Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Anyone else tune in?

I watched the Stanley Cup game. I figured it would be tamer than this group of Republicans.

And with regard to the Simpson Bowles Social Security plan in particular, the lowest income workers are the greatest beneficiaries.

As shown above, Simpson-Bowles would collapse the range of earned benefits considerably; whereas today the maximum-wage earner receives more than three times that provided to a “very low” earner, under Simpson-Bowles this ratio would be less than 2:1 by 2050. In sum, benefit growth on the high end would be constrained while on the low end it would be accelerated. In addition, low-income workers would have added security via the reduction of the threat of insolvency-triggered benefit cuts.

here.

James50

Originally Posted by playwrite

For many who are seeking the Gilded Age redux, I think they would deny it even to themselves.

I will quote what you have said to me before. You can do better than this.

Would still like a few facts about a Republican candidate that has announced a desire for the Gilded Age. You know, some actual facts and not something from your secret decoder ring.

James50

Originally Posted by James50

The night Obama announced that Bin Laden had been killed, the first thing that crossed my mind when I heard he was making a sudden late night announcement was that he had decided not to run for re-election. I don't know why I felt this way exactly, but I guess he has never given me the sense he was really into the day-to-day of being President. I think about this whenever I read the stories about how much he plays golf. Golf is probably the most time consuming sport out there. I have never understood how people have the time for it.

Still, while anything is possible, the inertia of the Presidential entourage to keep on is probably too great to resist.

James50

I think you and David are off base here. I think you're misreading Obama's calmness and detachment as disinterest when I think it's just that he's not an outwardly emotional person like some of our recent presidents. I think he's focused and engaged but his style is quieter and more behind the scenes.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

I think you and David are off base here. I think you're misreading Obama's calmness and detachment as disinterest when I think it's just that he's not an outwardly emotional person like some of our recent presidents. I think he's focused and engaged but his style is quieter and more behind the scenes.

You are probably right and that picture in the Situation Room showed an admirable intensity. Still, I suspect that for a lot of people the image of an uninterested President is not helpful right now. Ike was coasting in a 1T. That is not what we need now.

James50

EDIT: I have changed disinterested to uninterested. Disinterested means more like "impartial".

The progressive tradition does not date only to the early 20th or late 19th century. It dates to the 15th century, or the 16th at latest. It is not possible for Boomers to tear it down.

With regard to government intervention in the economy, that is necessitated by the nature of a modern economy. It is impossible to restore prosperity without doing that, and without leveling incomes. Any administration and any Congress that tries to go in the opposite direction will be slammed in the face by the results. We are not free to do any old thing that our ideology requires. We live in the real world.

Originally Posted by James50

I will quote what you have said to me before. You can do better than this.

Would still like a few facts about a Republican candidate that has announced a desire for the Gilded Age. You know, some actual facts.

James50

That's easy; let's take one of less extreme candidates like Pawlenty who started with this back in late April -

GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said Friday that while he would vote for Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan if it came across his desk as president..

... you know the Ryan plan that gives grandma a $15K voucher to try and buy a $42K insurance plan. Can you hear that "pop" - that's the safety net coming apart.

But then he wants more -

In an editorial in the Chicago Tribune, Pawlenty gave some details on his plan: Aim for 5 percent economic growth, cap and block grant Medicaid, gradually raise the Social Security retirement age, cut the business tax rate to 15 percent (currently 35 percent) while removing so-called "special interest handouts, carve-outs, subsidies and loopholes," cut personal tax rates and freeze federal spending until the budget is balanced.

Over forth-fifths of federal spending go to three primary functions: social insurance; an army: and paying debt. We can't stop paying off the Chinese or we go into the toilet. No way the GOP in power is going to make any meaningful cuts to Defense. So what do you think putting the total government freeze on the social safety nets means in the real world? This ain't rocket science, my friend.
As for the rest of his plan, same old same old, cut taxes. And just what unmet demand needs to have huge investment in capacity right now for all those freed up tax dollars to pour into? Those cuts are not about providing jobs, there about further lining the pockets of the new Gillded. Okay by you as long as you get yours, hey?

Originally Posted by playwrite

That's easy; let's take one of less extreme candidates like Pawlenty who started with this back in late April -

... you know the Ryan plan that gives grandma a $15K voucher to try and buy a $42K insurance plan. Can you hear that "pop" - that's the safety net coming apart.

