This morning, Paul Krugman puts a recent John Boehner quote into context. I suspect that you’ve heard the quote. It one of Boehner’s many, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” rants. He said, “At some point, Washington has to deal with its spending problem. I’ve watched them kick this can down the road for 22 years since I’ve been here. I’ve had enough of it. It’s time to act.”

Okay, first things first. Whenever I hear Boehner whining like this, I think, “This is what a party does when it has absolutely no good ideas.” This is the very definition of grandstanding. Boehner wants to fix our “spending problem.” But the very definition of the problem is disingenuous. Revenues are way low by historical standards. He might be able to argue that we have a budget problem, but there is no way that he can reasonably claim that spending alone is the problem.

John Boehner started his career in the House back in 1991. Has he really watched them kick this can down the road for 22 years? Well, as the following graph I made about a year ago shows: during Clinton’s time in office, the problem wasn’t kicked down the road. And what’s more, John Boehner was a big enabler for the Bush Jr spending spree.

In other words, John Boehner was not helpful to Clinton in balancing the budget and was very helpful to Bush in unbalancing the budget. If he’s been watching “them” kick any cans, it has only been since Obama took office when he reverted to his unhelpful ways from the Clinton years.

Andrea gets mad at me when I rag on the president too much. To her, Obama is so much better than Bush that we should just be grateful that we don’t have a complete fucking idiot in the White House. But here’s the thing: I am grateful. I usually defend myself by saying, “I think Obama is the best president we could ever expect to have!” But this is more a statement of my terrifying level of cynicism than it is of my opinion of Obama.

Let me pull back for a moment. If I were in the Senate and I got to question John Brennan tomorrow, I would have only one question for him, “Do you want to be head of the CIA?” I assume his answer would be, “Yes.” And that would tell me everything I needed to know. “Then I’m afraid, Mr. Brennan, that you are not qualified to run the CIA. I’m very sorry. I hope you will spend the rest of your life volunteering at a local homeless shelter. The second to last place we can afford to put a power hungry asshole in charge is at the CIA.”

The very last place we can afford to put a power hungry asshole in charge is as the President of the United States. I suspect that when Obama was a community organizer, he was a great guy. He was the kind of guy who should be the President of the United States. But once he started to be noticed as a member of the Illinois State Senate? And certainly, by the time he became a United States Senator? He’d been corrupted.

Look, I’m sure even in December 2008, Obama still thought that he would do a lot. He still thought he would stand up for his ideals. But once he was in office, when it came to the stuff he had complete control over, he acted as despots have everywhere at every time. And nowhere is that more clear than in his approach to killing Americans that he doesn’t like.

Hey, I understand! There is no up-side to protecting civil rights and all that garbage about upholding the Constitution. But there is an upside to being the badass president. No president ever looked bad because he didn’t care about civil rights. Nixon? People don’t like him because of Watergate—a scandal that at this point just seems strange. Bombing Cambodia? What’s a “Cambodia”? Paranoia and the “enemies list”? Unitary executive? “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”? None of that. It’s all Watergate and no one even remembers what that was all about.

But that doesn’t mean I have to accept it. And if the Democrats stand for anything at all, we will see tomorrow in the questioning of John Brennan.

Afterword

Five seconds of wonderful:

I am a good historian when I get home, plop down in front of the TV, switch it on, see an image of a giant creature smashing Tokyo, and do not infer, “Oh! I must be watching CNN!” Is it because I know darn well that monsters do not and cannot exist? I know no such thing! Cryptozoology tell us we may yet discover lingering dinosaurs hidden away here and there (though none is likely to be this big). All I know is that I have seen the like of this big boy in a number of Toho Studios flicks over the years, and that this is probably Gojira or Baragon, and that I am probably watching the Sci-Fi channel, not CNN.

—Robert M. Price
The Christian Delusion

The same day that House Republicans are proposing to save $600 billion in defense spending by cutting 10% of all federal jobs, the United States Postal Service announces that it is cutting delivery of first class mail on Saturdays. These are linked together. You can file them under “stupid things we do because Republicans are crazy.” Let’s look briefly at what this all means.

