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This whole right-wing, “small-government” meme has been going on for a very long time — and the argument from the right never changes:  Government is bad, and we have to protect ourselves from government.  Everything else flows from this paranoid delusion.

Historically, Conservatives have railed against all kinds of government legislation.  They’ve objected to laws requiring bikers to wear helmets, mandating seat belts in cars, and establishing reasonable speed limits.  You see, any government requirement is an infringement on freedom.  You know — the freedom to have traumatic head injuries from not wearing biking helmets, or the freedom to risk the lives of our children in car accidents without seat-belt or car-seat requirements.   

In the 50’s and 60’s Conservatives were screaming about the “big-government plot to put fluoride in our drinking water.”  Ooooo, the government is forcing us to have fewer cavities!   At some point we really do need to grow-up and realize that government in our democracy is not them, it is us.  We are not out to get us.  Government is not bad;  it is inefficient at times, and sometimes bureaucratic — but not evil. 

This paranoia and suspicion from the right breeds anger, and the Conservative movement is dangerously close to being branded as a movement bordering on violence.  Political talk about seceding from the country, armed resistance, revolution, alongside demonization of the President as a danger to America — is playing with fire and should be seen as such.

It is no surprise that the Republican Party has just been outed with their Power Point plan to aggressively use F E A R to motivate donors and raise money for the November elections.  They’ve been doing that for years.  Remember when Dick Cheney told us that if we voted for John Kerry we would be attacked by terrorists?  Otherwise known as the “Vote for Democrats and you will die” Republican slogan.

One of the most extreme right-wing organizations, the John Birch Society (JBS), has been around for over 50 years, and has quite a history.  It was founded by Robert Welch, Jr. in Indianapolis in 1958.  Historically, the John Birch Society opposed:  the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s by saying that the movement was full of communists;  and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by asserting that this law overstepped the rights of each state to enact their own Civil Rights laws.  

Yeah, that would’ve worked out well:  segregation in some states and integration in others.  Hey, that sounds familiar — didn’t our country fight a Civil War over that notion?

The John Birch Society is also anti-immigration and against the United Nations.  In the early years they called President Eisenhower a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy” and said that the U.S. government was “under operational control of the Communist Party.”  JBS asserted that there were Communists throughout our government (in addition to President Eisenhower). They even opposed President Eisenhower’s meetings with the Soviet Union as showing weakness — at least the right is always consistent in their view that the USA doesn’t negotiate, we go to war!

The John Birch Society has been a joke for decades.  Just six years after JBS was founded in 1958 the Chad Mitchell Trio wrote and performed this song to millions of laughing Americans.  We need to see the John Birch Society for what it is:  an old, last century, still paranoid, and in a really pathetic sort of way, still kinda funny!

In the early 60’s the founder/editor of the right-wing magazine National Review, William F. Buckley, dismissed the John Birch Society from the Conservative movement declaring that JBS was “idiotic and paranoid” and by stating that the paranoid ranting from the John Birch Society had no place in the conservative movement, or the Republican Party. 

And yet the John Birch Society is welcomed back into the fold now, as a 2010 co-sponsor of the Conservative movement’s annual conference —  CPAC in Washington, D.C.  The Conservative movement, and much of the Republican Party itself, has gone so far to the right that they more closely resemble the haters in the Tea Party and the John Birch Society than their own heroes like William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan.

With this new embrace of the John Birch Society, clarity is really achieved on where the political right stands today:   Conservatives have moved so far right that they no longer hold any solutions for our nation.  Maybe the answers are on the left, or in the center — but we know the answers are not with this Conservative/Republican movement of fear and anger.

Boy, have we been fooled. 

This one has been irritating me for a long time:  Trickle-down Economics, the conservative Republicans instructed us, would result in a booming economy.  “If you give big tax cuts to the wealthy we will use that money to create jobs.”  A Grand Bargain. 

There is, however, a glitch to this compact between the wealthy and our workers.  While jobs were created, those jobs are — wait for it — OVERSEAS.  So, how did the American workers benefit from making this compact with the wealthy?  

