AMA Backs Decision On Affordable Care Act While Conservatives Remain Irrational

June 30, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Right wingers remain furious over the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act, such as one Tea Party leader hoping that those who upheld the law get colon cancer. If they are this upset about the Affordable Care Act, imagine how their heads will explode in November when Obama is reelected.

Conservatives are now making noise falsely claiming that the Affordable Care Act represents a major tax increase. McClatchy found that only about two percent of the country would be at risk of paying the penalty under the individual mandate.  Those worked up about this tax which only affects a tiny percent of the country are also ignoring all of Obama’s tax cuts for individuals and small business. In contrast, the Republican tax plan supported by Mitt Romney would increase taxes on the middle class in order to pay for even greater tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. Republicans also ignore the fact that most Republican leaders supported the individual mandate until it became part of Obama’s health care plan (which is essentially the Republican alternative to Hillary Clinton’s health care plan).

Medical News Today reports that the American Medical Association is pleased that the Affordable Care Act was upheld by the Supreme Court:

Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, President of the American Medical Association (AMA), said that the AMA is pleased with the ruling by the Supreme Court to uphold health reform. Dr. Lazarus added that the AMA has always supported health insurance coverage for all US citizens. The decision means that millions of Americans who currently do not have coverage may now look forward to it to either “get healthy” or “stay healthy”.

President Barack Obama’s healthcare law was upheld by the US Supreme Court on 28th June 2012 by a majority of 5 to 4. According to political commentators in the US media, the result is a triumph for the Democrats in this election year and a setback for the Republicans.

Dr. Lazarus reiterated the AMA’s position on its commitment to working on behalf of the country’s doctors and patients to make sure the law carries on being implemented in ways that both encourage and incentivize improved health outcomes and an optimized health care system.

Dr. Lazarus said:

“The AMA remains committed to working on behalf of America’s physicians and patients to ensure the law continues to be implemented in ways that support and incentivize better health outcomes and improve the nation’s health care system.

This decision protects important improvements, such as ending coverage denials due to pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on insurance, and allowing the 2.5 million young adults up to age 26 who gained coverage under the law to stay on their parents’ health insurance policies. The expanded health care coverage upheld by the Supreme Court will allow patients to see their doctors earlier rather than waiting for treatment until they are sicker and care is more expensive.

Affordable Care Act has already helped 54 million people

He added that the Supreme Court decision ensures continued funding for vital research on the effectiveness of drugs and therapies and improves the chances for millions of Americans to receive coverage for prevention and wellness care. The new law has already helped approximately 54 million patients.

Less paperwork for healthcare professionals today, says AMA

The Affordable Care Act has helped simplify administrative burdens, Dr. Lazarus added. It has streamlined insurance claims so that doctors and their staff can dedicate more of their time to patient care, and less on paperwork.

The AMA says that the new law protects Medicare patients stuck in the “donut hole”. In 2010 and 2011 a considerable number of patients saved money on prescription drug costs.

Dr. Lazarus said “These important changes have been made while maintaining our American system with both private and public insurers.”

Posted in Barack Obama, Courts, Health Care, Mitt Romney, Republicans. Tags: , , . 3 Comments »

Supreme Court Upholds Affordable Care Act Giving Obama A Major Victory

June 28, 2012 — Ron Chusid

This has been a  really embarrassing day for Republicans, between the Supreme Court ruling against them on the Affordable Care Act and Congress holding Holder in contempt. Conservative Constitutional objections to the Affordable Care Act were so off the wall that they couldn’t even get the conservative Supreme Court to go along with their arguments. The one Republican who did have a good day was Chief Justice John Roberts. While the conservative activist judges have largely been acting as if the Supreme Court is a Senate with life terms for members, Roberts most likely did place the long term reputation of the court over winning this particular  partisan political battle.

There has been a lot of talk recently about who would win and lose with each possible outcome. As I’ve said before, this was important for Obama to win. It would be a serious blow to have his major accomplishment ruled unconstitutional. Yes, he could have run against the court or placed more pressure on the Republicans to come up with a solution, but for the most part those aligned with either political party already have their views regarding the Affordable Care Act. A ruling against the ACA would not suddenly convince lots of liberals to go out and vote for Obama if they hadn’t already planned to.  Besides, if Obama wants to convince leftists who are disatsified with him for his centrist positions to turn out to vote, there’s already Citizen’s United and the fear of overturning Roe v Wade in the future. Even today’s decision, in which the supposedly centrist Justice Kennedy wanted to completely throw out the Affordable Care Act, should convince progressives of the need to have Obama as opposed to Romney pick the next few justices.We certainly cannot count on Roberts to side with the liberals in the future.

If there are any political points to be won over this decision, it will be among those in the middle who haven’t already taken a firm stand on health care reform. A ruling that the law is Constitutional does take the wind out of the conservative opposition among those who are open-mined and not brainwashed by Fox. Some might now be willing to take another look at the law, which would be helpful for Obama. Multiple polls have clearly shown that a strong majority supports the actual provisions of the Affordable Care Act. They just oppose the imaginary version of the plan which is described by conservatives.