The Postal Service cut has been a long time in coming. Back in 2006, during the lame duck after the Republicans lost control of the House and Senate, the Republicans passed a poison pill that required the Postal Service to pre-fund their retirement program. This is a requirement that no other business has and was put in place because, well, Republicans are evil. That really is what this all comes down to. The Republicans want to kill the Postal Service. Sure, there is the added benefit of helping out our corporate overlords at UPS and FedEx. But it is mostly about trying to destroy anything the government does well. See: Republicans just know that the government can’t do anything well. That’s why government programs like the Post Service (which is in the Constitution that they supposedly love so much) and Medicare and Social Security must be destroyed. If reality doesn’t conform to your ideology, change reality, because your ideology could not possibly be wrong!

Thankfully, the stupid Republican idea of cutting 10% of all federal jobs is not going to happen. But note: 36% of all federal jobs are military jobs. The Republican proposal is not yet available, but we can assume they are not calling for a reduction in that part of the labor force. Without that part of the federal workforce, there are roughly three million federal employees. So they are calling for eliminating 300,000 jobs. Plus all the jobs that would be lost via economic feedbacks. Can you say, “instant recession”? I suspect the Republicans can’t. They would have to claim that no jobs are lost, because they also claim that the government doesn’t create jobs. Therefore: why not fire them all? No one will lose a job by their logic.

I feel like a pinball these days regarding my thinking about the Republicans. Are they stupid? Yes, many of them are. Are they evil? Yes, most of them are. But more than anything, they are spoiled brats. They are the five year old at a family gathering who is going to ruin everything because he can’t get his way. John Boehner was lying when he said that Obama was trying to destroy the Republican Party. But I think he was onto something. We need to destroy the Republican Party. Then, the Democratic Party can split into a somewhat reasonable conservative party and an actual liberal party. The Republican Party is far worse than useless. And if we allow them, they will destroy the country.

This morning, Greg Sargent over at The Plum Line blog tells us, On Immigration, Dems Hold the Middle Ground, and Republicans Don’t. In it, he argues that the Republicans are trying to claim that they are the ones that are staking out a middle ground and that it is the Democrats who are being all extreme by even proposing that an undocumented resident should be provided a path to citizenship (regardless of how labyrinthian the process may be).

He goes on to quote a new Washington Post poll that finds that people are quite fond of the idea of a path to citizenship all by itself. Even 45% Republicans feel that way. So how is it, Sargent asks, that the Republicans can push the idea that a path to citizenship wedded with more boarder security is the extreme leftist position? Well, you could ask the same thing of just about every Republican position: the Democratic policy is the popular one and the Republicans run around screaming that the Democratic Party wants to enact Sharia law in America.

Part of what is going on is just that the Republicans continue to think that they brand their way around having the most unpopular policies in the history of democratic party politics. The leadership of the Republican Party still seem to think that they can win elections via talking points. But here’s the sad truth: they are largely correct.

Most people do indeed want to provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented residents. But they don’t care all that much about it. Unless you personally know someone in this undocumented hellscape we’ve created, it doesn’t much matter to you. So when Mitch McConnell comes on the TV and explains the Democrats are being unreasonable, you don’t really care. “Just pass something!” you say. And if that means a path to residency, so be it.

I’m not suggesting that the Republicans will succeed at this, however. Right now, they have very little credibility with the people or the press. They’ve been crying Sharia for too long now. And they’ve done it with respect to some things that the people do care about. Remember George W. Bush’s tour to convince everyone that privatizing Social Security was a great idea? That not only didn’t work, it hurt the Republican disinformation machine.

But we need to push hard against these Republican propaganda campaigns. It is wrong to assume they are foolish to try or that they won’t succeed. They have in the past and I’m sure they will in the future.

Eric Cantor gave a speech and I think it sucked. What are the odds?

Ezra Klein provides a nice rundown of all of Cantor’s policy proposals. He isn’t too impressed either, but I think that he gives Cantor far too much credit.

