certain buttons with certain segments of the electorate. As a political document it retains his ability to move along with minimal damage to his popularity or future viability as a Presidential candidate without actually legislating or governing.  Nice...

Ryan knows his budget, which continues to receive plaudits for its bravery and honesty with the American people, will never be scrutinized by voters.  Well, alright, that bravery and honesty hokum was more for the 2011 Ryan budget than this one. The Right does not like this budget plan.

Medicaid, pays for healthcare for the poor, but also senior nursing care, and many services for special needs kids in Middle class families. Taken in combination with cuts to Medicare, particularly  a potential raise in the retirement age, this has the potential to have a devastating effect  on those at or near retirement age. Ryan proposes a 30% cut to Medicaid, theorizing that seniors will hit him on Medicare, before they will nail him for Medicaid.

The rights isn't satisfied with hat cut or the overall reduction ins spending. They want more. The Heritage Foundation and others have criticized Ryan’s use of the Fiscal Cliff Tax hikes. Ryan  maintains the tax hikes associated with ObamaCare even as he proposes repeal of the plan, which is of course not gonna happen and is bizarre on the surface.  Either way that's a no go with the Heritage Foundation and other right leaning groups.

Even all that silliness does not go to the heart of Ryan’s plan: Cuts to Medicare. This is where bravery meets political reality and loses badly. A poll conducted by the Kaiser Foundation last April showed a whopping 84  percent were opposed, and 59 percent strongly opposed, to "requiring all seniors to pay higher Medicare premiums.” Americans will accept adjustments to the plan, and potentially some moderately higher costs, but the Kaiser poll makes pretty clear that most expect the government to maintain the plan as is. Structural changes are a pipe dream. No one should know this better than Ryan who demagogued the supposed cuts that Obama put forward on the campaign trail last fall.  

In January, after the elections, the Kaiser Foundation found that 60% were still opposed to further changes to the system. The Kaiser report goes on to note that, “...the past year of debate over the need to make cuts had not greatly altered the general shape of public opinion.” In other words, No Dice. DOA.

The Kaiser Poll also found substantial support for specific elements of ObamaCare, especially Health Insurance exchanges, which addresses the blind fear so many of us have that circumstances at some point will make it impossible to get insurance, except of course through these exchanges. Poll after poll finds that Americans like what ObamaCare does, they just don’t like the program itself. The Republicans know they are on the losing side of this. They constantly  regurgitate the negative poll numbers for  the word Obamacare, even as they ignore the support for so many of the actual elements of the plan. I rcall last fall Romney took a bit of heat for cherry picking parts of the plan obviously favored by the public, even as he repeatedly vowed to repeal the whole deal. What other play do they have?

It does get to be pretty confusing. Why do the Republicans continue to pursue plans that have no chance of passage, and probably wouldn’t even achieve a filibuster proof majority  in a theoretical Republican controlled Senate, which does not exist now, and is, let’s be honest, a long, long ways away?

Could it be all this acrimony has been nothing more than political posturing for the ill-informed followers of fair and balanced? Could it be there is actually no agenda beyond access to power on behalf of the American oligarchs? Is that the state of things?

People keep laughing at the hundreds of millions invested by America’s oligarchy in the last election.  Despite the effective intransigence in the House, everyone keeps pointing to the foolishness of the bets. No one knows for sure but the Koch Brothers “donated” somewhere between $50 and $100 million. Adelson, probably close to $100 million. Texas Home Builder, Bob Perry, threw in for something north of $20 million.  Chemical magnate, Harold Simmons, ponied up $19 million. Another dozen contributors threw in for anywhere between $4.0 million and $10.0 million. A  handful of those supported Obama.   The Washington Post reported last February that just 23 people had fronted over $50 million to the various Republican candidates. This is even before the really big money rolled in.

Why?

