Vacation Time

(Editorial cartoon by Jack Ohman / Sacramento Bee (August 6, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

So, members of the 113th Congress left Washington DC for their 5-week summer break.  They were able to fly home (or wherever) because one of the few things they exempted from the sequester cuts was air flights.

Michael Hiltzig took notice of that fact and others in his latest column.

What has been Washington's remedy for an economy that plainly needs another shot of fiscal stimulus? The automated austerity regime known as the sequester, a package of budget cuts cynically designed to fall heaviest on our most vulnerable communities — the penniless, the disabled, the homeless and the very young. True, the sequester caused an early crisis in air travel, when it seemed that enforced furloughs of air traffic controllers would bollix up flight schedules. Congress remedied that provision, but quick. ...

The product of a political culture in which intransigence is held up as the highest form of statesmanship, the sequester is policy designed to enshrine congressional incompetence into law.

It was a gun Congress held to its own head, designed to be so lethal that our lawmakers wouldn't dare to pull the trigger, the required across-the-board budget cuts being so draconian that Congress would have no option other than to reach agreement on a more measured response. No one told the trigger finger. So as of March 1, budget cuts totaling $85 billion this year alone went into effect. ...

In the first place, the cuts will shave as much as 1.2% off gross domestic product — after inflation — through this year and next, according to the Congressional Budget Office. They'll cost as many as 1.6 million jobs over that time frame, the CBO says. That's not counting the damage that has occurred since March 1.

By the way, none of that damage affects members of Congress personally. Their salaries aren't cut by the sequester. For reference, rank-and-file senators and congressmen touch $174,000 annually, not including the millions in the agriculture subsidies they can vote for their own family farms. Take a bow, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale)!

The people who are affected reside mostly at the other end of the income scale — for example, people dependent on public housing assistance. ...

So what was Congress up to in the weeks before it went on vacation? The House passed a dead-on-arrival measure repealing the Affordable Care Act (which of course benefits lower-income Americans) for the 40th time. The lawmakers debated a bill, introduced by the majestically useless Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), to name all coastal waters out to the U.S. 200-mile jurisdictional limit after Ronald Reagan.

All the rest has been gridlock, grandstanding and gutter politics. There's some debate over whether this Congress has been the worst in history or merely one of the bottom two, but either way it's bad enough. For this they deserve a vacation that the average European would envy?   [Emphasis added]

Not only was Section 8 Housing Assistance cut out, so was SNAP, the first time the food aid program was separated from the Farm bill.  It's just so easy to kick the poor our congress critters can't resist.  And that leads to Hiltzig's concluding thought:

The test of a civilized society is that it looks out for its neediest members. With this Congress in place, we're failing that test.

The bastards.

With More To Come

David Horsey predicts the obstructionism from Tea Party Loons will continue for at least the next year, possibly well into the next Congress.

While normal human beings are spending sunny August days at the beach or the lake or on the road with the kids, tea party activists are crowding into town hall meetings with members of Congress and screeching at the top of their lungs about the imagined evils of Obamacare.

The aim of all this right-wing activism is to get Congress to defund the comprehensive healthcare law that was passed back in the bygone days when Democrats controlled the House and Senate and President Obama had dreams of actually getting something done in his first term. Now, though he has won a second term in office, Obama is blocked on every front by the GOP-controlled House and the filibuster-addicted Senate Republicans. ...

Republicans, conservative lobbying groups and tea party organizers are doing their best to put together one-sided gatherings in which only condemnations of the healthcare law are heard. Back in 2010, that tactic worked pretty well and facilitated the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives in the fall election. At that time, Democratic lawmakers ran away from what they had achieved in passing the Affordable Care Act, leaving the right wing free to set the debate agenda.
This time, the situation may be different. Americans have had time to live with the law and discover that no one is sending Granny to a death camp, and liberals have not been cowering in the corner. Democratic Party activists are putting together a counteroffensive directed by two groups, Americans United for Change and Protect Your Care. It would be a surprise if they were able to summon up a force equal to the frenzied, angry tea party horde, but at least the right wing propaganda will not go unanswered.   [Emphasis added]

I think a combination of the rebuttals from Democrats and the kicking in of various provisions of the ACA (including the shrinking and eventual ending of the donut hole for meds) will certainly have some impact.

But I don't think it will quiet the loons, nor do I think moderate Republicans (what few are left) will dare challenge the Tea Partiers.  That means the 114th Congress will be as obstructionist as the 113th even in the unlikely event Democrats pick up a few more seats.

It's going to be a long four three years.

An Interesting Theory

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 6/25/13 by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.)

The Los Angeles Times had an interesting article which suggested that the current split in the Republican Party is driven, at least to some extent, by the difference in age amongst various members.

Lawmakers in Congress are voting more often along party lines. But within the ranks of Republicans, there is growing evidence of voting along age lines.

The generational split, fueled by a surge in young lawmakers who won seats in recent elections, has been emerging on a number of tax and spending bills, including last year's transportation funding bill and this year's pending farm bill.

And that divide may be deeper even than differences over Tea Party issues, now that most Republicans in Congress are conservative.