There is one big way that the Republicans could signal that are changing: they could talk seriously about the jobs crisis in America. But they won’t do that. To some extent, they must believe that the public wouldn’t really buy it. After all, for the last few years (and especially the last couple of months) the Republicans have been hammering on this issue. But it is always in a vague and negative way. John Boehner uses pretty much every opportunity to slam President Obama for not doing anything to create jobs.

The problem for the Republicans is that it has been all to clear that they are against any legislation that would actually help the jobs crisis. Instead, when they talk about jobs, everyone rightly hears, “Let’s cut the taxes of rich people!” So it isn’t surprising that Cantor didn’t touch this issue. The truth is that the only Republican idea for creating jobs is to cut the taxes of rich people. Since they cannot think outside that paradigm, it is probably all for the best to say nothing.

There was one policy proposal that is a decent idea (although I figure by the time the Republicans get through with it, it will be worthless). Cantor embraced an idea that Jerry Brown has been pushing here in California: weighted-student averaging for federal education funding. This would give schools more money for poor and disabled students. Hopefully, this would encourage better schools to go after a more diverse student population. My problem with it is that our educational funding system is broken. This is really working the edges when what we really need is fundamental reform. But any non-crazy idea from a Republican is welcome.

The rest of the stuff was worse and some of it was much worse. Cantor wants to repeal the taxes in the ACA (Obamacare). I see this as nothing more than a backdoor to destroying the program. Regardless, just on the surface, what he is offering is another tax cut for the rich. And then he has an idea of giving states more rights in how they handle Medicaid. This is just a call for partial block granting. In both these cases, Klein sees progress because the Republicans are back tracking—not being quite as extreme as they have been. All I see is a party trying to be a little smarter about optics.

So Eric Cantor did indeed give a rebranding talk. And as I’ve argued over and over again since the election: it doesn’t matter. Mitt Romney didn’t lose the presidency because of the 47% comment or any other gaff. He lost because he was the Republican Part personified: a privileged rich man inside a system rigged for him. And the Republican Party has no interest in not being the party of Mitt Romney. Why would they? If they changed that, what would they be?

Where does that leave the country? We now have pretty much an oligarchy. Both parties are committed to the idea that those who are rich should stay rich. And actually, the Democratic Party is doing a better job because the only way to keep the rich rich is to keep the poor reasonably happy. The Republicans seem to think that they can keep the poor from storming the Bastille with the Very Big Army. And maybe they’re right; they might also be right about just how much pain the poor will take. But I don’t think the Republican effort to rebrand without changing their policies is going to get them very far electorally.

Yesterday, Dean Baker published one of his weekly “Robert Samuelson is an idiot” articles, It’s Monday and Robert Samuelson Is Confused. It’s a good article. I always look forward to Mondays because Samuelson is a Very Serious Idiot and Baker really does have something to say about him every week. So click over and read it, if you like. However, I bring it up, because Baker touched on something that I would like to expand on.

Baker often pushes an important idea that very few people talk about: government debt versus debt interest burden. Let me explain this with an example. Assume a country named Freedonia. Currently, long-term (30 year) bonds on Freedonia debt pay 1%. Freedonia needs to borrow $100, so they issue a bond for it. This means that their debt is $100 and their debt interest burden is $1 (1%) per year. Now let’s suppose that the Freedonia economy starts to improve so that next year, the bond rate jumps way up to 3%. The government still has all its $100 debt locked into a 1% bond, so nothing changes—at least not for another 29 years when the $100 principle will be worth almost nothing anyway.

The person who holds the $100 bond will lose out in this situation. He is now making $1 per year. But if he made the same investment now (in long-term bonds), he would get $3 per year. So his bond is effectively only worth $33 now. Indeed, if he wanted to sell it, he would only get $33 for it (See Afterword below). So the government of Freedonia could borrow $33 (by issuing a new bond) and buy back last year’s $100 bond. Thus, the government would have decreased its debt by two-thirds! Woo! Now Freedonia only owns $33!

