The Elephant in the Room – If the Republican Party and their incumbents don’t get their act together soon, they will have booted an almost guaranteed slam dunk to take back the White House and a Senatorial majority to go along with their Congressional majority. If not, they stand to be back in the minority position in those two branches of government.
Let’s face it, Obama has had an up and down Presidency to date with two “can’t win” wars, an economic meltdown, huge unemployment, a raging Healthcare debate and now a budget battle. His policies have been lukewarm at best and even the members of his own party have been a tad upset with him from time to time. And, the Republicans have been relentless in their criticism. His Presidency spawned the Tea Party Movement and made a TV celebrity out of Glenn Beck.
So, it would appear that Republicans could really clean up this next presidential election cycle. But they won’t. And here’s why.
1. The War on the Middle Class and the Poor – Starting as soon as they won a majority in Congress, the Republicans went right after the middle class to reward their buddies, the wealthiest Americans by blackmailing Obama to extend the Bush Era Tax cuts. They achieved this with a minimum amount of spilled blood because after all, the wealthiest Americans also contribute to the Democratic Party as well. The disparity between rich and poor is greater than ever and everyone knows it.
In addition, every budget proposal put forth from the Republicans and their wunderkind, Eric Cantor, has the bulk of the cuts coming from social programs such as: Medicare, Social Security and schools. These programs largely benefit the lower economic rung of the American ladder. While most agree that the largest share of our budget needs a good dose of belt tightening, Republicans didn’t bother with the other large entitlement programs like corporate welfare and tax breaks, oil and gas subsidies, defense spending and other corporate giveaway programs. While all this pleases the Tea Partyers, it will not sit well with a majority of Americans who vote; namely middle and lower class Americans who stand to lose much if programs are tampered with. Not saying it’s right or wrong, but people always vote their own interests.
2. Moral and Social Issues – I was listening to Alan Simpson, former Republican Senator from Wyoming and co-chair of the White House panel on deficit reduction the other day. He came out strongly against those in the Republican Party he called “homophobes.” He was also sharply critical of Republican’s obsession with abortion. He said, “I don’t know anybody running around with a sign that says ‘have an abortion, they’re wonderful.’ They’re hideous. But they’re a deeply intimate and personal decision and I don’t think men legislators should even vote on the issue.” (Washington Post Online) What he is saying in essence is that Americans are tired of these issues. They want to move on. Social equality is more important than ever and Americans are tired of the rhetoric against Gays and against women who have abortions. If Republican candidates continue to express their views on these issues in the wrong way, while they may please the base, they will turn off many others. The same goes for the Birther movement. Get over it! Obama was born in Hawaii. Stop kicking the dead horse. Donald!
3. Too many contenders – Right now, it seems about half the Republican Party is running for President or thinking about it. This can be problematic as the field is fleshed out and they do battle with each other on the various issues. As the field narrows, those remaining might be construed as mean and vicious as they knock out their opponents. In the case of opportunists such as: Donald Trump, polarizing figures such as Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, more people can be turned off than excited to vote for them. After all, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, so a large portion of those have to feel strongly enough for one of the candidates and enough against Obama to cross over with their vote. A Republican nominee has to span the right-leaning tea partyers as well as middle of the road and left leaning Dems and Independents, which might prove to be a bridge too far. There are no Ronald Reagans among the crop of contenders. Unless the economy is still pretty bad, the unemployment rate up and the budget problems still unresolved, Obama wins. Which brings me to:
4. The Economy improves – If the economy improves and the jobless rate goes down, the Republicans don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to win. Unless they can figure out how to take credit for it and not allow the President to do so. However, as with number 1 on my list looming large, they will have a problem. If the overall economy improves and the plight of middle and poorer classes not improve to any great extent, they still lose.
So my sense of the situation is that the current Republican message loses a lot of steam outside of its own base. The Tea Party is forcing it more and more to the right while the country by and large is in the middle. Most elections are won for two reasons: The current situation at hand is bad and it is the incumbent person or party who is at fault. If those conditions still exist, the Republicans have a chance. If they can tone down the message, their chance improves. If they can throw a bone to the middle class, they can win. Otherwise, they lose it all. Yes, they’ll get Utah’s votes, no matter what. But the rest will be up for grabs.
Wheat & Tares 
Err, partisan,much? Not particulary analytic, just flame bait.
We’re all a bit partisan on this bus. Perhaps not “fair and balanced,” but the Republicans are running against the President, not the Democratic Party.
your “moral issue” category was pretty weak, and mostly a straw man against supposed abortion supporters. That said, I don’t think the GOP has much of a chance of winning, because Obama is a very likeable guy. He has consistently polled well in likeability, even with people who don’t support his policies.
Right now it would probably take a huge game changing event to take Obama down. Status quo isn’t going to cut it against a very dynamic and charismatic campaigner.
so i’m new here, but is this a mormon blog? if i want generic partisan speculation on an election in a year and a half there are plenty of blogs for that. not trying to be a hater, just wondering what this site is about.
“Not saying it’s right or wrong, but people always vote their own interests.”
If this was the case, the Republican Party would never have won a majority in the first place.
@Joe: You caught W&T during a particularly political week.
“If this was the case, the Republican Party would never have won a majority in the first place.”
Well, we know this is not been the case. So, a majority of the voters must have felt their interests were better served by the Republicans than the Democrats. We’ve seen that with so-called Reagan Democrats and with the election of George W. Bush. Though with the latter, I could never figure that one out.
A majority of voters are quite capable of voting for the minority party if they think their interests are served better.
The question is what will they think in a year and a half from now….
“war on the middle class?” – oh for the love of pete. This post isn’t worth the time to refute.
Number 4 is far and away the most important factor, and nothing else is even close. It has always been the case that if the economy is going well the incumbent president wins reelection, if it is going poorly the incumbent president is much more likely to lose. Unemployment is dropping and jobs are being created and the economy is looking better, and if this continues Obama is unbeatable. He could pull a Berlusconi and still trounce the relatively weak Republican field.
That said, as someone that considers himself liberal and not necessarily a democrat, he is a huge disappointment.
That last sentence was weird. That someone is me, and I find Obama to be a huge disappointment.
“That said, as someone that considers himself liberal and not necessarily a democrat, he is a huge disappointment.”
I agree with you that Obama has not lived up to the hope and change hype of the campaign. That is why I have cast this next election as the Republicans to lose. And I guess I think they are doing everything in their power to lose it rather than win it.
From the candidate field to the way they are casting the budget fight, to Michael Steele to Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Donald Trump, they are navigating a course that will end in defeat.
Just my view of things.
Can’t we go back to the time when all the posts on W&T were about non-controversial things like polygamy?
Well then, Salt, neither is your comment but here is a response it doesn’t deserve anyway.
Removing the right of middle class workers to collectively bargain with their employers doesn’t strike many of us as very democratic or particularly free-market oriented (the right of free association being an important pre-condition to a republican capitalist system). Expecting such workers to be happy to work for ever lower wages (because at least they have jobs!) while their employers’ profits soar in the opposite direction is, as your blog takes pains to point out, an inevitable result of de-unionization, though some of us don’t see it as one to be proud of. One only has to see how foreign corporations are increasingly treating rural American workers as on par with third world countries (i.e. Ikea in Danville, VA) to understand the direction your rhetoric is taking America in. I respect your right to be proud of our decreasing standard of living so long as corporate profits are up, but some of us think the free market should be structured to lift all boats when the tide rises.
