First You Don't Succeed, Lie and Lie Again

The House is debating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on the floor as I write this. And the conservative minority is employing the same tactics that have led them into the minority: failed ideas wrapped in fresh lies.

The big lie/talking point being repeated on the floor is that their own alternative economic plan "will create 6.2 million new American jobs over the next two years, according to a methodology used by President Obama's own nominee as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Dr. Christina Romer."

For the past month, conservatives have been distorting and misapplying Romer's 1994 economic paper to claim that tax cuts offer a huge "multiplier" effect for the economy, and public investment offers nothing. Of course, the conservative claims have been repeatedly debunked, most prominently this past Sunday by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on ABC's This Week, but also by Brad DeLong and Nate Silver

But being debunked hasn't ever stopped conservatives before. So they released an alternative plan that is all tax cuts, no public investment, then used their fictional Romer formula to calculate it would create 6.2 million jobs.

BREAKING NEWS (RealityBurg, ObviousLand): We just spent eight years trying to create jobs and grow the economy with only tax cuts and no public investment. It was a colossal flop, no matter how you interpret one aide's academic paper from 15 years ago.

Of course, that was only one of the lies spluttered out during the course of debate.

Conservatives continue to employ the strategy as predicted by Marc Ambinder last month: "Think back to the (Bill-Clinton/Joe Biden!) crime bill of 1994, when Republicans rallied their base against the legislation by ridiculing a tiny part of it -- proposals to expand midnight basketball leagues as a way of keeping kids off the streets and out of gangs. Watch for Republicans to settle on a handful of objectionable items and create the impression that the entire enterprise is suspect."

That's what the attacks against tiny slivers of the package -- family planning services, re-sodding the National Mall, arts funding -- are all about.

And facts rarely get in the way. I am still seeing conservative congresspeople whine on TV about re-sodding the National Mall, even though that has already been stripped from the bill (and would require hiring people and buying materials to do it.)

Most importantly, McClatchy Newspapers put the criticisms in proper context: "House Republicans have lampooned some modest spending provisions in the package that have little to do with stimulating the economy, but those measures account for only a small portion of the money."

Yet they desperately try it make it sound the entire bill is wasteful pork. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan claimed on the House floor that only "12 percent" of the bill in about creating jobs, and "the rest is spending."

Where to begin with such idiocy?! First, it's not relevant what percent is about creating jobs (though I certainly don't take their number at face value), but how many jobs would be created or saved.

The Obama administration pegged it at 3 to 4 million jobs, which is in sync with the Congressional Budget Office's high-end estimate of 3.6 million jobs by next year (though CBO notes that more skeptical economist predictions put the low-end estimate at 1.2 million jobs.)

And those jobs would be largely created by the spending, the investment in tangible projects that our crumbling neglected infrastructure is crying out for.

Second, the other large portions of the bill are not on pork, but education, unemployment benefits, other aid to state governments as well as tax cuts mostly geared to working families (apparently for conservatives, tax cuts don't count unless they go to CEOs).

These initiatives are not necessarily designed to create jobs -- a comprehensive economic strategy involves more than one thing! -- but to forestall job and service cuts that would undermine federal stimulus, and give the squeezed, unemployed and impoverished funds to they can survive and keep money flowing in the overall economy.

It's bottom-up stimulus, not more failed trickle-down nonsense.

There are fair arguments to be made against the plan. For example, there are respected economists concerned that the bill does not spend enough to move our $15 trillion economy.

But no one with any expertise and credibility is advocating another around of conservative tax cut rehash that amounts to, as my colleague Isaiah Poole put it, "used junk on eBay."

Perhaps that's why the past month of conservative nonsense has done nothing to move public opinion, which is strongly for President Obama and strongly for an economic recovery bill like Obama's which is "a combination of tax cuts and transportation, education and energy projects."

One Republican political operative worried that his party risks becoming "a talk-show party." That's what the conservative House minority has done to the party today.

Lies are the lubricant that keeps conservative talk radio cranking and the conservative diaspora detached from reality. But today's reality is too stark for most to be ignored, which is why the continuation of a lie-based strategy is bound to keep conservatives mired in irrelevance.

UPDATE: And now it has passed the House, 244-188, without a single Republican vote. House conservatives have sent a clear signal to the nation: we are not renouncing our failures of the past, and we are not part of the solution you voted for. Good luck with that.

Originally posted at OurFuture.org

Comments

[lj9283]

I think it's time to use some Conservative Republican logic in our discussions on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A term I refer to as Pretzel Logic:

Mr. Limberger is saying that with last election resulting in 54% of American's voting for the Democratic Candidate, 46% voting for the Republican Candidate, that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act should be 54% in control of the Democrats, and 46% in control of the Republicans.

Mr. Limberger is wrong. The last election was a Presidential Election, and Presidential elections are decided by the votes of the Electoral College not the popular vote. (Remember Al Gore, Mr Limberger?)

In the last Presidential Election the Democrats got 68% of the votes of the electoral college, while the Republicans got 32%.

So 32% of $850 Billion is $272 Billion.

So lets give the Republicans $272 Billion in tax cuts. The Republicans like tax cuts, right.

Oh, the current bill has $275 Billion in tax cuts?

Well all the Republicans should be voting for this bill. They've got what Mr. Limberger wanted for them.

See, perfect pretzel logic.

