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REPUBLICAN POSITIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION

Minimum Wage ~ Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, and many other prominent Republicans, believe that the minimum wage law is unconstitutional. This understanding of the Constitution is a throw-back to almost 100 years ago — pre-New Deal.

Whites Only-Lunch Counters ~ Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed on The Rachael Maddow Show on MSNBC that the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters is unconstitutional. Justice Thomas supports this view.

Education ~ Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), and many other Republican members of Congress, say that federal education programs are unconstitutional. Pell Grants and student loan assistance included.

Gender Discrimination ~ Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia states that the Constitution doesn’t say anything about discrimination against women.

Ending Senate Elections ~ Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and many in the GOP, including Scalia, support undoing the Seventeenth Amendment which allows voters to elect their own senators. Senators would be appointed by Governors.

Child Labor ~ Justice Clarence Thomas has advocated for returning to the discredited theory of the Constitution that would declare our federal child labor laws unconstitutional. This position has been embraced by many elected GOP officials.

Eliminating the US Dollar ~ Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees federal monetary policy, has claimed that paper money is “nothing short of counterfeiting” and that the US dollar is unconstitutional. Others in Congress agree with him.

Social Security and Medicare ~ The Republican’s “Pledge to America” embraces the “tenther” view of the Constitution which holds that Social Security, Medicare and many other social-safety-net programs would be unconstitutional.

Though we’re not among the top 400 income-earners in our country, we are willing to pay more in taxes to ensure that our nation survives this current economic disaster.

We agree with V.P. Joe Biden when he said in 2008 that it is patriotic to pay taxes. It is past time for the very, very wealthy to pay their fair share to help our country get out of this debt that unfettered capitalism has created.

Deregulated Wall Street and corporate America got fat, while the middle class and the poor were slapped down. The top 1% raked it in for decades, and now citizens are just asking them to pay a fair percentage in taxes as their share to clean up the mess they made.

It is unconscionable that raising taxes on the very wealthy is an idea that that Congress can’t get behind. Blind ideology prevents some from seeing the truth that is right in front of their faces. In the 90’s when Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, the GOP screamed that the new taxes would “destroy” the country — it didn’t…it produced a balanced budget and a SURPLUS!

Thank you Mr. Buffett for telling the truth.

Germany announced on May 30th that it will shut down its nine nuclear power stations by 2022 — in a major policy change that follows the recent nuclear accidents in Japan.  Germany’s action reminds us that the U.S. has no energy policy.  Or industrial policy.  Or climate change policy for that matter.

And while our country continues its gridlock on many issues, Germany is already awash in solar technology.  While America waits for an end to political divisivnous, Germany is investing a billion Euros per month in solar installations.  Germans have jobs, benefits and vacations — and their economy is working.

Republicans are all in favor of tax payer subsidies for nuclear power plants — despite the evidence that nuclear power is both dangerous and expensive.  By masking the true cost of nuclear power, subsidies also allow the industry to exaggerate its economic competitiveness; consequently, they diminish or delay support for more economical and less risky alternatives like energy efficiency and renewable energy.

So the next time you’re at a gathering and you overhear people criticizing the fledgling renewable energy companies, by claiming that “renewable energy just isn’t economically viable,” please remind them that the rest of the world seems to understand that we’re quickly running out of oil — and that support for nuclear power plants is just “so yesterday.”

Think Progress compiles the data: “Tax rates on the richest Americans have plunged in recent years, and millionaires today pay tax rates that are 25 percent lower than they were in 1995. Meanwhile, income inequality is the worst it’s been since the 1920s, with the top 1 percent of Americans taking home 25 percent of the country’s total income. Just the richest 400 Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined, and the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the country’s net worth.”

SO … HOW’S THAT INCOME INEQUALITY WORKIN’ OUT FOR THE ECONOMY???

GOP’s PAUL RYAN READY TO RAISE REVENUE?

Following the recent S&P downgrade, Republican budget-hawk Paul Ryan has indicated on Fox News that he would consider raising revenues as part of a deficit reduction plan. The deal he said he could support is eerily similar to the one that his party walked away from in the Boehner/Obama negotiations just weeks ago — which sparked the S&P downgrade in the first place!

Ryan said he would be open to a plan that had $3 – $4 in budget cuts for each $1 in revenue, and had a major tax code reform — which the Administration has indicated they are also open to. During the Obama/Boehner negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, the president proposed several comprehensive plans — referred to as a “Grand Bargain” — that would have reduced spending by $4 trillion for modest revenue increases. Republicans refused every one.

