Sullivan is still trying to save conservatism.

I’m not sure what the answers to all these questions are. But I am sure that a good faith effort to tackle them is what we need. We have a new president who’s a liberal but open to suggestion and debate. I don’t believe going on and on about what a big liberal he is, and how we’re all about to turn into France, moves this debate constructively along. If the right wants to return as something more than a populist gabfest on radio and cable, we’d better join that debate. And even have a few constructive ideas.

Somehow, I don’t think Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are listening…

Yglesias tackles student lonas and Medicare Advantage:

The interesting thing here is not just the particulars of the policy, but the bizarre view of the role of government that Howard is espousing. Rather than a debate between progressives who want the government to provide a public service and conservatives who want the service to exist just insofar as it can be supported by the private market, we have a debate where both sides agree that the service ought to exist but the right thinks it’s important that it be done in a less efficient more costly manner because doing it that way generates profits for people who in turn give them money in some kind of nutty sense is supposed to preserve the integrity of the private sector. And it’s not just on student loans. You have essentially the same debate over Medicare Advantage between Democrats who want the government to provide seniors with costly medical services and Republicans who want Democrats to provide seniors with an even more costly version of those services by bringing private insurance companies in as middlemen. It’s ludicrous. Now elected officials are going to get mixed up in these kind of scams now and again, much as you see some Democrats siding with campaign contributors in the hedge fund industry over the basics of progressive politics. But when Chuck Schumer pulls that kind of stunt he takes crap about it from liberals while conservatives seem too busy whipping themselves into frenzies over fake pork-barrel schemes to send mice on maglevs to Disneyland to notice what’s happening.

Sullivan’s pissed:

The GOP has passed what amounts to a spending and tax-cutting and borrowing stimulus package every year since George W. Bush came to office. They have added tens of trillions to future liabilities and they turned a surplus into a trillion dollar deficit – all in a time of growth. They then pick the one moment when demand is collapsing in an alarming spiral to argue that fiscal conservatism is non-negotiable. I mean: seriously.

The bad faith and refusal to be accountable for their own conduct for the last eight years is simply inescapable. There is no reason for the GOP to have done what they have done for the last eight years and to say what they are saying now except pure, cynical partisanship, and a desire to wound and damage the new presidency. The rest is transparent cant.

I still don’t understand how Republicans ever got the reputation of being fiscally responsible.  If you look at the record the complete opposite immediately becomes apparent.  The Godfather himself added ~10% of GDP to the national debt each term that he served.  It’s a sham.

Michael Steele on the stimulus:

STEELE: You’ve got to look at what’s going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s a job.

STEELE: No, it’s not a job. A job is something that — that a business owner creates. It’s going to be long term. What he’s creating…

STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn’t count if it’s a government job?

(CROSSTALK)

STEELE: Hold on. No, let me — let me — let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we’re talking about have an end point.

As a small-business owner, I’m looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It’s a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work. And I’m — either way, the bottom line is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess I don’t really understand that distinction.

STEELE: Well, the difference — the distinction is this. If a government — if you’ve got a government contract that is a fixed period of time, it goes away. The work may go away. That’s — there’s no guarantee that that — that there’s going to be more work when you’re done in that job.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Yes, but we’ve seen millions and millions of jobs going away in the private sector just in the last year.

STEELE: But they come — yes, they — and they come back, though, George. That’s the point. When they go — they’ve gone away before, and they come back.

This prompted the Yglesias headline: Steele: Cops, Firefighters, Soldiers, Postmen, Teachers All Secretly Unemployed

Seriously though, I can’t seem to keep all this straight.  First it was full of Republican sweeteners.  Then it wasn’t fast enough.  Then it was just a “spending” bill.  Now it’s too temporary.

There’s no real argument here.  It’s just pure unadulterated media cycle blather, and it shows that the GOP is legitimately uninterested in governing.

And guess what?  Americans are sick and tired of it:

The Republicans are right about the wrong bit of information. WWII Unemployment Rates dropped by the largest PERCENTAGE in history. However, New Deal Unemployment Rates dropped by the largest RATE in history (see below). Basically, you can say a decrease in unemployment from 10% to 5% is a 50% drop, but a decrease from 20% to 12% is only a 40% drop. Even though the second case sees a greater increase in the number of jobs, the percent change is lower… hence, Mitch McConnell is an idiot.

Regardless of WWII or the New Deal, FDR’s administration did an incredible job in reducing unemployment. However, in terms of starting a war to lower unemployment, we have to remember that during FDR’s time America was in a WORLD WAR, defending against the Axis of Power; not capturing Middle Eastern oil under the pretense of liberation.

(more…)

Politico:

But one of the good things about reading history is you learn a good deal. And, we know for sure that the big spending programs of the New Deal did not work. In 1940, unemployment was still 15%. And, it’s widely agreed among economists, that what got us out of the doldrums that we were in during the Depression was the beginning of World War II.

Let me just wrap this one up here.  According to McConnell, large domestic spending programs didn’t do anything to bring us out of the depression, but a gigantic defense spending program did.