"Clearly, as a group, the younger members coming in the last two or three classes have been more ideologically conservative … than most of the older members," said Norman J. Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. ...

No legislation, however, has brought the generational divide into focus more clearly than the Internet sales tax bill, which would allow states to require larger online retailers to collect sales taxes from customers as bricks-and-mortar merchants must do.

Senate Republicans split nearly evenly on the legislation, with most older members supporting it and younger ones in opposition. ...

Veteran lawmakers — that is, older ones — are more inclined to support conventional retailers arguing for a level playing field and to back their state and local officials, who want to generate more revenue without raising tax rates.

Younger members, many of whom are Washington newcomers, tend to back Internet companies such as online auction site EBay Inc. in opposing the measure as an undue burden on online retailers and an expansion of a state's taxing authority outside its borders.   [Emphasis added]

Although the AEI analysis may be correct, I still find that rather surprising.  What Ornstein seems to be saying is that such younger members, because they are more comfortable with the "new" way of doing business (the internet, in the example given), such congressmen as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) are perfectly willing to sell out the brick-and-mortar businesses on the Main Streets of their districts to trim down government.  That doesn't sound very astute to me.

It would, however, explain some of the gridlock in the 113th Congress, which will be perhaps the least productive congress in US history.

They Still Don't Get It

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 6/16/13 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.)

It became even clearer after the Sunday talk shows that we won't get an immigration bill out of this Congress.  From McClatchy DC:

Republican House leaders reiterated their opposition Sunday to the immigration bill passed by the Senate last week, highlighting the uncertain prospects for enacting a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws.

"The Senate bill is not going to pass in the House," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said on CNN's "State of the Union," echoing statements made by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other senior Republican lawmakers. ...

Boehner has said that he will not bring up an immigration bill for a vote that does not have the support of the majority of the Republican House caucus.

And the reason stated is that there isn't enough of a guarantee of border security to stop the flow of new immigrants in the Senate bill, even though that bill would extend the border fence and increase the number of border agents and drones to do just that.  I think the real reason is that the Tea Partiers don't like the fact that the Senate bill allows a path to citizenship for those "illegals" already here.  The fact that the path to citizenship is so draconian as to be almost impossible to trod doesn't matter.  It's still "amnesty" to their way of thinking.

Will it come back to haunt the GOP?

Certainly.  If not in 2014, then certainly in 2016.  The demographics (see Mike Luckovich's cartoon above) are just too clear.

Some folks are just too stupid to see the light.  In fact, they might just be too stupid to find their way home.

The Least Of These

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (June 3, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

I missed an important anniversary last week.  Fortunately, Michael Hiltzig didn't:

Let us now praise one of the many legacies that prove that, in addressing its citizens' economic dignity, the America of the Thirties was smarter and more humane than the America of today.

The example at hand is the minimum wage law.

The federal minimum wage celebrated its 75th birthday last week. The wage was enacted as part of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, which arrived in 1938 just as the New Deal was running out of steam. The landmark measure banned child labor, set the maximum workweek at 44 hours, and imposed a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour. ...

Does $9 or $10 sound high? Consider that if the minimum wage had merely kept pace with worker productivity gains since 1968, it would be more than $16.50 today. One way or the other, the minimum wage isn't what it used to be. In inflation-adjusted buying power, it peaked in 1968, when the nominal rate was $1.60. That's the equivalent of $10.70 in today's dollars. Since then, it's been on an erratic path downward. The federal rate hasn't been increased since 2009. ...

Who's leading the charge against a minimum wage increase today? The restaurant industry, which includes such fast-food mega-companies as McDonald's and Yum Brands (owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut), both of which are earning higher profits now than before the recession.

The most common objection to a higher minimum wage always has been that it leads to lower employment. This is one of those "everybody knows" talking points, and it does have a strong intuitive appeal. Stands to reason, doesn't it? Require business owners to spend more on each employee, and of course they're going to spread it among fewer people.

As it happens, the employment effect of the minimum wage is "one of the most studied topics in all of economics," observes economist John Schmitt. So it's curious that, despite decades of searching, economists have failed to document consistently any such phenomenon. ...

What's undeniable is that the minimum wage improves the lives of those who earn it, reducing poverty and narrowing pay inequality. That doesn't seem to be reason enough for conservatives to get behind it. To hear them talk, giving workers a $1.25 hourly raise would break the nation, although we've managed to muddle through a three-decade period in which average CEO compensation rose 725%. Perhaps it's limiting the increase in the average wage-earner pay to only 5.7% in that time that kept America from sinking beneath the waves.   [Emphasis added]

As Hiltzig points out in the rest of his column, raising the minimum wage would put more money in consumers' pockets, which means they would put more money into the economy and into the tax coffers, things our owners and the 1% have assiduously avoided, which is why our economy is still struggling.

I noted that I had missed this anniversary.  Apparently so did our president and our congress critters.  Maybe we should point this out and urge a bill get passed and signed into law to raise the minimum wage by at least $1.25.

He Nailed It In One

I may have taken issue with David Horsey with respect to his postings on the NSA's domestic spying, but I tell you what:  as far as I'm concerned, he has absolutely nailed it with respect to this week's Supreme Court holding on the Voting Right's Act.