Too many contenders — how Bill Clinton won.
The War on the Middle Class and the Poor — class warfare sells well, but it isn’t what is happening. “The rich” have consistently paid about 20-23% of their income in taxes. When the effective burden goes above that, they migrate. Otherwise, they shift income to avoid taxes.
Now what you do have is a bulge where professionals and entrepenurals are unable to avoid taxes as the rich do. But that is always life. And the “untaxed” actually pay payroll and sales taxes and such.
But is it really a “war on the poor” to acknowledge that at the present rate, Medicaid/Medicare will consume 120% of the budget before long at the current rates of change?
Jeff,
Did you see the latest poll that put Donald 9 points ahead of all other Republican contenders? hahahahaha…there’s a reason why he’s sounding the birther stuff. Because Republican voters love it. They hate Obama so much that they’ll believe whatever crap anyone sells them.
Oh and I’m seeing stuff out there that Republicans won’t even win the Senate in 2012, which they’ve been trending to do. They might even lose the House.
Jacob,
Don’t blame him. Blame the Senate.
As a rather hard-core conservative, I actually agree that the Republicans are doing everything they can to lose this election. I think your “War on the Middle Class” is wrong-headed and is not the reason, though. I think its because
1 – Mitt Romney is the Republican equivalent of John Kerry (weak candidate due to hypocritical flip-flopping), and he is the most serious candidate as of this point. (Oh, how sad the state of affairs for the candidate field!)
2 – The (not entirely uncorrect, but mostly) view that Republicans hate Hispanics because they keep sneaking into our country. Since Republicans have done a terrible job explaining a non-hatefilled position against illegal immigration, the onus is on the current crop of candidates, who, as I’ve already mentioned are very weak. The loss of the Latino/Hispanic vote bodes very badly for the future of the Republican party.
3 – George W Bush incompetent running of government is still to fresh in people’s minds for us to go back to something similar.
“But is it really a “war on the poor” to acknowledge that at the present rate, Medicaid/Medicare will consume 120% of the budget before long at the current rates of change?”
It is insofar as the preferred fix is to ignore things like defense spending, corporate welfare, historically low taxes on the rich, and the other items mentioned in the post, and go after programs for the poor and middle class almost exclusively to fix the budget problems. I agree something has to be done about Medicaid and Medicare (my preference is a single-payer system), but it has to be done in a more equitable way.
#11 Justin: Can’t we go back to the time when all the posts on W&T were about non-controversial things like polygamy?
🙂 It’s not polygamy, but the next few posts in the Science & Religion series are going to post on non-controversial things like the age of the earth, how long ago Adam really lived, whether Adam was born on this earth or “spun” into existence, what we make of cities and civilizations etc from 5000-7000BC, whether Eve actually came from a rib, how long the patriarchs really lived, whether the earth was really one land mass while humans lived on the earth, etc. It should be fun.
Dan,
I used to agree with that, but now I’m not so sure. Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com has documented how the administration started walking back civil liberties policy and health care rhetoric before Congress ever got involved. Here’s a pretty strong argument that Obama is not a bad negotiator, but a very, very shrewd one:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/13/obama/index.html
He’s not all bad, but it kind of feels like the old bait-and-switch sometimes.
Obama is going to win.
Two reasons:
1) The Republicans, so far, have a bunch of really lame candidates. I don’t know who’s going to step in and bring the “fire” that Obama brought to the game. Agree with him or not, he’s certainly inspiring, much like Ronald Reagen was.
2) Entitlement programs are broken. They are going to bankrupt our country in the next 10-20 years as it is a completely non-sustainable model. But there are different approaches. Democrats want to protect the programs so the budget isn’t “balanced on the backs of the poor”, so want to tax “the rich” more. Republicans don’t want to tax more, so need to cut programs.
There are flaws with BOTH of these proposals. There’s not much more room to “tax the rich” as a recent post on Millennial Star points out. But people don’t like getting cut.
At the end of the day, when around 60% of the country pays 10% of federal taxes, they are getting much more out of the system than they are putting in. Simple logic suggests that these people are going to vote for people who will continue their programs through taxing someone else.
Since they are the majority, Democrats will win.
p.s. Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 is out in theaters today. Should we all go for a group watch? 🙂
My comment is trapped in spam which I can’t unspam, so I’ll just repost it, changing the link:
—————————–
Obama is going to win.
Two reasons:
1) The Republicans, so far, have a bunch of really lame candidates. I don’t know who’s going to step in and bring the “fire” that Obama brought to the game. Agree with him or not, he’s certainly inspiring, much like Ronald Reagen was.
2) Entitlement programs are broken. They are going to bankrupt our country in the next 10-20 years as it is a completely non-sustainable model. But there are different approaches. Democrats want to protect the programs so the budget isn’t “balanced on the backs of the poor”, so want to tax “the rich” more. Republicans don’t want to tax more, so need to cut programs.
There are flaws with BOTH of these proposals. There’s not much more room to “tax the rich” as a recent post on Millennial Star points out ( http://www.millennialstar.org/myths-and-truths-about-the-rich/ ). But people don’t like getting cut.
At the end of the day, when around 60% of the country pays 10% of federal taxes, they are getting much more out of the system than they are putting in. Simple logic suggests that these people are going to vote for people who will continue their programs through taxing someone else.
Since they are the majority, Democrats will win.
Justin, I have a post planned for Monday about Passover. It is a theologically controversial post, but I’m not sure how many comments it will get here. (I agree this has been an unusually political week here at W&T, and I will take at least one week off from politics.)
I moved into politics because I was tired of the same old Church topics. But I have a few ideas to get back into it.
Jacob,
Once again though, where was the Senate to allow Obama to close Guantanamo? On the other civil liberties issues, no doubt Obama’s done wrong, and you have no argument from me. But so much of what Obama promised on which he has no delivered, is directly attributed to the Senate.
Mike S.,
On Atlas Shrugged, I’d see it if it was well made. However, reviewers have trounced it for being pretty awful. Seeing that I already think the book to be pretty awful, I have no interest, even though it is Tax Day and somehow that coincides with Objectivism…or something…
#13 Steven is right.
Jeff you cite Medicare and Social Security as the places that Republicans want to cut first and how that is somehow a war on the middle class.
Not reforming Medicare and Social Security immediately is the Democrats declaring war on my generation, who will have to pay incredibly high taxes in comparison to what our progenitors paid in order to maintain a system that will collapse before we can realize any benefits.
I’m not sure what you’re missing about the current trajectory of government spending, but Medicare and SS are overwhelming the budget in every way. Without reform, they will collapse.
Jana,
Can you provide evidence of the collapse of Medicare and Social Security?