So, this immediately begs the question: Is there something magical about spending money on bombs, rather than bridges?  I mean, what’s the difference between these two things?

This is the grand unified theory of Republican economics.  Defecit spending is awful, unless you’re making bombs.  Domestic spending does nothing to stimulate the economy.  Tax cuts are awesome, even if they lead to huge defecits.

Nothing quite like those responsible fiscal conservatives, always ready to steer the nation towards the cliff, and then sit on their hands as we go careening off the ledge.

[h/t Yglesias]

So there’s plenty of commentary flying around about why not a single Republican in the House of Representatives decided to vote for the Obama stimulus package.

Me? I’m with publius:

That’s essentially what the House Republicans did today when they voted unanimously against the stimulus – they went all in before the flop.  And now they too are completely at the mercy of the flop — and fate — with a less than stellar hand.

Frankly, I don’t think it was a completely irrational move considering the circumstances.  The House Republicans’ long-term prospects ain’t good – they’re locked into a declining, southern-centric demographic base getting smaller by the year.  Plus, it’s not like voting for the stimulus will reverse these trends.  If it works, Obama will probably get credit regardless of what the GOP does.  Accordingly, the GOP decided to do something more drastic, and then hope for the best by hoping for the worst.

And it might work.  The flop might save them.  Maybe the economy will get even worse in 2 or 4 years.  If so, the Republicans can stand up and say, “if only we had cut more taxes, if only we hadn’t wasted all this money…”  And who knows?  If the economy continues to tank, that might get some traction.

But make no mistake – it’s an extremely risky strategy.  The GOP locked themselves into a game of Russian roullette today.  If the economy gets better, or if the GOP somehow manages to block it in the Senate, then the Republicans’ unanimous opposition could send the party into the wilderness for a long time to come.  Republicans, remember, picked the wrong horse in the New Deal debate, and ultimately lost control of Congress (with periodic and fleeting exceptions) for about 60 years.

A purely political move, from a purely political party, lacking any real ideas or substance.  What a great match.

And another thing, to borrow another gambling metaphor, this is also like the guy in craps who bets the “Don’t Pass” line.  Nobody likes that guy.

So, remeber all that Obama-is-a-socialist stuff?  Yeah, well they were just kidding, because you know, the socialist can’t actually win, because that would mean that we all voted for the socialist by 6 points.  So, you see, this just proves that Barack Obama actually ran a center-right campaign, because the nation as a whole is center-right, and they voted for him in a landlside, ergo the nation is center-right.  Got it?

[Via Yglesias]

From my very own home state:

The Arizona Democratic Party is demanding that Ryan Anderson, deputy campaign manager for U.S. Rep. John Shadegg (R-Phoenix), be fired, after they say he gave false information on a contribution form when he visited Democratic Party headquarters to buy an Obama bumper sticker.

Democrats believe Anderson was responsible for leaving a Shadegg campaign credit card at Democratic Party headquarters, which was discovered Monday. A police report was filed and the Shadegg campaign was notified, but the mystery of how it got there remained. The Arizona Democratic Party thinks it has found the answer.

The Shadegg campaign’s original story was this:

Sean Noble, Shadegg’s campaign manager, said the card was given to campaign volunteer Ryan Anderson, who was using it to buy office supplies. He is not a senior campaign official, spokeswoman Abby Winter said.

Anderson, who described himself as a collector of political memorabilia, said he stopped by “just to see what was going on.”

He said that he asked for an Obama bumper sticker and that in paying for it “the card must have slipped out of my pocket.”

And he might have got away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling Democrats:

“Records show that a person with the name ‘Bryan Anderson’ filled out a contribution form, which is a legal document that the Arizona Democratic Party uses to report contributions to elections officials,” read a release from the Arizona Democratic Party. “‘Bryan Anderson’s’ address is a near-match to Ryan Anderson’s. Every number in the street line of the address is one digit off.”

Really, dude?  Bryan Anderson?  Man, they’d never figure that out.  Probably should have gone with Ayan Rnderson.  Or maybe Nayr Nosredna.  Wait!  Let me get my decoder ring!

Unbelievable.

Rep. Michelle McCarthy Bachmann (R-MN) calls for a “penetrating exposé” on who is and is not anti-American.

Let’s just bring HUAC back.  That worked out well last time.

Publius wrote a really good post on the fall of the GOP, and possibly paths forward for the beleagered party.  Here’s a taste:

In short, the GOP has made an unholy alliance with the mob — and now the long-term debt is coming due. And they deserve it. After all, it’s not that the GOP establishment merely tolerated them, or treated them like the crazy uncle you basically nod at but ignore. They’ve been riling them up — feeding the hate. They’ve based campaigns on things like gay marriage and immigration and terrorist appeasing. They go on the Rush Limbaugh show, and validate his venom. They tell people who don’t have time to learn otherwise things like giving mortgages to poor minority families caused the housing crisis (Daniel Gross has the appropriate response to that — essentially, “it’s not risky to lend to minority families, it’s risky to lend to rich white people.”)