From the Los Angeles Times:

By gutting the Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Supreme Court got some of the facts right, but failed to recognize the reality of continuing discrimination against African American voters.

What the court got inarguably correct was that times have changed since the signature act of the civil rights era was passed in 1965. In the Southern states and the other jurisdictions whose voting practices were put under authority of the federal government, black Americans are no longer blatantly barred from exercising their constitutional right to cast a ballot to choose their leaders. In fact, blacks are holding more elected offices and voting in greater numbers than ever.  ...

It is a different type of discrimination, and it may be popping up in different places. Before 1965, black voters were kept from voting in many areas of the South and elsewhere simply because of the color of their skin -- racism in its purest form. What is happening today is that black voters are having their influence on elections suppressed, not strictly because they are black, but because of the way black people vote: They are overwhelmingly Democrats.

As became evident during the 2012 election campaign, Republican officials in numerous states -- not just in the South, but in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania as well -- tried to employ various means to discourage blacks and Latinos from voting. New identification requirements were instituted, voting hours and days were curtailed and polling places in minority communities were hard to find, fewer in number and inadequately staffed. ...

All of this may not be pure racism, but it is certainly politically motivated discrimination. Thanks to the court decision, the federal government has lost one big weapon to fight such discrimination. And thanks to the way certain states and localities have manipulated voting rules and district lines, we have a U.S. House controlled by Republicans who have a vested interest in making sure no new voting rights measure ever becomes law.   [Emphasis added]

As I said, David nailed it.  Absent a way for the DOJ to go after the miscreants, at least  in the Southern states, the discrimination will be able to dilute African American, Latino, and poor people votes. 

But the dilution will also go on in states in other regions as states with Republican-dominated legislatures use the guidelines produced by ALEC to stymy full citizen participation.  Lines to vote in poor and/or minority districts will be long because there aren't enough polling stations with enough machines.  Early voting, longer hours, vote-by mail all will be curtailed.  Gerrymandering of districts will keep the lily-white Republicans in office.

And it will take at least one act of Congress to change all that.  I don't see such change in this Congress, but it does give a good reason to get liberals/progressives to get off their backsides to vote in 2014 for a more responsive government.

It has to start sometime and somewhere.  Let it be now and here.

A Bigger Wall

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (June 14, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

The Senate passed an immigration bill yesterday, one that has been in the works for months.  Some moderate Republicans worked with Democrats to craft the bill, and while it's not the greatest, it does provide a framework for those undocumented workers already here to attain citizenship.  In that regard, it's a step forward.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Senate was on track to approve a sweeping immigration overhaul Thursday, but the landmark legislation has dim hopes in the GOP-controlled House despite drawing significant Republican support with the addition of $46 billion in border security.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) has no immediate plans to consider the legislation, in large part because it would provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in the country without legal status, which his GOP majority opposes. House Republicans are drafting their own bills. ...

Senate Republicans have split over the bill that was crafted by a bipartisan group that included one of their upcoming leaders, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a potential presidential hopeful.

Some see the legislation as important in their outreach to Latino voters, but for many Republicans, the measure's unprecedented “border surge” of drones, troops and fencing along the boundary with Mexico did not convince them future illegal immigration would diminish.

The Senate’s top Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voted no.

“It’s with a great deal of regret, for me at least, that the final bill didn’t turn out to be something I can support,” McConnell said. “If you can’t be reasonably certain that the border is secure as a condition of legalization, there’s just no way to be sure that millions more won’t follow the illegal immigrants who are already here.” ...

Under the legislation, immigrants would be able to transition to legal permanent resident status with green cards in 10 years, once the border has been bolstered with 24-hour drones, 20,000 new Border Patrol officers and 700 miles of fence, among other measures. They must also have paid fines and fees, know English and be in good standing after undergoing background checks.

Because 40% of the immigrants in the country illegally did not cross borders but stayed on expired visas, a new visa exit system would be required at all major airports.   [Emphasis added]

The sticking point with many Senate Republicans and with most House Republicans is, of course, the idea that some of those already here might receive "amnesty" for the misdeed of entering the country illegally or overstaying a visa.  Even those brought here as young children aren't entitled to the "dream" of being able to stay without fear of summary deportation.

And that border fence?  Well, let's just say that it's one of the few bits of proposed legislation coming out of this Congress that has some actual job creation embedded into it.

Of course, the House Republicans are having none of it.  They intend to craft their own bill(s) which in all likelihood will never even come to a vote if Boehner continues to operate under the Hastert Rule of not bringing up an legislation which will not pass.  Anything more draconian than the Senate bill will not pass.

Still, at least moderate Republicans have something to point at when election time rolls around as evidence of reaching out to Hispanics.  It ain't much, but it's something.

Note:  The text of the bill in pdf is located here.

A Somewhat Surprising Outcome

(Editorial cartoon by Jack Ohman and published 6/20/13 by the Sacramento Bee.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

As I noted on Monday, there were lots of reasons to expect the House to pass its version of the Ag bill, not the least of which is that some of the congress critters personally benefit from farm subsidies.  There is also the fact that House Speaker Boehner has been adhering to the "Hastert Rule", bringing bills to a vote only when their passage is assured.  That's why I am somewhat surprised by the defeat of the bill this week.

