Tag Archives: Congress

Who Says Republicans Don’t Have a Sense of Humor?

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Example 1:

“House Republicans have found a subject for their opening review of conflicts of interest under Donald Trump: the federal official in charge of investigating conflicts of interest.”

Yes, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, is mad at the head of the Office of Government Ethics for pointing out (as both Democratic and Republican ethics lawyers agree) that the President-elect’s “plan” to avoid his many, many conflicts of interest is “meaningless”. There are hysterical details here. 

Last night, I found the ethics official’s explanation of his negativity at the Office of Government Ethics site. It was a four-page PDF file, but the lawyer who wrote it isn’t nearly as funny as Rep. Chaffetz. Unfortunately, the link isn’t working at the moment (because of heavy traffic or those madcap Russians). But maybe it will work for you.

In a related, even more priceless development, Rep. Chaffetz announced a few days ago that he plans to keep investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails! This lovable scamp Chaffetz is relentless!

Yet:

When asked about T__p’s potential business conflicts, [chairman Chaffetz] noted that the law‎ exempts the president of the United States, calling the push from Democrats to launch a committee investigation on T__p’s business ties “premature at best.” [CNN]

I suppose “premature at best” implies “totally ridiculous at worst”!

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All right, now that I’ve recovered my composure…

Example 2:

It might seem like yesterday, but it was almost seven years ago that America’s first step toward universal healthcare became law. It was officially called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but rapidly became known as Obamacare. The law included many (in fact, mostly) conservative ideas, but in the end not one Republican Senator voted for it. In fact, Republicans immediately began calling for the law’s repeal.

Now that the Republicans control Congress and are about to occupy the White House, they’re beginning the effort to repeal the ACA, but questions are being raised, even by Republicans. Should the law be repealed in toto, which would mean taking health insurance away from millions of people, including lots of Republican voters? Or should it be left in place until the law’s terrific right-wing replacement is all ready to go? 

Since they’ve had seven years to think about it, they must have something wonderful (“My God, it’s full of stars!”) waiting in the wings. So here’s what happened last night at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s nationally-televised “town hall”.

From the GQ site:

The event began with a question from a polite, middle-aged gentleman named Jeff Jeans, a small-business owner:

“I was a Republican, and I worked for the Reagan and Bush campaigns. Just like you, I was opposed to the Affordable Care Act. When it was passed, I told my wife we would close our business before I complied with this law. Then, at 49, I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. We offered three times the cost of my treatment, which was rejected. They required an insurance card. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here today, alive. Being both a small businessperson [and] someone with preexisting conditions, I rely on the Affordable Care Act to be able to purchase my own insurance. Why would you repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement?”

Chuckling nervously like a local-news anchor who suddenly lost his teleprompter feed, Ryan began explaining to Jeans that his party in fact does have a proposal—it’s just a secret one that he still hasn’t shared with his colleagues. Jeans, however, still needed to twist the knife.

RYAN: We wouldn’t do that. We want to replace it with something better. First of all, I’m glad you’re standing here! I mean, really, seriously, I—

JEANS: Can I say one thing? I hate to interrupt you.

RYAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JEANS: I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart, because I would be dead if it weren’t for him.

Seeking further information, I was led to a site called “A Better Health Care Plan”. It’s run by a bunch of Republicans who call themselves the “American Action Network”. The first thing you see is a link to a YouTube video: “A New Path Forward”. Here’s the video’s entire script: 

Imagine a new path forward. Health insurance that provides more choices and better care at lower costs. A system that puts patients and doctors in charge, provides peace of mind to people with pre-existing conditions, and paves the way for new cures by eliminating senseless regulations. House Republicans have a plan to get there without disrupting existing coverage, giving your family the health care they deserve.

You’re then invited to visit the very site you’re on, “A Better Health Care Plan”, for further information. And here it is: 

House Republicans have a plan to get there

Our Congress is fighting for us: lowering costs, providing more control and more choices to pick a plan that meets our needs, not a plan that Washington mandates.

That’s all the further information provided. In toto.

Now who doesn’t think Republicans have a terrific sense of humor? 

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It’s Been With Us For Years, But Gotten Worse

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The historian Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) is known outside academic circles for having written a particular book and a particular essay. The book was Anti-intellectualism in American Life from 1963. The essay was “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” from 1964. I read the essay a few days ago in a collection of Hofstadter’s work. Anyone who wants to understand how we got to this point in American history will benefit from reading Richard Hofstadter.

