Politics The Elephant in the room...The GOP today

grumpyolddude · Jan 27, 2013

Hmmmm... if a fetus is a child, pregnant women should be able to claim the dependent on their taxes, and prenatal care as child care services.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 27, 2013

redux said: ↑

And how about religious hypocrisy?
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But they're at least trying to abolish the death penalty, right?

ASU2003 · Jan 27, 2013

It will be interesting to see what agenda the GOP comes back with. And if they will be able to get the activist vocal minority to go along with it.

I mean they only needed to convince 3% of Democratic voters to switch to the Republican party and we would have President Romney... (shivers)

They could do it a few different ways which is the scary part. They could also break apart with the moral right and the fiscal right going different directions.

redux · Jan 27, 2013

The Boehner/Ryan new plan is to balance the budget in 10 years, with NO additional revenue...even more austere than the already austere Romney/Ryan campaign proposal that claimed to balance the budget by 2040.

Cant wait to see the details of this one, given that the voting public overwhelmingly favors protecting (but reforming) Medicare and Social Security and a balanced approach of spending cuts (including defense) and tax increases

Baraka_Guru · Jan 27, 2013

redux said: ↑

The Boehner/Ryan new plan is to balance the budget in 10 years, with NO additional revenue...even more austere than the already austere Romney/Ryan campaign proposal that claimed to balance the budget by 2040.

Cant wait to see the details of this one, given that the voting public overwhelmingly favors protecting (but reforming) Medicare and Social Security and a balanced approach of spending cuts (including defense) and tax increases
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It will require ramping up the class war.

It will require eliminating much of what has been alleviating the pressures caused by the acceleration of trickle-up economics over the past several decades.

It will be like Greece except with more guns.

redux · Jan 27, 2013

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

It will require ramping up the class war.

It will require eliminating much of what has been alleviating the pressures caused by the acceleration of trickle-up economics over the past several decades.

It will be like Greece except with more guns.
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It is the Tea Party mantra, despite the Tea Party at its lowest level of popular support since is inception.

It is Republican incumbents up for reelection in 2014 fearing a challenge from the far right.

And later this week, both Obama and a bi-partisan group in the Senate will introduce immigration reform legislation, including a path to citizenship (not amnesty), that wont sit well with many House Republicans, leading to more squabbling within the party.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 27, 2013

redux said: ↑

And later this week, both Obama and a bi-partisan group in the Senate will introduce immigration reform legislation, including a path to citizenship (not amnesty), that wont sit well with many House Republicans, leading to more squabbling within the party.
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And more support from the far right.

America is poised to slide into a dangerous place in terms of populist politics.

The worsening of the situation for the lower and middle classes comes at a time when wages are stagnant, unions are further being dismantled, the poor are expected to take on more of a burden, the rich refuse to pick up any of the slack, and the S&P is at its highest since 2007 after its longest winning streak since 2004.

But, yes, let's blame the poor for government spending and for voting for liberal handouts.

ASU2003 · Jan 27, 2013

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul need to get together and make a balanced budget that would be fair and reduce the size of the military to 1930 levels...but also reform SS and Medicare.

rogue49 · Jan 27, 2013

ASU2003 said: ↑

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul need to get together and make a balanced budget that would be fair and reduce the size of the military to 1930 levels...but also reform SS and Medicare.
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Uhh...how about we have their love child do it...which would be smack dab in the middle of both their positions,
and just as realistic and likely...

I'll go for practical and pragmatic...and it looks like we're slowly going that way.
It even is looking more like the GOP will allow the sequesturation to go through rather than fighting it.
That way, they can get the cuts and principles of less government they are looking for.
The %'s will come from everything, even entitlements...and defense.

Quite frankly, I think its the only way to cut spending without the interference of lobbyists...and other interested parties.
And they'll have a great excuse of saying their hands were tied...and won't be penalized by their constituents...they can blame others.

It's a stupid way of saving face...but in the twisted world of American politics today, it's win-win.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 27, 2013

I think it's a mistake to obsess over the deficit, to focus on deficit elimination as the goal and then set 10 years as some arbitrary timeline.

Before Obama (i.e., before the economic meltdown), there were four decades of deficit spending with the exception of a single Democratic president. Why the obsession now? My guess is because of the magnitude of the deficit of recent years. It's understandable. These are the worst deficits since WWII.

However, deficit elimination is not a sound budgetary strategy given the circumstances. The GOP freak out and go on about Big Government. Well, Big Government isn't the problem here. The problem is a multitude of system-wide failures of government, industry, and globalization. Obama isn't the culprit. He's one president who managed to curb spending increases unlike any other in recent history despite the economic climate.