But what is Freedonia’s debt interest burden? They would have to purchase a $33 bond at 3%. So they would again owe $1 per year. In other words nothing at all has changed. What this shows is that the raw amount of money that the government owes is meaningless. What matters is how much the interest burden is. And here’s the thing: ordinary people understand this. This is what people do all the time with consolidation loans. They aren’t lowering the total amount that they owe; they are lowering their debt interest burden so that they can pay off what they owe.

The Very Serious People who are forever (and ever and ever) harping on our debt conveniently forget all about our interest burden. Actually, it is worse. Many times, people argue that bond interest rates will suddenly go up and greatly increase our borrowing costs. This obviously isn’t the case with 10 and 30 year bonds.

I think this example clarifies the situation very well. What is our total debt? About 70% of GDP. What is our total debt interest burden? About 1.5% of GDP. With such a manageable “problem,” you have to wonder why these Very Serious People want to inflict so much suffering on the nation. Just kidding: we know very well why they do this.

Afterword

Bonds don’t work exactly the way I’ve claimed here, but the principles are valid. The truth is that the $100 bond would not sell for $33 the second year; it would sell for something more like $50. That means in reality, the government could reduce its debt only by raising its interest burden substantially. So the real life case is even more ridiculous than the Freedonia case.

Last night, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was on Colbert Report to hock her new book, My Beloved World. Because any interview with Colbert is necessarily orthogonal to everything, they spent the first half of the segment talking about bringing more spectacle to judicial hearings.

Sotomayor mentioned that some of the justices do make jokes. (She didn’t mention it, but Scalia is know for his jokes. Hence the humor-asshole connection.) Colbert asked who was the funniest judge. She demurred, but then added, “But do you know that there’s an article that actually measures the number of laughs? I’m pretty low on that scale.” Well my friends, I have found the data!

According to DC Dicta, the number of laughs this term breaks down as follows:

Remember: what passes for a Supreme Court joke is not what most people would call funny. Consider Thomas’ joke. It consisted of 4 words, “Well, he did not…” I could put the joke in context, but trust me: it would not help. Insiders claim it was a jab at Yale Law School. Apparently, Thomas is angry at his old law school for treating him like an affirmative action student. (Ain’t it nice when you can hate both sides in a conflict?) Of course, that makes the joke just as much a bitter remark. Again with the humor-asshole connection!

Regardless, Sotomayor is right in the middle of the field. Not that it matters. I’d take Ginsburg’s fine, open mind any day over the laugh-filled antics of authoritarian blabbermouth Scalia.

Here’s the clip:

Bill Maher was at it again this Friday night on Real Time. It is sad to see, but he seems to be listening to a lot of Very Serious People. Last week, he was bashing disability and assuming that Americans were getting lazier. This week, he was bashing old people. He noted that we spend $4 on every senior citizen for every $1 spent on children. He also said that on average, Americans put in $150,000 into the entitlement programs, but receive $300,000 from them. I haven’t been able to verify either of these claims, but let’s just assume he’s right. (The numbers sound about right, even if they are also probably deceptive on their surface.)

On the first issue: there are a couple of ways you can look at this. You could say, as I do, that this is wrong and we ought to spend more money on our children. Or you could say, as Maher seems to, that we should spend much less on our older citizens. I don’t go along with that. We can afford just about anything we want. Our entitlement programs are miserly by European standards. When I see senior citizens on the bus, I think they can use more help, not less; they don’t seem to be getting over on the system.

As bad as all this is, it is the second issue where I get really mad. Maher completely ignores the fact that there are two numbers: inputs and outputs. If we want to make entitlements cost neutral, we could increase payments. We could, for example, raise the Social Security tax cap. But that isn’t even brought up. In fact, no mention of increased revenue is mentioned at all by anyone on the panel.

In talking about cuts, the discussion was just as bad. Sam Harris added very unhelpfully that we could means test the programs. There are two problems with this. First, it would make the programs more vulnerable as exactly those people with the most political power lose benefits. But the second issue is the killer: it wouldn’t save much money, unless we means tested down to less than middle-class incomes.