But then he wants more -

Over forth-fifths of federal spending go to three primary functions: social insurance; an army: and paying debt. We can't stop paying off the Chinese or we go into the toilet. No way the GOP in power is going to make any meaningful cuts to Defense. So what do you think putting the total government freeze on the social safety nets means in the real world? This ain't rocket science, my friend.
As for the rest of his plan, same old same old, cut taxes. And just what unmet demand needs to have huge investment in capacity right now for all those freed up tax dollars to pour into? Those cuts are not about providing jobs, there about further lining the pockets of the new Gillded. Okay by you as long as you get yours, hey?

A good takedown of his proposals. But where is the statement that we need a new Gilded Age? He believes that economic growth is the best tonic for what ails us and that tax cuts are the way to get economic growth. This has been pretty mainstream stuff going back to JFK. I understand he may be wrong, even terribly wrong, but you feel the need to take it another step and impute his motives as base and evil. You are taking a policy dispute and imputing evil to the other side. I would rather you take the tact of simply pointing out the problems.

James50

Did anyone else catch the GOP candidates' debate in NH?

My take was if Romney needed a wimp in another candidate to make himself look better, he couldn't have a better foil than Pawlenty.

Bachman actually impressed me. However, my bar was pretty low - she just had to be smarter than Palin and not give that crazed missing-bride face.

The big take-away was the unbelievable demurring to Romney by the other candidates. This guy picked it up as well -

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...ir_110200.html

- it was like the other candidates are already thinking VP slot - let Romney take it for the team in 2012 and set him/her up for a re-match in 2016.

I think the reason for this is best expressed by a photo of another guy who briefly looked in on the debate -

Originally Posted by annla899

Ike played a lot of golf. GW played golf. Obama is playing golf with Boehner. I don't get the issue with Obama playing golf.

Agreed. JFK also loved golf, but he wouldn't let reporters photograph him playing golf because the Democrats had made so much fun of Ike over it. I once saw Ike on the way to the golf course in Bethesda, by the way.

Originally Posted by James50

A good takedown of his proposals. But where is the statement that we need a new Gilded Age? He believes that economic growth is the best tonic for what ails us and that tax cuts are the way to get economic growth. This has been pretty mainstream stuff going back to JFK. I understand he may be wrong, even terribly wrong, but you feel the need to take it another step and impute his motives as base and evil. You are taking a policy dispute and imputing evil to the other side. I would rather you take the tact of simply pointing out the problems.

James50

So is it motivation or ignorance that makes the crime? We could go down this route with me providing all manner of evidence to you - even with a mountain load, I doubt it would change your mind.

I just wish I lived in your world where evil would have to be so very careless to make itself so very plain to you.

- maybe I need to get to Atlanta more often.

Originally Posted by James50

Pretty emotional language. I would be grateful if you could point to a candidate that has publicly yearned for the Gilded Age, Social Darwinism, or an aristocracy of wealth. Perhaps this is simply your surmise for what is happening in the mind of anyone who wants lower government spending. I might point out that even the democrats seem to be in favor of reducing spending right now. Remember we are supposed to be fact based.

James50

James, you want government spending cut. You liked Simpson Bowles. Not one Republican candidate would go for Simpson Bowles now, not one--Grover Norquist would spank. They are all calling for lower taxes. They want to take away labor's rights--at least some of them do--that's now official. ("Defund the NLRB.") They want even huger fortunes, which will control politics even more thoroughly than they do now. In the neighborhoods I grew up in in Bethesda, the 3-bedroom homes like the ones I grew up in (when my father was in the sub-cabinet, we had a VERY compact house) are being torn down to make way for McMansions. And it is rapidly becoming Republican orthodoxy to take away both Medicare and Social Security in their current form. The repeal of the 16th amendment would be the last step. It's already on the table, although I don't expect to live to see that one.

I would support adjustments in social security. I obviously think we need better cost control in health care--which the private sector will not provide.

You got me thinking with your accusation that I'm against anything new, but I think I'll PM you about that.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

I think you and David are off base here. I think you're misreading Obama's calmness and detachment as disinterest when I think it's just that he's not an outwardly emotional person like some of our recent presidents. I think he's focused and engaged but his style is quieter and more behind the scenes.

Kiff, please take a look at my last blog post--I'd be curious as to what you think. One reason people stuck so long to FDR and JFK was that both of them loved to come to work every day. Really. The situation seems to be different in the White House these days.