And you know, it sort of makes sense. If I thought Obama was a Muslim terrorist communist committing perpetual voter fraud, I might get mad too at the prospect of an Obama presidency. And so that’s what you have — a lot of angry, proudly uninformed conservatives out there. And they’re not going away.

Like Mickey Mouse’s brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, they were summoned for a specific purpose, but are now out of control. They’re like a armed heat-seeking missile gone astray in the water.

Check out the whole thing.

This is the first in an ongoing series of factual counter-claims and/or debunking of right-wing attacks on Democrats and/or progressive principles.  These attacks are typically confined to the right-wing echo chamber, and may or may not leak out into the mainstream-media.  They tend to only peak out of hiding when you encounter a conservative on the street, at which point, having never heard the claim to begin with, you most likely will not have a response, thus allowing the conservative to “win” the argument.  I intend to change this imbalance of power by confronting these claims head-on, as they occur, no matter how ridiculous.

(more…)

So the bailout didn’t pass.  And the S&P fell 8 percent.  And what do the House Republican’s have to say?  Ambinder’s got it:

House Republicans are blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi for quashing bipartisanship sentiment right before the bailout bill vote — and therefore deserves the knock for its failure.

“We could have gotten here today had it not been for a partisan speech on the floor of the House,” Boehner said.

Awwww.  Poor wittle House Republicans.  They had to listen to that big fat meanie Nancy Pelosi say this:

Today, we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years with the failed economic leadership that has left us left capable of meeting the challenges of the future.

We choose a different path.  In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a New Direction to a better future.”

Apparently, them wuz fightin’ words, and cause for playing partisan games with an economic crisis.  Do they really think this excuse is better?  I didn’t vote for this bill because Nancy Pelosi was mean to me?  That’s the excuse.  Not “well, you know, my delegation didn’t like the socialist overtones of this package and I couldn’t wrangle enough support for it.”  I might actually be able to respect that.  But Pelosi is mean?  That dog don’t hunt.

So now that we tried to play Mr. Nice Guy with this and worked with the House GOP to compromise, and they still didn’t get on board, I say we make a hard left on this thing.  Let’s add more help for homeowners facing foreclosure.  Let’s throw back in the bankruptcy provisions.  Let’s add a second stimulus package for the middle class.  We tried to play ball.  They weren’t interested.  If they want to pass this on partisan lines, then fine.  We’ll pass it on partisan lines.

Oh, and if you think the plummet of the Dow today didn’t just put the American public behind this thing, then you’ve got another thing comin’.

One other thing, as a nice little cherry on top when we go to pass our progressive bill, I think all of the Dems in the House should yield their time to Dennis Kucinich.  If they want partisan, we’ll give ‘em partisan.

(btw, none of this will ever happen.  ever.)

[Update]

A new Rasmussen poll is out on the bailout:

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted Sunday found that 33% of Likely Voters now favor the plan while 32% are opposed and 35% are not sure.

That was before the market tumbled.  How do you obstructionists feel about your electoral prospects now?

You know, you have to hand it to conservatives.  They have an uncanny ability to tie everything back to black people (and their liberal friends):

Much more problematic than Gramm-Leach-Bliley is the Community Reinvestment Act, a bit of legislative arm-twisting much beloved by Sen. Obama and his fellow Democrats. One of the reasons so many bad mortgage loans were made in the first place is that Barack Obama’s celebrated community organizers make their careers out of forcing banks to do so. ACORN, for which Obama worked, is one of many left-wing organizations that spent decades pressuring banks and bank regulators to do more to make mortgages available to people without much in the way of income, assets, or credit. These campaigns often were couched in racially inflammatory terms. The result was the Community Reinvestment Act. The CRA empowers the FDIC and other banking regulators to punish those banks which do not lend to the poor and minorities at the level that Obama’s fellow community organizers would like. Among other things, mergers and acquisitions can be blocked if CRA inquisitors are not satisfied that their demands — which are political demands — have been met. There is a name for loans made to people who do not have the credit, assets, income, or down payment to qualify for a normal mortgage: subprime.

Yglesias leads the takedown:

The technical term for this argument is “bullshit.”

For one thing, the timeline is ludicrous. The Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977. Are we supposed to believe that CRA was working smoothly throughout the Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton years and then only under Bush II did overzealous anti-”redlining” enforcement come into play, perhaps a result of Dubya’s legendarily close relationship with ACORN? Or maybe overzealous enforcement back in the late 1970s is somehow responsible for a real estate blowout that only materialized 30 years later? It doesn’t even come close to making sense.

Beyond that, the mere existence of “subprime” loans — i.e., mortgages given to less-creditworthy individuals at higher interest rates — isn’t the problem here. The problems have to do with what was done with the loans after they were packaged, sold and used to make leveraged plays.

You know, I’m beginning to think their wouldn’t be a conservative movement if their wasn’t some sort of minority to blame everything on…