Americans Oppose Every GOP Idea for the Fiscal Cliff

I've joked that if you "unskewed" the presidential election results to get rid of the American people's liberal bias, you'd see that Mitt Romney totally won the election. While it's fun to tweak conservatives over the poll trutherism that caused them to be caught with their pants down on election night, the fact is that this form of denialism has always been there. It's usually expressed as "you can get a poll to say whatever you want," but this time they just put more effort into it with the addition of fantasy numbers -- an effort that, ironically, was spent getting polls to say what conservatives wanted to hear. You hope this particular strain of reality opposition has suffered a fatal blow with Mitt Romney's loss, but you never know. Conservatives have a talent for ignoring lessons.

But not learning this particular lesson would be a tragedy for the GOP, so I think it's sinking in. Given the findings of a new poll, the time would be right for a GOP awakening, anyway.


Raising taxes on income over $250,000 remains a broadly popular approach to dealing with the country’s budgetary woes, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Sixty percent of all Americans back higher taxes on higher incomes in the new Post-ABC data. Earlier this month, an identical 60 percent of voters in the presidential election said income taxes should be raised on income over $250,000, according to the national exit poll.

In the new poll, 73 percent of Democrats support such tax hikes, including a majority, 57 percent, who do so “strongly.” Among political independents, 63 percent back an increase, while 59 percent of Republicans oppose such a move.

Other proposed solutions to shrinking the debt are far less popular with the public. Only 44 percent support new limitations on the deductions people can claim on their federal income taxes — a proposal that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney put forward during his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign.


In fact, if you look at the results closely, the poll has absolutely no good news for Republicans at all. As Steve Benen points out, "in the fiscal fight, the American mainstream disagrees with congressional Republicans on everything." If you wanted to get a portrait of exactly what it is that the American public opposes as a fiscal cliff solution, you could just grab any segment from any cable news network featuring any random Republican counting off their party's talking points. The GOP doesn't have a leg to stand on here. In fact, earlier polling showed Americans were ready to blame the GOP for a jump off the fiscal cliff. This newest one just spells out the specifics.

And Republicans are even being stripped of their fig leafs. They've been suggesting that closing loopholes would be preferable to raising tax rates, but the poll shows that's not a popular position either. Of course, Mitt Romney proposed this, so America has just gone through months and months of being told you can't close enough loopholes to get the job done without screwing the middle class. These things sink in and the losing candidate's position becomes a losing position. For current Republican congress critters, the idea's just a PR stunt anyway -- it's a way to raise taxes while denying you're actually raising taxes. Luckily, a big percentage aren't buying it.

So, will the GOP heed the writing on the wall or will they, in typical Republican style, take a kamikaze run off the fiscal cliff? One sign of the party coming around to sanity is the fact that anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist -- once a top powerbroker for the GOP -- is now being thrown under every passing bus. At this point, it looks like any tough talk is posturing. Republican leaders will take whatever bone is handed to them and try to sell it to their base and their Wall Street donors as a feast.

Anything else looks like political suicide. As Republicans learned the hard way, poll numbers do not lie.

-Wisco

[poll graphic courtesy of Steve Benen and Maddow Blog]

If It's Not Racism, Then It's Another Kind of Crazy

One of the great joys of the post-election political landscape is watching Republicans struggle with the BS with which they've hobbled themselves. Chief among these is the whole Benghazi affair. If you want a measure of how crazy the rightwing freakout over the attack on our consulate there actually is, just take it down and look at it for a bit. The whole argument behind the GOP "logic" works like this: knowing the attack was terrorism, President Obama sent out his minions to lie all about it. Why? Because if everyone knew it was a pre-planned terrorist attack and not a protest that got out of hand, Obama wouldn't be reelected. Not sure why we're supposed to believe that (and no one's actually explained it), but there you go. The important thing to remember is that it's all a big coverup.

Anyway, the coverup was uncovered-up before the election and Obama sailed to reelection anyway. At this point, the whole conspiracy theory is looking pretty sick. No one but Republicans cared about Benghazi much, so the whole "coverup" theory was done for from the gitgo. After all, why risk a scandal to avoid something that was clearly not scandalous -- or even politically hazardous? In the court of public opinion, Barack Obama was cleared -- resoundingly.

And it was a surprise to no one but the right. All during the campaign, Benghazi wasn't even a blip on the issues radar. Polling showed pretty much no one all that worked up over it. But the right was sure that everyone was going to lose it over Benghazi any minute now. If they just kept up the pressure, they could turn this into a major scandal -- despite the distinct absence of anything actually scandalous.

Now that the election is over and the public failed to freak out over the GOP's big package of nothing, they're kind of stuck with Benghazi. Maybe they think that to just drop it now that it's failed to serve its purpose would be to give away the game and admit the whole thing was BS all along. So this dead horse must be thoroughly beaten. If only there were some way out. A distraction, maybe. Some sort of victim card they could play or something.