Originally Posted by James50

Pretty emotional language. I would be grateful if you could point to a candidate that has publicly yearned for the Gilded Age, Social Darwinism, or an aristocracy of wealth. Perhaps this is simply your surmise for what is happening in the mind of anyone who wants lower government spending. I might point out that even the democrats seem to be in favor of reducing spending right now. Remember we are supposed to be fact based.

James50

"Do not bother to examine a folly. Just ask what it accomplishes."

By that standard, the output of the little black box on the GOP desk is dressed like an 1870s Robber baron.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

I think you and David are off base here. I think you're misreading Obama's calmness and detachment as disinterest when I think it's just that he's not an outwardly emotional person like some of our recent presidents. I think he's focused and engaged but his style is quieter and more behind the scenes.

Temperamentally, I had Obama figured for a Chessmaster - a Mastermind Rational (INTJ) a long, long time ago. That means we're not going to get the Roosevelt (both of them) Happy Warrior personality, nor the MacArthur Field Marshal personality, nor even the lovable Einstein/Jefferson INTP personality. We're going to get exactly what you're seeing, which is also the personality Ike had, underneath that folksy facade.

The good news is that such tend to be strategists supreme, but in such a quiet manner (Remember? No fireworks a la MacArthur?) people tend to underestimate them. Or how Ike got by with that "Aw, shucks," act to the point where people still dismiss him as such.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

"Do not bother to examine a folly. Just ask what it accomplishes."

But we were talking about intent. Do you think any of the Republican candidates wants a Gilded Age? Believes in social darwinism? (BTW that social darwinist Michelle Bachmann has taken in over 25 children into her house for foster care.)

By that standard, the output of the little black box on the GOP desk is dressed like an 1870s Robber baron.

I am sure that is not how they see it.

James50

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

"Do not bother to examine a folly. Just ask what it accomplishes."

Why, GB, I never knew you were a follower of Ayn Rand, but I guess you know a good quote when you see one.

James50

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

James, you want government spending cut. You liked Simpson Bowles. Not one Republican candidate would go for Simpson Bowles now, not one--Grover Norquist would spank. They are all calling for lower taxes.

The deficit answer is there for anyone to see. Its Simpson Bowles plus Clinton era tax rates. We will get there at some point.

They want to take away labor's rights--at least some of them do--that's now official. ("Defund the NLRB.")

An exaggeration. What has been proposed is that the Boeing decision be defunded. I doubt that will be necessary as the courts will reverse it before long. Its mainly just hot air, but very threatening for Right to Work states.

In the neighborhoods I grew up in in Bethesda, the 3-bedroom homes like the ones I grew up in (when my father was in the sub-cabinet, we had a VERY compact house) are being torn down to make way for McMansions.

Ask yourself why they are still building McMansions in Bethesda and why the DC real estate market has been among the least effected by the economic crisis. Its because government is where the money is.

And it is rapidly becoming Republican orthodoxy to take away both Medicare and Social Security in their current form.

For Medicare, its just arithmetic.

The repeal of the 16th amendment would be the last step. It's already on the table, although I don't expect to live to see that one.

Agreed. Much more likely (but still unlikely) is replacement of the income tax with a VAT that excluded food and medicine. I would vote for that.

I would support adjustments in social security. I obviously think we need better cost control in health care--which the private sector will not provide.

Good. I agree.

You got me thinking with your accusation that I'm against anything new, but I think I'll PM you about that.

See my sig.

James50

Originally Posted by James50

A good takedown of his proposals. But where is the statement that we need a new Gilded Age?

Obviously nobody is going to use those two words. But what characterized the Gilded Age? (Remember, advocates of what was being done then didn't use those two words either; they came from Mark Twain, who was anything but a proponent.)

The Gilded Age was the period near the end of America's industrialization and shortly thereafter. It took place after the defeat of the planter class, but before the so-called Progressive Era. It was when the labor wars more or less started, although there were a few earlier skirmishes. It was a time when big business dominated the government almost absolutely and when all public policy was oriented towards increasing profits and encouraging capital formation. Taxes on the rich were kept as low as possible, which was VERY low, since there was just about zero social spending and not much defense spending, either. Almost the entire federal budget went to what we would today call corporate welfare. Immigration was encouraged and the smackdown put on labor unions to keep wages low.

It seems to me that the current Republican agenda is indeed to recreate almost that entire corpus, the exception being that defense spending would be kept high rather than sharply cut back. They want to dismantle our social safety-net, cut taxes on the rich, maintain or even increase corporate welfare, and encourage outsourcing and other modern methods of keeping wages low. And of course, opposition to collective bargaining and labor rights in general is already on record. A new Gilded Age, while a term no politician would ever use to describe his own platform, is really a very good description.

