This shutdown belongs to Boehner and the GOP

By Tuesday morning, the leadership failure of Speaker John Boehner was obvious to all. In encouraging the impossible quest of House Republicans to dismantle healthcare reform, he pushed the country into a government shutdown that will now begin to take a grievous economic toll.

At any point, Mr. Boehner could have stopped it. Had he put on the floor a simple temporary spending resolution to keep the government open, without the outrageous demands to delay or defund the health reform law, it could easily have passed the House with a strong majority – including sizable support from Republican members, many of whom are aware of how badly this collapse will damage their party.

But Mr. Boehner refused.

He stood in the well of the House and repeated the same old tired lies that the Affordable Care Act was killing jobs. He came up with a series of increasingly ridiculous demands: defund the health law, delay it for a year, stop its requirement that employers pay for contraception, block the medical device tax, delay the individual mandate for a year, and remove Congressional employees’ health subsidies. All were instantly rejected by the Senate. “They’ve lost their minds,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said of the House Republicans. “They keep trying to do the same thing over and over again” and expect a different result.  

Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

Finally, at the last minute, when there was still time to end the charade with a straightforward spending bill, Mr. Boehner made the most absurd demand of all: an immediate conference committee with the Senate. Suddenly, with less than an hour left, he wanted to set up formal negotiations?

For six months, the Senate has been demanding a conference with the House on the 2014 budget – talks that might have prevented the impasse in the first place. But the Boehner adamantly refused, knowing the GOP would not succeed in getting all the cuts to taxes and spending that it demands. For Mr. Boehner to call for a conference near the witching hour was the height of hypocrisy.

The consequences of Mr. Boehner’s failure was immediate: 800,000 government employees thrown out of work, over a million more working without pay, offices that provide important services closed, and programs on which poor people depend – like the Women, Infants and Children nutrition system – cut off. The longer Republicans refuse to approve a rational spending measure, the more federal agencies will be affected and the greater the damage done to an economy still in recovery.

Having let down the public, Republicans will now, inevitably, scramble to save their reputation. They are desperate to make it appear as if President Obama and the Democrats are the ones being intransigent, hoping voters will think that everyone is at fault and simply blame “Washington.”  Boehner even mocked the president on Monday for refusing to negotiate over health reform, as if he actually expected President Obama to join in wrecking a law that will provide health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans under threat of blackmail.

On Tuesday, Republicans came up with another self-serving offer, proposing to open a few government departments whose closures are likely to produce negative news coverage, such as Veterans Affairs and the national parks. Democrats quickly made it clear that only a full reopening of government would suffice and tabled the bills.

Earlier in his presidency, in 2011, Obama made the catastrophic mistake in the face of just this sort of extortion to believe that Boehner could be reasonable. This time, however, the cynical games of the Republicans are not going to work.

The Republicans’ overwhelming obsession with destroying Obamacare and insane desire to ruin the president has been on full display. And, as the public’s anger grows over this entirely unnecessary crisis, it should be aimed at the Republican Party and its Speaker, not the Democrats, not the President.

In the throes of desperation

Why are the Tea Party Republicans so desperate to defund Obamacare right now? Because they know that once it goes into effect its popularity will skyrocket. The Republicans know that once it is in effect, it will be impossible to tell the millions of Americans who have a pre-existing condition that they have to return to the days when they either were denied insurance coverage or had to pay an arm and a leg to get it. They know that once it is in effect, it will be impossible to end the affordable coverage where prices have come in much lower than projected.

They know that once it is in effect, it will be very difficult to end coverage for the millions who will for the first time have health insurance through expanded Medicaid. They know that once it is fully implemented, it will be impossible to take away the many benefits of Obamacare. It is one thing to prevent something good from being passed by Congress. It is quite another to take something away from the voters.

Most importantly, they know that all of the many Obamacare “horrors” they have predicted will not happen – from “death panels” to price increases to a “government takeover.” As a consequence, they believe that once Obamacare is fully implemented, their credibility on the subject will collapse, support for major new progressive initiatives will increase, the popularity of the President – and of Democrats in Congress – will go up, and their chances of hanging on to the House or taking the Senate in 2014 – and the White House in 2016 – will decline. This is why the GOP will risk shutting down the government or defaulting on America’s obligations – on the chance that they can force President Obama and the Democrats to delay its implementation and allow them to live to fight another day.

They are desperate. And to achieve their narrow ideological goal, they are willing to use the same desperate measures that other marginal movements have adopted around the world: they have taken a hostage. Except their hostage is not one person – it is 320 million people – it is the American economy.