Well, let’s see. Obama got his raise in tax rates for those making more than $450,000, but the carried interest deduction remains untouched. Capital gain taxes were adjusted as were taxes on dividends, but we can be sure Warren Buffet will continue to pay a rate substantially below that of his secretary. Those who continue to bury millions in compensation under an impenetrable web of tax lawyers and congressional set asides remain well hidden and off limits.

Over a trillion in corporate profits remains safely protected in foreign bank accounts. Dozens of corporations, including Jack Welch’s beloved GE, continue to earn billions of non-taxed income. Welch, you may recall, claimed Obama was cooking the unemployment numbers in this October tweet: “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers.” Spoken just like someone who knows what “doing anything” means. GE has paid no corporate income taxes since 2010. In just 2010 and 2011 alone, General Electric earnings were over $25 billion.  Then there’s this: A few days ago the Wall Street Journal reported that GE held over $100 BILLION (with a “B”) in corporate profits overseas, JUST LAST YEAR. Last May CNN reported with some hyperbole that the US now has the highest corporate tax rate if any developed company in the world. To be fair both sides recognize that a 40% rate that no one pays is in no one’s interest. There may be deals out there that lower the rates while increasing revenue and dare we say fairness, but can we please dispense with this charade that suggest that these super high rates are stymying business investment?  

Legislation to address climate change is completely dead, with only Executive action holding out any hope for progress. I doubt that the Koch brothers are offended. I’m sure they see their millions as money well spent, though of course they wanted more. The oil industry continues to receive $5 billion in tax credits and other breaks as encouragement to keep drilling. Last year Exxon had a pre-tax no tax profit of $45 billion. Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans are only too glad to fight that battle for the “American Taxpayer”.

There are lots of footnotes, and yeah buts… to all the stories about corporate taxes, but does anyone really believe that the government has anything like the upper hand is this equation? Large corporations have essentially gamed the system and everyone else is paying for it, especially small and mid-size companies.

Money as always is the root of all evil. The press is full of stories about the incestuous nature of the right wing money machine. Dick Morris and Karl Rove both ran SuperPacs from their well-padded perch on Fair and Balanced. One has to laugh at Rove’s snit with Palin and his outlandish look at poor-man-me “I don't take a dime from my work with American Crossroads. I even pay my own travel expenses, out of my own pocket.” Oh my, he's so giving, a real public servant. Or something.

Rove is worth something north of $6 million. Is he suggesting he’s going to live off that for the rest of his life? Rove, by the way, hammered Palin from his freshly negotiated nest at Fox. Despite News reports to the contrary he signed a contract in January to remain at Fair and Balanced through the 2016 Presidential election. He ain’t going nowhere.

Rove has recently engaged in a fairly public war with the hard right of the party, what even he calls extremists. But last fall the NRA donated $600,000 to Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. Is there any individual more extreme than LaPierre, any group more out there than the NRA? The state of things? Assault rifle and large magazine bans are unlikely, if not completely dead. Polls show they only garner simple majority support among voters, somewhere between 55% and 60%. Interestingly, the highest opposition comes from those that are shown a picture of the weapons. We forget so easily. Even background checks face an uncertain future, held up by Senator Tom Coburn’s insistence that records for the checks be destroyed, a nod to the paranoid survivalist right.

Immigration is one place where business interests diverge from the base of the Party. Recent events have shown that mainstream Republicans, having spewed their poison for years, are now having a hard time jamming the immigrant hating Jeanie back in the bottle. In response elected Republican officials are floating a plan which would legally sanction a system in America where citizens enjoy one set of rights and support from their government, while undocumented workers, though free from the potential fear of deportation, enjoy a second much lower place. Taxed yes, but without the ability draw from government programs or to vote, and so have representation in the government. Slick one, that. This is how today's conservative reaches out to Hispanics, falsified acceptance masking selfish contempt.  Increasingly it appears that a path to citizenship is a red line, across which few Republicans may cross for fear of a right wing opponent for their party’s nomination for whatever office they hold. Once again the House appears to be a black hole of opposition.

The state of things? You be the judge.