#21 Mike
People will continue to vote themselves largesse, that is, until there is no more to be had. People may continue to vote Democrat to maintain their government handouts, but eventually there just isn’t enough to go around. See: Greece, Portugal, New York State, California
Jana,
New York State? As I live here in New York, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Our “government handouts” are working just fine here.
As for California, its problems are related to its ridiculous budgetary rules in the legislature.
As for Greece and Portugal, no doubt they overplayed themselves.
#27 Dan
The CBO estimates that Medicare will consume 12 percent of gross domestic product by 2080 (up from 3.6 percent of GDP today), bringing total health entitlement spending to 17 percent of GDP.
Where exactly is all that money going to come from? If you tell me, “taxing the rich,” I will be forced to laugh.
#29 Dan
I clearly know more about your state’s sad budget situation than you do.
Jana,
#31,
I am making fun of you with the whole “government handouts” in New York. I have absolutely no idea what you’re even talking about. 🙂
Jana,
Yep, tax the top 1% at 50%. It was a level that worked well under Ronald Reagan.
Mike S. [18] — re: Adam, I once heard a theory that “Adam” and “Eve” were amoebas and they were the first ones to evolve DNA [the double helixed “serpent”] to pass their genes on thru genetic decent [aka, a “fall”] — maybe that might give you some direction for your stuff.
MH [22] — I’ll take anything that will “passover” me reading the statists chase each others tails in circles over politics.
#33 Dan
You can make fun of me all you want.
Here you go, why your plan to tax the top 1% at 50% won’t work:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/eat-the-rich/237000/
Now, math IS hard, isn’t it?
Jana H.
“Not reforming Medicare and Social Security immediately is the Democrats declaring war on my generation, who will have to pay incredibly high taxes in comparison to what our progenitors paid in order to maintain a system that will collapse before we can realize any benefits.”
First, it has been baby boomers like me that have SSI and Medicare afloat all these years. the recipients up to now have not paid in nearly the amounts that the working class have paid over the last 30 years or so. So, cry me a river on what future generations may or may not pay. We’ve already been there and done that.
Second, what did you think this sentence in my post meant:
“While most agree that the largest share of our budget needs a good dose of belt tightening,….”?
I know it needs to be fixed, but so do all entitlement programs. The most poor need SSI and Medicare more than the Oil and Gas industry needs to be subsidized, why not start there?
Dan & Jana illustrate how to talk past and smugly towards each other without accomplishing a single thing. Thank you both for restoring my faith in the ability of human beings to communicate effectively.
Jana,
I was making fun of your New York bit…your link doesn’t explain how the state of New York fits in with California, Portugal or Greece. Maybe you can show me where McArdle says something about the state of New York.
As far as the comments about how raising the taxes on the rich somehow equals less actual revenue, I guess we’ll see if that is correct when taxes are raised. The only thing I am quite well aware of is that in 2000 we had a surplus. In 2001 we had a deficit. Two things in between that changed things were the recession and the Bush Tax Cuts. Since the recession ended in 2002 and the economy grew through 2008, one would think that because the economy grew, so should have the tax receipts. But the government continued to run deficits. It seems that the taxes were simply too low, and they were below the line at which lowering taxes more would no longer provide a raising revenue. Essentially it seems that the Clinton era tax rates were optimal. Thus, we ought to increase them back to 39% on the top 1%. Personally I think we’ll do just fine with 50%, but I won’t argue with 39%.
#37 Jacob M
Yes, yes, of course! Anytime someone takes a position and then defends it, that is talking past one another without accomplishing a single thing.
Perhaps you could be more explicit about what was wrong with the points I brought up? Could you prove them factually inaccurate? Could you show that they are not related to the OP or a response to a comment in the thread?
Smug! As if. Pot, kettle, black.
#36 Jeff
Yes, you have been paying taxes all these years into a program that is essentially a Ponzi Scheme. Since the baby boom generation didn’t produce enough children to support what would be required to pay their benefits, SS and Medicare are running headlong into a demographic freight train. You say you’ve been keeping SS and Medicare afloat, but the fact of the matter is that you will take out more than you put in.
Quote:
“Ever since we Gen-X/Yers began working, we’ve paid 12.4 percent of our earnings to Social Security,” he wrote. “In contrast, the Boomers will get a bargain. When they entered the workforce in the late 1960s, they paid only 6.5 percent of their earnings to Social Security. Only from 1990 on, when the Boomers had earned paychecks for a quarter-century, did they start paying 12.4 percent to Social Security, the same percentage we Gen-X/Yers have paid our whole lives.”
This is the Boomer Bargain. “They’ve paid less of their earnings into Social Security than we Gen-X/Yers, yet they’ll receive more in benefits than we will and we’ll pick up the tab.”
Also, corporate tax reform is desperately needed, but Democrats are no more likely to do it than are Republicans. Look who was the biggest recipient of BP campaign cash: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36783.html
Jana – two quote from you will suffice:
I clearly know more about your state’s sad budget situation than you do.
Now, math IS hard, isn’t it?
It is not the points you brought up, it is the tone of your comments that I was referring to. I realize that my comment was also a little douch-baggy in tone, and I probably should have left the second sentence out of it.
“You say you’ve been keeping SS and Medicare afloat, but the fact of the matter is that you will take out more than you put in.”
You have no real way of knowing this. It has to do with longevity and how much I choose to rely on those programs visa via prepared for my own retirement. I will not be burden to the system.
“Only from 1990 on, when the Boomers had earned paychecks for a quarter-century, did they start paying 12.4 percent to Social Security, the same percentage we Gen-X/Yers have paid our whole lives.”
Not sure where this quote came from, but it is begging the question. Boomers have paid in for more than 30 years. the percentage is of little consequence over the real number. Longer than most of the current generation has been alive, let alone worked.
I’m gonna agree with salt H20 in #7. This is just fodder. No real reasoned arguments. And I’m not even Republican!! I would love to have real discussion on these topics, but the last week’s worth of threads has shown it can’t be done here. Too many people resort to put-downs without even thinking about what’s being said.
I recommend reading a post over at that other site that is very enlightening and very describes what has gone on here over the past week. here
#38 Dan
We will probably have to return to something like Clinton-era tax rates no matter what. However, they could be extremely damaging in the short term and produce sub-optimal results in the long.
This article is instructive: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42578539
Ending quote for Jeff: As the CBO said last year, “Looking beyond the next decade, the fiscal outlook worsens further …” To pay for benefits promised to Baby Boomers, “federal revenues would increase to significantly higher levels under current law than have ever been seen in the United States, but they would still fall short of spending …”
@43 jmb
I challenge you: what exactly is not reasoned about what I have said (or what anyone else has said) here?
I have not put anyone down, and I haven’t been put down.
You haven’t been participating in the discussion at all. Perhaps you’d care refocus it in what you would deem a productive direction?
I don’t understand people that get involved in political discussions just to be self-congratulatory about their ability to be “above it all.” Some of us take politics and policy discussions pretty seriously.
I haven’t put anyone down either.
So Jana, if we have to return to those levels no matter what, why not do it now? The CBO has ruled that ending the Bush Tax Cuts increases revenue (thus decreasing the deficit). Why do anything before doing that?