There is also speculation that this could help Mitt Romney by keeping conservatives angry at Obama. Those people are angry enough, and Romney does not need the Affordable Care Act to get them to vote against Obama. There are strong negatives for  Romney if he continues to make a major issue of health care reform. More talk on the issue will highlight the aspects which people do support, and Romney’s lack of a viable alternative would not help him appear fit to be president. Those already receiving benefits under the Affordable Care Act would be unhappy to have them taken away. Romney’s inconsistencies in attacking “Obamacare” would be highlighted by the similarities to his own health care plan in Massachusetts, and his support for the individual mandate until quite recently, including at the national level. If Republicans really want to campaign on their desire to eliminate both Obamacare and Medicare, this is a battle which Democrats can win

Conservatives,, who are squealing about everything from death panels to impeaching Roberts, are also upset about the mandate now being considered a tax. (Rush Limbaugh is even calling the Supreme Court a death panel).  Despite public antipathy towards taxes, I think that the Democrats could have done better selling the plan as a tax on those who refuse to buy insurance as opposed to a mandate. People don’t like government telling them what to do any more than they like taxes. The mandate feels like something being imposed upon everyone. Even people who have insurance might not like the fact that they are being told by the government that the must buy insurance. A tax on those who can afford to buy insurance but refuse to do so can be sold as a reasonable consequence in light of how such people increase cost of private insurance and are a cost to taxpayers.  Conservatives could argue that this is a case of Obama taxing the middle tax, even if the tax is selective. Obama could easily counter by pointing out his tax cuts for the middle class, and the increase in taxes which Romney ‘s plan would impose on the middle class in order to cut taxes on the ultra-wealthy.

Posted in Barack Obama, Courts, Health Care, Mitt Romney. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

The Real Story of Fast and Furious

June 27, 2012 — Ron Chusid

When George Bush was in the White House, liberals had a fantasy president named Jed Bartlett on The West Wing. We realized it was fiction. With Barack Obama in the White House, conservatives have a fantasy president named Barack Hussein Obama (with a different biography than the real Obama) and alternative history playing out in real time in the conservative media.

Conservatives do not realize they are reading fiction. Stories are spread to excite conservatives which generally have little relationship to the reality. For a long time Fast and Furious has dominated the conservative media, with everyone else ignoring the story. Now that Darrell Issa is abusing his power in Congress to launch a witch hunt, reporters are starting to look at the actual facts. Katherine Eban has a report in Forbes. Here is a portion of her article:

Quite simply, there’s a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.

Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time.

How Fast and Furious reached the headlines is a strange and unsettling saga, one that reveals a lot about politics and media today. It’s a story that starts with a grudge, specifically Dodson’s anger at Voth. After the terrible murder of agent Terry, Dodson made complaints that were then amplified, first by right-wing bloggers, then by CBS. Rep. Issa and other politicians then seized those elements to score points against the Obama administration, which, for its part, has capitulated in an apparent effort to avoid a rhetorical battle over gun control in the run-up to the presidential election. (A Justice Department spokesperson denies this and asserts that the department is not drawing conclusions until the inspector general’s report is submitted.)

“Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false,” says Linda Wallace, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit who was assigned to the Fast and Furious team (and recently retired from the IRS). A self-described gun-rights supporter, Wallace has not been criticized by Issa’s committee.

The ATF’s accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn’t actually exist. “It gets back to something basic for me,” says Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). “Terry was murdered, and guns from this operation were found at his murder site.” A spokesman for Issa denies that politics has played a role in the congressman’s actions and says “multiple individuals across the Justice Department’s component agencies share responsibility for the failure that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious.” Issa’s spokesman asserts that even if ATF agents followed prosecutors’ directives, “the practice is nonetheless gun walking.” Attorneys for Dodson declined to comment on the record.

For its part, the ATF would not answer specific questions, citing ongoing investigations. But a spokesperson for the agency provided a written statement noting that the “ATF did not exercise proper oversight, planning or judgment in executing this case. We at ATF have accepted responsibility and have taken appropriate and decisive action to insure that these errors in oversight and judgment never occur again.” The statement asserted that the “ATF has clarified its firearms transfer policy to focus on interdiction or early intervention to prevent the criminal acquisition, trafficking and misuse of firearms,” and it cited changes in coordination and oversight at the ATF.

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

Further in the story:

It was nearly impossible in Arizona to bring a case against a straw purchaser. The federal prosecutors there did not consider the purchase of a huge volume of guns, or their handoff to a third party,  sufficient evidence to seize them. A buyer who certified that the guns were for himself, then handed them off minutes later, hadn’t necessarily lied and was free to change his mind. Even if a suspect bought 10 guns that were recovered days later at a Mexican crime scene, this didn’t mean the initial purchase had been illegal. To these prosecutors, the pattern proved little. Instead, agents needed to link specific evidence of intent to commit a crime to each gun they wanted to seize.

