If you happen to be a swing voter who's considering the Republican slate next month, you're being tricked. That's not to say you're an idiot, but the Republicans are doing an excellent job masking over what they really stand for, and millions of Americans seem to be falling for it.
The Republican strategy for this midterm election is simple: Treat voters like easily manipulated hoopleheads. The GOP and its various apparatchiks are spending untold millions of dollars, much of it from anonymous donors and, perhaps, even some illegal foreign donors, in order to play out this nationwide swindle. They're investing heavily on the wager that Americans are so kerfuffled by the slow-growth (but growth nevertheless) economy that they're willing to buy any line of nonsense as an alternative solution.
Regarding that nonsense, just about every GOP solution and every GOP idea reveals either a hilariously obvious contradiction or an utterly transparent hypocrisy. Say nothing of unchecked awfulness like Southern Strategy race-baiting or bald-faced lies. But it doesn't seem to matter much because they've buried most of it under heaping piles of inchoate outrage and fear. Just like always. It's not unlike the 2000s all over again. They're engaging in the same bumper sticker sloganeering and myopic agitprop, but with updated content for 2010.
If you've seen any of the Republican TV spots this cycle, you're probably familiar with the focus-group-tested duet of fear: "Obamacare and Stimulus." For example, that infamous John Raese commercial featuring two not-West-Virginian West Virginians in full "hicky" regalia discussing why they're voting Republican. Among the reasons: "Obamacare and Stimulus." No specific reasons why those items are evil, they're just two scary things the hicky guys are pissed about.
And why aren't there any specific gripes cited along with those two items? Because the actual gripes are ridiculous.
Let's start with "Obamacare," then hit "Stimulus" presently.
The Republicans are trying to tell us that the health-care-reform bill is a hugely expensive trespass against freedom and liberty. This obviously refers to the price tag and the individual mandate. What they don't mention is that "Obamacare" will actually achieve several very significant goals.
1) The health-care-reform bill will help working and middle class Americans to afford quality health insurance via hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies. For example, families of four earning $54,000 will see their insurance premiums reduced by around $10,000 per year. That's a lot. Who in their right mind would turn down a government check for $10,000? Every year. That's a full semester of state university tuition, among other things.
2) Contrary to the "Obama-is-spending-too-much" meme, the bill does not increase the deficit. According to the nonpartisan CBO, the bill cuts the deficit by $130 billion over ten years. Put another way, all that scaremongering about the cost of the bill is just that: scaremongering. The bill pays for itself and then some.
3) There are no enforcement mechanisms for the super-duper terrifying individual mandate. If you choose not to buy insurance when the mandate takes effect in 2014, and are consequently fined $695, there is no means of actually enforcing the payment of that penalty. No liens, levies, no jail, no Obamacare Goons swooping into your house like America-hating Kenyan ninjas. Nothing will happen to you. Nothing. So, you know, chill out about the mandate.
The question about "Obamacare," then, is very simply: Why are the Republicans against reducing the deficit by $130 billion, and why are they against more accessible and affordable healthcare? I have no idea, other than they're taking the childish opposite position of what was passed (despite the deficit reduction and subsidies for the middle class, etc.). Oh, and they call it "Obamacare," which is spooky and one letter away from being "Osamacare." Scary, but entirely without substance.
Oh, and speaking of the deficit, the Republicans are lying to voters about the Democratic handling of the deficit as well. It turns out the Democrats and the Obama administration cut the deficit this year. Cut it. The 2009 Bush-approved budget was $1.416 trillion and the 2010 Obama-approved budget was $122 billion less. Meanwhile, the Republicans are admitting to increasing the deficit by $4 trillion by making the Bush tax cuts permanent. And they won't say what they plan to cut from the budget in order to pay for it. Once again, we're back in the early Bush years with so-called fiscal conservatives engaged in big, irresponsible spending without any way to make up the shortfall.
Actually, the only spending cuts that appear to be on the table are the Social Security checks, the Medicare reimbursements and the veteran's benefits that will stop when the Republicans gleefully shut down the government. (Any senior citizen who votes Republican is voting for their Social Security and Medicare checks to stop -- indefinitely. Just thought I'd mention that.)
Circling back, it's important to repeat: President Obama and the congressional Democrats cut the deficit. Fact: The first Obama budget was billions less than the final Bush budget. And, in the process, President Obama's policies have pushed the DJIA from 6,000 to 11,000; his policies have turned Bush-era job losses into job creation; and pulled the nation from the brink of another Great Depression.
Again, why are the Republicans against all of this?