He explains, for example, the basis for “economic individualism”, the idea that it’s not only more efficient but more ethical that everyone should sink or swim on their own. Thus, poor or working-class conservatives are often against anyone receiving help from the government, even though they could use that help themselves:

On many occasions they approach economic issues as matters of faith and morals rather than matters of fact. For example, people often oppose certain economic policies not because they have been or would be economically hurt by such policies, or even because they have carefully calculated views about their economical efficacy, but because they disapprove on moral grounds of the assumptions on which they think the policies rest….Deficit spending might work to their advantage; but the moral  and psychological effect, which is what they can really understand and feel, is quite otherwise: when society adopts a policy of deficit spending, thrifty [conservatives] feel that their way of life has been officially and insultingly repudiated [“Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited – 1965”].

Hofstadter borrowed the term “pseudo-conservative” from the German thinker Theodore Adorno. He explained why in an earlier essay written in response to McCarthyism:

There is a dynamic of dissent in America today…The new dissent is based upon a relentless demand for conformity… Its exponents, although they believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism, show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions. They have little in common with the temperate and compromising spirit of true conservatism in the classical sense of the word…Their political reactions express rather a profound … hatred of our society and its ways – a hatred which one would hesitate to impute to them if one did not have suggestive evidence from clinical techniques and from their own modes of expression [From “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt”, 1954].

Remind you of anyone you know? I mean, who in public life expresses more contempt for America in the 21st century than the next President and his fans, the vocal minority that wants to make this country “great” (i.e. “white”) again? Maybe the Democrats should have revived those popular bumper stickers from the 1960s, the ones aimed at Volkswagen-driving hippies and protesters.  

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Finally, here’s what Hofstadter said about the Republicans’ first pseudo-conservative Presidential nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater:

Unquestionably, Goldwater’s ideas do retain some shreds and scraps of genuine conservatism, but the main course of his career puts him closer to the right-wing ideologues who were essential to his success, who shaped his tactics, who responded to his line of argument… How are we to explain the character of a “conservative” whose whole political life has been spent urging a sharp break with the past, whose great moment as a party leader was marked by a repudiation of our traditional political ways, whose followers were so notable for their destructive and divisive energies, and whose public reputation was marked not with standpattism or excessive caution but with wayward impulse and recklessness? [“Goldwater and Pseudo-Conservative Politics”, 1964].

Again, remind you of anyone you know?

Fortunately, Lyndon Johnson beat Goldwater by 26 million votes (rather than 3 million) and by 61% to 27% (rather than 48% to 46%). Goldwater only won six states in the 1964 election: the five former slave states of the Deep South and his home state of Arizona. That gave him 52 electoral votes compared to Johnson’s 486. 

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In addition to being a pseudo-conservative, Goldwater had no particular qualifications to be President. Before being elected to the Senate, he managed the family department store. In the Senate, he played no significant role. In Hofstadter’s words, “his main business there was simply to vote No”. He was still an “outsider” even after 12 years in Washington.

Goldwater’s extreme positions and lackluster qualifications contributed to his historic defeat. Fifty-two years later, due to a variety of circumstances, another pseudo-conservative, this time with no government experience at all, won narrow victories in enough states to win the White House. Given their appeal to the same sorts of voters, and given the fact that our next President is obviously suffering from a personality disorder (whereas Goldwater was relatively normal in that regard), it’s fair to say our democracy is showing signs of wear and tear that are beyond serious.

Addendum:

The journalist James Fallows recently reported the following conversation with a U.S. Senator:

Q:  How many of your colleagues know that there is something wrong with T***p?
A:  All of them, obviously.
Q:  Which Republican will be the first to say so?
A:  Ummmm….

An Open Letter to the Leading Democrat in the House

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As foreign diplomats and business people begin funneling cash to the President-Elect by taking rooms and scheduling events at T—p’s new Washington hotel (see “kleptocracy”), someone shared the following letter with me. It’s addressed to Nancy Pelosi, the current leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives.

I am writing to you on the assumption that you will continue to be leader of the Democratic members of the House of Representatives, and am urging you and the Democratic Caucus to immediately start drafting Articles of Impeachment for our presumptive President, Vice President, and other executive positions subject to impeachment.