None of the ATF agents doubted that the Fast and Furious guns were being purchased to commit crimes in Mexico. But that was nearly impossible to prove to prosecutors’ satisfaction. And agents could not seize guns or arrest suspects after being directed not to do so by a prosecutor. (Agents can be sued if they seize a weapon against prosecutors’ advice. In this case, the agents had a particularly strong obligation to follow the prosecutors’ direction given that Fast and Furious had received a special designation under the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. That designation meant more resources for the case, but it also provided that prosecutors take the lead role.)

There is far more in this lengthy report, concluding with:

Issa’s claim that the ATF is using the Fast and Furious scandal to limit gun rights seems, to put it charitably, far-fetched. Meanwhile, Issa and other lawmakers say they want ATF to stanch the deadly tide of guns, widely implicated in the killing of 47,000 Mexicans in the drug-war violence of the past five years. But the public bludgeoning of the ATF has had the opposite effect. From 2010, when Congress began investigating, to 2011, gun seizures by Group VII and the ATF’s three other groups in Phoenix dropped by more than 90%.

What is reported here sounds quite a bit different from what is being discussed on Fox. We’ve seen this many times before.

Posted in Barack Obama, Congress. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

Obama Ad and Joe Biden Hit Romney On Outsourcing

June 26, 2012 — Ron Chusid

The Obama campaign is taking advantage of the recent story in The Washington Post which called Bain Capital under Mitt Romney a pioneer in outs0urcing jobs. Here is the text of the above ad. I especially like the last line:

“Day One. President Romney stands up to China.”

But would he?

The Washington Post has just revealed that Romney’s companies were pioneers in shipping US jobs overseas.

Investing in firms that ‘specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China.’

Romney’s never stood up to China. All he’s ever done is send them our jobs.

Joe Biden repeated this message in Iowa: “You got to give Romney credit,” Biden said. “He’s a job creator – in Singapore, China, India. He’s been very good at creating jobs, overseas.” Video above. More on Biden’s criticism of Romney:

Biden also used Romney’s own words against him.

Citing recent speeches in the Ohio cities of Cincinnati and Toledo, Biden said: “He said his experience as a businessman is what gives him a great understanding of what it takes to bring jobs back to the United States of America. That’s his premise.”

Biden continued: “[Romney] said, that outsourcers have, quote, ‘Been able to put American businesses out of business and kill American jobs.’ He went on to say if he were president, he was going to end that outsourcing. That’s what he tells you.”

“There’s a huge disconnect between what he says, and what he means, and what he’s done.”

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

Obama Seeks To Rebuild Middle Class As Romney Builds Campaign Based Upon Distortions

June 25, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Both candidates are campaigning on the economy. Romney is devoting much of his efforts to distorting Obama’s views, taking a statement on the private sector out of context. Obama has responded with the above ad. The key portion comes at the end: “Mitt Romney and his billionaire allies can spend millions to distort the president’s words but they’re not interested in rebuilding the middle class. President Obama is.”

While current polls have limited predictive value as to where the voters will be in November, I do find it significant that despite what the pundits called a bad couple of weeks for Obama, Obama maintains a small leads in the national polls and a significant lead in the electoral college. There are a number of possible explanations. Possibly enough voters do realize that the economic problems are due to George Bush’s economic problems and are not anxious to return to those policies under Mitt Romney.  The stories about Romney’s years at Bain very well could be making voters question Romney’s character and interest in helping the middle class.

A new Associated Press-GfK poll raises the possibility that, although virtually everyone says the election is about the economy, voters might not actually be choosing candidates based upon the economy as they do not believe it matters. Half the voters do not think that either candidate can do anything about the economy. This could be pessimism about the policies of either candidate, along with recognizing the limitations of the president.  I do suspect we will start hearing a lot more from Obama about policies he has proposed which would have helped the economy and increased employment but were blocked by Republicans in Congress.

After Thursday, it is also possible that both health care and the composition of the Supreme Court might compete with economy as a campaign issue.

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Mitt Romney. 3 Comments »

Conservatives And Immigration

June 21, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Obama has pleased most of the country with his recent expression of humanity towards children of illegal immigrants, but he has really pissed off the right wing. Mitt Romney is being forced into a more hard line position, which will make it more difficult for Republicans to win Hispanic votes. Conservatives on the internet are becoming quite hysterical. I’ve received a few emails wondering how anyone could support Obama, between doing something they believe is unconstitutional to warning of dire consequences if all these foreigners are allowed to stay. It is hard to decide which part of the conservative argument is more comical.

The claims of Obama’s act being unconstitutional is clearly absurd, but it does point out how conservatives view the Constitution. Note that most conservatives had no problem with real attempts to ignore the Constitution and increase Executive power during the Bush years. Did these conservatives complain about Dick Cheney’s unitary executive theory? They certainly show no respect for separation of church and state. I think that to conservatives, the Constitution is like Mitt Romney’s Etch-A-Sketch, having no relationship to the document actually written by the Founding Fathers. It changes to allow what they support and opposed what they disagree with.