They didn’t.  The jobs are gone;  we have a disappearing middle class; the corporations and well-to-do are pocketing lots more money;  and our nation is no longer thriving the way it did when the marginal tax rates were much higher.

After 30 years of Reganomics this fairy-tale theory of economics has become so embedded in our thinking that it is now “common wisdom.”  Many, if not a majority of our citizens, still believe (despite the evidence to the contrary) that we need “broad-based tax cuts” — which mostly benefit the wealthy — in order to create jobs.

The result of this 30 year compact is that American workers got fewer, lower-paying jobs;  the wealthy and corporations got richer.  And our nation has been cheated out of the tax revenues we could have used to, oh let’s say — pay down the deficit;  rebuild our infrastructure, etc.

So, now what?  Geez, I don’t know.  The damage is done, but maybe we could at least begin to try re-thinking our automatic reflexive chant, “We need broad-based tax cuts to create jobs!”  How’d that work out for us during the last administration when W. jammed multiple, massive tax cuts through Congress?  (Using by the way, that demonized process, Senate Reconciliation.)

President Bush:  WHERE are the jobs that your tax cuts to the wealthy were supposed to create?  He has no honest answer. 

So, let’s figure this out logically.  President Bill Clinton raised the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, and despite the dire predictions of all Republicans, the economy boomed (and we even had a budget surplus).  W. cut top marginal tax rates from 39.6% to 35% and the job creation was anemic, the economy tanked and he doubled the national debt in only eight years. 

How could that be true when it’s “common wisdom” that tax cuts on the top income level creates jobs, and that tax hikes depress job creation in the country?  Gosh, could W.’s Dad, President Bush 41, have had it right all along when he called Trickle-down Economics “Voo-Doo Economics?”

Let’s all get behind letting these Bush tax cuts expire and use the revenues to build our country a brighter future.  Let us leave old, stale ideas in the past and like our founding Fathers (and Mothers) let’s look for new and dynamic ideas to build our nation.

The American people do not like the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United ruling that opens the floodgates to corporate spending on political campaigns.  In recent polling large majorities of Americans from across the political spectrum want Congress to pass new laws limiting corporate spending on our elections. 

Senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, has put forward a bill that if passed would force corporations to FULLY DISCLOSE when they spend corporation money to influence elections;  REQUIRE CONSENT from the corporate shareholders  in a majority vote before they spend company money trying to defeat or support candidates;  PROTECT OUR ELECTIONS by preventing foreign-owned corporations from spending freely on American politics.   

The underlying political issue to remember is that a conservative Supreme Court will make right-leaning, conservative rulings.  And, with W.’s eight years in the White House the Courts have taken a hard-right swing.  President Obama may have an opportunity to alter the makeup of the Supreme Court and bring it back into balance. 

If you don’t like this recent decision you certainly will not want to “send a message to Washington” by electing Republicans.  There are consequences  to elections.   

A recent Washing Post/ABC News poll gleaned the data shown below.  Pollsters asked: 

• Do you support or oppose the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that says corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections?

• Would you support or oppose an effort by Congress to reinstate limits on corporate and union spending on election campaigns?

Watched all 7 hours of Blair House Health Care Reform Summit.  While the media appears to fall into the “Republicans succeeded today” camp, I have to say that in the end as we look back at today over the next few months, we will see that Obama actually prevailed.

He was reasonable, gracious, intelligent, and commanding.  Health Care Reform will pass the Congress in the next few months, and Dems will benefit with the electorate in years to come.

GOOD LUCK TODAY, MR. PRESIDENT!

Today’s the day.  President Obama has extended an invitation to Congressional leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, to meet with him in a six-hour televised Health Care Reform summit at Blair House across the street from the White House.  This is an opportunity for Republicans and Democrats to shine a light on their respective ideas for how to solve a serious problem for our nation.

Democrats cannot let Health Care Reform fail once again.  This is not just a Democratic Party issue any more, it has now become an issue for national survival.