From the Los Angeles Times:

A revolt among rank-and-file Republicans helped kill the farm bill in the House on Thursday, the latest vote to reflect the influence of conservative groups that have often been at odds with the chamber's GOP leadership.

More than a quarter of the Republicans joined with most Democrats to defeat the nearly $1-trillion bill to reauthorize farm subsidies and nutrition programs, legislation that has traditionally been bipartisan.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said last week that he supported the measure despite a few objections because it would institute some needed reforms.

But prominent outside forces, including the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, urged Republicans to defeat it. Both groups oppose farm subsidies, but focused their objections on the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, which made up most of the price tag. ...

"The food stamp program is out of control," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who rode the tea party wave to election in 2010. "It has grown 430% since 2001. And this bill did little if anything to curtail that out-of-control spending."

The Club for Growth has achieved considerable sway over the rank and file because it has spent money to support conservatives in primary challenges. Incumbent Republicans, many in districts that are more conservative since redistricting, now increasingly fear the threat of a primary challenge more than the general election. Both conservative groups said they would use Thursday's vote in considering whether to support incumbents in Republican primaries.

At the same time, fewer Democrats remain in the House who represent districts with sizable rural populations. Just 24 Democrats supported the farm bill. Most Democrats protested the measure, saying that cuts to the food stamp program, known as SNAP, were too deep and would hurt low-income families.   [Emphasis added]

Yes, the wackaloons don't want the poor to eat on the government's dime, even though many of them are poor because of the Great Recession helped along by the government's inaction/misaction since 2001.  But the rest of the GOP shouldn't have minded:  many of its biggest supporters would get their own welfare from the subsidies.  And what about those 24 Democrats?

Well, you can go here and see just how each member of the House voted. And then you can go here and see just how pervasive the Ag-business money is on both sides of aisle.

Of course, the Senate Bill is only slightly better:  the cuts to SNAP are there, they just aren't as deep.

I suppose the failure of the House to pass the bill is a blessing in disguise.  Sorta.  Kinda.

Just A Little Misdirection Play

(Political cartoon by Matt Bors and published at Daily Kos.  Click on image to enlarge.  If you need an even larger image click on link and get the embiggened version there.)

Sometimes reading the newspaper is fun.  Rarely, but sometimes.  This article in the Los Angeles Times made me chuckle.

The White House plans to announce Tuesday that it has improved gun safety in the country by chipping away at 21 of 23 items on an executive to-do list issued in January.
But the progress report will also highlight steps that Congress has not taken, as some of the most significant measures ordered by President Obama will have little effect if lawmakers don’t act to give funding or approval.

Administration officials say there has been progress on several actions taken by Obama under executive authority, including directives to end the freeze on gun violence research and to reduce barriers that keep states from submitting records to the national background system.

They acknowledged, though, that the end to the 17-year ban on research will make little difference until Congress restores funding for the work. In addition, a more thorough database of mental health and criminal history records is valuable only if gun sellers check that database before selling firearms.

“The administration has more work to do,” said one White House official, who talked to reporters Monday on the condition of anonymity, “but Congress must also do its job.”

Getting lawmakers on board for gun proposals has proved to be no easy task. The Senate in April failed to muster the 60 votes needed to pass a measure that, among other things, would have expanded the requirement on sellers to run background checks before selling guns at gun shows and over the Internet.   [Emphasis added]

Getting lawmakers on board is of course difficult:  most of those senators voting no (and I'm talking about both sides of the aisle) are in the pockets of the NRA and the gun manufacturers.  Open Secrets has a handy chart listing them.  And there is no way any such legislation would get past this House, not as it's presently constituted.  The White House has to know that.

So why the decision to release such a report?

Well, gun control of some sort is very popular with most Americans.  The White House has discovered that being spied on by its own government is not so popular, not at all.  So, it was necessary to change the subject, which is exactly what Mr. Obama did.   And it was a pivot that would have done all one-on-one basketball players proud.

Because, of course, we are all morons and can't see what he is doing.

By the way, if you haven't signed this White House petition, please consider doing so.  Let's show the White House that we weren't suckered by the shiny keys.

Still At It

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (June 3, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then please come back.)

Well, the House is up to its usual tricks, this time with a bill guaranteed to make its bankster and 1%  friends happy.  It may have cost our owners a little money, but, hey!, they got what they wanted. 

From Open Secrets:

Banking industry lobbyists helped members of the House Financial Services Committee craft a bill loosening regulators' oversight of various types of trading, with lobbyists from Citibank playing a large role in the process, according to a report in today's New York Times. Seventy-one of the 80 lines in a bill recently approved by the panel were written with the assistance of lobbyists for major banks, said the report, which is based on emails reviewed by the paper's reporters; two paragraphs were copied from the lobbyists nearly word-for-word.

According to Center for Responsive Politics data, in the first quarter of 2013, members of that committee received more than $1.3 million in donations to their campaigns and leadership PACs from the securities and investment industry and commercial banks. ...