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Aha! Here it is. A Washington Post editorial titled, "The GOP’s bizarre attack on Susan Rice." The piece deals with a letter written by Rep. Jeff Duncan that claims "Ambassador Rice is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public" about Benghazi.

Well, yeah. "Widely viewed" by wingnuts. Everyone else lives in reality, where -- according to the Post -- "established facts" state otherwise.

But being accused of just pulling stuff out of their collective butt isn't enough to rile up the right. They're used to that, since they do it all the time. No, what's getting under their skin is being accused of racism.


[James Taranto, Wall Street Journal:]

...[The Post editorial] focuses on the critics rather than their choice of words. Here's the passage that outrages Jacobson: "Could it be, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are charging, that the signatories of the letter are targeting Ms. Rice because she is an African American woman? The signatories deny that, and we can't know their hearts. What we do know is that more than 80 of the signatories are white males, and nearly half are from states of the former Confederacy."

Let's examine this argument carefully. The Post acknowledges that "we can't know their hearts." But it finds a (literally) prima facie reason to suspect them of invidious motives: Almost all of them are persons of pallor. The Post is casting aspersions on Duncan and his colleagues based explicitly on the color of their skin. And it is accusing them of racism!


I'm going to go ahead and guess that the Washington Post editorial board has more than a few white people on it. Just a hunch. Taranto's accusation of "anti-white bigotry" is laughable BS.

But the Congressional Black Caucus? Not a lot of white people there. Could the accusation of racism be, in itself, racist?

I'm going to go ahead and say no. The problem with all of this is that the Right's attacks on Amb. Rice have been completely debunked and the whole thing has devolved into a clown show.

So, if we can accuse the Black Caucus of anything, it's of trying to figure out what irrational thought process is behind all this. Racism is as good an explanation as any, although we can't rule out madness or alcohol or drug abuse. If the Republicans who signed Duncan's letter don't want to be accused of just plain lying, then they have to be prepared for the inevitable speculation -- what is wrong with their heads, then?

As I said, the GOP has pretty much done this to themselves. Even people like John McCain are starting to realize this is a loser. It's fun to be outraged, but it helps to actually have something to be outraged about -- and there's no there there. The smartest thing would be to just drop the whole affair and hope everyone forgets it was ever a thing.

But these are Republicans and they don't do things like that. They'll ride this thing all the way down to the pavement.

-Wisco

[image source]

Walmart's Phony Low Prices

It's pretty clear by now that Republican economic policies can be boiled down to "penny wise, but pound foolish." The idea is that it's possible to save your way to prosperity. This ignores simple math: if you don't make enough to be wealthy, no amount of saving will make you wealthy. It's a question of incomes, not savings. Rich people are rich because they make a lot of money. And you make a lot of money by spending wisely.

Of course, Republican economic policies make no sense because they're rationalizations for the transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. Some really do believe this math-challenged mumbo-jumbo -- perhaps even most Republicans. But those few who understand don't expect it to actually help everyone. It's just a con to help those few at the top. Tell the chumps the wealth will trickle down and, if the question of when actually ever seeps into their sheepish brains, tell them it'll happen any minute now, just you wait. Because Reagan.

But what's the penny wise and pound foolish thinking look like in the wild? Pretty the opposite of this:


[Mother Jones:]

Chances are you missed this particular bargain on Black Friday: Agree to spend 15 cents more on every shopping trip, and Walmart, Target, and other large retailers will agree to pay their workers at least $25,000 a year.

Big box retailers aren't actually offering that deal, but a new study by the liberal think tank Demos argues that it would be a great bargain for us all if they did. Increasing the average wage at large retailers from $21,000 to $25,000 would probably cost you less than $20 a year at the register yet lift some 1.5 million people out of poverty (including your cashier), create 100,000 new jobs, and boost GDP by some $13.5 billion.

Demos argues that retailers would benefit, despite higher labor costs, because their low-wage employees could suddenly afford to buy more of the basic necessities that they scan and load into plastic bags every day.


If you're like me, this is the part where you release a loud and resounding, "Duh!"

This is Henry Ford's argument -- that the worker ought to make enough to afford the product -- and that argument made Ford a rich man. If you can convince your workers to give you some of your money back (and make a tidy profit in the process), why wouldn't you?

Because you're penny wise and pound foolish. There are maybe five people on Earth who would argue that Walmart's success is because of their commitment to quality. Walmart makes money by saving money -- except they don't. Not really, anyway.

The problem with Walmart's business model is that it's a welfare queen business model. Their low prices are propped up by low wages, which in turn are subsidized by government largesse.

