As expected, Congress and White House Reach Tentative Budget Deal. It will “modestly increase spending over the next two years, cut some social programs, and raise the federal borrowing limit.” The last bit is the most important, because it raises the debt ceiling to a point where we don’t have to worry about it until the next president is in office. But this highlights the importance of having a Democrat in the White House. I no longer think that Republicans will act responsibly if they get total control of Washington. They’ve convinced themselves that Obama has made radical changes to the country, and they are going to push back — hard. Think they won’t repeal Obamacare?! Think again.

Of course, Paul Ryan was out this morning to claim that he was shocked — Shocked! — to find that these negotiations were going on. He said that he thought the process sticks. And that’s all fine. But we know he’s lying. He knew what was going on and he is pandering to the Freedom Caucus in the House. Ryan is very much in the “libertarian” wing of the Republican Party. His biggest concern is taking care of the rich. Causing a global economic collapse is not good for the rich.

We know that the vast majority of the House Republicans will still vote against this deal. But most of them will do it because the crazies in the party will make a big deal out of a vote that increases the debt limit. They will be said to be RINOs. It’s kind of interesting that a small number of extreme Republicans can wield the word RINO as such a weapon. After all, the vast majority of the House Republicans are not of the Freedom Caucus type. So aren’t the real RINOs the people in the Freedom Caucus? I have a term that the Freedom Caucus could use: FINO — Fascists In Name Only.

A regular conservative political party would like this deal. It has social program cuts. It gets rid of one of the mandates in Obamacare. It increases spending on the military. But this is not enough. The only thing that will make these Republicans happy is if they get exactly what they want. In this case, it is the defunding of Planned Parenthood. But it is clear that even if they got that, it would only lead to greater demands. As I’ve noted in the past, the primary Republican complaint is just that they aren’t in total control of Washington.

So we continue to manage the federal government the way a junkie manages his habit: we find a fix for today and hope that we can find a fix tomorrow. And it is a curious spectacle. If you are masochistic enough to read David Brooks or Charles Murray, you know that conservatives are convinced that people are poor because of their lack of middle class values and long term planning. That’s all a crock, of course. But the Republicans who are in charge in Washington behave exactly as this conservative stereotype: no compromises to get some of what they want; no long term planning. They are just waiting until they win the proverbial lottery and have total control so they don’t have to make any compromises.

But don’t worry: soon the American people will rise up and vote these malefactors out of office. Just kidding! There’s a far great probability that we will breech the debt ceiling than that the American people will punish the Republicans. The best we can hope for is a Democratic president in 2017.

Last week was much ado about Back to the Future. I liked the original film well enough — most especially Crispin Glover. The second film was just a mess, of course. So the fact that it was the very day that they land in the future is fairly meaningless. And the whole thing makes me feel that the internet is populated with people even older than I am. But I was interested to see that media superstar Marco Rubio put out this own Back to the Future political ad. From a production standpoint, it is shockingly bad. But that isn’t the most important thing.

You need to see this video in the context of Rubio’s general message. And that’s that he is the future. Those Democrats just have old ideas, but he offers something new. And to prove it, all you have to do is ask him what his favorite hip hop band is. Would an old guy know hip hop? Would a hip hop fan be offering old ideas? No, that Hillary Clinton has old ideas because she’s old. She’s not a hip hop fan! Marco Rubio has the ideas and the policies for the future — hip hop derived ideas. Follow him into the future!

So what are those new policies that Rubio has to offer? Well, let’s start with his forward thinking policies on Cuba. We’ve had an embargo against Cuba for over 50 years. It hasn’t worked. So Rubio has a great idea: keep doing it! Nothing speaks of forward thinking like continuing the same decades long failed policy. He’s also against embryonic stem cell research, because nothing speaks to the future like limiting science in the name of making a stand for your Iron Age religious dogma. He is also against the Paycheck Fairness Act, because, hey, women’s rights is so yesterday. There’s more. Lots more.

But what really highlights Marco Rubio’s bold policies for the future is his budget plan. Josh Barro called it, Marco Rubio’s Puppies-and-Rainbows Tax Plan. That shows what nonsense it is, but actually makes it sound better than it deserves. It is a huge giveaway that blows an enormous hole in the budget. But it wouldn’t be a Republican budget if it didn’t give the vast majority of the benefits to the rich. Simon Maloy called it, Marco Rubio’s Trickle-Down Nonsense. It is yet another supply side con that claims that it will all magically work out because the “job creators” will, in their singular beneficence, create jobs and spur an economic boom.

In the video, Rubio implies that the policies of Hillary Clinton are the stuff of 1989. But his supply side hokum is quite clearly the stuff of 1980. So even if he’s right about Hillary Clinton, she still has nine years on him. Of course, Clinton’s policies are not from 1989. That was clearly during the New Democratic movement when all the left had to offer was neoliberalism. She is actually offering some new ideas on economic issues. Meanwhile, Rubio’s ideas are mostly much older than 1980. I think even then, most people would have at least given lip service to the idea that women ought to get paid the same as men for the same job. That kind of thinking — which Rubio has today — is more like 1960.

I’m really tired of hearing Rubio talk about his “new” ideas. He has no new ideas. He is a Republican — straight from central casting. Other than being of Cuban ancestry and being less than 60 years old, there is nothing that distinguishes him. He continues to remind me of the Young Republicans who majored in political science and always wore suits to prove that they were adults. If Marco Rubio had any ideas, then he wouldn’t be a Republican.