But their hostage taking strategy faces two virtually insurmountable obstacles:

First, President Obama is not willing to negotiate whatsoever over the debt ceiling or Obamacare. Obama has learned, categorically, that he should never negotiate with hostage takers, because to do so only encourages them to take more hostages and make more demands. He knows that if he negotiates with people who are willing to collapse the American economy just to get their way, they will then use the same threat again and again. And he is obviously unwilling to sacrifice his signature initiative, Obamacare.

Second, many among the GOP establishment think that the Tea Party’s willingness to shut down the government or cause a default is sheer madness and would severely damage the GOP brand.

The GOP demand that President Obama and the Democrats surrender or face a government shutdown or default is like a combatant in a war demanding that the other side surrender or he will blow his own head off. From a purely political point of view – if it were not so bad for the country and economy – you would have to say: “Go ahead, make my day.”

All the polls show that if either a shutdown or default takes place, Americans will blame the Republicans by a factor of at least two to one. And after they have taken the blame, in the end they will collapse. Even the Wall Street Journal editorial page said so:

The evidence going back to the Newt Gingrich Congress is that no party can govern from the House, and the Republican Party can’t abide the outcry when flights are delayed, national parks close and direct deposits for military spouses stop. Sooner or later the GOP breaks. So while the state of desperation in evidence among Tea Party Republicans at the prospect of Obamacare going into effect — and becoming very popular — might be understandable, their desperate strategy of holding the economy hostage in order to kill it [Obamacare] is downright suicidal. 

Jim Carville and Stan Greenberg wrote: The Republican Party has a serious brand problem, and it keeps getting worse. The GOP is viewed unbelievably negatively, and even Republicans themselves agree that it is deeply divided. Polls show the Republican brand problem manifesting itself in the Virginia gubernatorial race and in Senate races across the country. And if Republicans damage their brand even worse by shutting down the government, we think that they could trigger a revolt that might even imperil their House majority in 2014. 

Then again, while suicide bombers end up as victims of their own actions, there is no question they can inflict enormous amounts of pain and suffering on everyone else.


From an article by: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post Blog, September 20, 2013

I hope you all have lifeboats

The economic downturn has already gone way beyond the subprime mortgages and risky derivatives. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush era laissez-faire policies of deregulation, where bankers and the financiers did as they pleased with little regard of the consequences, has finally caused a negative reaction throughout all economic sectors, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Jobs are being lost by the millions worldwide. The Bush regime caused this economic calamity not only through bank deregulation, but also through giving excessive tax cuts to the wealthy while, at the same time, spending on an expensive budget-busting, deficit-increasing, $12 billion dollars-a-month, unnecessary war.

The dominoes are falling. Here is what is happening now:

· Consumers, their wealth decimated and their optimism shattered by collapsing home prices and a sliding stock market, have cut back their spending and sharply increased their saving which is a huge blow to the economy right now. Savings are good in the long run, but a sudden turning off of the shopping spigot worsened the economic downturn. This has caused massive job loss worldwide in retail and manufacturing.
· Credit is still tight while some banks continue to fail. Not only are those who worked in the financial sector losing their jobs, but people are losing their savings, including retirement savings. Others cannot get loans to purchase houses, cars, appliances, etc, regardless of credit rating.
· Real estate developers, watching rents fall and financing costs soar, have stopped building, with many completely shutting the doors of their businesses, causing major job losses in the construction and real estate sectors.
· Manufacturing and retailers are canceling plans to expand capacity, since they aren’t selling enough to use the capacity they have. There is no demand for their products.
· Exports (goods sold to other countries), which were one of the U.S. economy’s few areas of strength over the last couple of years, are now plunging.

By decreasing interest rates, the Federal Reserve has always been our main line of defense against recessions, but they have already cut the prime lending rate (the rate for banks lending to each other) to near zero and can do nothing more to stop or even slow down the economic free fall.

This country is moving closer to an extremely deep, catastrophic recession, if not a depression, as Congressional Republicans stubbornly spout their worn out clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts — as if the economic failure of the last eight years never happened. Republicans seem to have no sense of reality. Because their ideology gets in the way, they lack the ability to understand that the U.S. is falling into an abyss, and once we do, it will be very hard to get out again. These old disciples of Reaganomics are clueless that allowing the market to “work through” this problem will likely send us into a depression. In fact, Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, said this past Tuesday that the world economy was already heading for a 1930s-style depression.