With the rapid rate escalation in health insurance costs, soon only the wealthy will be able to afford health care.  And if the Republicans take over Washington again anytime soon, Medicare will be privatized and access to Medicaid will be limited.  We cannot lose this fight to insure millions of Americans and bend the curve downward in the ever-escalating costs of health care.

WE’RE COUNTING ON YOU, MR. PRESIDENT!

Science takes us closer and closer to understanding our world, and ourselves.  We were inspired by Nicholas Kristof’s recent article  in the New York Times about the differences between how Conservative and Liberal brains work.  We did a bit of Internet searching and found some fascinating articles about the new science of physiology and political beliefs.  Now we’re wondering if we can ever be really mad at the far-right again.  After all, “it is all in their heads!”

Is it possible to look at the differences between how Conservatives and Progressives govern and correlate these differences with physiology?   We can look at the different ways that each side reacted to 9/11, and maybe we can also consider the differences in how Progressives and Conservatives legislate to see if there is a correlation with how our brains work.

The research is fascinating:  It indicates that there are physical differences in how our brains operate, and that those differences are measurable and predictive of our political orientation.  Scientific experiments, using electrodes to measure the “startle blink reflex,” recorded the differing political orientation among subjects who have a strong reaction to being startled to those who have a less strong reaction.

Those who were more easily startled, (had a stronger startle-reaction) were more likely to perceive threat and danger when startled, and were more likely to be conservative in their politics.  Kristof points out that this evidence “makes intuitive sense:  If you are more acutely sensitive to risks and more fearful of attack, you may be more aggressive in arming yourself and more wary of foreigners.” 

In these experiments a strong startle-reaction was also predictive of a perception of the world in black-and-white terms.  Examples of this kind of black-and-white thinking would be:  “with us or against us”;  “good or evil “;  “us or them.”   

Other research informs us that there appears to be strong link between being Liberal and “openness” which is defined as:   having an ability to accept new ideas;  having a high level of tolerance for ambiguity;  and an appreciation of different cultures.  Although Liberal leaning subjects reacted to being startled — by the “flash of noise (that) was unexpectedly broadcast into the research subjects’ earphones…,” — they were not particularly threatened.

So we have some who may be born into this world primed to startle easily and be fearful, and others who are not.  That may explain a lot about the different way each side actually saw 9/11 and the new threats to the country.  Bush and Cheney immediately kicked into the black-and-white-thinking of “us and them” and seemed to almost fall into a state of fear, panic and over-reaction. 

The black-and-white approach to life also comes into play when observing how decisions get made in Washington.  The Republicans see everything in terms of “right and wrong.”  Democrats tend to see decision-making in terms of “let’s negotiate.” 

This new research may also help answer the Liberals’ lament:  “Why is it that we always compromise and the other side never does?”

The science of physiology and political beliefs may hold the answer.  If Republicans see governing as “We will do the right thing, and we’re always right” and Democrats see governing as “Let’s sit down and negotiate and I’ll give in a little, and you give in a little” then one side always goes into discussions having already indicated that they’re willing to give.  And so Democrats do give, because their brains are hard-wired with a willingness to be open to other ideas and to see nuance — whereas the Republicans are hard-wired to “stick by their black-and-white principles and do the ‘right’ thing.”

We see them as mean, and they see us as weak.  It might help to understand that Conservatives are wired to be wary, and perhaps we could look for opportunities to present our ideas in ways they can appreciate.  And, maybe it’s time that one side (why not us?) use this new understanding to try to bridge the communications divide with the American people, and not just focus on being the “winners.”  Let them stay in that “we win — you lose” mentality while we proceed with persuading and governing.

So, it’s time to put away the old refrain, “Democrats aren’t fiscally responsible, and the Republicans are.”  Here’s a graph that puts that lie to bed for good.

This graph demonstrates that when debt to GDP is compared between Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents that Republicans run up national debt, and Democrats are much more fiscally responsible. The largest increases in gross debt relative to GDP during the last 30 years occurred (in ascending order) under George H.W. Bush with +11.2%, followed by George W. Bush  at +11.9%, and then Ronald Reagan tops the charts at a whopping  +18.5%.