As I was pushing the delete button on conservative email prophesying g all types of doom if we allowed these foreigners to stay, I was wondering why they are so worked up about an imaginary, overblown threat, while they ignore real problems which endanger the country, such as climate change or Republican economic policies which are destroying the middle class. Is there any explanation for this inconsistency beyond racism?

Posted in Barack Obama, George Bush, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Separation of Church and State. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

Obama Campaign Picks John Kerry As Debate Surrogate

June 18, 2012 — Ron Chusid

In 2006 John Kerry trailed George Bush badly in the polls but he made the race quite close after demolishing Bush in the debates. A few more voting machines in urban areas of Ohio could have changed the outcome. In 2012 John Kerry gets to debate in a presidential contest again–this time playing Mitt Romney in Barrack Obama’s debate preparation. Kerry might have some valuable insight into how Romney might debate:

Kerry has long been considered one of the Democratic Party’s most skilled debaters, and his performances in more than 25 debates in the 2004 race earned plaudits. Some credited his strong debates against President George W. Bush with tightening the race in the closing weeks of the 2004 campaign.

It is his perspective on Romney, though, that could be especially valuable for Obama. Kerry was a key surrogate on behalf of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) when he defeated Romney in 1994. And Kerry closely observe Romney’s successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign, where his performance in debates against Democrat Shannon O’Brien were believed to have helped him win.

“There is no one that has more experience or understanding of the presidential debate process than John Kerry,” said David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist. “He’s an expert debater who has a fundamental mastery of a wide range of issues, including Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts. He’s the obvious choice.”

There’s an added irony here. In 2008 Republicans falsely called Kerry a flip-flopper when Kerry’s actual views did not match the views the Republicans attributed to him. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a true flip-flopper, who will say anything at any time to attract votes.

Mitt Romney has spent much of his campaign outright lying about Barack Obama’s views and record. It will be interesting to see what happens during a debate when Obama is present to counter with his actual views and record.

Posted in Barack Obama, John Kerry, Mitt Romney. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »

Highlights of Obama’s Economic Speech

June 14, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Barack Obama made several important points in his economic address today (full transcript here). He began with an essential point for his campaign. This is not just a vote as to whether people are satisfied with the economy at present, as Romney would like, but a vote between two different paths to follow:

And in the coming weeks, Governor Romney and I will spend time debating our records and our experience, as we should. But though we will have many differences over the course of this campaign, there is one place where I stand in complete agreement with my opponent: This election is about our economic future.

(APPLAUSE)

Yes, foreign policy matters, social issues matter. But more than anything else, this election presents a choice between two fundamentally different visions of how to create strong, sustained growth; how to pay down our long-term debt; and most of all, how to generate good, middle-class jobs so people can have confidence that if they work hard, they can get ahead.

(APPLAUSE)

Now, this isn’t some abstract debate. This is not another trivial Washington argument. I have said that this is the defining issue of our time and I mean it. I said that this is a make-or-break moment for America’s middle class, and I believe it.

OBAMA: The decisions we make in the next few years, on everything from debt to taxes to energy and education, will have an enormous impact on this country, and on the country we pass on to our children.

Now, these challenges are not new. We’ve been wrestling with these issues for a long time. The problems we’re facing right now have been more than a decade in the making.

And what is holding us back is not a lack of big ideas. It isn’t a matter of finding the right technical solution. Both parties have laid out their policies on the table for all to see.

What’s holding us back is a stalemate in Washington between two fundamentally different views of which direction America should take. And this election is your chance to break that stalemate.

(APPLAUSE)

At stake is not simply a choice between two candidates or two political parties, but between two paths for our country. And while there are many things to discuss in this campaign, nothing is more important than an honest debate about where these two paths would lead us.

Obama challenged the failed  economic philosophy of George Bush and Mitt Romney:

We were told that huge tax cuts, especially for the wealthiest Americans, would lead to faster job growth. We were told that fewer regulations, especially for big financial institutions and corporations, would bring about widespread prosperity. We were told that it was OK to put two wars on the nation’s credit card; that tax cuts would create a enough growth to pay for themselves.

That’s what we were told.

So how did this economic theory work out?

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: For the wealthiest Americans it worked out pretty well.

Over the last few decades the income of the top 1 percent grew by more than 275 percent, to an average of $1.3 million a year. Big financial institutions, corporations saw their profits soar.

But prosperity never trickled down to the middle class. From 2001 to 2008 we had the slowest job growth in half a century. The typical family saw their incomes halt.

Obama continued to show the differences between his views and those of his opponent:

OBAMA: Now, Governor Romney and his allies in Congress believe deeply in the theory we tried during the last decade, the theory that the best way to grow the economy is from the top down.

OBAMA: So they maintain that if we eliminate most regulations, we cut taxes by trillions of dollars, if we strip down government to national security and few other basic functions, then the power of businesses to create jobs and prosperity will be unleashed and that will automatically benefit us all.

That’s what they believe. This — this is their economic plan. It has been placed before Congress. Governor Romney has given speeches about it, and it’s on his website.