Looking to eliminating the deficit in a short period such as ten years to me sounds like opportunism on the part of the GOP.

You know how many surpluses there have been since 1940? Twelve. Most of them were before 1970. A third of them came out of the Clinton era. Surpluses account for just 16% of federal budgets. That means they're uncommon, especially in recent economic times.

The key thing to figure out is debt as a percentage of GDP. Debt isn't a bad thing on its own. U.S. federal debt is integral to the global economy. What's important here is ensuring a stable economy that can grow when growth is ready. That's not happening. Breakneck deficit reduction will destabilize the economy.

Take a look at what Ireland and Greece are doing. You have to be careful. Ireland looked at both spending cuts and revenue increases. They cut things like child benefits, health, and social benefits while boosting revenues through sin tax and property tax increases. Greece is just a mess.

redux · Jan 27, 2013

The myth is that Obama is the biggest spender in memory, when in fact the annual growth in federal spending in each of the last three years have been the lowest in memory.

Reagan and GW Bush were the biggest spenders, both increased the federal budget about 5-6%/year as opposed to Obama's 1-2% increase.

ASU2003 · Jan 27, 2013

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Breakneck deficit reduction will destabilize the economy.

Take a look at what Ireland and Greece are doing. You have to be careful. Ireland looked at both spending cuts and revenue increases. They cut things like child benefits, health, and social benefits while boosting revenues through sin tax and property tax increases. Greece is just a mess.
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Ireland is a mess, but it is because they don't get rid of the corporate tax loopholes. They are afraid that the companies will just find another place, which is the global paradox that we face. Facebook can pay 0.4% tax by using some accounting shenanigans on 1.4 billion in profit, yet Ireland wants to raise property taxes...

You might get a lot of unemployed people if you cut too fast, and don't have a transition plan. But, there are ways to promote entrepreneurship over government jobs. And you would hope that the society would come together to help in other ways. But after the last semi-depression, this country is in no position to go through a full on depression with resource scarcity.

rogue49 · Jan 28, 2013

So, has the Elephant taken a chill-pill and learned to play with others??
Frankly, I'll make my opinion when I see the trend over the next coming months.
There's been a bit of cooperations lately...but the ragin' cajun attitude of the past few years has gotten old.
We'll see, I prefer my elephants without Mammoth tusks. (the Mules have to work too...)

New GOP mantra: Be positive and prudent
By: Jonathan Martin - January 28, 2013

The fractious GOP hierarchy seems to have finally settled on a message when it comes to President Barack Obama: take a deep breath and don’t take the bait.

Overtly in speeches and more subtly with their actions, GOP leaders and potential 2016 presidential candidates are sending a message to their party that they ought not let themselves be radicalized by Obama’s ambitious and decidedly left-leaning second-term agenda.

Yes, high-profile Republicans are urging stout resistance to such Obama proposals as gun control and climate change legislation and there’s little in the way of calls for moderation.

But in their next breath, following condemnation of the president’s liberalism, the would-be GOP standard-bearers are imploring conservatives to not just oppose Obama but devise an agenda of their own that they can present to voters.

These Republicans, it seems, are dreading a replay of the last four years in which a triumphant Obama win leads to a conservative backlash at the polls in 2014 but the party is then subsequently tranquilized into believing they can win gold in the next presidential cycle by doing nothing but loudly opposing the administration.

Instead, top GOP officials are calling for a more strategic mix of opposition and accommodation, though of course they wouldn’t dare call it that. Broadly put, it looks something like this: fight Obama on some issues, yes, but don’t give him easy public relations wins by getting bogged down in fiscal fights and obstructing proposals like immigration reform. And, oh yes, offer an agenda of your own.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan has been the most explicit about this new tack and gave it a name, or perhaps a euphemism, in a speech in Washington Saturday at a conference staged by the National Review Institute: prudence.

“He’ll try to divide us with phony emergencies and bogus deals,” Ryan warned of Obama. “He’ll try to get us to fight with each other — to question each other’s motives—so we don’t challenge him. If we play into his hands, we will betray the voters who supported us — and the country we mean to serve. We can’t let that happen. We have to be smart. We have to show prudence.”

In a political context, prudence is most associated with Dana Carvey’s wicked impression of the slightly awkward but ever temperate George H.W. Bush – “not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent;” In other words, a plate of cooked broccoli in today’s red meat Republican Party.

But to Ryan and other leading Republicans, there now seems to be considerable virtue in prudence, if not moderation.

“We won’t play the villain in his morality plays,” said Ryan, the House Budget Committee Chair and last year’s vice-presidential nominee in his Saturday address. “We have to stay united. We have to show that — if given the chance — we can govern. We have better ideas.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker echoed his fellow Cheesehead about how the GOP should respond to Obama’s agenda.