By the same token, why are they against the stimulus? They really won't say other than to screech about how expensive it was. But, before we go further, read the paragraph about the deficit again. The Democrats cut the deficit. And then factor into the mix that $288 billion out of the $800 billion cost of the recovery act was composed entirely of tax cuts. Tax cuts! As a matter of history and taken as a lump sum, this was the largest American middle class tax cut ever. So it's not a stretch to suggest that the Republicans are suddenly against the largest middle-class tax cut in American history.
Despite the attempt to turn a derivation of the positive word "stimulate" into a negative, there's very little about the stimulus that actually sucked, other than the fact that it wasn't big enough. Beyond that, Republican voters need to ask themselves if the tax cuts were bad -- or maybe was it the new roads and infrastructure that helped to create jobs, or was it the money that was spent to keep the states out of bankruptcy and police, teachers and firemen from losing their jobs? What's awful about any of that?
Then they need to ask themselves why Republican politicians like Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), along with dozens of other Republicans, actually petitioned and received from the Obama administration millions in stimulus dollars? Some of them even posing with giant novelty stimulus checks and literally campaigning on the wads of money they received from the stimulus. Pete Sessions, in fact, wrote to Secretary Ray LaHood and emphasized that the funds would literally "stimulate the economy" in his district. Naturally, Sessions turned around and campaigned against the stimulus. He thinks you won't notice.
Elsewhere, Newt Gingrich and others are trying to deceive voters by insisting that it's "liberal math" for an investment to earn a return -- for, say, a one dollar investment to grow into $1.74. Since when do Republicans believe that wise investments are "liberal math?" Specifically, Newt was talking about government spending on food stamps as a means of stimulating the economy. Based on simple math, one dollar in government money spent on food stamps creates $1.74 in economic stimulus, according to Moody's. Why? Because food stamps help Americans to buy things. Whereas the Bush tax cuts, for example, are a poor investment, only earning 32 cents for every dollar spent. Why? Because rich people tend to save their tax cuts rather than pumping that money into the marketplace.
Back to our refrain: Why are the Republicans against smart investing?
Yeah, Obamacare and the Stimulus. Destroying America from within, right?
It's worth noting here that this same Republican deception runs across other issues as well. Republicans are suggesting they'll protect individual liberty, while shrinking government small enough to fit into your bedroom or your uterus. Or they're running on the Constitution, while also having their hired thugs handcuff and detain a reporter in a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. Hell, some Republicans are running for U.S. Senate while opposing the 17th Amendment that established popular elections of senators. Wrap your head around that one.
Sure, there are still many things the Democrats have yet to unravel after 30 years of Reaganomics. But, despite their obvious faults, they're moving in that direction. And they're being as honest as politicians can be with their intentions. The Republicans, meanwhile, are running on some sort of Mobius Loop of backwards logic and flimsy, if not totally destructive, policy positions.
With less than two weeks to go, the sooner voters wise up to this Republican flimflam, the better off we'll all be.
Listen to the Bob & Elvis Show, with Bob Cesca and Elvis Dingeldein, on iTunes.
Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!
Follow Bob Cesca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobcesca_go
Maggie Kozel, M.D.: Veterans Health Care: Why It's the Wrong Time to Privatize
I just feel like so many are leaning toward the Republicans after voting for Obama because they expected him to have everything fixed by now. None of them expected the Republicans to be so uncooperative. Why? Who knows? But supporting a right-heavy under this President is tantamount to walking through a maze that only has the point at which you started as the exit. If these defectors think nothing is getting done now, wait 'til they get a load of a house that will not work with the President. Vote consciously, not emotionally on November 2nd. Conciousness seldomly waivers while emotions are a spur of the moment thing that can put you in a worse situation if they're relied too heavily upon. Think consciously before casting your vote.
Stimulus? I haven't seen anyone who credits the stimulus with creating or saving jobs take into account where the stim dollars came from: taxes (so the taxpayers could not spend the money themselves), borrowing (so D.C. borrowed the money and someone else didn't), or increasing the supply of dollars (thus reducing their value; this amounts to a tax on existing dollars). So in theory, the stimulus is completely worthless overall, every positive stimulus at point A being paid for a a negative stimulus at point B. And theory is confirmed by experience: Bush's huge deficits that did not stimulate, FDR's decade of deficits that did not stimulate, and our President's stimulus that was supposed to keep joblessness under 8%. $800 billion, totally worthless.
No enforcement of the mandate to buy insurance? Bet there will be. And are we free to spend our own money (not insurance or tax money, ours) on whatever health care we can get anyone to sell us?