Although the New York Times article cites a growing friendliness between the banking industry and congressional Democrats, the money going to the members of the committee this year overwhelmingly tilted towards Republicans. Seventy percent of the $1.3 million went to GOP lawmakers. Republicans control the House, and thus the committee, and it is not unusual to see the majority party pick up more cash from donors, regardless of the topic or committee.   [Emphasis added]

$1.3 million in just three months:  not bad, eh?  Especially since it is designed to save the "donors" billions. 

Oh, and our Dems on that committee weren't too shy about accepting their share.  I'm looking at you, Maxine Waters.

And people wonder why we can't have nice things.

Family Feud

(Editorial cartoon by Kevin Siers / The Charlotte Observer (May 29, 2013) and published at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

As I've noted several times in the past months, the Republican Party is fractured, and the party just can't seem to overcome the split enough to shift the balance in the Senate. The Tea Party is still calling the obstructionist tunes, and the rest of the nation is getting turned off by their behavior.  Doyle McManus noticed the same problem and came up with some numbers that show how damaging that split has been and potentially may continue to be.

The Republican National Committee issued a scathing report warning that the party was in "an ideological cul-de-sac" and resolved to act friendlier toward women, minorities and low-income voters. Strategist Karl Rove said the lesson was to nominate more moderate candidates and set about raising money to do just that.

But tea party and other conservative leaders, undaunted, drew the opposite conclusion.

"It was not conservatives" who lost those Senate races, 19 of them wrote in a joint attack against Rove's efforts. "Not one moderate challenger won." The solution, they argued, was to swing further right, not toward the center. ...

The approach of congressional primary elections makes the tea party a major force too. The groups have a track record of turning out in force for low-participation primaries, and adherents are an essential source for donations and volunteers in Republican campaigns.

"Tea party supporters are responsible for almost all of the total campaign activity performed by party supporters on the Republican side," a team of political scientists led by Ronald B. Rapoport of the College of William & Mary reported in a recent study. "Tea party supporters are not just a faction within the Republican Party; they are a majority faction."

The problem, of course, is that this majority faction inside the party holds views often at odds not only with a majority of all voters but with the rest of the GOP.

According to polling that Rapoport and his colleagues oversaw, 63% of tea party Republicans want to limit immigration; only 48% of non-tea party Republicans agree. Among tea party adherents, 76% want to abolish the U.S. Department of Education; only 10% of non-tea party Republicans agree.

Most strikingly, when asked whether it was more important to cut the deficit or create jobs, 63% of tea party supporters opted to cut the deficit first. Among non-tea party Republicans, the priority was reversed, with 53% putting jobs first.   [Emphasis added]

Is all of this good for the country?  Not really, not if it means the 114th Congress will be as gridlocked as the 112th and 113th Congresses were.  The nation's business will remain undone as long as the Tea Party controls the House the way it currently does.

And it certainly does not mean happiness-ever-after for the Democratic Party because it will be smeared with the same brush unless it contests each and every election in which a Tea Party member is the Republican candidate.  Yes, Michele Bachmann won't be back, but it's possible her replacement will be another Tea Party wackaloon.  It's time to re-institute Howard Dean's "50 State" strategy and put up reasonable and well-funded candidates to run against the Tea Partiers.

Now, if progressives would only pay attention.

Dissin' The Function: Updated

(Click on image to enlarge and then boogie on back.)

This time David Horsey has taken a look at the sequester and points out the obvious pain it is causing, and not just to the poor and the elders.

It is not in the news much anymore, but the automatic across-the-board cuts – the spur to legislative action that resulted in no action – continue to kick in. In the aftermath of the monster tornado that struck Oklahoma last week, a detail that went largely unnoticed was that federal money for emergency relief had been slashed by $1 billion because of the sequester. The disasters won’t stop, but the money might run out.

Meanwhile, the budget for the National Institutes of Health has fallen by nearly $2 billion. That means hundreds of fewer grants for research into new ways to prevent or treat diseases.

As the wildfire season approaches, the U.S. Forest Service is asking 41 states to return millions of dollars that are part of a revenue-sharing scheme that goes back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt. Thanks to sequestration, the Forest Service says it cannot afford to share anymore. ...

Even though the federal deficit is dropping – due, in particular, to the increase in taxes for the rich that kicked in on Jan. 1 – Congress remains mired in tired rhetoric and false premises about overspending and big government. Instead of wasting time bloviating about tea party fantasies, our leaders should get busy cleaning up the mess they have made by failing to do their jobs.   [Emphasis added]

Why, yes, David.  Our leaders should pull the plug on sequestration, but they won't.  The House as presently constituted won't allow it.  The wackaloon Tea Partyists continue to rule.  Nothing of substance will come out of this Congress.

And here's what I don't get:  why aren't mainstream Republicans doing something about it.  Why aren't they primarying the worst of the lot.  Surely at this point they can't be hurt any more than they're already being hurt.

