So, now we know what the left’s narrative will be: that by calling for cuts in spending with money we don’t have — while simultaneously denying the left a tax increase on “the rich” that would further destroy job creation and strain an already strained taxpayer class — the GOP is intentionally and for political gain trying to “sabotage” the “recovery.”
At least, that’s how Chuck Schumer is selling it — in an argument that of course the mainstream press, as agents of the progressive agenda, will repeat consistently, even as the President plays his next round of golf or readies himself for his next Martha’s Vineyard vacation. WaPo:
On a conference call just now with reporters, Senator Chuck Schumer made the most aggressive case we’ve heard yet along these lines, leaving little doubt that Dems are locking in behind this message as the deficit talks hit crunch time and as the 2012 campaign looms.
“Do they simply want the economy to go down the drain to further their political gain?” Schumer asked. “They seem to be against anything that may create jobs, because they view a weak economy as key to their political chances in 2012.”
“It’s an uncomfortable question, to be sure,” Schumer continued. “Are they trying to undermine the economy on purpose, for political gain? Harry Truman had a do-nothing Congress. The Republicans seem to be trying to make this a do-nothing-on-the-economy Congress.”
[…]
“Are Republicans opposing yet another measure they once supported simpy because that measure might be good for the economy?” Schumer asked, also citing GOP opposition to recent measures like a payroll tax cut and to small business development programs.
Pressed by a reporter on whether he really believes the GOP wants to destroy the economy on purpose, Schumer went further than ever before and took this out of the realm of the hypothetical.
“It’s a thought you don’t want to believe,” Schumer said, “but every day they keep giving us more and more evidence that there’s no choice but to answer Yes.”
The key point here is that Dem messaging chief Schumer is signaling that each example like this will now be pressed into service to build the larger case that Republicans have decided that a worse economy for the country is better politically for them, so any measure that risks creating jobs must be opposed at all costs. It seems like a clear effort to bait the GOP into responding to the charges, so the country can hear an argument over the GOP’s true motives. This line of attack also seems designed to persuade voters — and commentators who are reluctant to accept this sort of thing — that No, both sides are not equally to blame for our current travails.
The audacity of such an accusation is astounding — particularly given the results of the 2010 elections — but what matters here is how the GOP responds, and whether or not the Dems, with the assistance of a compliant, ideologically complicit media, are able to pressure the (persistently timid) Republicans into relenting.
The return volley should be clear and loud: the Democrats and Barack Obama, having held a Congressional supermajority, got everything they asked for, and they’ve managed to make the economy worse: Unemployment is rising. Growth is stagnant. Inflation, thanks to “quantitative easing,” is on the horizon. The housing market is fully depressed. Gas prices are up. Energy prices will “necessarily skyrocket” as they shut down coal production and thwart oil exploration. And now their message — in answer to an election in 2010 in which the country RESOUNDINGLY told them to stop spending — is to refuse any significant cuts in government spending, and to raise taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” in a crass, hamfisted attempt to pit American against American in a game of class warfare.
In states where GOP governors have taken over or where they’ve remained, the economies are either strong or are rebounding. Whereas the Democrat states? High taxes, high unemployment, businesses fleeing, and people suffering under the weight of government. Compare and contrast.
Mr. President, Chuck Schumer, et al: There is no recovery happening. And stealing more private sector money to send to the government so that craven politicians too stupid to learn from past mistakes can piss it away on new “stimulus” projects that enrich their cronies and do nothing to help the economy — and in fact, drag it down, as the money is filtered through the bureaucracies and more and more of it is wasted or stolen — is a non-starter.
The President and the Democrats won’t pass a budget. They are content to stall, watch people suffer, and then try to blame all that suffering on the GOP for wanting to cut out of control government spending and reform entitlement programs that are clearly unsustainable.
What is so repulsive about this is that there is simply no way they could carry this off without the help of our vaunted mainstream press. The progressive left — including its media and academic enablers — are at war with the American people. This 20% — socialists, Marxists, Trotskyites, social democrats — are holding both the GOP and the American citizen hostage; and you can bet your ass Obama will make it hurt should he not get his way.
He is willing to allow the pain to happen. And when the social security checks stop going out, or the military benefits are cut, we have to scream loudly and tell everyone we can that the baseline budget Obama is using already includes what was supposed to be “one-time” stimulus money, and that that money alone — nearly a trillion dollars — could pay benefits, and that it is Obama and the Dems who are cutting essential services in order to blackmail the electorate into taking even MORE money from citizens.
Let it fucking crash. Better now than to allow these bastards to take even more and then be comfortably out of office when the whole thing comes tumbling down.
It’s time for spontaneous marches on Washington and elsewhere.
“Do they simply want the economy to go down the drain to further their political gain?” Schumer asked. “They seem to be against anything that may create jobs, because they view a weak economy as key to their political chances in 2012.”
Geez, Chuckie — project much?
“GOP trying to sabotage economy on purpose”
This is a actually an astute strategy: accuse your enemy of doing what you are actually doing, before they make the accusation, so that it will just sound like “oh yeah, well so’s your old man,” when the GOP tries to pin the blame where it belongs.
