GOP Dirty Tricks Still in Full-Swing
Remember when the Nixon administration used the IRS as a political weapon to crush their political enemies? Apparently the GOP yearns for the good old days, because they tried to slip in exactly such a provision into the must-pass spending bill in the Senate–and got caught red-handed by the Democrats.
If you recall Representative John Conyers in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (“Sit down, my son. We don’t read most of the bills.”) then perhaps you will see what the Republicans thought they were doing. The spending bill is 3,300 pages long, and the provision that would allow two Republican committee chairmen and their assistants the ability to read anyone’s tax record and make them public, regardless of privacy considerations, was slipped into the bill in the middle of the night just before it was scheduled to pass.
Sen. Ted Stevens, responsible for the provision, has apologized–after being caught, of course, and by way of blaming the whole thing on a staffer.
This after the GOP already snuck in language that would over-rule laws that require doctors and hospitals to fail to inform patients of all family planning options, as well as other measures aimed at prohibiting free choice in choices relating to abortion. When Democrats found the language, they protested a great deal and stalled the vote, but the need for the spending bill was too great and the Republicans too stubborn, and the bill passed with the provisions. Though largely symbolic, the language nonetheless signals the GOP’s persistence and dedication to overturning Roe v. Wade, if even one small bit at a time, paying off their fundamentalist base.
However, after the entire scandal of re-writing their accountability rules to allow Tom DeLay to remain party leader despite being indicted by a grand jury (they inserted a provision to oust any party leader under indictment in 1993 when some Democrats were in trouble, and hyped the rules as proof of their ethical superiority), the Republicans already look dirty and corrupt as hell. These latest spending-bill scandals simply emphasize the corruption. But then, this is the time for them to pull this stuff–a full two years away from the next election, and they know full well that voters don’t remember this stuff so well after all that time.
In other words, more of the same BS as always from the GOP.
A modest proposal for something I call BillLabs.org, a wikipedia-style service enabling massive public scrutiny in near-real-time for crazy spending bills, INDUCE Acts, PATRIOT Acts, and all the other marvels our Congress produces:
http://www.brianstorms.com/archives/000478.html
– Brian
Interesting that you are so focused on the Republicans ‘dirty tricks’. How the Democrats that are bankrupting the Nation? I guess if you are on the left, you can’t see anything ‘good’ on the other side.
The Democrats are bankrupting us? Hmm. Let’s look at the historical record:
debt / GDP
(in %)
So, under both Democrats and Republicans, until Nixon, the debt was OK as a % of the GDP, and really was not a tremendous thing in dollar terms. I will grant you that Nixon’s debt was in large part driven by the Vietnam War, which Johnson instigated. However, where did the debt really start to get out of hand? Reagan. He started to slash taxes for the wealthy while he increased spending. And before you start to blame Democrats in Congress, keep in mind that in seven of the eight budgets under Reagan, Democrats passed less than Reagan demanded; it was Reagan that drove the budget up, not Democrats, while he also drove revenue down. This continued, to an extent, under Bush, but did not reverse until Clinton. Yes, there was an Internet boom (thanks in part to Al Gore, ironically), and to be sure, Republicans helped drive some of the spending cuts, but Clinton presided over it and was the deciding factor.
Then we get to Bush 43 and it all goes to hell. Six trillion dollars in eight years, more than all previous presidents’ debts combined, thanks to his two long-term land wars in Asia and his massive multiple tax cuts for the rich, not to mention his dismally poor management and stewardship, and the nose-dive he drove us into the last year of his office.
Conservatives tend to forget the years of Bush whenever they talk about these things, as if it didn’t happen or didn’t matter.
Of course, none of this is what you’re talking about, and your reply to what has been said so far will of course be, “But Obama is digging our grave now! You conveniently forgot to add him to that table!”
Sure enough–if you add the last row, it doesn’t look too good:
debt / GDP
(in %)
Well, it’s still less than Reagan and the Bushes (especially Dubya), but Obama is the first Democrat to have a debt record as bad as a modern Republican. Not the way you would want to put it, I’m sure, but still, it’s true.
So, is Obama just as bad as Reagan and Bush?
Well, a few extenuating circumstances: Obama was handed an unemployment rate of 10% and a monthly job loss of 800,000 or so. He tried to institute a stimulus, but it was watered down by Republicans in Congress. He let them, so he shares the blame, but Republicans led that. The watered-down stimulus only partially, weakly, took out out of trouble–most importantly, it dragged us out of the dose-dive, but failed to be strong enough to bring us into a recovery. Had it been Obama and the Dems only, the recovery would have been stronger–not as strong as it could have been had it been done properly, but still, it would have been much better. However, the Bush Recession is worth about $400 billion of the current debt; responsibility for that portion is shared by Bush, Congressional Republicans, and Obama & the Dems, in that order.
Next, the Bush tax cuts continue to drag us down. Bush instituted them, Obama and the Dems tried to repeal the ones for people making more than $250,000 a year, but Republicans stopped them. True, Obama and the Dems were weak-ass as hell and should have been able to stop them, so they share responsibility, but Bush and the Repubs were the driving force. This is worth about $300 billion per year, ballooning into $600 or $700 billion per year by the end of the decade; again, responsibility for that portion is shared by Bush, Congressional Republicans, and to a much smaller extent, Obama & the Dems.
Next are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama is drawing these down, but not nearly as fast as he should be. His operations in Libya and elsewhere are not cheap, but their cost pales in comparison to the costs of these two major land wars in Asia. Still, Obama is, however slowly, winding these down. He has responsibility, but like Nixon, was handed his wars by his predecessor. This is worth a couple hundred billion dollars a year, and responsibility goes to Bush, and to a smaller extent, Obama.
Begin to see a pattern here?
The main drivers of the deficit under Obama–the recession, the tax cuts for the rich, and the wars we are fighting–are primarily Bush and Republican policies; Obama and the Dems are responsible only in that they are not reversing those policies fast enough or fighting them effectively enough.
Now, wait, you say–sure, the lion’s share of the debt was created by Reagan and Bush, and OK, let’s say for now that a huge part of the current deficit was driven by Bush and the Congressional Republicans–but what about all that “stimulus” spending, huh?? What about that?!?
Granted–but, unlike the tax cuts for the rich and the major land wars in Asia, it is stimulative. And it is only a small portion of the current deficit–only, on average, a few hundred billion a year. If that were the only thing causing the deficit, then the deficit would be lower than it was most years under Bush, and it would soon be dwindling to nothing. In the following chart, see that light blue portion? That’s Obama’s.
Frankly, that spending should be bigger–and it should be aimed mostly at infrastructure. The Bush tax cuts, primarily for the rich, should be ended, and the wars ceased. If all that is donw, the economic downturn could be curbed, and the deficit could be brought down like it was under Clinton and would have continued to be under Gore.
However, as long as Republicans have the House and/or enough votes to filibuster in the Senate, this will never be.
Democrats are bankrupting the nation? Don’t be an idiot.
Just out of curiosity, what “good” do you see on the Republican side? The attempt to dismantle Medicare so Americans will pay more in private fees than they currently do in taxes, else fall ill and die faster? Do you see Ryan’s plan, based on layer upon layer of lies and sprinkled with fairly dust and unicorn rainbows, as being an example of responsible economic governance? How about Republicans using the economy as a hostage, threatening to shut it down and even default on the debt, both of which could cause massive economic damage, the defaulting even wrecking the economy–you see that as “good”?
Pray tell, do list the “good” things that Republicans are doing.