Nowhere in the discussion did anyone point out that the reason we spend so much money on entitlements is that medical care in the United States costs about twice what it does in other advanced countries. That—and that alone—is the reason we are spending so much money. To ignore this fact is to be deeply unserious about the issue. And presented as Maher did, it is nothing short of demagoguery.

I don’t know what is going on with Bill Maher these days. I fear that more and more he is hanging out with the libertarian crowd. And as I well know, they can be very seductive. But someone needs to talk to him, because it is starting to hurt his brand.

Earlier today, Jonathan Chait wrote, The GOP’s Anti-Democratic Panic. In it, he calls out David Frum for his recent bit of “both sides now” reporting. In all the major swing states, Republicans have been looking seriously at changing the way their electoral votes are granted—making them determined by (the currently gerrymandered) congressional districts. Frum says this is nothing new because the Democrats tried to do the same thing in Colorado back in 2004.

Chait pointed out two major differences. First, the change would have made the electoral votes proportional, not based upon congressional districts so it would have been much more fair. Second, the idea was neither proposed nor supported by elected officials, even on the local level. “The plan seemed to spring from liberal activists and was opposed by Democratic officials,” Chait wrote.

The main point of the article is how panicked the Republican Party is about Democracy:

This is to be expected, of course. For the last 30 years, the Republican Party has maintained policies that are unpopular. But they were nonetheless successful with two strategies. They fully embraced social conservationism and racist subtexts. The first part of this is easy enough to understand and it still represents a strong part of their coalition. But to this day, even most “moderate” Republicans refuse to acknowledge their racist appeal. But it is there and it is anything but subtle.

In 1980, just after becoming the Republican candidate for president, Ronald Reagan went to Neshoba County, Mississippi. That is where the three civil rights organizers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner where murdered by the KKK in 1964. In his first speech since the convention, Reagan said:

That’s about as clear as you can be apart from saying, “I’ll get the federal government out of your hair so you can go back to keeping your niggers in line.” Of course, it doesn’t take much digging to find Republicans more or less that blunt.

Now the demographics are moving such that there aren’t as many whites and those who remain are less inclined to find such dog whistles appealing. So the most obvious solution to the failing GOP constituency is to game the system so that they can stay in power without being popular. It is their only choice if the party is to remain unchanged. But even if they succeed at this, it will only work for a while. The party will eventually change. But that doesn’t make me particularly happy. Eventually we will all be dead.

Afterword

There is a tendency for liberals to assume that moves like this on the part of the Republicans are purely cynical. It isn’t. Take for example Pennsylvania House Republican leader Mike Turzai’s comment, “Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: done.” Most liberals present this as an example of Republicans cynically trying to game the system. This is not how Turzai sees it. To him, the only reason that Obama won the first time around was all the voter fraud that ACORN did. His comment only means that of course Mitt Romney would win in a fair contest and now that Voter ID was “done” it would be a fair contest.

Republicans believe their own bullshit. In Pennsylvania, where they may indeed change how electoral votes are distributed, I doubt they are thinking, “This is a way to screw the Democrats!” Instead, they are thinking, “This is a way to stop all the voter fraud that the Democrats are doing!” I am absolutely serious about this. Republicans see themselves as the victims in all of this and what they are doing is only meant to make things fair against those evil Democrats.

I bring this up because I think it is dangerous to assume that Republicans know what they are doing. They only listen to other Republicans. They are certain that the United States is a center-right (or even extreme-right) nation. According to their thinking, if only the votes of “real” Americans were counted, the Democratic Party would collapse. But as liberals, we can’t make the same mistake; we have to know what we are really fighting. Accusing Republicans of cynically manipulating the voting system will only make them retrench. We must convince them that their ideas really are toxic. That’s hard to do, of course. But we will never succeed in convincing them that they are cynical. Because they aren’t.

(Okay: many of the professionals are cynical. But the base isn’t. They are true believers. They drank the Flavor Aid.)