“The biggest impetus for Republicans here is that we’ve got to offer a big, bold, positive, optimistic alternative to the president’s agenda,” Walker said in an interview following his own speech at the National Review conference. “Just being ‘no,’ just being a stopgap isn’t enough. People have got to see that there’s an alternative and that alternative is relevant to their lives. ”

Walker, who also may consider a White House bid, made clear who his advice was directed toward.

“Having leaders [in Washington] who just object to everything, it becomes almost a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “Where people go, ‘Oh, there they go again,’ versus ‘We’ll work with you on some things, but where you’re fundamentally wrong, that’s where we’re going to stand up and object.’ I think that’s much more powerful.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, another potential 2016 candidate, has also warned against blind opposition toward Obama and, since last year’s election, been an outspoken voice for message reform within the GOP.

“If this election taught us anything it is that we will not win elections by simply pointing out the failures of the other side,” Jindal said Sunday at the National Review event. “We must boldly paint a picture of what America can be.”

The Louisianan has been particularly critical of the congressional GOP’s obsession with short-term fiscal fights and the jargon thereof.

“We seem to have an obsession with government bookkeeping,” lamented Jindal Sunday, reprising remarks he offered at an RNC meeting last week in Charlotte.

Jindal, like most ambitious Republicans, has kept much of his criticism focused more on presentation than substance.

But Ryan ventured into policy over the weekend in what amounted to a mini roll-out from somebody who has largely kept quiet since the election. He defended his support of the fiscal cliff compromise – opposed by a majority of House Republicans – by stating bluntly that the economy would have taken a “nosedive” if it hadn’t passed. And he laid out the two-pronged approach he believes the party should take: “To mitigate bad policy — and to advance good policy wherever we can.”

What he didn’t say in front of the conservative crowd, but did the following day, was that one of those policies he’d like to advance is immigration reform.

Of all the issues Obama laid out in his inaugural address, it’s on the topic of immigration where there’s the most common ground with Republicans. Many in the congressional GOP, gripped with fear about their declining share of support from the country’s fastest-growing population, are anxious to support any sort of immigration legislation and deprive Democrats of the issue for future elections.

To get a sense for Republicans’ appetite for being a more cautious opposition, look no further than Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) embrace of immigration reform and the response to his proposal. It was an issue that Rubio, elected thanks to conservatives, handled gingerly in his first two years in the capital. But with the GOP’s crushing defeat among Hispanics in November and Rubio eyeing a bolstered resume heading into 2016, the Cuban-American phenom has let go of his reservations and sought to become the Republican face of immigration reform.

So far, he’s suffered little intra-party blowback.

Just the opposite: Among conservative voices in the media there’s been a remarkable shift since Election Day on immigration, with even the most hard-line talk show hosts giving Rubio a wide berth to make his naturalization-with-conditions reform pitch.

Seemingly every day there’s a new “ICYMI” email from Rubio’s forward-leaning staff touting warm comments about the Floridian’s plan from a different right-winger (Saturday it was Lou Dobbs).

Rubio has gotten cover not just from the likes of Dobbs but also key members of Congress – like Ryan.

“I support and agree with the principles that he laid out about earned legalization,” the congressman said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Making sure that you’re not rewarding people for having cut in line, but making sure that we can fix this problem.”

Not every conservative star is counseling prudence in dealing with Obama. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), the freshman who thrashed his establishment opponent last year, used his speech at the conference Saturday to speak to the upside of a temporary government shutdown. There would be “some political pain to be sure,” Cruz acknowledged, but he argued it was the 90s-era government shutdowns that led to subsequent balanced budgets. But even the tea party-backed Texan used much of his address to speak to the need for Republicans to become a party of “growth and opportunity” and embrace “the 47 percent.”

Whether this post-2012 mood of reform and introspection lasts until the first mail piece is dropped in Iowa is an open question. Even after consecutive presidential losses, there will be a temptation among some White House hopefuls to appeal to the party base by seeing who can out-do the other in talking the toughest toward Obama and veering the hardest to the right. And gains in 2014, when the electorate is likely to more closely look like it did in 2010 than last November, will only make such moves more alluring.

“Obama made the stupid decision to go hard-left ideologically which means he’ll get very little done, but I worry that our people could see any victories in the mid-terms as a sign that we just need to hit the gas,” said longtime GOP strategist Mike Murphy. “Too many in the primary electorate will just take the bait and dig in, too.”

Some senior Republicans are hopeful that the sobering experience of eight years out of the White House and a field with no candidates like Mitt Romney, who was viewed warily by the right, will reduce the temptation for demagoguery.