It’s time for spontaneous marches on Washington and elsewhere.
You show up with a million peeps, CBS reports 75,000 racists.
The solution for this won’t come from D.C., which is beyond reform. Time to go Galt and rebuild from the bottom up.
…whereas the worst. recovery. evah. is a completely inadvertent implosion of the economy?
Oh. That’s superchuckie schumer making that call. As if he has a chance in hell of being right on anything.
Re; debt ceiling here are some views.
“The Debt Limit Debate”
“The Debt Ceiling: What is at Stake”
And a couple links in my comment on another thread here.
Schumer’s governor in New York cut cut cut spendings and didn’t appreciably raise taxes does Schumer think Cuomo is trying to sabotage the economy as well?
Soooo…by the same logic…when the economy tanked in 2008…that was because…Democrats wanted to win the election!
If you want to know what they’re doing, just look at what they’re accusing people of.
Any scenario that doesn’t end with the likes of Chuck swinging from lampposts is likely to be suboptimal.
Worst political class ever.
Maybe that’s just me.
“It’s time for spontaneous marches on Washington and elsewhere.”
Got an email from the Greater Boston Tea Party today inviting me to be part of an action at the State House on July 13. Apparently we’ll be meeting with our state reps. I signed up.
Dicentra at 2, dead on.
there is simply no way they could carry this off without the help of our vaunted mainstream press
How do we break through the wall of lies when the gatekeepers are so desperate and determined to maintain the prog narrative? After Obamacare they have used non-leftists general disgust with politics along with a frog boiling approach that seems to be effectively keeping the outrage isolated. We cannot afford to lose this debt limit fight, and we can’t win it unless we fight. Our “leadership” needs to jam the media’s face in Obama’s culpability. They need to call a lie a lie. They need to leave it all out on the field now (sorry, along with something about big plays that’s the extent of my sports metaphors. Let’s play two).
John McCormack at WS:
In other words, this is a repeat of the great government shutdown of 199?. Somebody’s miscalculated.
The party that blinks first, loses.
propaganda whore Greg Sargent shows how this will work
he “reports” that Team R is behaving badly
but what is propaganda whore Greg Sargent leaving out? We have to go to a for reals news report.
So it appears that contrary to propaganda slut Greg Sargent’s Schumer-fellating article, it’s actually the obamawhore socialists what are trying to sabotage the trade deals by tacking on even more welfare for the fat-ass illiterate union piggies.
Where’s that graph of the interest groups under the title “There is only one special interest group”?
Aha! Here it is.
Then there’s the other name of the single special interest opposed to the people, as delivered by Thad McCotter (which is oddly odd, since he can be seen now and again shilling for the unions, but that’s another story) via AoS, namely, Government.
I guess now we know why the Democrats “stay bought.” They can’t afford not to.
Relatedly, I think, the news that McCotter is thinking of throwing his own hat in the ring is interesting to me, at least to the extent he can see himself as a sort of sacrificial bull-mastiff, grabbing Obama rhetorically by his fleshy ass and refusing to let go. He could be the man to do it.
Just heard that McCotter’s announcing tomorrow.
And more of that.
The Liberal/Progressive analysis:
– We have very smart economists. They haven’t run companies, but they know how to write equations.
– The equations say that spending money produces jobs and prosperity. So, we collect more taxes, borrowing as needed, spend the money, and wait for the prosperity which must follow.
– We have waited a long time. What went wrong?
– We just know that we are correct. The equations are there in black and white. If the world was working properly, then we would have prosperity now.
– Republicans are evil. The only explanation is that they are blocking our recovery.
– Republicans would ordinarily sell their grandmothers to make an extra buck. But, their extreme ideology leads them to give up profits in exchange for harming us.
— —
The Obama Team claims that the stimulus saved 3.3 million jobs. How do they know? I can reveal their method, as presented by Christina Romer, recently retired head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors.
Consider this analogy to the idiotic logic of our government economists.
Say that records from my backyard grill parties show that on average 20 guests eat 25 hamburgers and 5 hot dogs. I would like to be much more popular, so I double the food to 50 hamburgers and 10 hot dogs for my next party. I expect 40 people to show up. but without calling more friends.
After a few more parties, I find that 23 people (three more) do show up. Maybe they came because they heard about the huge amount of food. I resolve to supply even more food (stimulus) for my next parties.
Government economists are treating the entire population of the US in the same way that my example treats grill parties. You may say that I am unfairly criticizing government economists. They couldn’t be that simplistic and stupid. But, that is exactly the method they used to recommend “stimulus” and predict new jobs.
–> Romer is Theoretically Correct
1: Measure the number of jobs in the economy at different levels of GDP. Notice the ratio 1MM jobs per 1% of GDP.
2: Spend money. Each dollar spent adds to GDP by definition.
3: Welcome the newly employed people to the economy.
This is idiocy. This is mere formula crunching. First, express the complexity of the US economy as a simple ratio. Then, play with the ratio by manipulating an accounting measure (the definition of GDP).