I think it's important that we recognize just how corporate-slanted the mainstream media have become. That includes those with a primarily Democratic-voting audience. We should bear in mind that in the 1980s-90s, a corporate-leaning movement rose within the Democratic Party and triumphed with Bill Clinton's election. Democrats who are part of it generally hew to a conservative economic position along with more progressive stances on social issues, which also describes the mainstream media (other than outlets such as Fox News, which of course hew to the right across the board). For this reason, the Tea Party gets a lot of coverage, but the larger insurgency on the left does not; the picture being painted is one in which the people are "center-right," and in practice this means center-left on social issues but far-right on the economy. It's a distorted picture, and one that does not emerge in the new media, which means that if you don't get a fair percentage of your news on line and from non-official-media sources, you are not going to see a lot of what's going on. (Of course, the new media has its own perils and must be approached with a certain amount of discretion and skepticism, but checkable facts are always good.)

Here's something that you're not likely to see on television:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...n-from-gop.php

Republicans have pulled off a neat trick since taking over the House back in January -- they've repeatedly attacked President Obama on the languishing job market while shifting government focus away from job creation and toward the deficit and debt.

Now, the House Progressive Caucus is planning to turn the government's attention back toward eliminating unemployment. Starting Wednesday, caucus members will fan out across the country on a summer tour that will attempt to push the focus away from spending reduction and toward using government resources to create jobs.

"The media and the right wing and, of course, some Democrats have been talking about intangibles like the debt ceiling or the job picture," Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) told TPM in an interview previewing the announcement. "We wanted to do a tour that really talks about what matters to people."

To Grijalva and the CPC that means discussing a government that makes "a commitment to the middle class" and pushes for an economic package that focuses on middle and working class people -- "not just the wealthy and not just the CEOs," Grijalva said.

Earlier this year, the CPC put forward their own federal budget proposal that raises taxes on the rich and corporations (as well as ends the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and plows the increased revenues into new education, health care and other middle class-focused domestic spending.

That's the kind of government Americans want, Grijalva said. He faulted the White House and other Democrats for veering away from the kind of solutions the CPC intends to highlight on the tour and driving the national agenda headlong into the Republican-friendly territory of tax decreases and spending cuts.

"I think it comes from being timid," he said. "It really does. Part of job creation, historically how we've gotten the economy back on its feet is that the federal government stepped in and supplemented job creation...and here we're sitting around, still talking about the possibility of job creation in some amorphous way."

Tuesday, members of the CPC will kickoff the tour with press conference on Capitol Hill. The first stop on the tour will come at the annual Netroots Nation conference this weekend in Minneapolis. Future stops will take the tour to major cities spanning the country, from New York to Detroit to Oakland, CA.
"Our tour is about letting the American people vent," Grijalva said. "It's about letting the American people tell us, 'we're out of work and you have to do something.' And hopefully that will resound back here in Congress and Congress will take the idea of job creation and how we deal with the idea of the debt ceiling and the deficit and all that and deal with it in a much more realistic way."

The stops will feature members of the CPC sitting down with workers to hear about the employment situation and how it can be improved. Some events will be town halls, some will be rallies, some will be hearings and all will be open to the public. The caucus has been planning the tour in secret for months, and say that it could help shift the focus back to job creation and away from the federal bottom line.

Originally Posted by James50

Why, GB, I never knew you were a follower of Ayn Rand, but I guess you know a good quote when you see one.

James50

I'm not a follower of Rand, though I was mightily impressed by her over 40 years ago. However, she is a gold mine of quotes, situations, and very recognizable bad guys.

Not to mention her totally classic portrait of Silent Generation leadership in her Board of Directors, who can't make up their minds whether or not it's raining outside without a prolonged discussion. I laugh and wince at the same time.

And she once said she got all the ludicrous regulations in Atlas Shrugged by data-mining the New Deal for every half-assed (my words, not hers) program ever tried. Of course, if you're going to use the failures in a wildly experimental situation, your dice are going to be as loaded as a drunk at 2am.

Originally Posted by James50

But we were talking about intent. Do you think any of the Republican candidates wants a Gilded Age? Believes in social darwinism? (BTW that social darwinist Michelle Bachmann has taken in over 25 children into her house for foster care.)

