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In his most recent column, Paul Krugman makes a convincing case that the “real referendum” in this election isn’t about President Obama’s (real or imagined) economic policies, but about the “the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy.” Krugman predicts that President Obama will win this resolution, and goes on to question whether the President will honor the will of American voters in his second term.

If Obama wins, that means conservatives will have lost the “real referendum.” Conservatives have already lost the “real referendum.” They’ve been losing it for a long time — and it’s worth considering why that’s the case.

Krugman writes:

Yet there is a sense in which the election is indeed a referendum, but of a different kind. Voters are, in effect, being asked to deliver a verdict on the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy. Will they vote for politicians who want to replace Medicare with Vouchercare, who denounce Social Security as “collectivist” (as Paul Ryan once did), who dismiss those who turn to social insurance programs as people unwilling to take responsibility for their lives?

If the polls are any indication, the result of that referendum will be a clear reassertion of support for the safety net, and a clear rejection of politicians who want to return us to the Gilded Age.

So, what do the polls indicate?

• Since the revelation of the infamous “47 percent” video, both Gallup and Nate Silver’s poll-crunching indicate that Romney’s favorability has taken a pounding since his remarks to a “quiet room” of wealthy donors in Florida were aired in public.
• GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan’s budget has turned out to be a big loser in swing states, where President Obama has pulled ahead in some of those swing states — reaching the 50 percent threshold.
• Polls in those same swing states show that the majority of likely voters say Romney’s policies favor the rich. That’s been the pattern since the primaries; Romney wins the one percent, but loses the working class vote.
• According to a new report, 62 percent of working-class whites want higher taxes on the wealthy. (Romney’s tax plan results in more tax cuts for the rich, which don’t spur economic growth — and haven’t, in 65 years.)
• The same report shows that 70 percent of working-class whites “believe that the economic system unfairly favors the wealthy,” and 53 percent believe that “one of the biggest problems in the country is that we don’t give people an equal chance.”
• It’s not just the white working-class, either. A Congressional Connection poll conducted this summer showed that a majority of Americans prefer President Obama’s tax plan, which ends the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and includes “new federal spending to try to create jobs by rehabilitating public schools, improving roads and mass transit, and preventing layoffs of teachers, police officers, and other first responders.”

So, why do the polls indicate dismal prospect for conservatives in the “real referendum”? I can think of a few reasons.

First, like I said earlier, millions of Americans heard Mitt Romney’s disdainful comments about “47 percent” of Americans, and knew on a gut level that he was talking about them and their loved-ones. Their responses made one thing very clear — they didn’t like it.

Even Americans who aren’t technically part of the 47 percent, because they do earn enough to owe federal income taxes, were stung Romney’s assertion that people like “them” — who are struggling though the recession and the unemployment crisis — just don’t want to “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” For them, Romney’s remarks confirmed their worst suspicions about him: that Romney knows nothing about “personal responsibility” or about their lives, and doesn’t care to.

The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life. You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier, that give you time and space to focus on what you want to focus on.

That’s what money has bought Romney, too. He’s a guy who sold his dad’s stock to pay for college, who built an elevator to ensure easier access to his multiple cars and who was able to support his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s great! That’s the dream.

The problem is living the dream has blinded him to other people’s reality. His comments evince no understanding of how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, how awful it is to choose between skipping a day on a job you can’t afford to lose and letting your sick child fend for herself. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.

Second, even Americans who are fortunate enough to (a) have jobs and (b) earn enough to owe federal income taxes, know that even if they aren’t part of the 47 percent, they and their love-ones are part of the 96 percent of Americans who have benefitted from government assistance.

But political scientists Suzanne Mettler and John Sides argue that this definition of “government benefit” is far too narrow. If you include all federal benefits that go to specific households, from Social Security to even tax expenditures like the mortgage-interest deduction, then survey data from 2008 reveals that 96 percent of Americans have received assistance from the federal government at some point in their life:

What the data reveal is striking: nearly all Americans – 96 percent – have relied on the federal government to assist them. Young adults, who are not yet eligible for many policies, account for most of the remaining 4 percent.

On average, people reported that they had used five social policies at some point in their lives. An individual typically had received two direct social benefits in the form of checks, goods or services paid for by government, like Social Security or unemployment insurance. Most had also benefited from three policies in which government’s role was “submerged,” meaning that it was channeled through the tax code or private organizations, like the home mortgage-interest deduction and the tax-free status of the employer contribution to employees’ health insurance. (more…)

Last week Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent picked up on a blogpost from Democracy editor Michael Tomasky about how liberals should be touting the merits of “government.” That is a great idea, if the point is to advance the conservatives’ agenda.