Back to the original post, I have a hard time seeing any of the potential GOP candidates putting up a realistic fight against Obama. With the Tea Party and the evangelical population becoming increasingly distinct from more moderate conservatives, finding a unifying candidate seems to be much trickier than it would have been in say, the 1980’s.
None of the candidates out there have shown that they have the charisma that Obama has (and I think that’s hard to deny, even for those who are not fans) along with his more youthful outlook and broad appeal.
@42 Jeff
I’m not saying you yourself will be a burden to the system. Everything is in the abstract when you’re talking about generational entitlements. In order to maintain SS and Medicare, my generation will have to pay much higher taxes than your generation has paid, in addition to taking a significant hit to the benefits we’ve been promised. The pamphlet I got last year from SS indicated I should expect a 24% reduction in benefits.
Is this “fair”? Well, I’d say it is just about as “fair” as the current generation claiming they paid in their “fair” share.
And that’s not even an issue at hand! Ryan’s budget, for example, doesn’t change anything for 55+. Distrust anyone who says that these changes are somehow going to kill granny or cutoff her SS.
Re Jana H
No need to get offended. I didn’t call you out. But you yourself admitted you shouldn’t have said some things.
You perhaps should read the other threads this week. I’ve grown weary of it so I haven’t participated here. There IS NO PRODUCTIVE DIRECTION on this blog on this topic. I’m convinced it can’t be done. The discussion can’t even get off the ground because every reasoned argument will be dismissed immediately with a snarky comment (usually insulting one’s intelligence) and slapping a label on it (as if that refutes the point). Seriously, the last week’s worth of threads here look like a comment thread on MSNBC news or something.
I take it very seriously too. I want to have the discussions. The last week’s worth of threads show me this is not a place where it can happen. Feel free to beat your head against the wall-o-Dan if you like. I can’t take it anymore.
I completely respect people’s right to an opinion, and I think there are good reasons to be either Republican or Democrat (though I am neither). Unfortunately those good reasons never actually make it into the discussion in a way that can really be discussed. No one ever says something like “yeah, I see your point about taking money from others to uphold my own moral goals, I just happen to think in this case a utilitarian approach is better” or “yeah, I do see that we ought not to interfere with the choice of a woman to get an abortion, I just think the life of an unborn child is more important than a woman’s rights in this case.” No, we don’t hear those kinds of responses. We hear “from what you’ve written I’d guess you have no idea what you’re talking about” or “it’s clear from your comments you seek to serve mammon instead of God.”
William Howell said in a recent CNN editorial:
#46 Dan
I would return to Clinton-era tax levels today for all brackets, if there was accompanying tax simplification (on a massive scale), bringing the corporate tax rate into line with other nations, and SS & Medicare reform to make it solvent. I think that would be a pretty fair trade.
#49 jmb
If that is the case, then I am sorry. I very rarely comment on political threads in the Bloggernacle, mainly because of the reasons you lay out.
I do find that many comments (in other threads) tend to the easy or snide insult. I hadn’t seen that here today.
Actually this thread hasn’t been bad at all. I was mostly commenting on the initial post itself in my first comment. The commenters here have been pretty well behaved (unlike some of the other threads this week). I didn’t like the initial post for the following reasons:
1. no nuanced analysis, just quick soundbytes that make the other side look bad.
2. totally unfair characterization of Republicans as “warring on the middle class.”
3. I don’t actually think the economy will improve, has improved (since 2002), or is improving. And it seems strange to me to claim the economy is getting better while simultaneously debating how the country is totally bankrupt. But such is the Keynesian kool-aid we’ve all been told to drink.
Having said, that, I do agree with Jeff that Obama is gonna win, and I think that’s okay.
Here is the simple problem:
Social Security: It has never really been an “investment fund”, but has been more like a “Ponzi scheme” – although transparent. In 1960, there were over 5 workers paying for each retiree. Through a combination of fewer children and increased longevity, in 2009, 156 million people paid for 53 million who got benefits. This is around 2.94. We know how many people there are. By in the next 20-25 years, this ratio will be around 2 to 1.
No matter how much someone has or has not paid into the system in the past is immaterial. This is non-sustainable. The options are to raise taxes (with the problems above and the simple fact that there is just not enough money to tax), or reduce benefits. Reducing benefits might mean an across the board cut, means testing, or raising the retirement age to match the increased life span.
Just as a side not, in 1935 when some of these programs were started, the US life expectancy was 61.7. The original age of these programs was 62. They weren’t designed to support too many people. The 2009 life expectancy is 77.8. For some people, the retirement age will be raised to 67. This creates A LOT of people to support, for which the system was NEVER designed. If we wanted to match the goals of the original system, we would raise the retirement age to at least 75. But that would be “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor”.
Medicare: This is also a doomed program. In 2008, around 45 million Americans were covered. In less than 20 years, by 2030, this is going to reach 78 million. That is nearly at 75% INCREASE. And the same demographic issues are at play. There are currently 3.9 workers for each Medicare recipient. By 2030, this is going to drop almost in half to 2.4. This is less than 20 years from now.
Solution: You can argue all you want, but the only long-term solution is to CUT BENEFITS, but no one wants to do that or talk about it.
As an example, when Medicare was proposed in 1965, it cost $3 billion a year. It was estimated to grow (including inflation) to $12 billion by 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $107 billion. They were off by almost 1000%.
By 2035, if nothing is done, the budget is estimated to be $10 trillion. Medicare is estimated to account for $4 trillion of this, or nearly 40%, and this is EVEN accounting for a hike in Medicare tax to 15%. Raising taxes on the rich is estimated to bring in an extra $100 billion a year. Sure, that may help some, but it’s peanuts compared to the real problem.
SO, at the end of the day, people can talk about mismanagement of funds paying for “bridges to nowhere”. People can talk about “socking the rich”. People can bring up NY or California or where ever. None of these discussions matter. They are chatter around the periphery of the fundamental problem. Due to pure demographics, the ONLY SOLUTION is to cut benefits. We can do this now proactively, or we can do it later on an emergency basis.
When I spoke with Rep. Bishop last week (actually a teacher in Washington, NOT a businessman or a lawyer, quite refreshing) he said the same thing. We could cut EVERYTHING except entitlement programs and defense, and in a few decades it will still consume MORE than the entire federal budget.
JMB,
“I’m gonna agree with salt H20 in #7. This is just fodder. No real reasoned arguments.”
I guess I am wondering what you expect? They are my personal observations. Not a master’s thesis proving anything by any means. No real arguments. How offensive! 🙂
Jeff:
You make some good points in this post, but your timing is certainly unfortunate. In his Weekly Standard post this morning, poll number-crunching nerd Jay Cost explains why the liberal columnists are trying to paint Obama as a winner, with a salvo of columns to that effect this week:
“If you look carefully at Obama’s job approval numbers, you’ll notice that they are being propped up by strong support among Democrats. In last week’s Gallup poll, for instance, Obama was holding 80 percent of Democrats, and just 39 percent of independents and 11 percent of Republicans, for a total job approval of 45 percent. Given that most party battles happen between the 45 yard lines, the Gallup numbers suggest that most of the voters that both sides actively play for are no longer on Obama’s side, at least for now.