Democratic President Bill Clinton made some major headway in reducing all that Republican debt.  He actually left a surplus for George W. Bush, who could have used the surplus for debt reduction (or even rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure or building high-speed rail for our infrastructure for the future), but decided instead to give tax cuts which primarily benefited the wealthiest Americans.  George W. reversed the debt-reduction progress that Bill Clinton had achieved, and ended up leaving an even higher debt to GDP to the country than his father, Bush 41, did.  And what do we have to show for all these debt-producing tax cuts for the wealthy?  What we did not get was a thriving economy, what we got for all those tax cuts was a weak economy, debilitating debt, and a financial meltdown.

Obama has added to W.’s debt levels, due to the need to temporarily support the country during the financial collapse at the end of Bush’s Administration.  He has said that the stimulus spending (that both Democrats and Republicans said was necessary at the time) would temporarily add to the country’s debt.  President Obama has told us that our national debt is unsustainable and insists that a bi-partisan plan is essential to put the long-term debt in reverse.  This is in contrast to Senate Republicans who recently voted against forming a commission to develop a debt reduction plan, and former V.P. Dick Cheney who famously said, “Deficits don’t matter.”  So much for “Democrats are the party of fiscal irresponsibility.”

Then, there’s “Paygo” —  the Democratic Party’s policy of matching every spending increase with a spending cut elsewhere in the budget.  The President describes it as, “Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere.”  The Democrats instigated this “pay-as-you-go” budgeting under President Clinton, then the Bush Administration and his Republican Congress let the policy lapse in order to give tax breaks to the rich.  The Dems have just reinstated this policy and President Obama has signed it back into law.

How about this old Conservative canard? — “Obama has lost American jobs, and only Republican “trickle-down” policies of cutting taxes for the wealthy actually creates jobs.” 

To rebut that particular right-wing assertion we went searching on the Internet and discovered another interesting graph last week, which we copied to use in this post.  Although David Plouffe (Obama adviser) beat us to the punch by choosing the same graph to use in e-mails he sent out on Wednesday, we decided to go ahead and include it here anyway.   So, to those of you who have already seen this graph:  please enjoy it again;  and to those who are seeing it for the first time, look it over and be among the informed.

* JOB LOSSES DECREASE DRAMATICALLY IN ONE YEAR *

With this visual it’s hard to maintain that Obama is costing us jobs, and that only Republican’s broad-based tax cuts (which primarily benefit the wealthy) really spur economic growth and job creation.  Once these facts are coupled with the Clinton record we begin to have a clearer picture of reality.  President Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy early in his first term, which was followed by a booming economy and record job growth — despite the dire warnings of Congressional Republicans and right-leaning economists who all predicted financial and economic calamity!

The revisionist history that the right is attempting to make these days is truly astounding.  Now they’re all railing against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and claim that the stimulus it provided to the economy was just all “wasteful, Democratic spending which only piled debt onto our nation.”  (Interesting isn’t it, that NOW they are worried about adding to the debt?)  — See graph above for accurate depiction of which party really piles up debt.    

The majority of Republicans (Congressional and right-leaning economists)  actually advocated for a large economic stimulus package last year.  Remember?  The Democrats passed a $757B package;  the Republicans advocated for a $500B package.  But, somehow they’d like us to think that their $500B stimulus wouldn’t have added to the debt?  Newsweek’s Jon Meachem actually got Republican talk show host, Joe Scarborough (Morning Joe, February 19), to admit that the additional debt levels we’re now experiencing would have been about the same even if John McCain were President.  Facts are facts.