Republicans seem to be confused about the nature of bipartisanship. Since President Obama spent time inviting Republicans to the Whitehouse and visiting them on the Hill in the spirit of bipartisanship, Republicans act as if they have a free pass to rewrite the entire legislative package and its intent. But that is not what bipartisanship is. Bipartisanship is the willingness to compromise and incorporate ideas that Republicans and Democrats alike agree are good for the country. Yet, even though Democrats, at the insistence of the President, removed some spending items from the stimulus bill and put in tax cuts to please Republicans, Congressional Republicans formed a locked-step barricade to a Recovery and Relief bill that is our best chance to try to stop an impending catastrophe. They proudly point to sticking together to vote against the Democrats’ economic stimulus plan, and to how the Senate Republicans, except for about three moderates, are doing the same.

There is no true willingness on the part of Republicans to compromise, even though they say they are willing. There seems to be only a desire to beat the Democrats, weaken the President, and have things their way. This is not bipartisanship. They should listen to Republican Governor Charlie Crist who said, “My guy didn't win but President Obama is my man now and he's my president. I want him to succeed because that means my country succeeds. That's the only way a true American should feel.”

After the stimulus bill left the House last week, a small bipartisan group of moderates from the Senate worked around the clock over the past few days to hammer out a better compromise that they felt both sides of the aisle could approve. They added more tax cuts and cut spending further, including cutting out aid to the states, to where the bill is now about 45% tax cuts and 55% spending. As Susan Collins, R-ME, and Ben Nelson, D-NE, introduced the new compromise to the Senate, Republicans objected before even having read the bill. Why? Because they want tax cuts only – tax cuts for everyone, including the wealthy and big business. They continue to insist that tax cuts trickle down and create jobs regardless of the fact that the Bush cuts did no such thing over the last eight years.

What is most amazing is that after not saying one word against the budget-busting $12 billion per month spending on the Iraq War, often insisting that heavy military spending helps the economy, Republicans are now screaming about how much the $830 billion stimulus will add to the deficit. These hypocrites will spend us into a chasm when it comes to military spending, but insist that government stimulus spending will put the deficit into unmanageable territory. In fact, Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was told "deficits don't matter" when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis. O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key Bush constituency. O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits topping $500 billion that year posed a threat to the economy, but Cheney told him, "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

That being said, now is not the time for our government to pull back from deficit spending. According to most economists, government spending is what is needed because for every dollar directly spent by government, we will get $1.50 in stimulus — this is not the case with tax cuts. Once things stabilize, Congress can work on reducing the deficit. But for now, they absolutely must spend on goods to increase “demand” and fill the void left by consumers who have cut back.

While many Republicans appear to be blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes of this terrible economic mess, the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, and homes foreclosed on. They are struggling with gas and food price inflation, saddled with ever-increasing debt, and forced to work under more and more stress due to fear of layoffs. The Iraq war notwithstanding, this is the reason why the GOP no longer has a single House member from any of the six New England states and no Senators from the Pacific Coast states.

Not all Republicans are against the Recovery (stimulus) bill. Republican governors and mayors around the nation have called on the Republicans in Congress to get out of the way. The Republicans Governors around this country need this stimulus money to get their folk back to work. They are backing Barack Obama, as Governor Charlie Crist of Florida stated on Hardball with Chris Matthews this past Tuesday:

“Here in Florida, we just came through a special session where we had to cut over a billion dollars more as it relates to making sure that we stay in balance. This program (the stimulus bill) will help us with education, with health care, Medicaid specifically, infrastructure. These are the kinds of things that produce jobs. It could mean $13 billion to the Sunshine State. It comes at a time when we need it. People need jobs. It‘s about jobs, jobs, jobs. This will help us produce that, and I think it‘s important to move forward. …And I think that‘s what this (bill) can offer to people. I don‘t think it‘s perfect, but I think we need to do something in order to help our country.”

Van Jones, author of The Green Economy, spoke of what will happen if the stimulus is not big enough: “You can't jump halfway across a chasm — you just end up falling into the abyss.” Jones explained further: “… when I look at it (the stimulus bill) in its entirety, I fear that we may soon look back and say that we missed a huge chance to go bigger and bolder. After all, there were three flaws with the old economy that has crashed: it favored consumption over production; debt over smart savings; and environmental damage over environmental renewal."

Many economists, including Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman, say that in the absence of bold and timely Congressional action, we’re headed for a deep, prolonged slump with unemployment in the double-digits. We are talking about white collar workers, not just blue collar, in soup lines.

So far, my husband and I are doing okay because for at least this year our state is managing to keep the school system afloat, continuing to pay teacher salaries. But the next school year may be a different story altogether with layoffs and IOUs instead of paychecks (as they did during the Great Depression). We have been putting off buying big ticket items, spending only on necessities, and saving every penny we can — just in case.

I hope you all have lifeboats.