It is astounding how happy liberals are to work for the right by implying that conservatives somehow just want to leave markets to themselves whereas the liberals want to bring in the pointy-headed bureaucrats to tell people what they should do. This view is, of course, nonsense. Pick an issue, any issue, and you will almost invariably find the right actively pushing for a big role for government.

However, for conservatives the goal is not ensuring a decent standard of living for the bulk of the population. Rather the goal is ensuring that money is redistributed upward. And, of course, the conservatives are smart enough not to own up to their use of the government.

Just to take a few easy ones, why would any market-oriented opponent of big government support the existence of too-big-to-fail banks (TBTF)? These TBTF banks operate with an implicit subsidy from the government. Lenders expect the government to step in to back up these banks debt if they fail, as happened on a massive basis in 2008. As a result, TBTF banks can borrow money at lower interest rates than would be possible in a free market.

The amount of money at stake is substantial, possibly more than $60 billion a year. This is more money than is at issue with the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. This $60 billion is money that is redistributed from the rest of us to the biggest banks in the country, their top executives and their shareholders, all courtesy of big government. (more…)

Fifty years ago, when an exasperated Joseph N. Welch defiantly interrupted the drunk-with-power chief inquistor, Sen. Joe McCarthy, and asked, “Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?,” the entire gallery burst into applause, signifying an abrupt end to an era of leaders who had abandoned their oaths in exchange for their own personal glorification.

In light of recent events, one might say, it’s once again time for that question to be dusted off and poised to the entire GOP.

As we’ve come to expect, the House passage of the Ryan Bill, which, at its core, is nothing more than the GOP’s latest installment of How to Cut the Deficit by Helping the Rich and F&%king the Poor, is filled with all the usual ridiculousness brought on behalf of a party that’s been deemed “the farthest right they’ve been in a hundred years.” And, if that wasn’t bad enough, this time, they’re trying to do it on the backs of the sick and the elderly.

The Republican plan to cut 6.1 trillion dollars in spending does not ask for a single cent from the richest class. Nor do they ask for a dime from the defense budget or the big oil companies. Nope. All the spending cuts designed to “save our children’s future” will come from the pockets and protection of health care, because, that’s where the “real” problems lie.

The Republicans of today have no problem whacking Medicaid by 1/3, thereby exposing future generations of seniors to financial ruin, while leaving the rest of us to rely on “vouchers,” which – surprise – decrease in value over time. Seeing just how far they can go, they continue their assault on reason by suggesting we cut taxes for the upper class and put them back to where they were when their ole pal “W.” was in office.

Is it possible that an entire group of people are this clueless? The early 20th century political journalist, H.L. Menckin, probably said it best when he said, “Not all conservatives are stupid, but all stupid people are conservative.”

It’s no secret, Republicans today are unabashed in their shameful quest to protect the wealthy and the titans of industry. They’re so far “off the grid” at the moment, it’s easy to believe it would be even more gratifying if this could be achieved while simultaneously taking away what little remaining security those who’ve worked a lifetime have left. (more…)

TYT Nation video submission. I made this to highlight the fact that liberals rarely attack the conservative logic at the root of most social problems in America. Hopefully this video will help change that.

 Moderates and conservatives were adept at guessing how liberals would answer questions. Liberals, especially those who described themselves as “very liberal,” were least able to put themselves in the minds of their adversaries and guess how conservatives would answer.

But the research fails to take into account that authoritarian thinkers are often heard to utter things like, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  If one attempts to guess how such a person thinks the way we often judge people – i.e., by their actions – it is easy to see why people whose behaviour is more consistent with the way they think would have difficulty understanding those afflicted with cognitive dissonance.

 The only question is: “Why aren’t academic researchers able to see that?”

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When conservative Congressman Todd Akin a few months back suggested that liberalism was a “hatred of God,” I postulated that given the overwhelming support for liberal and progressive values in the Judeo-Christian Bible, perhaps he had never bothered to actually read the Bible. With Rick Santorum’s recent comment that Obama’s agenda is “Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology,” I am now beginning to wonder if Santorum, Akin, and other conservatives are just reading a different Bible entirely than the one I read.

Because here’s the thing: while you can — if you really work hard to do it — find verses here and there supporting a more conservative political point of view on certain specific issues, there is simply no way to read the Bible I read and not come to the conclusion that it is overwhelmingly supportive of helping the poor, showing mercy to the weak, refraining from judging, treating others as you would treat yourself, calling on the wealthy to give their money to the poor, and all kinds of other liberal, lefty, progressive values. You would have to ignore a great deal of Genesis and Exodus, with their talk of being our brother’s keeper and bringing justice to the poor, oppressed slaves in Egypt; you would have to skip over a great many of the verses of Psalms with its poetry about justice and mercy for the poor and the widow; you would have to avoid the books of the Prophets almost entirely since so much of what they are angry about is the Israelite society’s mistreatment of poor people and immigrants in their midst. Then there is the New Testament, where between St. Paul, the relatives of Jesus, and the big guy himself, there are so many verses on these subjects that it is virtually impossible to ignore them.