So, we’re kinda weirded out that now the GOP is open to the very same deal that just weeks ago they described as, “going to be nothing more than a tax hike on the American people.” So, if it was a bad deal then for the American people, what could be the explanation for the change of heart?

Well, the logical conclusions could lead us to believe: 1)The GOP knew that the president was offering a good deal for the American people, but walked away from it for political reasons that might include “not letting Obama have any kind of win”; or 2) The GOP was so naive they didn’t believe that the credit rating agencies, like S&P, would downgrade the country’s rating — and so they decided to gamble with the nation’s future in order to get their own way.

Ryan didn’t acknowledge that he’d shifted his position, but the new “openness to the deal” DID come right on the heels of the S&P downgrade — which placed much of the blame on the GOP’s refusal to raise revenues.

So, the good news is: Maybe the president will get his “Grand Bargain” after all; the bad news is the country had to take an embarrassing and potentially damaging hit in our credit rating in order to break through GOP intransigence.

OBAMA STIMULUS IS ONLY 7% OF FEDERAL DEBT!

It’s past time for us to explode right-wing economic myths: “raising taxes is ‘job killing’; we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem; tax-cuts pay for themselves by bringing in more tax money to the government.”

Our best path to clarity is for President Obama to use his bully pulpit even more vigorously. The poll numbers flipped on approval vs. disapproval on the recent debt crisis when our Educator-In-Chief began to explain what the debt ceiling really is, and what it would mean to the nation if it weren’t raised.

We’re now calling on our president to expand his role as the nation’s chief educator and explain to the American people how we really got into this debt — the debt that the GOP is attacking him with.

The right-wing attack message is that “under President Obama the debt has grown to $13 trillion — an additional $8 trillion.” The clear implication is that the stimulus has exploded our debt, when in fact the stimulus, at $787 billion, represents less than 7% of the debt — 7%!!!!!

So, where did all this new debt come from? In 2008, prior to President Obama taking office, the debt had grown under George W. Bush to $5 trillion. Obama took office in January of 2009 — when the economy was imploding — and between 2008 (under Bush) and 2010 the debt grew from $5 trillion to $13 trillion.

So, where did the $8 trillion in additional debt come from, if not from Obama’s stimulus? Most of the new debt is directly correlated to the financial crisis — which originated under George W. Bush. To be clear, $6 trillion of the $8 trillion is due to the collapse of the economy — clearly not Barack Obama’s doing.

The other $2 trillion of the $8 trillion in new debt includes not only the $787 billion of stimulus, but also the expense of the two wars that Republicans started; the Bush tax-cuts that not only ate up the Clinton/Gore budget surplus but also continues to pile onto the debt because these cuts have resulted in current tax revenues now at a 50 year low; and a new Medicare drug plan that the GOP didn’t bother to fund. This unfunded entitlement continues, to this day, adding billions to the federal debt and is an on-going expense — no matter who is president. And of course, the costs of the wars —waged off-budget by W.— also continues to be an enormous expense under this president’s more honest budgeting.

We MUST understand just how we got into this debt mess before we can prescribe the right solutions. Take a look at what the stock market did yesterday when the Dow plunged almost 300 points following the passage of the legislation that raised the debt ceiling. Reports are that though Wall Street is relieved our nation didn’t default on our debts, that the cuts-only legislation will actually harm the nation’s economy.

GOP talking points are provably wrong— “raising taxes is ‘job killing’; we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem; tax-cuts pay for themselves by bringing in more tax money to the government; and the debt is Obama’s fault.”

We just need to get our president out into the country and take the truth to the American people.

PROGRESSIVES TAKE HEART: WE CAN ELIMINATE THE BUSH TAX CUTS!

At the end of April we wrote in a post, DEFICIT SOLVED, that 75% of the federal deficit could be eliminated by simply letting the Bush Tax Cuts expire (including the middle class tax cuts) at the end of 2012 — as the legislation originally intended.

That idea seems even more relevant today as we wrangle with GOP obstinacy and refusal to consider any attempt to bring in more revenue to the federal government. So, we went back and re-read that post and concluded that progressives can take solace in knowing that even though we’ll have to swallow the current debt-crisis solution with no new taxes: we can win on the tax issue in the end — end of 2012, that is!

HERE’S A RECAP:
We started by assuming that Obama will win a second term — if a Republican wins the White House then look for permanent deficits into the future, and/or government slashed to the bare bones. But if Obama is reelected then chances are more likely than not that the House and Senate will be Republican.

Divided government would reign.

Obama won’t break his campaign promise to keep the tax cuts for the middle class in a second term, and the Republicans won’t sign on to any deal that just raises taxes on the rich.