The President of presidents is libertarian.
Saving does not provide the same benefit. The trickle down & grovel theory equals $.32. Tax breaks give people money to spend. Most economists would say the lesson of the Depression was consumer spending needed to be replaced by public spending. The depression lasted so long because we did not spend enough (FDR tried to balance the budget).
Unemployment has more to do with profitable companies gutting their workforce than it does Obama. Cheap laber is exactly what corporations want. Every where you look, companies are holding cities & states hostage to get the best possible deal, threatening to move to some even more desperate place.
Why don't you enlighten us with facts about what your libertarian argument really is so people can see where libertarian tea party movement is heading. Just read the history books of where this country was before Teddy Roosevelt & you'll have a pretty good idea. You think you are empowering people when in reality we will have none. We'll be grateful to have a job.
Libertarians are nothing but a bunch of sheep about to get eaten by wolves. Sadly, your fun little party is bringing your pathetic reality down on
Ginni Thomas has been politically active for years. In 2000 she took flack for working on the Bush transition team even as her husband was hearing the case, Bush v. Gore, in which her husband backed her candidate, giving the election to George W. Bush by shutting down the Florida recount in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision.
Here’s how it works: Tea Party Inc. is vying for control of the Republican Party. One of the biggest players in Tea Party Inc. is the AstroTurfing group, FreedomWorks, which is chaired by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, for whom Ginni Thomas worked while the former Texas congressman occupied his leadership post in the Republican Party. Thomas also worked at the Chamber of Commerce, a pro-business organization with Matt Kibbe, who is now the president of FreedomWorks. Keeping it all in the family…
My friend just told me a good one. Politics: Poly, meaning 'many', and 'tics', self-explanatory. Cut the sideshow, and balance the budget, please. Public accountability happens when there's no 'oopsie' budgeting. Some people are going to fuss and argue about that, but if you consider that 46 of the 50 states are 'over the line', well, I at least think some reform is in order. Plus, people talk about corruption. Well, cleaning up the money problems will help clean up any questionable business dealings, too. No money to steal=no money stolen. And, the thieves circle the budgeting process like vultures in for an afternoon snack.
If you ran a private corporation the way the government operates, you'd be in court, or sleeping in a refrigerator box.
CK
Exactly what did Republicans do for health care during THEIR six years in power? They let lobbyists draft the Medicare Part D bill. Then the guys who passed the bill reaped their rewards by fleeing their government jobs for the opportunities that were now open to them with big pharma:
"Former Congressman Billy Tauzin, R-La., who steered the bill through the House, retired soon after and took a $2 million a year job as president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the main industry lobbying group. Medicare boss Thomas Scully, who threatened to fire Medicare Chief Actuary Richard Foster if he reported how much the bill would actually cost, was negotiating for a new job as a pharmaceutical lobbyist as the bill was working through Congress. A total of 14 congressional aides quit their jobs to work for the drug and medical lobbies immediately after the bill's passage."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Part_D
And they have the nerve to give "Obamacare" flak even though it has successfully closed the gaping "doughnut hole" in THEIR Medicare Part D plan.
an authoritative order or command: a royal mandate.
Thanks for the order, but no thanks.
None other than Nixon when he was considering universal healthcare.
The mandate was necessary to get the insurance companies to accept some of the
limitations like "no refusing previous conditions" and no refusing catastrophic illnesses.
wait for their upward mobility.
Thank you Unionave, for saying it so well.
fanned
2.) The administration is already publicly tap dancing around the fact that they asked the non-partisan CBO to evaluate a fantasy. Whether or not I personally think we need healthcare reform doesn't get us around the issue that these numbers simply aren't realistic
3.) the enforcement is currently being worked out between the Health Dept. and the IRS. They kick in pretty seriously a couple years after the program begins in earnest and anyone who can read should know this
The problem with progressives and this Bill is that we are smart, and it is a lousy merger of the public and private. Its a bad Bill. Unlike Obama apologists, kindergarten like folks that are just as biased and uneducated about the left as the right is about all things right. THIS DOESN'T HELP !!!
The Healthcare Bill does not pay for itself in reality. You'd need single payer for that. Obama cutting the deficit some technical and paltry amount in the face of needless wars he said he would stop and unfettered handouts both publicly and by the Fed to Wall Street- coupled with his collusive behavior in weakening Financial reform and abandoning the mortgage fraud altogether- is pure apology to write
Take a look at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101024/ap_on_bi_ge/us_employer_health_plans
Perhaps the end of employer plans is a good thing. It will encourage the deployment of a government-provided system.