[dreamsmasher]

The reason the Democrats are not celebrating this "victory" is because they know that by virtue of the vote they own it and the Republicans shoulder no blame for it when it blows up in their face.
I pray that the Republicans in the Senate are smart enough to follow suit.
The bill will pass without support from the Republicans and for that matter none is required by the Republicans because afterall the Democrats have more than enough to pass any piece of legislation they want to without even one single Republican voting for it. The Democrats will never do that because they do not want to be held accountable for their actions! God forbid they be forced into taking responsibility for their own actions for once!

[dreamsmasher]

This is not a stimulus package it is nothing more than pork and the Democrats way of making their supporters wealthy.
The only reason the Democrats are not claiming victory for this is simply because they know they own it and there is no way at all to blame the Republicans.
Besides if this bill was so good then why did eleven Democrats vote against it?
I guess Pelosi was right when she blamed all of the pork on the Republicans, I think she drank way too much of the kool-aid.
If this is any indication of how Obama and the Democrats are planning to get us out of this financial mess then we are doomed!

[LeftRight]

So you're claiming that this is just the Democrats trying to provide money to their supporters. That may be true, but I think that I would prefer providing money to the working classes (who tend to support the Democrats more...) than to provide money to the uber-rich (who tend to support the Republicans more....)

In other words, since the Republicans wanted more money for THEIR supporters, and the Democrats wanted more money for THEIR supporters, wouldn't it make more sense to provide the money to those who SPEND their money, rather than use it to make more money??????

[dreamsmasher]

I'm sorry but I seem to have missed the part in this "stimulus package" where the Republicans were rewarding their supporters.
I wouldn't exactly call ACORN working class, this is more like rewarding them for their dirty deeds (voter fraud).
And what about the billions of dollars that will be given to illegal aliens? Oh I'm sorry I forgot, they voted for Democrats too.
You know, this country is in a very bad financial crisis and if you are too blind to see that this bill is not designed to do anything at all for the economy then you need a reality check.
How do you think think this money will be paid back and who do you think is going to pay it? I guarantee you it won't be these same recipients of the pork barrel earmarks, it will be you and me, the working class and you can kiss your 401K goodbye in the end we will be totally dependant upon the Government for everything, this will be the United Socialist States of America.

[ThesagaciousOne]

Stimulus? - yes - Pork? - No
Condoms and Mall Sod are gone - good.
Smoking Cessation, NEA Endowments, STD Prevention, etc, while worthy pursuits, are not stimulus. Each deserves its own Appropriations Bill. In a Stimulus Bill they are pork!
If Rep. Pelosi, Sen. Reid, Pres. Obama, or any other politician cannot justify a provision with a straight face and without mumbling it does not belong!

[ThesagaciousOne]

of course I meant Sen. Reed.

[LeftRight]

Actually, you had it right the first time. His name is spelled Reid.

And for what it's worth, I partly agree with you. EVERY appropriation should have its own bill and be debated on the merits of the situation. On the other hand, sometimes you have a massive appropriation like this one that you cannot limit to one thing, so...... They also every so often have an Omnibus Budget bill, which happens when they don't get all the departmental budgets passed on time, and so they tie them all together, and you end up with WAY too much pork in those!

[fpie]

It's that non-reality based thinking that has gotten them and all of us in this mess. If you tell the lie enough times it becomes truth. Or at least a lot of rubes believe it.
The Republican party has become the P.T. Barnum party. There's a sucker born every minute. But then you can't fool all of the people all of the time and it looks like their time is up. But they're still workin' it.

[elaygee]

I will persoanlly doante the money for signs on the Mall saying "Thanks to the Republican Party, this lawn is dead or gone and will not be replaced."

[ThesagaciousOne]

The stimulus bill should promote jobs, not temporary summer employment

[LeftRight]

And that's a nice start. Of course you will have to find some way to provide for employment beyond the summer jobs, but it's still a good start!

[JimR]

Does anybody believe that this stimulus package is going to work, anyway? As Cenk Uygur put it, this stimulus package is "bloated, vague and rushed."

[LeftRight]

While I don't think that it will succeed completely, I do think that it will work. Just the very fact that they will actually be injecting money into the lower levels of the economy where it WILL flow out and about the whole of the economy is going to help. I don't think that it will SOLVE the problems, no, but just like FDR, we need to have the impression for the masses that we are doing something, even if it's not really solving anything!!

[IndyReader]

I'd guess that GOP politicians aren't worried about how they vote because unlike Democratic pols who are quite subject to calls and letters from their constituents, GOP constituents seldom contact their representatives to let them know how dumb they're being.

[lj9283]

They set this up last November with a clear statement of obstruction, and have not moved from sentiment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/21/mcconnell-warns-reid-you_n_145579.html?page=14&show_comment_id=18212242#comment_18212242

[bbbtmenw]

They only know how to lie, and try to get bribed for votes through PORK.

Remember this is the same group that worked with McCain to extort PORK on the last stimulus package.

[fairwitness]

As with every self-serving Republican lie and distortion of (at least) the last 8 years...
"Where to begin with such idiocy?! "

I can't fathom how human beings can be so perfidious.

[mommadona]

"COCKFIGHT!"

or

NEVER watch how sausage is made...if you intend to enoy the finished product.

I'm waiting for the ADULTS to walk through the door in 5.....4...­........3.­..........­.......2

[LeftRight]

They already did. It passed 244-188!