Shameful Spin

July 28th, 2011

A few nights ago, while monitoring the primetime opinion broadcasts, I began to see wave after wave of Republican elected officials marching past the Fox cameras and touting a recent CNN poll which they said showed that "66% of Americans support 'Cut, Cap and Balance.'" I was, needless to say, a little bit curious about this. I went to read the poll in question. A full examination reveals their claims to be the worst sort of spin. Indeed, their exclamations rise to the levels of naked propaganda.

Here is the actual text of the question and the breakdown of the responses.

At first glance, this might seem impressive. But it is not. In fact, it is a testament to the average citizen's total lack of knowledge about what "Cut, Cap and Balance" would actually legislate.

How do we know this? Because CNN continued to ask more questions. They asked the respondents about specific spending cuts and tax increases. Meaning, they actually put quantifiable policy proposals to the test. What this reveals is that roughly two thirds to three quarters of the electorate is opposed to the entire contemporary Republican mission.

Period.

A BIG Shift

July 28th, 2011

Robert Greenstein of the CBPP notes a very radical departure in both the Boehner debt bill and the absurd "Cut, Cap and Balance."

"For 26 years, all budget legislation that would trigger across-the-board cuts if Congress fails to meet a fiscal target has exempted the basic low-income (or “means-tested”) entitlement programs from those cuts. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings laws of 1985 and 1990, the deficit reduction agreement of 1990, and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 — all bipartisan pieces of legislation — included that exemption. So did last year’s “pay-as-you-go” law, which requires Congress to offset the cost of new tax cuts or increases in entitlement programs so they don’t increase the deficit. Congress has never enacted a law with an across-the-board cut mechanism that subjects core assistance for the poor to these cuts.

But in the last few weeks, House Republicans have advanced two major pieces of legislation that would do just that. Both the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act,” which the House passed last week, and the new Boehner debt-ceiling proposal drop all of the low-income exemptions that have been part of every previous across-the-board cut mechanism since 1985.

And, in an exercise in political cynicism, both of these bills add an exemption — for payments to Medicare providers – that was not part of the previous laws. This enables the bill’s authors to claim they are protecting Medicare, even as they subject those living below the poverty line to the risk of automatic cuts that would push them even deeper into poverty. (To be sure, these two measures do not protect Medicare — or Social Security — from being cut by Congress to meet the extremely austere budget targets the bills erect; they only protect those programs from being cut automatically if the targets are not adhered to.)"

What Has Government Ever Done For Us?

July 21st, 2011

via

Trickle down economics are back, baby. This is, of course, insane. And yet, the proven failure of the scheme has not stopped the yo-yos who have conquered the Republican Party from doubling or even tripling down on it. Grover Norquist's dream of starving government down to the size where Republicans can "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" seems very nearly within reach.