So if they win the election their agenda will be simple and straightforward; they have spelled it out. They promise to roll back regulations on banks and polluters, on insurance companies and oil companies. They’ll roll back regulations designed to protect consumers and workers.

They promise to not only keep all of the Bush tax cuts in place, but add another $5 trillion in tax cuts on top of that.

Now, an independent study said that about 70 percent of this new $5 trillion tax cut would go to folks making over $200,000 a year. And folks making over a million dollars a year would get an average tax cut of about 25 percent.

Now, this is not my opinion. This is not political spin. This is precisely what they have proposed.

Now, your next question may be: How do you spend $5 trillion on a tax cut and still bring down the deficit?

Well, they tell us they’ll start by cutting nearly a trillion dollars from the part of our budget that includes everything from education and job training, to medical research and clean energy.

He brought up health care:

Not only does their plan eliminate health insurance for 33 million Americans by repealing the Affordable Care Act, according to the independent Kaiser Family Foundation, it would also take away coverage from another 19 million Americans who rely on Medicaid, including millions of nursing home patients and families who have children with autism and other disabilities.

OBAMA: And they propose turning Medicare into a voucher program, which will shift more costs to seniors and eventually end the program as we know it.

With people overly obsessed with tiny differences in tax rates these days, it is important to point out that  out of pocket health care costs will be higher not only  for seniors, but also for those in private insurance plans, if we follow Romney’s policies.Obama should be able to increase his share of votes from seniors as he explains what the Republicans plan to do to Medicare and Social Security.

Obama brought up the lack of a meaningful mechanism to reduce the deficit under Romney’s policies and the failure of Congress to act on his economic plan:

I see a future where we pay down our deficit in a way that is balanced — not by placing the entire burden on the middle class and the poor, but by cutting out programs we can’t afford and asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute their fair share.

(APPLAUSE)

That’s my vision for America: education, energy, innovation, infrastructure, and a tax code focused on American job creation and balanced deficit reduction.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: This is the vision behind the jobs plan I sent Congress back in September, a bill filled with bipartisan ideas that, according to independent economists, would create up to 1 million additional jobs if passed today.

This is the vision behind the deficit plan I sent to Congress back in September, a detailed proposal that would reduce our deficit by $4 trillion through shared sacrifice and shared responsibility.

This is the vision I intend to pursue in my second term as president because I believe…

(APPLAUSE)

… because — because I believe if we do these things — if we do these things more companies will start here and stay here and hire here, and more Americans will be able to find jobs that support a middle class lifestyle.

Understand, despite what you hear from my opponent, this has never been a vision about how government creates jobs or has the answers to all our problems.

Over the last three years I’ve cut taxes for the typical working family by $3,600.

(APPLAUSE)

I’ve cut taxes for small businesses 18 times.

(APPLAUSE)

I have approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his.

OBAMA: And I’m implementing over 500 reforms to fix regulations that were costing folks too much for no reason.

 

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, George Bush, Health Care, Mitt Romney. Tags: , , , . 1 Comment »

An Honest Republican On The Failure Of Republican Economic Policies

June 12, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Bruce Bartlett, who has been an adviser to Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Ron Paul, and Jack Kemp, debunks the Voodoo Economics now practiced by Republicans. He began by showing that Americans are right when “43 percent of them hold George W. Bush responsible for the current budget deficit versus only 14 percent who blame Mr. Obama.”

The American people are right; Mr. Bush is more responsible, as a new report from the Congressional Budget Office documents.

In January 2001, the office projected that the federal government would run a total budget surplus of $3.5 trillion through 2008 if policy was unchanged and the economy continued according to forecast. In fact, there was a deficit of $5.5 trillion.

The projected surplus was primarily the result of two factors. First was a big tax increase in 1993 that every Republican in Congress voted against, saying that it would tank the economy. This belief was wrong. The economy boomed in 1994, growing 4.1 percent that year and strongly throughout the Clinton administration.

As for tax cuts over the past decade:

The 2001 tax cut did nothing to stimulate the economy, yet Republicans pushed for additional tax cuts in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The economy continued to languish even as the Treasury hemorrhaged revenue, which fell to 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2008 from 20.6 percent in 2000. Republicans abolished Paygo in 2002, and spending rose to 20.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2008 from 18.2 percent in 2001.

According to the C.B.O., by the end of the Bush administration, legislated tax cuts reduced revenues and increased the national debt by $1.6 trillion. Slower-than-expected growth further reduced revenues by $1.4 trillion.

However, the Bush tax cuts continued through 2010, well into the Obama administration. These reduced revenues by another $369 billion, adding that much to the debt. Legislated tax cuts enacted by President Obama and Democrats in Congress reduced revenues by an additional $407 billion in 2009 and 2010. Slower growth reduced revenues by a further $1.3 trillion. Contrary to Republican assertions, there were no additional revenues from legislated tax increases.

Bartlett concluded:

Putting all the numbers in the C.B.O. report together, we see that continuation of tax and budget policies and economic conditions in place at the end of the Clinton administration would have led to a cumulative budget surplus of $5.6 trillion through 2011 – enough to pay off the $5.6 trillion national debt at the end of 2000.

Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher, a turnaround of $11.7 trillion. Of this total, the C.B.O. attributes 72 percent to legislated tax cuts and spending increases, 27 percent to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56 percent occurred from 2009 to 2011.

Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts. And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008.

Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous.

Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts.

Andrew Sullivan, another conservative who now debunks the lunacy of those who have taken over the conservative movement, commented:

When you check reality, rather than the alternate universe constantly created by Fox News and an amnesiac press, you find that Bush had a chance to pay off all our national debt before we hit the financial crisis – giving the US enormous flexibility in intervening to ameliorate the recession. Instead, we had to find money for a stimulus in a cupboard stripped bare – its contents largely given away, by an act of choice. I’m tired of being told we cannot blame Bush for our current predicament. We can and should blame him for most of it – and remind people that Romney’s policies: more tax cuts, more defense spending are identical. With one difference: Bush pledged never “to balance the budget on the backs of the poor.”

Mitt Romney has no qualms about doing that very thing. And he will, if he is given the chance.

 

Posted in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Economy, George Bush, Mitt Romney. Tags: , , , , . 6 Comments »

Jeb Bush Says There Would Be No Place For Ronald Reagan In Today’s Republican Party

June 11, 2012 — Ron Chusid

I’ve often pointed out that the Republican Party has moved so far to the right that Ronald Reagan would no longer be welcome. It means more coming from Jeb Bush:

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said today that both Ronald Reagan and his father George H. W. Bush would have had a difficult time getting nominated by today’s ultra-conservative Republican Party.

“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground,” Bush said, adding that he views the hyper-partisan moment as “temporary.”

“Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time – they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support,” he said. Reagan “would be criticized for doing the things that he did.”

Bush blamed both the hyper-partaisnhip of the Republicans and Barack Obama for the dysfunctional political climate during Obama’s first year. If we look back, Republican leaders were already saying their goal was for Obama to fail. In contrast, Obama’s major proposals during his first year included an old Republican health care reform proposal (which had been used by Mitt Romney), old Republican ideas to deal with climate change, and tax cuts.

Don’t get the idea that Bush’s criticism of the Republican Party suggest he is a moderate. Bush also supported the extremist Ryan budget.

Posted in Barack Obama, Republicans, Ronald Reagan. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »

Obama: Supporting Teachers, Firefighters, Police Officers, Medicare, Social Security, and the Private Sector

June 9, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Mitt Romney on government workers from CNN:

Romney said of Obama, “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

The web video above might be a good first step in changing the debate over less government. Obama points out that when Republicans talk about less government, they mean Fewer Teachers, Fewer Firefighters, and Fewer Police Officers. A follow up might also point out that Republican attacks on government also means changes to Social Security and Medicare which are so massive that the programs will no longer exist as we now know them.

I would also love to see Obama and other Democrats counter the entire meme that Republicans support smaller government. They do not. Government spending has grown tremendously when under Republican control. Republicans support smaller government when talking about eliminating necessary regulations and cutting back on government programs which most people do want. Republicans support bigger government when it comes to military spending, and when it comes to government intrusion in the private lives of individuals.Restricting access to birth control, telling people who they may marry, and involuntary vaginal probes are hardly the policies of those who believe in limited government.

Unfortunately this aspect of Obama’s campaign did not get off to a good start due to unclear wording which made it easy for the dishonest pundits on the right to take his statement out of context. Here is what Obama really said:

We’ve created 4.3 million jobs over the past 27 months. Over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing problems is with state and local government, often with cuts initiated by governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help they’re accustomed to from the federal government.

Obama, of course, is factually correct. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, we have seen growth in the private sector but that has been offset by loses in the private sector. The unemployment rate would be around  7.1 percent if not for these public sector loses. Ezra Klein made the same argument with a different table than the one I used in my previous post:

Notice how the right wing loves to make noise about comments twisted and taken out of context but is always afraid to respond to the actual positions of Obama and other liberals? Throughout numerous public appearances Obama and Biden have been saying that the economy is improving, but not enough. If you actually pay attention to what Obama is saying, it is clear he does not believe that the private sector is doing fine. What is happening is that there are more private sector jobs being created. Historically there has generally been greater growth in private sector jobs under Democrats as compared to Republicans.

Republicans responding to Obama are correct in saying that the private sector is not fine, while incorrect in attributing the opposite view to Obama. If Republicans agree with Obama that more needs to do to bring about improvement in the private sector, why don’t they respond by passing Obama’s American Jobs Act. Non-partisan economists agreed it would create more jobs, but we know Republicans will not pass anything which would help the economy. While Republicans were elected to Congress with promises of creating jobs, they have preferred to spend their time promoting laws to infringe upon the reproductive rights of women, which have no chance of becoming law, while ignoring the economy.