“What Obama cannot suffer is a drop in support among Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents. That’s how he could fall from the mid-40s into the high-30s. And that makes a huge psychological difference – like the price of oil going above $100. A president in the mid-40s is still in the game vis-à-vis the next election. A president in the 30s is flailing, in deep trouble, and appears headed for defeat. That’s a perception Team Obama just cannot tolerate. A big part of their electoral strategy is to make him seem invincible. Why else would an incumbent president need a billion dollars? What is that going to buy him? You could spend a billion dollars trying to convince me that the sun rises in the west, but I can assure you it wouldn’t work. Similarly, you could spend a billion trying to convince millions of former supporters that Obama’s done a good job, but if they think he stinks, your money will have been wasted. A campaign based on, “Who ya gonna believe…me or your lyin’ eyes?” will not be a very effective one. No, the billion is all about generating the perception of invincibility. It’s all about astroturfing a seemingly inexorable Obama bandwagon, which was a core component of his 2008 primary and general election strategies. And that perception would shatter if he sinks into the 30s. That’s George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter territory. That’s no good”.
More interestingly, that was last week’s Gallup Poll; this weeks poll sank to a new 5-month Obama low of 41%.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/147140/Obama-Job-Approval-Tying-Low.aspx
Jana,
heh, just the next generation that will be forced to kill their grannies. As long as the Baby Boomer grannies aren’t to be killed…all generations must bow to the demands of the Baby Boomer generation.
Jmb,
Riiight. Fox News’s website won’t have similar stuff. Nothing snarky or negative to be found on Red State or Free Republic…Jana’s criticism of you is accurate. You pretend to stay above the fray
Jana,
See, we can agree on something. I have no problem at all with this.
See, JMB, if reasonable things are said, reasonable responses come. If you come in here and say “taxes steal money from some to give to others”, as that is an unreasonable thing to say, you will get ridiculed for saying it. Say something reasonable, and you won’t get ridiculed.
Re Jeff
Yeah, I suck. I shouldn’t have been so harsh. I think I’m still reeling from my crappy week. And no, I don’t expect a MS thesis for sure. I’ve certainly written posts just from my observations. So let me give a more reasoned response to the post:
1. I absolutely agree that the Republican party better pull its head out of its rear end quick. Though in fairness, we do all tend to make emergencies out of mole hills. The election is a year and a half away. I fully expect the GOP to have a frontrunner soon enough. Frankly, I’m in no hurry to rev up the campaign process again.
2. I just don’t feel that Republicans are out to provide benefits for their rich buddies at the expense of the middle class any more than Dems do. Dems mask it better by providing benefits to rich buddies in addition to wanting to spend absurd amounts of money on entitlement and welfare programs. I look at the situation and see that GOP is the party who at least is embracing the reality that our current model is unsustainable. The GOP has a myriad other problems to be sure, including past war mongering and infringing on rights of citizens. But I personally see no difference between the two parties when it comes to invading my liberty. GOP often seeks to take away liberty in the form of legislating moral actions (abortion, homosexual marriage, patriot act, etc.), but the Dems take away economic liberty by taxation to fund social welfare programs. This is clearly just a rule of thumb, as both parties have broken this trend from time to time. Enacting taxes to pay for social welfare is forced altruism and is unethical and immoral in my mind (and this was Rand’s primary point, not selfishness). I strongly support caring for the poor, but I support doing it at my own will.
Additionally, I find it highly suspect that so many Dems want to increase the tax burden, but I highly doubt there are many Democrats who actually donates to the U.S. gov’t in the form of actually paying more in taxes than they have to. Why don’t they put their money where their mouth is? Dan recently pointed to a website of rich democrats who favor increases in taxation for the rich. Are they paying extra taxes right now? If not, why? Why are Dems so eager to take other people’s money to pay for the compassion they think the poor deserve? No one is stopping them from paying more the money hole, a.k.a. the U.S. Gov’t.
3. I agree with your #3. There is a lack of good candidates right now. I don’t see Mitt Romney as a problem because he has flip flopped. Flip flopping, to me, is a positive. It means people can change their mind when new evidence is presented. I DON’T WANT a president who sticks by some ideal that I disagree with and who acts contrary to the evidence (see Bush II).
4. I disagree with #4 but only because I don’t see the economy improving. Any improvement we’ve seen is fake. Our measurements are all based on Keynesian models which I believe are fundamentally flawed and do not measure real wealth. How is it the economy is improving while the national debt continues to go up? How exactly do we plan to pay this debt when we cannot even balance the budget? How can we balance the budget while waging 3 wars and funding a completely unsustainable social welfare model?
My recommendation for the GOP:
1. find a pragmatic leader (I think an engineer would make an awesome president, but I’m biased).
2. play up the angle that America is tired of idealistic nitwits who pick battles over nothing, and sell the pragmatic nature of this leader. Sell him/her as a problem solver.
3. Let hard line conservatives go and take up a very middle of the road approach. Acknowledge the good points of the Dem party, but sincerely note the unsustainable model. This will make the Dems look worse as they become more liberal.
4. Ditch the polarizing figures like Sarah Palin etc. Appeal to the American people as the “rational” party, the “common sense” party, etc.
5. I’m afraid they’re going to have to give up on the gay issue. The GOP would win instantly if they gave up contending on that issue. I know that strikes to the heart of so many conservatives, but I think it’s inevitable, and the sooner we embrace the reality of gay marriage, the sooner we can let the issue die.
I think the playing field for 2012 isn’t even defined on the Republican side yet.
JMB noted that we are in three wars. Six weeks ago we were in two. Eighteen months from now?
Economic and unemployment projections are based on economic growth rate projections that themselves change on a three-month scale. Q1 2011 projections are being pared back by several investment banks to below 2%, for example.
I’ll keep my mind open on the Republican candidate for a while.
Firetag,
One.
JMB,
This kind of phrasing is divisive, jmb, and causes you to be ridiculed, because it is 1)not true, and 2)purposefully divisive. The intent of a phrase like this is to make the Democrats look like thieves (then again, Robin Hood did exactly this…and we tend to view him as a hero…). It’s not a reasonable phrase. It’s not accurate. It’s meant to attack. Thus the other side raises defenses and arrows to strike back at such a phrase. This phrase also implies that Democrats only want to take “other” people’s money, meaning that Democrats themselves would not pay from their own funds into caring for the poor. Only from those dastardly rich should we “take.” As if a social program like, say, Social Security, is meant to take money solely from Republican leaning rich voters to give to Democratic leaning poor voters. In terms of phrases that are sharp swords, there are few sharper than this one. And it does well to divide. As long as a phrase like this is used, the other side will strike back. If you want a more reasonable debate, jmb, then let go of such phrases. They do you no good.
jmb,
However, in actual reality, this is what it is:
In other words Democratic leaning states HAVE INDEED put their money where their mouths are, pay higher taxes, receive less government benefits, while Republican leaning states pay lower taxes and get MORE government benefits. So piss off with your damn lies.