Of course, they do get to distribute a huge amount of money to their friends along the way. So, it isn’t all that bad. (sarc)
FUCK YOU DEMS
That is all I have got.
Unfortunately, none of them seems to be able to anticipate what’s going to happen next quarter, never mind next year. So: all of the very smart economists plus about $3 will get you a Starbuck’s venti latte.
A venti latte’s only $3 bucks? RECOVERY! (Or spiraling DEFLATION, take your pick).
Look at this as battle-space preparation. By now everyone in DC knows that the economy is going to tank — as Paul Ryan says “If we continue down our current path, then a debt-fueled economic crisis is not a probability. It is a mathematical certainty.” No one on either side of the aisle has the cajones to make the sort of deep and painful cuts it would take to avert the disaster, that would be political suicide. So the only course left to them is to prepare to blame the crash on the other guys.
“We have very smart economists.”
Nah, just very crafty lawyers and politicians.
well the boner folks could shut down the fed. gov’t. don’t bet on it or impeachment.
Arizona Gives Redistricting Job to Liberal Group Tied to Obama Campaign
The majority of the comments over at Krugman’s panicky NYT post are astonishingly wrong-headed. Some are loud and blustery…
Almost all are confuzzled as to the limits of their influence…
…and a couple are getting close to diving what’ll very likely happen…
Yes, this could get quite serious. But, as one blustery sort said, it’s been brewing since Roosevelt.
And everyone in this nation should know what TANSTAAFL means; if they don’t, there’s a steep learning curve just ahead.
ummm, divining. But they can take a dive too AFAIC.
I like your analysis Andrew. What their equations don’t ever factor is that human actors in the economic equation are not really modelable. The BBQ is a perfect example: to the central planners, you are a widget, a unit of input, a metric of consumption, and of course an exemplar of some set superficial characteristic sets – caucasian, female,etc.
Go around them. Extra points if you render them irrelevant in the process.
I had a link to a link but I’m going to quote here so that it isn’t overlooked. First from a bipartisan group that has looked at what happens if the limit is not raised.
Now this proposal by Dick Morris would work but it’s been a month since he proposed it and I haven’t heard that it is even considered.
Seems a good move to defang the Dems and then if Timmuh G. and his boss decide to screw the military and seniors it is on their head and can be seen as such.
California is doing gangbusters sabotaging its sad fascist little economy all by themselves
fucking pitiful
I think it seems reasonable geoffb. McConnell has discussed a short term limit increase but I doubt he has this positioning in mind. But what i don’t understand is why they don’t pass what they want, and then negotiate from that. Why are they in the basement with Joe Biden, when we know the point of the exercise is Obama in the Map Room engaging in class warfare. Pass it in the House. Fight for it in the media. Make the Senate kill it or the President veto it. Or, you know, put country before ideology and do the right thing.
Soon hf that happy fascist rule will only apply in Fruitloopistan. In American California we will explicitly restrict the nannyness of the state. Lamer version.
fruitloopistan is doomedy doomedy doomed
anti-dialectical thought experiment – synthesis current California, 20% radicals avant garding the benefits taker class, riding on the backs of the dwindling private sector worker class (worker in the sense of people who work, not the leftist protected class sense of worker). Thesis American California – a TEA party State. Anti-thesis Fruitloopistan – an initially wealthy, high benefit, high tax socialist nanny state.
Who’s thriving in 10 years and who’s eating tree bark?
“Go around them. Extra points if you render them irrelevant in the process.”
Actually Pablo, I’d take it a step further. One of my favorite quotes, by Buckminster Fuller:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
That’s what we need to do. We need to construct our better edifice right next to theirs and make them obsolete.
One of the reasons I’m so adamant about forming a new political party is due to the history of US political parties and the media. In the first half of our national history most major newspapers were political party vehicles. For example my local paper the Austin American-Statesman started out in the 19th century as the Austin Democratic Statesman. A new mainstream political party could do the same thing.
The scenario that I fear will play out is this and
No deal is struck and on or about Aug 2nd the Treasury Sec. declares that only certain things can be paid and among those that can’t be are military pay and social security checks or whatever they see will cause the quickest outcry to pressure the Republicans.
Then in a week or two if the Republicans don’t cave Obama announces that he has been studying this situation and as a “constitutional scholar” he has concluded that the 14th amendment says that the debt ceiling is unconstitutional. That he is ordering the Treasury Sec. to issue whatever debt is needed to ensure that our brave men and women in the military are paid, that our grandparents are not starving in the streets, and to stop the plans of the Republicans to destroy the American economy and throw people out of work by not allowing the President to do his job of saving us all from starvation and misery.
Obama gets to save the world and still have time for a round of golf.
Schumer is already floating that, geoff.
[…] of accusing their opponents for things they’re actually doing themselves. I’ll let Jeff handle that one: The audacity of such an accusation is astounding — particularly given the results of the 2010 […]
Who would buy it? Under the 14th Amendment, we could repudiate all debt not authorized by Congress. Who will gamble that the Supremes will hold with the usurper?
[…] “Dems dig in: GOP trying to sabotage economy on purpose” […]