 

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Mitt Romney. 6 Comments »

GOPUSA Remains Afraid Of The Old Conservative Boogey Man–World Government

June 5, 2012 — Ron Chusid

For as long as I can remember, going back to the days of the Birchers, conservatives have been worried about the sovereignty of the United States being destroyed by world government. In the past some of the conspiracy theorists were kept out of the Republican Party by conservative leaders such as William F. Buckley, Jr. In more recent years, the extremists are not only back but now dominate the GOP. Phyllis Schlafly calls global government, allegedly backed by Barack Obama, one of the biggest issues of this election at GOPUSA:

One of the biggest issues in the November election is whether we will continue or stop President Obama’s move toward restricting U.S. sovereignty and rushing down the road to global governance. One would think that the obvious failure of the European Union and disdain for the euro would put the skids on global integration, but no such luck.

Obama has such delusions of his own power that he thinks he can do by executive order whatever he cannot get Congress to approve, even Harry Reid’s Democratic Senate. Obama’s most recent executive order starts off with the extravagant claim that it is issued “by the authority vested in me as president by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.”

Funny to hear delusional people such as Schlafly claim that Obama has delusions.

 

Posted in Barack Obama, Republicans. Tags: , , . No Comments »

Romney Lies and Hypocrisy on Solyndra

June 4, 2012 — Ron Chusid

For those who understand how a market economy works, which apparently excludes a tremendous number of Republican voters, the Solyndra attacks from Mitt Romney have never made any sense. Beyond the irrationality of the arguments there is the key point that Romney got his facts wrong in his attacks on Obama.

Some businesses are going to fail. I’ll leave it to readers to follow the above  link to the fact checking.  If for the sake of discussion we believe that there is any logic to Romney’s logic that it indicates a failing on the part of a public official if a company they provided assistance to should later go bankrupt, it turns out that Romney has done the same:

Romney has repeatedly ripped the Obama administration for sending federal funds to Solyndra, a California alternative energy company that went belly-up.

Decrying the White House’s decision to give Solyndra a $535 million federal loan as “crony capitalism,” Romney even held a surprise campaign stunt at the Bay Area plant Thursday.

But a day later, a Massachusetts solar panel company that received a state grant while Romney was governor filed for bankruptcy, according to the Boston Herald.

Romney personally awarded a $1.5 million renewable energy subsidy to Konarka Technologies, based in Lowell, a short time after he took office in 2003, the paper reported.

That company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and laid off 85 workers.

The Obama campaign was quick to pounce on the apparent double-standard.

“Every day we see a new example of Mitt Romney’s hypocrisy,” said Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith. “Mitt Romney may think he can play by a different set of rules, but he can’t hide his history of giving millions of dollars in government loans to campaign donors.”

The Romney campaign did not immediately comment on the report. Konarka collected a total of $20 million in government grants during its 11-year history, according to the Herald

Reuters also shows Romney’s hypocrisy when attacking Obama for giving money to a company which later went bankrupt:

“It’s a powerful line of attack that connects failed ventures like Solyndra, the bankrupt California-based solar panel maker that defaulted on a $535 million loan from the U.S. Energy Department, with the trillion-dollar budget deficits and sluggish U.S. economy of the past four years.

But it might invite unfavorable comparison with Romney’s tenure as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. During that time, Romney pursued a hands-on approach to economic development that favored some industries over others and, in some instances, singled out individual firms for special favors.

Romney, a former private equity executive, backed tax breaks for film makers and biotech and medical-device manufacturers. His administration promoted venture capital-style funds that extended loans to start-up companies, some of which subsequently went out of business.

As the state’s top salesman, he led the effort to lure desirable employers through tax breaks and other incentives.

“That’s what governors do – they have to pick winners and losers,” said Boston University professor Fred Bayles. “It’s a calculated risk that governors and state politicians take in an effort to get jobs.”

Sometimes, as with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Romney’s efforts panned out. Other times they did not.

A $2.5 million state loan helped lure Rhode Island biotech firm Spherics Inc across the state line to Massachusetts in 2005. Romney’s economic development secretary, Ranch Kimball, touted the move as “a tangible result of the combined and coordinated efforts of the public and private sectors to highlight the benefits of locating in Massachusetts.”

The company shut down three years later, laying off all of its employees and defaulting on $1.5 million of the loan, according to MassDevelopment, the state development authority.

Romney’s attacks of crony capitalism against Obama are even more absurd considering it is actually Romney, not Obama, who has a record of using government money to reward donors:

GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has hammered President Obama for his administration’s tax-funded investment blunders — but when Romney was governor, the state handed out $4.5 million in loans to two firms run by his campaign donors that have since defaulted, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.

The two companies — Acusphere and Spherics Inc. — stiffed the state on nearly $2.1 million in loans provided through the state’s Emerging Technology Fund, a $25 million investment program created while Romney was governor in 2003 that benefitted 13 local firms.

In contrast, there is no evidence of significant fraud involved in the stimulus money distributed by the Obama administration:

Overall, the federal government has distributed over $800 billion in stimulus money. Where are the sweetheart deals? Where are the actual outrages that are provoking outrage? During the debate over the stimulus, experts warned that as much as 5% to 7% of the stimulus could be lost to fraud. But by the end of 2011, independent investigators had documented only $7.2 million in fraud, about 0.001%.