Re Dan
You’re right those are sharp words. I don’t mean them to attack “the other side” because I’m not on either side of the party coin. It’s just that we’re talking about social welfare primarily. If we were talking about war and defense spending, I would say the same thing in response to Repub desires to take money to pay for what they call “defense” of our country. And I’m sure you would agree.
I think some taxation is okay, but I would tax for very very little. You might see it as unreasonable, but the idea of taxation as theft is old, and not original to me. Many many important thinkers have labeled it thus, and many have disagreed. Ultimately, this comes down to whether or not you believe the state is a product of a social contract, or something imposed upon us. If the former, then you likely lead to the conclusion that all property rights, wages, etc. are a product of the social contract, and therefore taxation is acceptable. If the latter, you likely end up concluding that gov’t is oppressive in nature and hence taxation is theft. I fall in the latter category and believe that property rights are part of natural law. Locke agrees, as do many others. This doesn’t make me, or them, unreasonable.
But the thing is, you’ve got just as many polarizing statements that label conservatives and right-wingers. You denigrate people by questioning their intelligence just because they reach alternate conclusions. And you have numerous times insulted someone’s intelligence while simultaneously erroneously reasoned about something yourself. You insulted Jon on a previous thread while wrongly defining natural law and rule of law (simple Wikipedia search would have cleared it up). You demand evidence but give none, as if your conclusions are simply forgone and any reasonable person would conclude as you do. And finally, you’ve got to stop believing that if one insults MSNBC they must like FoxNews. Politics is not a binary proposition. I used MSNBC as an example, but FoxNews is certainly in the same boat (though I don’t regularly read either of them). And frankly, I don’t even know what Free Republic or Red State even are (never heard of them).
The bottom line is that so many of these issues we argue over stem from philosophical positions that are very old. No one is right or wrong intrinsically, but are subject to a viewpoint we each take. Most people aren’t even aware of the philosophical basis on which their ideals rest, but rest assured, they’re there and have been debated for eons. From my perspective, even a “does it work?” approach demonstrates that many ideals just don’t work in real life. Anarchism is one of those, as is communism and socialism. I’m very middle-of-the-road on most things, but I generally oppose anything that infringes on individual liberty.
Nevertheless, I acknowledge that that was a polarizing way to phrase my claim. I apologize.
@Dan
That wasn’t divisive?
In any case, I didn’t say anything about states. I asked about individuals. The example you cite here is a natural product of wealth distribution in the social contract. We all pay money into a big pot and that pot is distributed to those who need it more. I’m not denying that many pay money into the gov’t pot and don’t get anything out. I’m sure you do that, as do I. I’m saying that many Democrats call for higher taxes, but likely are not paying at a 75% tax rate (the rich ones you cited included). They certainly could if they wanted to, the tax form allows for such nice contributions. It’s easy to vote on everyone’s property when you spread around the burden, but it also isn’t fair. I’d be more inclined to believe the alleged benevolence of those rich Dems you cited if they were all paying themselves a 75% tax rate. Do you pay extra taxes Dan? You certainly could you know. According to your ideology it seems that would be a wise thing to do.
As an old time financial analyst/labor negotiator I had to research much of the items that you are debating. Frankly, the debate over Social Security is a bunch of hogwash. The debate over medicare is absolutely vital.
Social Security is fully funded until 2037 and then will drop to about 70% funded after that time if nothing is done. There are a number of ways of solving that gap between 100% and 70% funding: tax all income, not just up to 106,800$; raise retirement age; means test; raise social secuity tax percentage; and change from a COLA increase to a fixed percentage each year. The answer does not have to be reduce benefits.
The misconception about government expenditures for social security come from several sources. Excess Social Security income has been used to fund our national debt, We oldies but goodies, like China, have been financing our debt. It was expected by previous reforms that about this point SS income would be less than ougo, so the excess income and interest from previous years would carry us to about 2037.
In addition the Right Wing media has used the expression “broke” to describe Social Security. It is not broke. There is enough money in the fund to last another 25 years and then the people who are working at that time should fund at least 70% of benefits.
In the classic prose of “Deep Throat,” follow the money. Who benefits from going over to a 401k type of plan? Who gets to sell the plans? If people buy more stock, what happens to stock prices? Who can create Madoff like scams? How will CEO.s benefit
Medicare is another matter. It does not have a fund reserve to carry it very far. Medical costs are rising faster than inflation. People over 65 consume about 3.3 times the cost of people 21-65
Simply put, Representative Ryan’s proposal is utter nonsense and stupidity. Giving people a voucher for about 1/3 the cost of medical coverage is ludicrous. Smart Republicans are trying to figure a way out of this idea before the next election. Its a sure election loser.
There are a number of options out there that can rein in costs and make it possible for nearly all Americans to get decent healthcare. The problem is many of them are not popular A partial list includes: generic not prescription drugs, government use of buying power to get cheaper drugs; limit malpractice and thus lessen defensive medicine; single payer system; socialized medicine; standardize billing; require end of life directive; subsidize low income families;hospital sharing of equipment; 2-4 bed rooms; medical test standards, genetic exclusions: recision; means test; raise rates/co payments and previous condition exclusions.
Two caveats: some of the above ideas are personally abhorrent to me, but if we are serious we have to look at everything. Second, the end of life directive would simply ask who would make those decisions if you cannot, its not a Palin like Death Panel.
Obama’s call for another commission got jeered by nearly every political type or persuasion, but it is really the only possible way to deal with the problem. Use base closures as an example. The only way that an individual Congressman or Senator could defend himself or herself from a charge of not keeping Camp Gomer Pyle open is his or her district was to say it was the commissions fault. Each party could escape blame by also saying the commission did it.
Its the right way to go, but each party is so entrenched that it may not be possible. The Republicans have the additional burden of the Tea Party who believe compromise is capituation.
A start to the problem of the deficit is to tax the rich more. The lower and middle classes need their benefits plenty more than the people at the top need that extra money. Tax the highest earners and they will hardly feel it compared to the alternative. The reluctance to imposing something such as this seems to show a false sense of entitlement. There are genuine people who are trying to get by who, in the current economic climate rely on those benefits and refusing those, widening the gap between rich and poor and increasing poverty isn’t loving thy neighbor and will not better anything. The solution to people moving their income somewhere else is to close tax loopholes, make it impossible to avoid tax. If they then feel the need to move out of the USA to avoid tax then so be it. But surely there’s more reason to stay in America then just tax breaks at the expense of those need it most.
Oh, and all this talk about Medicare being unsustainable in 2080…what’s that all about?! Does anyone think it will be the same system in 70 years time?
Will you need Medicare in the Millenium? Who knows?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/books/review/book-review-the-pale-king-by-david-foster-wallace.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&nl=books&emc=booksupdateema1 for the truth about taxes 😉
BTW, I was enheartened when I realized that Clinton came out of a field like this. Perhaps the Republicans can be as lucky.
jmb,
But the voters of those states voted for representatives who agreed to keep the taxes high for their state. Individual voters in liberal leaning states vote for representatives who keep their taxes high so they can pay for social programs they believe in, which programs benefit conservative leaning states far more than liberal leaning states. This is about the clearest example there is that the mantra you quoted above that liberals simply want to take someone else’s money to give to themselves (the rudimentary argument) is just a bunch of lies and propaganda. Liberals actually agree to tax themselves at higher levels in order to fund services for poor people. You cannot have better evidence to refute your claim than evidence that shows that conservative leaning states get more milk from the government teat, by a fairly wide margin, no less.