Like many Americans, I am deeply troubled by the results of the November election. Assuming the lobbying of the Electoral College comes to naught and we do end up with this amazingly unqualified individual as President, my feeling is that everyone should do whatever they can to minimize damage to the country during his tenure.

Impeachment of executive branch officials, both elected and appointed, is the domain of the House of Representatives. There is surely zero chance that Articles of Impeachment drafted by the Democratic Caucus would pass the Judiciary Committee. But I do believe a steady stream of draft impeachment documents presented to the committee would help keep the incompetence of the Executive Branch and its appointments in the public eye. Even if the majority party does not allow draft Articles of Impeachment to come under committee consideration, their existence and content can still be publicized.

When considering the President and Vice President, and the people who are being named for other positions subject to impeachment, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be no trouble to create a steadily growing list of impeachable offenses for several years to come.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Meanwhile, a few Republicans in the Electoral College can still interfere with the monster’s journey to the White House. 

Hillary Isn’t Bill, Economically Speaking

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Even more than usual, coverage of this year’s election has been light on issues and heavy on nonsense. It would be great if there were more articles like this one by Mike Konczal for VOX: “The ‘New Liberal Economics’ Is the Key to Understanding Hillary Clinton’s Policies”.

He begins: 

The Great Recession and its aftermath shattered the policy consensus on economics. What would come next? It’s taken a while, but we’re witnessing the emergence of an important new vision.

He dubs this new vision the “new liberal economics” and says it’s based on these three principles:

— Inequality is not a regrettable but inevitable byproduct of an efficient economy, nor a temporary, self-correcting trend. It’s driven by policy choices, and new choices can make a difference.

— The economy will not simply bounce back from any weaknesses, as was assumed under Alan Greenspan’s Great Moderation. Rather, there are deep structural problems that include a global savings glut and unwillingness by US companies to make investments.

— “Nudging” the private market is not always the best way to deliver core goods and economic security. Deploying government services directly can be more effective.

After discussing these three principles in detail, Konczal argues that Hillary Clinton has formulated an “agenda in light of the Great Recession and the policy revolution [that] energetically incorporates these ideas”. He specifically mentions her proposals to:

  • Regulate financial activities “more broadly”;
  • Increase taxes on top earners;
  • Strengthen antitrust enforcement;
  • Put limits on drug prices;
  • Appoint members of the Federal Reserve board who will treat full employment as one of its primary goals;
  • Reduce corporate America’s fixation on quarterly earnings instead of long-term investment;
  • Initiate a long-needed $275 billion infrastructure plan;
  • Expand Social Security for poorer retires while resisting any cuts to the program;
  • Make all public colleges free for most American families;
  • Add a Medicare-like public option to the health care exchanges;
  • Support paid family and medical leave for all new parents.

Clinton’s many proposals remind me of the book her husband and Al Gore published back in 1992. It was called Putting People First and covered in detail many of the policies Clinton and Gore pursued in office. That was an exciting time to be a Democrat, because we finally had a Democratic President after 12 years of Reagan and the first Bush. We also had a Democratic Congress that worked with the new administration, an important benefit Clinton and Kaine probably won’t have.

But it’s still exciting to think about what a Clinton/Kaine administration might accomplish. Hillary Clinton is a very bright person who understands that America is different than it was in 1992. There’s more inequality, too many people in jail and welfare reform needs reforming. That’s why her agenda is more progressive than her husband’s was. The Republicans will resist, but President Hillary Clinton will do whatever she can to bring us and drag them into the 21st century.

The Clinton campaign’s many, many Issues pages begin here.

How Lobbyists Win in Washington

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[From “How the Lobbyists Win in Washington” by Jeff Madrick, a review of Lee Drutman’s The Business of America Is Lobbying:]

…there are two crucial points that are disturbing. The first is that business spends $34 on lobbying for every dollar spent by likely opponents such as labor unions and other interest groups.

The second point is, I think, Drutman’s most important. It may once have been adequate for lobbyists to provide business clients access to the right people. Today, however, they also must develop expertise on major political issues, so that they can provide policymakers with research, draft legislation, and pass on up-to-the-minute information. Lobbyists, not [government] staffers … are now the major source of information for Congress and the executive branch on major legislative issues. In one survey, two thirds of congressional staffers said they depend on lobbyists for the information they need to make legislative decisions and pass bills. Thus lobbying grows because Congress, and often the executive branch, needs lobbyists.

[Of course, we know that information is power. The rest is behind a paywall at New York Review of Books.]