In fact, as I noted in my piece about Todd Akin, Jesus talks about mercy to those in trouble in 24 verses of the Gospels, tells people not to judge in 34 verses, tells people to love and forgive even their enemies in 53 verses, tells people to love their neighbors as themselves and treat others as they would want to be treated in 19 verses, and specifically tells people to help the poor and/or spurn riches and the wealthy in 128 verses. (more…)

Santorum walked onto the stage with most of his family in tow, and was received with enthusiastic applause. As his family formed a tableau behind him, Santorum joked. “This is not the Von Trapp family,” he said. “We are not going to sing,” he added a beat later after waiting for the laughter to die down. That was a relief. But then, Rick Santorum started talking.

If Romney walks out on stage with his family arrayed behind him, then I’m going to assume Santorum’s started a meme to get under Newt’s skin some more. (Let’s see you drag your family out on stage, Newt — and all your baggage along with it.)

After introducing his family, Santorum noted that his three-year-old daughter — whose illness cause him to take a short break from the campaign trail during the Florida primaries. Santorum assured the audience that his daughter was recuperating and doing well. That’s interesting, because a year ago Santorum said that health care reform would kill his young daughter — who was born with a genetic abnormality.

Now, I’m not going to suggest that health care reform is responsible for his daughter’s continued survival. The millions Rick Santorum earned by cashing in on his Washington insider status means that his little girl gets the best healthcare money can buy.

It’s also interesting, because Santorum — like a lot of conservatives — wants to repeal health care reform. Never mind that repealing health care reform might kill a lot more people. Never mind that repealing health care reform would strip Americans of a lot of protections that Republicans have no specific plans to replace or provide in some way that reflects their values. (Like prohibiting health insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.) (more…)

That am I thankful for this year? I am thankful the conservative movement has stopped trying to pretend to be something that they are not.

Instead of masquerading as “compassionate conservatives” who want “clear skies,” “personal retirement accounts,” protect Medicare” and “tax relief” for all, today’s conservative just lays it on the table:

Tax the poor. Deregulate the rich. Drill Baby Drill. Filibuster the jobs bills. And to hell with Social Security and Medicare.

Before we enter the sweeps month of the “GOP 2012″ reality TV show — when the crazy will be turned up to 11 — let’s pause before Thanksgiving, and give thanks for the many wonderful crazy moments conservatives have shared with us so far this year, so we all know exactly what conservatives would do to America if given the chance.

“So Be It.” One month into his speakership, John Boehner lets us know — with inaccurate numbers, of course, — what he feels about having our government help create jobs: “In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs. If some of those jobs are lost, so be it. We’re broke.”

(more…)

Every other Wednesday evening for the past few years I’ve been offering commentary on a spritely show on public radio called Marketplace. On alternative Wednesdays David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, has been airing his views.

This past Wednesday, Frum called it quits. He explained to the show’s host, Kai Risdal, that he could no longer represent Republican views.

I think that there’s a kind of expectation that when you do it that you represent the broad point of view of your half of the political spectrum. And although I consider myself a conservative and a Republican, and I think that the right-hand side of the spectrum has the better answers for the long-term growth of economy — low taxes, restrained government, less regulation — it’s pretty clear that facing the immediate crisis — very intense crisis — I’m just not representing the view of most people who call themselves Republicans and conservatives these days…. And it’s a service to the radio audience if they want to hear people explaining effectively why one of the two great parties takes the view that it does — it needs to have somebody who agrees with that great party.

I respect David’s decision but I disagree with his understanding of his job on Marketplace. And I find his decision to leave a sad commentary (no pun intended) on what’s happening to public discourse in America.

Why exactly was it necessary for David Frum to “represent” the views of conservative Republicans? (more…)

The battles against anti-worker laws across the country have turned to the ballot boxes and courtrooms. As voters go to the polls next week in high profile recall elections in Wisconsin, workers in other states and their lawyers will argue before judges that some anti-worker laws should be struck down.  

In New Jersey, Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1033 filed a lawsuit this week over the failure by Gov. Chris Christie to make payments to the state’s pension funds. The suit claims that the failure by Christie and his predecessors to make payments to the funds violated a constitutional prohibition against the “impairment of contracts” a lawyer for the union said.

Working men and women also are suing to stop new laws in Idaho. One would prohibit project labor agreements (PLAs). These pre-hire agreements between labor and management require all construction jobs to be filled by local workers, include diversity requirements, establish wages and work rules covering overtime, working hours and dispute resolution and ensure that safety guidelines on the job site are enforced. They protect taxpayers by eliminating costly delays due to labor conflicts or shortages of skilled workers

(more…)