Looks like STALEMATE, doesn’t it? Maybe not.

Since the Republicans have vowed to pass into law a bill that would make all the Bush tax breaks permanent — and here’s the good part! — when Obama is presented with such a bill he can refuse to sign it because it has tax breaks for the wealthy it. The president will then have political cover for letting all the tax breaks expire as they’re set to do at the end of 2012!

Onerous Bush tax cuts disappear and 75% of the deficit wiped out = Problem solved!

Hey, Wall Street … YOU wanted the divided government that we all know leads to STALEMATE government, so as Sister Sarah would say … “how’s that gridlocky thingy workin’ out for ya?”

Wall Street didn’t like the modest new financial regulations signed into law by President Obama, so they supported Republicans in the 2010 Congressional elections.

Their problem now seems to be that many of those GOP candidates weren’t just Conservatives — they turned out to be RADICAL Tea Partiers who seem to be hell-bent on gridlock actions that can bring the future of this country down.

Yoo hoo, “Masters of the Universe” … be careful what you wish for.

Republicans think they own the White House. When they lose a presidential election to a Democrat they go psychotic. Their behavior becomes irrational and they repeatedly put their own political interest over good governance. And, oddly, it sometimes pays off in elections.

Their selfish and childish behavior backfired when they impeached President Clinton (after years of accusations that the Clintons were involved in drug-running and murder, etc.), but it paid off in the last congressional election in 2010. When President Obama was elected the GOP proudly became “the party of no” — with their consistent obstructionism and by repeatedly saying no to policies that they had previously supported.

The health care plan was fought viciously by branding it “Big Government Socialism,” when in fact it is basically a Republican plan that was developed in the conservative Heritage Foundation — and put into effect in Massachusetts by GOP Governor Mitt Romney before being signed into law for the entire country by President Barack Obama.

The Heritage Foundation also conceived of Cap and Trade as a business friendly energy plan. John McCain and Sarah Palin were great proponents of Cap and Trade. Now that the Democratic President Obama signed onto the idea — well now it’s a “job-killing” plan that imposes government regulations on industry.

Basically, the President has said, “Okay, I’ll buy into your assertion that our country’s debt/deficit is our main problem, and here is my plan to cut the deficit by $4 trillion.” But, “the party of no” simply cannot say yes when they’re offered close to everything they’ve been advocating for decades. Their response to this offer? “Well, actually … lowering the deficit isn’t really what we want … what we want is no new taxes on the wealthy AND to have this exact same GOP-created-debt-ceiling-crisis two more times before the end of 2012.”

The Republicans just keep moving the goal posts — and obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Their goal as I see it is not to govern the country, no, the goal is to undermine this president and tie his hands at every turn. The name of the game is Destroy President Obama, not Move Our Country Forward.

The Grand Old Party is no longer able to govern our nation. Will we continue to reward them with our votes in 2012 as we did in 2010?

Gawd, I hope not.

We’re growing more and more disappointed with some in our own camp. Barack Obama is the most liberal president this country has had since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and all some on the left can do is complain, complain, complain. “Wahh, wahh, wahh … we’re going to act like Republicans and insist on having everything our own way!” Well, that’s not how the grown-ups conduct themselves.

Looks to us here at CLN like the President has it just about right. We too wish we didn’t have to compromise, but unlike Republicans we don’t think anyone should threaten to just take their ball and go home if they don’t get their own way. The idea in governing is to keep moving the ball forward.

Barack Obama has been a strong and forceful leader who has pursued the agenda that he said he would when he was a candidate. All the things that conservatives hate about this President should be reasons for my fellow travelers to strongly approve of him.

The President inherited an economy that was on the brink of disaster. Not to play the blame game, but whoever gets the blame for the economic crisis, Obama surely gets credit for the fact that the economy did not collapse.

We need to pull together now, stop whining and get to work. It’s time to stop just focusing on what we think our President has done wrong — and start reminding ourselves, and everyone else, about all the things that he has done right.

As President Obama reminded us on several occasions, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

And here’s an observation: We don’t see the Republicans trashing their own. When we hear liberals using the same derogatory terminology about President Obama that the GOP does (“He’s not a leader … He needs to lead.”), it stands in stark contrast to how the GOP handles criticizing fellow Republicans.

We should understand that when we undermine our President that we’re actually costing him votes. If we keep bitchin’ we’ll drive many on the left into the arms of the Green Party or other fringe parties.

Think Ralph Nader vs. Al Gore = George W. Bush.