For example, why aren't they grooming someone to take on Michele Bachmann.  She is being sued by an Iowa Republican leader for stealing an email list.  She is under a House Ethics Committee investigation.  She continues to spout ridiculous conspiracy theories, embarrassing her party every time she is fact-checked by the major mainstream media outlets.  The Democrats have targeted her for defeat and will pour money into their candidate's campaign (finally!).  She's from a conservative district; surely there is someone there who would do the job for the GOP.

Karl Rove has the money, as do other more "traditional " Republicans.  Why are they holding back?

I really have no idea.

UPDATE:

Michele has announced that she won't be running for re-election.  I have to admit that I'm surprised.

Much Ado About Something Or Other

(Editorial cartoon by Lee Judge / The Kansas City Star (May 23, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Michael Hiltzig took a very sensible look at the brouhaha over the IRS's "targeting" of conservative 501(c)(4) groups in his latest column.  He notes the amazing job this agency does overall, even with diminishing numbers of employees, and he correctly assesses what's actually going on here.

Ordinary taxpayers should be skeptical of this sort of theater. The last time the IRS was hauled over the coals for its supposed wrongdoing — in 1998, when the ostensible issue was the mistreatment of innocent individual taxpayers by revenue agents — Congress' true underlying motive was to hamstring its enforcement program against corporations and wealthy taxpayers. And that's precisely how things turned out.

What's the underlying motive today? Most likely to hobble the agency's scrutiny of political organizations claiming legal advantages as "social welfare" groups under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, which allows them to keep their donors secret. Indeed, during last week's hearing, Issa almost gave the game away by observing that the (c)4 designation covers "organizations that perhaps all of us have grown to like." Sure, because they funnel campaign cash to politicians on both sides of the aisle, anonymously. ...

...although the law says a 501(c)4 group must be "exclusively" devoted to social welfare purposes — that is, no politicking — IRS regulations say an applicant is still all right if it's "primarily" devoted to social welfare — that is, only a minority of its work amounts to intervening in campaigns. It was left to the Cincinnati staff to parse terms such as "campaign intervention" and "primarily."

If Congress desires there to be a bright line distinguishing (c)4 eligibility, it will have to draw the line itself. But plainly it prefers that these politically fraught decisions be made by civil servants who can then be hauled to the gibbet and hanged for their "incompetence" if things get hot.

When the issue of Congress' accepting this responsibility came up in last week's hearing, Issa ran for the hills: It's not his committee's job to write tax law, he said, but the Ways and Means Committee's. "The one thing we don't do is we don't pass tax law," he said, with a hint of relief.   [Emphasis added]

Mr. Issa (Wackaloon, CA) doesn't pass any kind of law.  All he and his Tea Party compatriots are interested in doing is (as the Judge cartoon suggests) raising scandals, imaginary ones.  Governing would be too hard and it would take an honest effort by all parties.  That's sad, because there is something that could be done about this particular issue, according to Open Secrets.  In a handy Frequently Asked Questions about 501(c)(4)s, here is a pretty solid summary of what could be done:

A number of suggestions have been made to try to fix the problem of political organizations gaming the system and using the (c)(4) loophole to shield the identities of their donors. The most straightforward is to ban 501(c)(4) groups from being involved in politics at all. That is in fact what the law says, but the language was, in effect, weakened when the IRS began applying the "primary purpose" test; that put the IRS in the business of making judgments about what activity is political.

Alternatively, social welfare organizations could be required to disclose the identity of their donors if they participated in political activity. Others have suggested that IRS officials draw a "bright line" delineating exactly how much political activity is acceptable, and then enforce it. The current understanding that groups may spend up to 49.9 percent of their resources on political activity was drawn from rules barring groups from having politics as their primary purpose, but exists nowhere in law or regulations.

Both suggestions would require Congress and the White House to act.  I don't see that happening this time around. Neither does Michael Hiltzig.

A Bite Of The Apple

David Horsey took a look at the recent news about Apple's tax avoidance scheme and came to some pretty solid conclusions.

Apple, America’s richest, most innovative consumer technology company, is also the most creative in hiding billions of dollars in profits from the taxman, according to congressional investigators. But on Tuesday in testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Apple CEO Tim Cook pointed out that his company’s creative tax sheltering, far from being illegal, is made possible by the loophole-ridden tax laws of the United States.

Cook told the senators that Apple paid a $6-billion tax bill to the federal government last year. Not only does Apple pay everything owed to the IRS, Cook said, the company does not employ gimmicks to avoid required tax payments. ...

...it is preposterous to think the current dyspeptic Congress will get past its dysfunction and find common ground on the best way to reform the tax code. Too much ideology and too many lobbyists stand in the way. As a result, Apple and every other American corporation will continue to slip through the gaps in the outmoded law with big bags of cash bound for foreign lands.  [Emphasis added]

In other words, what Apple did was perfectly legal.  And it will continue to be able to shelter those billions because there is no way that this Congress (and perhaps any other Congress) will do anything about it.  The money being thrown around by lobbyists and campaign contributors will see to that.

And that's the shame of it all.

All In All, A Lousy Week

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

This has been a very trying week for a lot of us.  The Boston Bombing, the ricin mailings, and now the failure of the Senate to pass even a minimal gun control bill.  David Horsey was obviously not amused by the last item.