Daily Kos:

Wal-Mart's poverty wages force employees to rely on $2.66 billion in government help every year, or about $420,000 per store. In state after state, Wal-Mart employees are the top recipients of Medicaid. As many as 80 percent of workers in Wal-Mart stores use food stamps.

And that government money? That comes out of your pocket. Walmart's low prices are a con. It's not any cheaper than any place else -- they just do a better job of hiding and shifting the costs. You've heard of "creative accounting?" This is creative commerce; the cost on the price tag isn't actually what you're paying. Worse, if you don't shop at Walmart, you're still paying for their stuff. They've found a way to suck money out of your wallet without even selling you anything.

And Walmart's not going to be very interested in changing. Their wage slavery is making them a tidy profit. It may be a welfare queen business model, but it's a successful model. The company makes $15 billion a year. Off food stamps and Medicaid.

From a legal standpoint, you can't blame Walmart -- this is all completely above board. From a moral standpoint, they don't get off so easy. But there is no way in the world that you can argue that Walmart's government-subsidized prices represent any close to free market economics.

And it also represents the failure of trickle-down economics. Walmart is fabulously successful, yet the workers get paid crap. And they'll always get paid crap. It's a dead-end job.

If we force Walmart to change, expect Republicans to scream bloody murder. Penny wise, pound foolish.

-Wisco

[image source]

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GOP Stalwarts Deny Any Change is Needed

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the entirely predictable GOP civil war is moving forward nicely, with those who see the demographic writing on the wall calling for some basic changes to not only messaging, but actual policy. One GOP pollster, for example, said the party needs to jettison it's homophobia. "We should remain a pro-life party, but we will get nowhere being a party standing against gay rights," warned Whit Ayres. Other prejudices and idiocies are suggested for the chopping block as well.

That many Republicans are wising up and realizing that attacking everyone other than straight evangelical white males is electoral suicide is probably a good thing for the nation. That they seem to be losing the argument to the knuckledraggers is good news for Democrats. The change-nothing faction within the GOP is "the more dominant voice, and the one gaining currency within the center of the party," according to WSJ.


It asserts that Mitt Romney's loss to President Barack Obama was primarily a tactical failure, a combination of poor articulation of GOP positions and a weak effort to register voters and move them to the polls. Better execution on both, they say, would have swung the few hundred thousand votes in a few states that would have tipped the presidential election the other way.

This contingent, which includes many Republican governors, points to a wide range of shortcomings that it faults for the party's failings in the presidential and a number of Senate races. Among those: poor candidates, a shoddy turnout machine and an overall tone that didn't resonate well with young voters, minorities and women.

But few in this camp believe deeper surgery is needed. "It is critically important we remain true to who we are," Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said in an interview here at the meeting of the Republican Governors Association. "We have to figure out how to make our principles more attractive to emerging voters. But if we abdicate those, we become a very different entity."


Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad summed up this argument nicely. "We need candidates that don't say dumb things," he said.

Yes, Richard Mourdock's position on rape as a blessing wasn't the problem -- the problem was that he put it so poorly. Sugarcoat it a little and everyone will swallow it. This is denial on steroids.

But what can you expect from people guided more by their ideology than by reason? As I've pointed out before, it's pretty much impossible to accept the core "pro-life" position -- that life begins at conception -- and also allow exceptions to abortion bans. Saying they shouldn't talk about that position ignores the fact that they'll eventually be forced to vote on it. And, when that time comes, they'll vote their consciences and have to explain why they think women should be forced to carry a rapist's baby to term. The discussion is unavoidable. Once you begin to have that conversation, there's no way to spin things to suddenly make this lunatic argument any more popular.

And the same goes for every fringe issue down the line. Sooner or later, you're going to have to say what you believe and that's going to end you. In fact, the fallout would probably be even worse for the Republican brand. Think they hate you for saying how you'd vote? Wait until you see how they feel after you've actually voted. Hint; you won't enjoy it.

It's not the "tone," it's the positions. A changing electorate hates GOP positions. And why does this surprise anyone? The homophobic, sexist campaign of religious wedge issues, combined with the racist southern strategy, could only work so long as a shrinking portion of the electorate was big enough to move elections. How on Earth are you supposed to continue attacking gays, women, Latinos, blacks, Muslims, etc. while attracting those same people you're attacking? The problem is the hate.

If Republicans don't change course, they will die as a national party. Gerrymandering will save them in regional races -- state and local, congressional -- for a while. But when that sort of election rigging is irrelevant -- i.e., presidential races -- the GOP will continue to get their clock cleaned, by bigger and increasingly more convincing margins.

It's reports like this that put smiles on the faces of Democratic strategists and activists. The headline they saw in the Wall Street Journal is "GOP Kamikazes Winning the Navigational Fight."

-Wisco

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