Politics are being played here folks — along with a really healthy dose of revisionist history.  Many critics of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are actually practicing personal revisionist history with their own previous positions.  116 Congressional Republicans have been caught actually taking credit for the stimulus projects in their home states.   These projects were funded by The Recovery Act stimulus that they had voted against in Congress.  These Republicans even bragged that this money would produce jobs in their home states.  Whoa — produce jobs — economic stimulus produces jobs?  They’re on record saying that, so I suppose we should believe them.  They have even gone so far as to attend ribbon-cutting ceremonies for these projects and smiling for media photos.  We gotta call “hypocrisy” when it’s this blatant.

The debt levels we’re now experiencing are due to the financial meltdown — much lower revenues are coming in — and the economic stimulus that all agreed needed to be put in place to save the country from another Great Depression.  This additional debt load is necessary and temporary.  

The CBO, Congressional Budget Office which is nonpartisan,  reports that up to 2.4 million jobs exist today that would not have existed without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Fully one-third of the stimulus was in the form of tax cuts:  95% of working families got tax cuts and small business also saw lower taxes. 

The rest of the package provided funding for small business loans;  transportation construction;  relief for the states which are facing record budget shortfalls;  and billions for the nation’s future in the form of investments in science and technology innovation.

But, this is an election year.  So you don’t hear the right-wing admitting that stimulus was the right thing to do for the economy (which most of them agreed with at the time, including John McCain and Joe Scarborough)— no, what you hear is political posturing for a short-term election year gain.  And, if the citizens of this country wake up and realize how they’ve been deceived, again…the right-wing is toast.

“Small Government and Tax Cuts = Good!” Great slogan, too bad it doesn’t work out in the real world. Take a look at what’s going on in Colorado Springs right now —here’s where ideology meets reality. We lived in Colorado Springs in the ‘90s and saw for ourselves what the ultra-conservative political climate has wrought in this lovely town. Here’s the background.

In 1991 a man named Doug Bruce, an avid Conservative tax-hating small-government ideologue, managed to convince Colorado Springs voters to pass restrictive city tax legislation that continues to hamstring the city to this day. Check it out here at a local Colorado Springs newspaper, The Independent, and at The Denver Post. Colorado Springs is out of funds and cannot raise taxes to keep the city running, much less plan investments for any kind of economic future. In other words, Colorado Springs is the research experiment for where the small government/anti-tax Conservatives want to take the country — we can see what happens when tax cutting eliminates services that most communities take for granted.

The Denver Post reports that “more than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark; the city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops; water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead…recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools (and museums) will close for good; buses no longer run on evenings and weekends; (and) the city won’t pay for any street paving.”

Closing pools, recreation centers, museums? No street paving? Not enough police and firefighters? No bus service in the evenings and weekends? The police helicopters are even for sale on the Internet. And dozens of necessary police and firefighting positions will not be filled. What kind of life do these government hating Conservatives want to create for Americans?

Criminal justice student, Addy Hansen, is an outspoken opponent of these draconian budget cuts, “We’re the second-largest city, and growing, in Colorado. We’re in trouble. We’re in big trouble.”

Colorado Springs offers us an opportunity to take a good look at the real-life results of the Conservative approach to governing. Street lights and cut backs in police and firefighters, these may seem like small-potatoes to the country. But the ideology that is constraining Colorado Springs, if implemented nationally, would impact our country in many ways that would lead to the decline of American power in the world.

It’s time for Americans to understand that the Conservative mantra of “Small Government and Tax Cuts = Good” is a political slogan that represents an ideology that does not take us as a nation to a healthy and prosperous future.

The ideology that tells us that we should cut taxes because “we as citizens know how to spend our money better than the government” does not play out in the real world. As individual citizens we can’t raise a military, we do that as a national community through our taxes. We join our taxes together to make our country better and more effective in many important ways: police force; firefighters; CIA and FBI; safe food supply; city lights and paved roads; and yes — our safety-net of Social Security/Medicare and Medicaid.

The days of the old west frontier are over folks. It’s time to throw out the old mantras and do some serious long-range thinking about where we want to take our country and how America will fit into the new world economy. We’re already behind much of our competition in the world in 21st century infrastructure, high-speed rail, and in developing new-energy markets.