“Part of the reason why you had that rush to the right was because the frontrunner was somebody who had issues with persuading conservatives,” said conservative leader Ralph Reed. “So he had to spend a lot of time demonstrating his conservative bona fides.”

For now, though, fears about cringe-inducting moments at debates or jockeying for conservative advantage at over-covered straw polls are in the distant future.

“There would have been two obvious post-election reactions,” said Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, “Blind fury at the electorate, the world and President Obama – the kamikaze. And the other would have been total demoralization where you cave on everything. Well, if you’re a conservative like me the good news is the reaction hasn’t either of those.”

© 2013 POLITICO LLC[/QUOTE]
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Joniemack · Jan 28, 2013

I didn't read it all but I think I get the gist.

Don't change or moderate your positions or opinions boys, just do a better job of making the voters think you have.

ASU2003 · Jan 28, 2013

We will see what happens. It looks like immigration reform will happen and it is a good plan that both sides can agree on now.

But, the GOP will have to keep winning state, local, and house seats because Hillary looks like a easy victory in 2016, especially if the GOP primary is similar to last time around.

They can't just be the party of No, but they also need to have good plans for dealing with the problems we are facing. And I'm surprised that 47% of the people voted for Romney, so it's not like 17% did which is where it should have been.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 30, 2013

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools. [...] Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders’ religion. We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”

—Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Watson) on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher system for religious education

[...]

Where to begin? Hodges’ bigotry is perhaps only rivaled by her ignorance of constitutional and legal principles. Of course Muslim schools will qualify for funding under a voucher plan. When programs like this are set up that dole out benefits to religious schools, the government can’t play favorites. That’s basic.

In Washington, D.C., where House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican allies in Congress have established a federally funded voucher program, most of the schools taking part are Catholic, but two Muslim schools have been among the recipients.

As it turns out, the Muslim school in New Orleans has since withdrawn its request. But it’s probably only a matter of time before another one applies to enter the Louisiana program.

Some legislators aren’t comfortable funding Muslim schools. What’s to be done? How about not establishing these programs in the first place? Let Muslims fund Muslim schools. Let Catholics fund Catholics ones. Let fundamentalist Protestants pay for the conservative Christian academies and so on.

[...]
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Louisiana Revelation: School Voucher Funding – It’s Not Just For Christians Any More | Americans United

redux · Jan 30, 2013

Jindal's school voucher program takes $millions of taxpayer dollars out of the public school system to pay full tuition for students at private, mostly religious schools.

The Louisiana Science Education Act enacted several years ago that in effect required including creationism in public school science curricula evidently wasnt enough.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 30, 2013

Fantastic.

Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) brought back his "Don't Say Gay" bill for another attempt with even more requirements.

This time he also wants to force teachers and counsellors to out gay students to their parents:

The general assembly recognizes that certain subjects are particularly sensitive and are, therefore, best explained and discussed within the home. Because of its complex societal, scientific, psychological, and historical implications, human sexuality is one such subject. Human sexuality is best understood by children with sufficient maturity to grasp its complexity and implications [...]

A school counselor, nurse, principal or assistant principal from counseling a student who is engaging in, or who may be at risk of engaging in, behavior injurious to the physical or mental health and well-being of the student or another person; provided, that wherever possible such counseling shall be done in consultation with the student’s parents or legal guardians. Parents or legal guardians of students who receive such counseling shall be notified as soon as practicable that such counseling has occurred
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Tennessee 'Don't Say Gay' Bill Now Requires Teachers To Inform Parents If Their Child Is Gay | ThinkProgress

redux · Jan 30, 2013

Since 2007, Texas public schools have been allowed to teach Bible courses.

The result has been promoting religious fundamentalism in public schools.

In Texas public schools, children learn that the Bible provides scientific proof that Earth is 6,000 years old, that the origins of racial diversity trace back to a curse placed on Noah's son, and that astronauts have discovered "a day missing in space" that corroborates biblical stories of the sun standing still.

These are some of the findings detailed in Reading, Writing & Religion II, a new report by the Texas Freedom Network that investigates how public schools in the Lone Star State promote religious fundamentalism under the guise of offering academic courses about the Bible. The report, written by Mark Chancey, a professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University, found that more than half of the state's public-school Bible courses taught students to read the book from a specifically Christian theological perspective—a clear violation of rules governing the separation of church and state.

Texas Public Schools: Still Teaching Creationism | Mother Jones
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And last year, the Texas Republican party adopted a platform that opposes teaching critical thinking in schools because it might challenge students' fixed beliefs and undermine parental authority.

Joniemack · Jan 30, 2013

Hey, wait a minute! Isn't that a violation of the Constitution?

All the more reason Texas should secede as soon as possible to prevent further contagion.

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