The nation has just gone through two years of unusually awful slaughter that began with the near-fatal shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, continued on with the terrible attack at a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and climaxed with the mass murder of first-graders in Newtown, Conn. Yet, even after all of that and even with the support of an overwhelming majority of voters, it is clear that Congress will do nothing of significance to address the ongoing bloodbath that hits a different town every few months.

The National Rifle Assn., which in the 1990s actually supported a background check scheme, went all out to defeat the idea this time. Over the last decade, the NRA has become more radical on the issue of gun control, and most Republican elected officials have drifted to the extreme side with them. Just four GOP senators voted for the background check plan. ...

Once again, the win went to the bellowing paranoids on the right who see any proposal to deal with gun violence as a covert attempt to disarm law-abiding citizens. Most Americans disagree with them, but that matters little to our cowardly Congress.    [Emphasis added]

Yes, yes ... I am aware that the Republicans control the House, but even their constituents were on board with closing the loopholes in registration.  We weren't going to eliminate military style automatic weapons or large ammunition delivery systems, just require the same registration on line and at shows that we have for purchasing a gun at a dealer.  I don't think even my Libertarian nephew would object to this.

But that was too much for Wayne LaPierre and the gun manufacturers lobby and the spineless Senate caved.  What the people want doesn't matter.  Only our corporate overlords and their campaign dollars matter.  Only the wackiest of the wackaloons count.

And that is shameful.

Unsurprising News

(Editorial cartoon by Tom Toles and published by the Washington Post on 3/28/13.  Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

I should be used to this by now, but I'm not.  I'm still appalled that a president elected twice to pull us out of the morass we were thrown into by a Republican administration and its owners is still catering to those who would do us in.  From the Washington Post:

Obama will have his second dinner in as many months with Senate Republicans on April 10, a White House official confirmed. The president dined earlier this month with a group of Republicans at the Jefferson Hotel, part of a charm offensive.

The new dinner is being coordinated by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). A spokesman for the senator said the president called him in the last two weeks and asked if he would like to help organize a second dinner and Isakson replied he would be happy to.

The dinner party – no location or guest list has been announced yet – will come during what will otherwise likely be a fiery week for Obama and the Republican opposition.

The president is set to release his budget that week – a package of new spending programs and tax hikes that the GOP is sure to oppose. He will also be pushing for quick progress on a bill to overhaul immigration laws and to pass legislation to try to reduce gun violence.

One question: who will foot the bill? The president paid for the Jefferson dinner, complete with Hamachi tartar appetizer and lamb acai and lobster entrees, out of his own pocket.   [Emphasis added]

I'll tell you who will foot the bill:  those of us not part of the 1%.  Whether it's lobster or hot dogs, we're the credit card without limits except when it comes to taking care of our interests.

Even if President Obama were interested in what is best for 99% of the people of this country, those who are struggling mightily to just survive, his continuous pandering to the extreme right, offering to give away anything to "make a deal", makes it unlikely that this latest dinner party will be anything other than mutual back-patting.

And we lose once again.

Feh!

Hey, Wait A Minute!

(Political cartoon by David Horsey and published March 21, 2013 in the Los Angeles Times. Click on image to enlarge and then kindly return.)

Oopsie!  Maybe this sequester idea wasn't such a good one after all.  Apparently that thought has finally penetrated the thick skulls of our representatives in Washington.  Doyle McManus took note of all the squealing going on as a result of that chicken run in his weekend column.

Judging from the squeals we're hearing from members of Congress whose districts are threatened by cuts, the effects are intolerable.

The complaints from Democrats, who never wanted the sequester to go into effect, were predictable. But some of the complaining comes from Republicans who welcomed the sequester as an overdue act of belt-tightening.

Tea Party Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) has decried cuts to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which he called "one of the few legitimate functions of government." (The Johnson Space Center, with about 3,000 civilian employees, happens to be in his Houston-area district.) The sequester, Stockman warned, could put all Americans in danger — by hampering NASA's work to protect the Earth from asteroids.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who became famous for shouting "You Lie!" at President Obama during the 2010 State of the Union address, has argued that a big nuclear reprocessing plant in his district should be spared. Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) has suggested that all civilian defense employees, including the thousands in his Gulf Coast district, should be exempted from the threat of furloughs.

And dozens of Republicans from rural areas have protested the Federal Aviation Administration's plans to close control towers at 173 small airports, arguing that the needs of plane-flying farmers should come before competing priorities.

It's funny how budget cuts seem more palatable when they affect someone else.   [Emphasis added]

As McManus pointed out in his column, the White House hasn't helped matters by its conduct after the sequester took effect.  Canceling tours of the White House to save a few thousand dollars was a direct slap at congress because members often give tickets for those tours to visiting constituents.  McManus even thinks that the GOP might have won the PR battle.

All things considered, nobody won anything this time around, including us.  I certainly hope this is one idea that finally gets thrown out with some of the other lame trash our government has tried to peddle.

Another Give-Away

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (March 22, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge -- which you really have to do to appreciate it -- and then please come back.)