Of course it is fair. It is a social contract in which we all get a voice. In the end, if we do not get what we want, are we going to be crybabies about it and moan how our money is being “stolen?” Then please, get out of the system. Or make a reasonable argument that it would be better done through private means (if anyone can actually make that argument). But don’t complain that it is theft. Not in a representative democracy. Maybe in a dictatorship. But not here. Not in America.
The beauty of a forced taxation system is that no one has to feel terrible inside or feel guilty for not doing more. You put this pressure on me, for instance, in a moment like this when we are debating somewhat contentiously, and I’m supposed to, out of the goodness of my heart, agree to give more into the system at the same time that you call for giving less? How does that benefit me (my self interest—not my selfishness). I guess the converse argument toward you is, if you dislike the system so much, why don’t you opt out already? Is that a fair position to put you in?
In any case, we’re off topic, and I won’t say more on this tangent. Republicans will lose in November 2012 because they think taking popular social programs away from seniors, disabled people, disabled children, and the poor will get them votes from seniors, disabled people, disabled children’s parents, and the poor. Good luck with that.
Stan: There are a number of ways of solving that gap between 100% and 70% funding: tax all income, not just up to 106,800$; raise retirement age; means test; raise social secuity tax percentage; and change from a COLA increase to a fixed percentage each year. The answer does not have to be reduce benefits.
I agree with you that these are things that have to be done. But, they are all essentially reducing benefits to someone (except the increase of the tax). The problem isn’t as acute because of the “trust” fund, but benefits WILL need to be redefined somehow.
And it is ironic that there is technically a “trust fund”, but (and I may stand corrected on this) it seems that Congress has borrowed from this with a bunch of IOUs, so we’ll have to come up with the money sometime.
Medicare is flat out broken. There is not enough money to pay for everything possible and rationing of some sort WILL need to be done. But we don’t want to accept it.
For example, it sounds good to cut out paying $60,000 for a breast cancer drug that, on average, extends life 1 month. But if it’s your 35 year old wife with 3 young children, you sure would want to take that 5% chance that you might get lucky and have her see the kids graduate from High School.
It may sound silly to fix someone’s hip with some dementia for $30-40,000, when statistics say they will likely be dead in the next year. But when it’s your grandma and someone is proposing to just give them some morphine and let them die of a pneumonia in the next 2-3 weeks, you’d go kicking and screaming.
And there is NO ONE in Congress who would (or could ) ever propose any rational things like this. I can already see the attack ads if someone even mentioned a proposal like any of these.
Medicare is screwed up. Ryan’s plan is idiotic. If you give someone a voucher and they can’t come up with the extra thousands to pay the difference for an actual policy, what have you accomplished. There isn’t a good answer.
Part of the cost difference is that between non-compliant diabetics and others. It is a real mess, a real mess.
And there are so many different ways to get to the end result.
Medicare needs help. Of this there is no doubt. But, with healthcare costs going through the roof is it any wonder.
For this I blame bureaucrats and large Healthcare firms that are basically monopolies.
Bring back, Dr. Welby!
Mike is right. The difficulty is that it is easy to point to someone else and say they don’t deserve to get the care they need but it is impossible to think that your Mom or Dad or Grandpa doesn’t deserve to get the care.
Dan:
Firetag,
“JMB noted that we are in three wars. Six weeks ago we were in two. Eighteen months from now?
One.”
That’s what I’m afraid of — that it will be the same kind of war as if I’d asked the question in 1916.
You talking about tithing here?
Firetag,
#76,
Haha, no I mean Afghanistan, that silly war we should have ended in 2002.
“Mike is right. The difficulty is that it is easy to point to someone else and say they don’t deserve to get the care they need but it is impossible to think that your Mom or Dad or Grandpa doesn’t deserve to get the care.”
Not to get off on a healthcare tangent, but…….
I agree. Although I don’t think the pressure to have less-than necessary procedures done is all from patients and their families. Thats a big part i’m sure, but does our healthcare system sometimes incentivize Doctors to go along with it? I’m not trying to blame Dr.s, I think it’s a systemic problem. And I think that in one way or another, we are all a part of the problem
We all hear about the rising cost of healthcare, and it makes me wonder, why the uncontrolled increase? Doctors don’t seem to be getting pay increases, in fact the opposite seems to be true. If one could somehow see the entire healthcare system in a snapshot, and see where all the money flows and to whom, where would the big deposits of capitol be? Big Pharma? Big Insurance companies? What is actually driving the inefficiencies and rising costs?
Other countries spend half of what we do on healthcare as a percentage of GDP, and have much better results. It seems to me that somebody, somewhere must be getting filthy stinkin rich at the expense of our entire country. But who?
Here’s a personal example of how the government works with big pharma to drive up costs. The normal treatment for gout flares is colchicine, a drug that has been in use before the regulatory agency, the Food and Drug Administration, ever came into existence. The current cost of the drug is about 40 cents per pill.
Actions of the FDA vary periodically between stomping down on control of ALL medicines in response to publicity about a bad outcome for some drug’s use, and speeding up approval of new drugs in response to victims publicizing the suffering that new drugs could end.
Several years ago, during a “stamp down” period, the regulators adopted an “unapproved drugs” initiative that placed the burden of approval for old cheap drugs back on the industry, or ordered the withdrawal of the drug.
Colchicine fell under the program, but, at such a price, no one has incentive to pay the price to go through the regulatory process that would develop a new drug to replace it. The result: we have just replaced generic colchicine with brand name colchicine — at 10 times the cost per pill. The FDA gets a bigger regulatory budget, the manufacturer has a renewed profit market, everyone spends money for new doctor visits to have new prescriptions written, and treatment is exactly the same.
Your tax dollars at work.
“Your tax dollars at work.”
Gee, I wonder where the FDA pharma folks worked before the FDA?
You get it, Jeff, but do you appreciate how many different channels there are to be a “parasite” on government? Local (DC area) news has been focusing during the last week on the investigation of an NIH employee (already at a level paying $120,000/year) who was using inside information on drug studies being submitted for approval to buy and sell company stock, making a nice tidy fortune.
That’s why I am constantly trying to get these discussions to see that the Tea Party is not about a “war on the poor and elderly”. Any “war” is against a political class that is growing fat by distributing economic benefits in the name of social good, while becoming increasingly part of the rich and powerful they SUPPOSEDLY oppose by paying themselves a rich commission.
Firetag,
So fix the bloody thing and stop complaining.
By the way, here’s an example of pure capitalism. I say we get up our pitchforks…oh no wait, get out our tea and start throwing it in the…bank? oh wait, y’all on the right want to give banks like these more freedom to do deceptive practices and steal money not actually belonging to them. You wanna know where the real theft of America happens? From our bankers who happen to fund your tea parties. Enjoy your tea. You won’t have much else left when they’re done with you.