(Hat tip to Steve Benen and Erik Kain for some of the links used above.)

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Mitt Romney. 3 Comments »

This Week’s Wake Up Call For The Obama Campaign

June 2, 2012 — Ron Chusid

Ideally the economy would recover quickly and voters would heavily support Obama for reelection. While desirable, this is not much more likely than another scenario: voters embrace science and reason over superstition and abandon the Republicans now that they have become dominated by a party which promotes the use of government to impose fundamentalist religious views upon others. Neither is likely to happen. Conservative Voodoo economics have messed the economy up too badly to recover in only four years and we have a country where, according to a recent Gallup poll, forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. Naturally those who believe this tend to vote Republican: “While 58% of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, 39% of independents and 41% of Democrats agree.”

This week’s poor jobs numbers just might be the wake up call that Democrats need and we are fortunate that this came early enough in the election year for the Obama campaign to alter strategy. It is not safe to wait and hope that the economy will improve. As Dan Baltz wrote, “the election remains primarily a referendum on his record and that their path to victory may lie less in trying to discredit Republican Mitt Romney and more in winning a battle of ideas with their Republican rival.”

Challengers always prefer to frame elections as a referendum on the incumbent. Obama needs to convince voters that we have two competing views of the role of government, and demonstrate that his view is better for the country. He must do so before Romney succeeds in repeating the usual Republican lies mischaracterizing Democrats as supporting big government and the welfare state. In reality it is Republicans who have been responsible for increasing the size of government and the deficit. Voters must be shown that when Republicans promise smaller government they wind up creating bigger government, except with cuts in infrastructure which promote economic growth, and cuts in the programs that actually help them, such as Medicare, Social Security, and education.

If Romney disagrees, press him to show where he will cut the budget. Debunk the other common Republican canards. When Republicans talk about freedom, they mean freedom to impose their religious views upon others. When Republicans speak of getting government off of people’s backs, they are not referring to freedom for the individual. They are speaking purely of reduced regulation of Wall Street, polluters, and other areas where some degree of regulation is necessary.

The jobs numbers are bad, but increasing jobs too slowly is far preferable to the tremendous job losses of the Bush years. Under the best of circumstances it was not realistic to correct this in four years. Matters are made worse by an irresponsible Republican Congress which set defeating Obama as its major priority, over improving the economy. If Obama is to be measured by the unemployment rate, we must consider how much lower unemployment would be if not for cuts in government workers. Despite these cuts, Obama’s record for creating private sector jobs is far superior to Bush’s record.

In the column I noted above, Dan Baltz also pointed out:

Romney has not broken with broad outlines of the tax-cutting policies of former president George W. Bush’s eight years in office. He wants to go further, with deeper tax cuts. Bush’s policies did not produce economic growth or job creation to match Clinton’s record in the 1990s, and his term concluded with the collapse of the economy.

Obama demonstrate that it makes no sense to respond to a sluggish recovery by voting for Romney and the same policies which caused the collapse of the economy to begin with. Baltz argued that Obama must both make his first term record more clear and provide a clearer explanation of his second term plans:

What Obama hasn’t yet done is offer any clear idea of what his second term would be about. He argues that the country should not go back, but what his real goals are for a possible second four years in office remain cloaked largely in campaign generalities.

The meager jobs report puts additional pressure on him to do more than bemoan the possible consequences of turning the White House over to the Republicans. If he is campaigning on a new agenda to lift the economy, most voters couldn’t describe it. If he hopes to come out of the campaign with a mandate for particular policies, he hasn’t talked much about them.

Obama must also attempt to get voters to look at a bigger picture than how the economy is doing today. Do we have policies which strengthen the middle class and promote economic growth, or do we return to Republican economic policies which encourage the concentration of wealth in a tiny plutocracy and stifle the economy? Do we preserve our social safety nets with Medicare and Social Security, or do we elect Mitt Romney who will rubber stamp the Ryan budget which destroys these programs as we know them.

The campaign has extended into social issues recently. While the economy will dominate the election, Obama must also point out that voting for Romney means the entire conservative Republican agenda, extending government control over the private lives of individuals. Preventing the Republicans from controlling all three branches of government is essential to preserve reproductive rights as well as to preserve the middle class.

 

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Evolution, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Social Issues. Tags: , , , . 1 Comment »

Obama Campaign Raises Romney’s Massachusetts Record

May 31, 2012 — Ron Chusid

The Obama campaign has launched the above ad on Romney’s record in Massachusetts. It is notable that Romney typically cites his business record, not record in Massachusetts, as what qualifies him to be president (even if he can’t answer questions about how his business experience makes him qualified).

David Axelrod was shouted down by Romney supporters when he raised Romney’s record. Axelrod’s response: “You can’t handle the truth, my friends,” Axelrod said. “If you could handle the truth, you’d quiet down.”

Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Mitt Romney, Politics. Tags: , . 1 Comment »
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