I am sure that is not how they see it.

James50

Intent provides no beans for your pot. Though it makes marvelous paving for the Road into the Bad Christians' Afterlife. Nor do evil-doers usually see themselves as evil, but rather as either doing the right thing (which I think is true in this case) or as being pushed to it by circumstances ("I had to beat her up! She pushed me until I snapped!")

Sorry. "Ask what it accomplishes" has been a life-saving litmus paper for me for decades.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Obviously nobody is going to use those two words.

And I do not think a Glided Age is what they want. You may have some good reasons to oppose them on the basis that their policies will lead to a Gilded Age. What bothers me is the conclusion that a Gilded Age is their goal.

If I were to step into the head of a Tea Partier, I think what I would find is someone who is tired of government intrusion into their lives, tired of government that is always asking for more in resources while doing a poor job with what they currently have, and tired of a disrespectful tone for their beliefs. Government appears as a hungry beast on the prowl, a great machine that cares for no one except its masters. The Tea Party has strong traces of anarchy.

I see no evidence that they actually yearn for more inequality.

James50

Originally Posted by James50

I think you are the one being emotional talking about people being "insane" and the "end of the world as we know it".

I was merely responding to your category - you said the "government" - and that includes all of it doesn't it? Certainly in our federalist system if you are going to compare our governmental spending to European levels, you would have to include state spending. (BTW, federal spending is above 24% right now.) What would be misleading in talking about government spending is only to include the federal. Given the fundamentally dependent nature of government spending on the private sector, can you say you are unconcerned with the trend?

Technically you are correct but I would not lose much sleep over whether the 16th amendment is on the verge of repeal. I still say it is simply a surrogate for hatred of the income tax and its present implementation and complexity. I think you know that this hatred is far from a fringe viewpoint.
Your definition and mine of extremism is indeed different. It makes me sad to see you close up like a clam whenever something new and different comes along. The New Deal is over. Its broke and not coming back. You have recognized this many times in your writings. What are we going to replace it with?

James50

I decided to post this instead of PMing James after all. It has to do with his last two paragraphs. And with the kind of person I am, for better or for worse.

The profession of history began to shift under Silent/Boomer influence about 30 years ago but I was too busy doing my own stuff to notice. By the 1990s I was out of regular university life, but then I noticed and I've been noticing ever since. Just as James announces that the New Deal is dead (and it isn't completely, not yet, although it's taken some very big hits), historians have been announcing for two decades that "empiricism is dead." They explain to undergrads at Williams in the senior history seminar that the age of Ranke, who believed you could discover the truth about the past in archives, is over. Now it's all a matter of perception--both the perception of a historian, which will depend largely on his/her background, and the perception of who you are studying--history looks different to a peasant than a king, etc. etc. etc. All of which means that the kind of work I do is now hopelessly obsolete and virtually no one under 60 is doing it any more. (A number of people I know of did change the direction of their work completely in mid-career, by the way. One diplomatic historian who had written quite a good, solid book suddenly noticed that George Kennan used the word "penetration" six times in two pages while talking about Soviet designs upon western Europe, and concluded, naturally, that Kennan was using gendered language to portray the Soviets as rapists. We had a very lengthy exchange on line about that.)

Now I have paid a heavy price for not going along with all this. But I don't care. Or rather. . .I do care, but I couldn't do anything else but stick to my own view of history. And I'm not trying to sound heroic, really. That was all I knew. That was all I could do.

It is a great relief to think that within 2 years or so I could be out of all this once and for all, but in any event, I do think I've left some valuable things behind and that they will live longer than my old friend Liz Cohen's, for instance, whose second book was a history of economic life (shopping, largely) in suburban New Jersey in the 1950s--coincidentally, just where she grew up. And that was because I wouldn't accept the contemporary values in my profession. So it's no surprise that I can't buy into contemporary political orthodoxy, either. Yes, the new age may be coming, and I've said so as much as anyone, but I don't have to like it. And I don't.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Intent provides no beans for your pot.

Sorry. "Ask what it accomplishes" has been a life-saving litmus paper for me for decades.

And what I was responding to was this:

they want a return to the Gilded Age, pure and simple. They want an aristocracy of wealth that has the rest of us totally at its mercy. They want pure social Darwinism, with all its awful consequences. They want to destroy any conception of the common good and above all, any idea of a government acting on behalf of the common good.

(bold mine)

I have found assuming people's good intentions is a good default position.

James50