The Tea Party is trying to fix the thing, by recognizing that the banks, the corps, the unions, and the government are ALL on the same side.
Arguing for one component of that great synbiosis over another is what allows it to flourish and continue to feed on ALL of us, or hadn’t you noticed that the Obama Sec Treas comes from a xapitalist bank background and the head of the President’s job creation council is also the head of a corporation that pays no tax because it owns a finance arm with lots of losses.
The dems have largely already been absorbed.
And good LDS have NO experience that would enable them to understand the differences in tea. 😀
The Tea Party is merely a rebranding of failed modern conservatism, Firetag. There is nothing new in the tea party.
Response is to the OP:
1. “War” on the middle class and poor? Hyperbole unworthy of refutation. I presume that Jeff thinks that any opposition to the liberal agenda that supposedly benefits the “poor” and/or middle class, however they might be defined, is tantamount to violence towards folk of modest means. Might it be considered possible that perhaps attempting to help the “poor”, etc etc via Government programs and/or tax policy has typically proved to be ineffective at eliminating poverty? Far more voters are hep to this concept that those that still buy the Democrat/Liberal “class warfare” mantra, so, I’d say, no, making “war” on the “poor” will NOT hurt the Republicans at all.
2. Social issues – these only crop up when it ain’t the economy, stupid. Any Republican candidacy worth a nickel will recognise this and hammer economics rather than social issues. However, not kowtowing to the LGBT agenda won’t hurt Republicans, either. Far more in “flyover country” are sick to death of queers and dykes than care whether they have “equality” or not…most want them to shut the hell up and keep their perversions private. As for the ‘birther’ movement, Trump’s embracing it is amazing. The Donald is not an idiot. If nothing else, it shows that Barrack Hussein Obama has much to hide. And in a way, it’s a shame, since he is the son of an American mother, and his citizenship should not have ever been in doubt…if the letter of the law distinguished between his mother’s age (was she 18 or 19?) when she gave him birth, then it was an idiotic law in the first place. BHO dishonesty on this is of more interest. Still, AFAIC, he’s still fully qualified to be President…simply doing a lousy job.
3. Too many contenders – we’re still in the “silly season” of the 2012 campaign. As long as the weeding out occurs in an orderly fashion, and the winner does well to rally widespread party support, this is no problem. The Republican faithful would well remember the Gipper’s mantra: “Thou shalt not speak evil of a fellow Republican”. If they forget that, then woe betide them.
4. The Economy improves – well, let’s hope so regardless of the effect on the 2012 election! This I do agree, that unless Barrack Hussein Obama finds a way to still royally screw up, if the economy shows substantial improvement in the next eighteen months, then he’ll take credit and ride the coattails thereof. The memory of the voting population is typically short.
And, BTW, this comes from a dyed-in-the-wool LIBERTARIAN who lives by two mantras:
1. Friends don’t let friends vote either Democrat or Republican.
2. Most elections captured by the “bipartisan” process amount to a choice between tweedle-dum-s#@! and tweedle-dum-a@!
#83 (Dan) – actually read your example. Poor citation. Sen. Levin’s agenda is obvious. And it’s also a complete misnomer to blame Wall Street’s excesses purely on “laissez-faire” economics. It could be well postulated that the current political climate (e.g., corrupt Wall Street tycoons paying off the right politicians to (1) leave them alone to their perfidy and (2) persecute the competition!).
The worth of a free market is in the freedom itself, not whether or not there are crooks. The ultimate “crookedness” is that of the politicians that make flattering promises but end up in the hip pocket of those they supposedly regulate.
The Tea Party is the current populist movement.
The unique thing about it is that it is a populist movement that has been channeled into the Republican party rather than into the Democratic party.
I find it fascinating that instead of reclaiming the populists, most Democrats are rejecting them.
Stephen,
populism can be found in conservative circles or in liberal circles. The Tea Party’s ideas are no different than what conservatives have been harping on since the 1960s. Prove me wrong, dude.
Dan,
If you treated Tea Party types with respect and consideration, you would have heard them complaining about Bush and spending, about the bail out of fat cat bankers, and similar things.
Over and over again I’ve heard Democrats say things like “well George Bush did … ” completely missing the anger against George Bush of many in the Tea Party.
It was watching that interaction that convinced me that the left was missing the boat with a populist movement and pushing it into the arms of the Republicans.
Then the grossly insulting things, such as claiming the Tea Party types are more violent than leftists. Sure. Which group of law professors held a symposium about applying the death penalty to a sitting president?
Leftists, including the ones who offered to handle the execution themselves.
/Sigh.
Other countries have similar movements. It has gone to the right only in America.
“harping on since the 1960s” — so, they were harping on the bailout of the wealthy financial elites in the 1960s?
Steven:
Here’s a link to a map of the vote by US counties in the 2000 presidential election, when the vote was so closely divided that it illustrates where Dem and Repub voters actually live:
I think that the “urbanization of Democratic Party voters stands out, meaning that it is the urbanization of a state that tends to dominate, with individual elections swinging to the left or right from that midpoint.
What explains the populist movement being from the right in the US might be that university education and the jobs it opens up has become the easiest entry point into the establishment. The establishment has become overwhelmingly urban, because the jobs that reward university education (as opposed to those that just pretend to require such education now) first reached critical mass in urban areas.
Dan’s working man, champion of the dispossessed poor, Democratic party of the 60’s that coalesced in the urban cores a generation or two ago got rich and corrupt in the information age. Corruption is less a matter of left or right than a matter of up or down. Even communists in the USSR started looking like czars before too long.
2. “Moral and Social Issues – I was listening to Alan Simpson, former Republican Senator from Wyoming and co-chair of the White House panel on deficit reduction the other day. He came out strongly against those in the Republican Party he called “homophobes.” He was also sharply critical of Republican’s obsession with abortion. He said, “I don’t know anybody running around with a sign that says ‘have an abortion, they’re wonderful.’ They’re hideous. But they’re a deeply intimate and personal decision and I don’t think men legislators should even vote on the issue.” (Washington Post Online) What he is saying in essence is that Americans are tired of these issues. They want to move on. Social equality is more important than ever and Americans are tired of the rhetoric against Gays and against women who have abortions. If Republican candidates continue to express their views on these issues in the wrong way, while they may please the base, they will turn off many others. The same goes for the Birther movement. Get over it! Obama was born in Hawaii. Stop kicking the dead horse. Donald!”
Good sir your statement is false, and I will tell you why. YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION FOR THE MEDIA.
“Good sir your statement is false, and I will tell you why. YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION FOR THE MEDIA.”
HUH?
I pray fervently that you are right and the dems (not perfect- but the only humans in this game) prevail. The republicans are completely corrupt and only about the power and the money and they would cause so very many problems for so very many. The middle class would disappear. Their thinking is all wrong.
Eventually maybe a third party would be helpful but for this election – I pray the dems prevail. Hillary Clinton has suffered personally in this process but she is a good enough person to tell you that Barack must win and the repugs must be stopped even thru all she has experienced.