Taxes for our new future need to be more fair. Tax reform needs to focus on helping to build a stronger middle class, which will support a growing, thriving economy. The tax structure and anti-regulation ideology of the last 30 years of Conservative policies has led our nation to the economic failure we are now experiencing. Even before the financial meltdown 18 months ago the economy was shaky and the recoveries that follow recessions were becoming weaker and weaker.

Tax reform is something that both political parties should be interested in working on together. The old economics have failed — broad based tax cuts for everyone! — and we need a new “smart” approach to building an economy for a new future. We should tax things we want to discourage and stop taxing things we want to encourage. We should tax soft drinks that are unhealthy, and tax gasoline consumption to free America from our dangerous dependence on foreign oil. And, we should cut taxes to encourage research and entrepreneurship.

Without tax reform we won’t have the means to invest in education and infrastructure, healthcare and development of an American new-energy market, we will be a nation in decline, stuck in the past — not ready for the new century.

We’re losing our ability to lead in the world. The financial crisis caused by greed on Wall Street has hobbled our ability to influence friends and foes. But even more alarming, new questions about the United States are being raised around the world. Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist, reported from the Davos World Economic Forum that he “heard of a phrase being bandied about here by non-Americans — about the United States — that I can honestly say I’ve never heard before: political instability.” Check out the full column, read it here.

Republicans have been more and more captured by the extreme right-wing of their party, and have swung so far right that not only would Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon and even Ronald Reagan not recognize their own party, neither would Barry Goldwater, one of the fathers of the Conservative movement.

President Obama came into office offering a bi-partisan approach and his proposed legislation has been mainstream, with many conservative ideas such as tax breaks for small businesses and the middle class. The Democrats have offered a centrist health care plan that is very similar to one offered to the Clinton administration by Republicans in the 1990’s, and is more conservative than the Massachusetts universal healthcare plan enacted by former Republican Governor Mitt Romney. And the Massachusetts universal health care plan even got a “yes” vote from that state’s newly elected Republican Senator, Scott Brown — who was hypocritically supported by the Tea Party that was at the same time calling President Obama a Marxist for supporting a similar plan for the country!

Politics are being played, and there will be serious fall-out for our nation.

In 1974 Richard Nixon offered a more progressive universal health care plan, which even included employer mandates. And yet, the Republican Party has hypocritically screamed “socialism!” about the current health care proposals and made a political calculation to reject every attempt to find middle ground with Democrats. They seem to feel that if they just say no, and demagogue Democratic ideas, that they can whip-up the far right-wing (the same folks who got W. re-elected) and take over Congress in this November’s elections.

What then? Do they have new, 21^st century ideas to solve our enormous problems? Or are they offering the same old ideas that have been tried and disproven? And, we know for sure that when there’s a Republican Congress and a Democratic President that the Republicans will pull out all the stops and go so far as to even look for lame excuses to impeach an American President rather than get serious about solving the country’s problems.

Government is not broken, but our country’s politics is.

The slash-and-burn aggressive tactics of the right are appalling, not only to most mainstream Americans, but are also embarrassingly visible to the rest of the world. Their willingness to use out-and-out lies to whip the passions of concerned Americans into a fear-frenzy, is shocking.

If the Republican Party is not going to step up and help govern the nation (unless they can be in charge) and instead block any action, then we have become a politically unstable country. Our political paralysis, which causes so much uncertainty about how to solve our nation’s huge problems, is casting in us a very questionable light in the world and making the world nervous about the future of America.

Why do we care? The dangerous perception that America is politically unstable will have serious repercussions.

The world will not invest in countries that are politically unstable. It’s not just the residual effects of the financial meltdown that is keeping our country mired in limbo, it’s this political paralysis created by a calculated political decision to “just say no.” The uncertainty that results from this obstructionism is working against our economic recovery and causing the rest of the world to question our stability.

Tom Friedman tells us, “Banks, multinationals and hedge funds often hire foreign policy experts to do ‘political risk analysis’ before they invest in places like, say, Kazakhstan or Argentina. They may soon have to add the United States to their watch lists.”