Michael Hiltzig has a great post on the lack of integrity (and compassion, and intelligence) of the critters in Washington DC.  His subject is the slipping of the chained cpi method for calculating cost of living raises for those on Social Security.

It's a benefit cut. It's not merely a "technical" change. It's not a "more accurate" measure of inflation.

The "chained CPI" has become one of the linchpins of the debate in Washington over what to do about the cost of Social Security. The idea is to ratchet back the annual cost-of-living adjustment provided to recipients by basing them no longer on the standard consumer price index, but this new creature. Its virtue, supposedly, is that it points to a slower inflation rate than the unchained index, by about .3% a year.

But as I wrote in 2011, it's a stealth benefit cut for seniors. After 10 years, the average Social Security retiree will be getting 3% a year less than under current law; after 20 years it's 6%. The change is presumed to be almost painless--who would notice a lower cost-of-living adjustment that amounts to three-tenths of one percent. So the proposal has garnered the favor of Democrats in Congress and President Obama, who seem to think they can offer it as a concession to Republicans and get something good in exchange, like a tax increase. ...

It's a benefit cut. It's not merely a "technical" change. It's not a "more accurate" measure of inflation.

Let's face it. The "chained CPI" is a benefit cut, dressed up in the faux-finery of economic rigor. Can't Washington be even a teensy bit honest about what it's up to?  [Emphasis added]

Why, no, Michael, Washington can't be "even a teensy bit honest about what it's up to."  If it were, and if the Village bobbleheaded press would actually print the truth about the benefit cut, all hell might break loose.

And as for hope that the GOP as currently constituted will give in on the issue of raising taxes, especially on the wealthy, oh, please!  Paul Ryan and his Tea Party Express is still rolling, Mitch McConnell is still not cooperating.  Why shouldn't they continue to say no.  They've snookered the White House, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

Joel Pett's cartoon nailed it quite nicely, don't you think?

The question is, what are we prepared to do about it?

My, What A Surprise!

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (March 18, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

Well, we've seen how the RNC report I posted on yesterday has been received by the Tea Party/CPAC faction of the Republican Party.  The basest base is clearly not going to roll over and die. Instead, it will indeed hold the knives against the throats of moderate Republicans. 

From the Los Angeles Times:

The austere House budget drafted by Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) that has come to define the Republican Party was approved Thursday on a strict party-line vote, as the GOP argues that a balanced budget should now be Washington’s top goal.

The blueprint is merely a proposal, without the force of law, but its overhaul of the Medicare program and steep reductions to other social safety net spending serves as the GOP’s opening salvo in renewed budget negotiations with President Obama. It was approved, 221 to 207, with no Democrats and 10 GOP defectors, largely conservatives or congressman in swing districts.

Republicans are anxious to reopen the debate over government spending with the White House even though some attribute the party’s setbacks in the November election to the plan from Ryan, the party’s former vice presidential nominee. ...

The centerpiece of the GOP plan would turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for the next generation of seniors, those younger than 55. When they become eligible, at age 65, those seniors will be offered a voucher that can be applied either to the purchase of private health insurance or toward the cost of Medicare, though the voucher may not cover all the costs of the policy chosen.

The Ryan budget also cuts Medicaid, the health program for the poor and seniors in nursing homes, as well as food stamps, welfare programs and student loans, while largely preserving money for defense accounts.   [Emphasis added]

Thankfully, the Ryan plan (version 2.2) is merely a proposal, but it does signal what the GOP in this Congress considers fair game for negotiation: the elders, the poor, the vulnerable.

People like me.

It's time for some "kingbirding."

Full of Sound And Fury

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin / Miami Herald (March 16, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

David Lazarus has a reasonably modest column up on the ongoing GOP war against Obamacare.  It's clear that Lazarus doesn't think the signature act of Obama's first term is perfect, but he does see some improvement in healthcare coverage for millions of Americans who were doing without.

Republican lawmakers, in their budget proposal released this week, showed they're determined to roll back President Obama's healthcare reforms, deny coverage to millions, limit treatment of the poor and essentially hand Medicare over to private insurers.
This isn't just bad public policy. It's the perpetuation of a Darwinian struggle between those who have access to affordable healthcare and those who do not.

"There are goods and services that the private market does a very good job of providing," said Mindy Marks, an associate professor of economics at UC Riverside. "Healthcare isn't one of them."

Obamacare isn't perfect. It doesn't extend health insurance to everyone. It doesn't do enough to reduce medical costs.

But there's no getting around this fact: President Obama's healthcare reform law is the first meaningful change to our monumentally ill-conceived medical system in decades. ...

"We still have to decide whether healthcare is a privilege or a right," said Tony Sinay, a healthcare economist at Cal State Long Beach. "If you look at other countries, it's a right."   [Emphasis added]

Lazarus does a good job ticking off the improvements that Obamacare has brought and will be bringing as each stage phases in.  But it's clear that he, like many of us, believe that a single-payer "Medicare for all" system would be the ideal solution, one that would wrest healthcare from profit-seeking insurance companies.  It would also end the shackling of healthcare to employment at a time when there are so many millions of Americans without jobs.

In the meantime, however, it is a start.  I guess that baby-step incrementalism is all we are entitled to right now.