In the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime, David Byrne repeats the line, “Same as it ever was.” That’s what I think of the upcoming debt ceiling showdown. I can’t find it, but there is a quote from some Republican in the House saying that he was going to use the debt ceiling to get what he wants because (this is a paraphrase), “You aren’t certain if I’m crazy enough to do it, but I know you aren’t.” It was clearly said with that typical, friendly unhinged tone that the true believers use thinking they are charming. All it really shows is that they don’t take their jobs seriously and think it is all a game.

Over the weekend, I learned from Jim Newell that the debt ceiling will not be reached on 3 November. What’s more, according to John Boehner and Paul Ryan, there are not enough votes in the House to pass a clean debt ceiling increase. In order to pass such a bill, the House would need 218 votes (assuming everyone voted). There are 188 Democrats in the house. Thus, there would need to be 30 Republicans voting for it — just 12% of their caucus. If we are to believe this, 90% of the House Republicans think that destroying the world economy is perfectly fine.

Of course, it is not true that there are fewer than 30 House Republicans who will vote to raise the debt ceiling. Boehner is using an invalid calculus. He takes the number of Republicans who voted for the last increase — there were 28 — and removes the third who are no longer in office. The truth is that the number of people who voted for it last time was the number of people who needed to vote for it. The rest of them just did what comes naturally: grandstand. It is certain that the vast majority of the House Republicans will take this vote if it is absolutely necessary.

And sure enough, The Hill reported this morning, White House, GOP Near Two-Year Budget Deal. Supposedly, a deal will be announced tonight that will set the budget and raise the ceiling until the next president is in office. The budget is supposed to roll back some of the sequester, so that’s a good thing. In fact, it is such a good thing that I find it hard to believe. But it is indicative of the fact that the House Republicans can do anything it wants to. There may be roughly 50 crazies in their caucus, but the power is still with the Republicans who are awful but not crazy.

What the whole “We don’t have the votes!” shows is that the Republican establishment is still committed to hostage taking. I suppose we can take some solace from the fact that they are not crazy. But they still wish to play dangerous games. And that might be okay if they were smart. But the fact remains that crazy or not, the House Republicans have not shown themselves to be competent at their jobs — much less clever — not to mention brilliant. If there is a deal in the works, it is a very good sign. But we can’t depend upon anything until Obama signs it into law. And then we have to wait for the next time the Republicans play this game.

I found a really disturbing article by David Futrelle at We Hunt the Mammoth, “Women Don’t Need Good Chord Progressions,” and Other Ways the Ladies Are Destroying Culture by Being Ladies. But it is only disturbing because I’ve been largely unaware of things like Men’s Rights and so on. The article itself is funny as hell. You should read it.

It is based on a post in The Red Pill subreddit. It’s description is, “Discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.” I have a problem with “sexual strategy,” of course. I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys. Getting a girlfriend is not hard. Here is the proven two step process: (1) don’t be a jerk; (2) repeat until successful. I know a lot “sensitive” guys think it is their very niceness that stops them from getting a girlfriend. Generally, I’ve found that the sensitive set is often as bad as the cavemen. Romance is a negotiation. Guys who complain about the lack of a girlfriend are impatient.

To give you some idea of what “sexual strategy” means in practice, the top article right now is, “HumanSockPuppet’s Guide to Managing Your Bitches.” That may well be meant as a joke, but I doubt it. Certainly the commenters on the post don’t think it is a joke. It has such great advice as the necessity of being comfortable bossing your “girl” around. I’ve noticed that the word “comfortable” comes up a lot in other articles. It seems to be a kind of dog whistle. It means roughly not caring what others think of you. This is shockingly like libertarian thinking, where our genuine selves can be found in the distant past before it got spoiled by all this civilization nonsense.

The second part of that description of The Red Pill I have no problem with. Men in our society do suffer from a lack of a positive identity. But their idea is that men should turn into some kind of tired cliche: Don Juan but without the requisite love of women. Again: we get to this fantasy past that is devoid of any nuance, and is ahistorical if you take the broad view. Regardless, the way these guys want to treat women would seem to eliminate the possibility of having the kinds of relationships that they claim to want. The process seems to be: (1) “Girls don’t like me because I’m too nice”; (2) “I’ll be a jerk and then girls will like me.” And all they have to do is be “comfortable” being a jerk!

The article that Futrelle highlights is by a user named TheeRyanGrey, “The Men of Reddit(And America) are terrified to admit women have ruined their favorite activities.” His concern is that women have ruined things men like by dumbing them down. You see girls like to be entertained and men like… Actually, I don’t know. He doesn’t like romantic subplots in films. He doesn’t like “up close and personal” segments in his sports. I suspect that he has really bad taste in everything, but what do I know? I’m one of those weak men who manage to attract women without ever needing a guide on how to manage my bitches.

The funniest part of the whole thing came when TheeRyanGrey talked about music. On his profile, he claims to be a rapper, but he complained that music has become too repetitive. But here’s the best part of Futrelle’s take-down:

TheeRyanGrey then goes on to make a racist statement, “I know an Asian that’s tall and has a big dick, are we gonna just assume that’s the average? Grow up.” It’s funny that he would use “Asian” and not “Oriental.” But whatever. I doubt that many people on The Red Pill know too much about history and words and things. I mean, managing your bitches is a very time consuming activity!

Humans are at their worst when they fence themselves off in a world of their own bigotry. As bad as TheeRyanGrey is, the comments are worse. They show an even more primitive understanding of humanity. Women are supposed to be “helpers” and “supporters.” The whole thing should be called, “Atlas Won’t Shrug.” And it turns out that the whole Men’s Rights movement is big on rape apologetics. Ayn Rand would have loved this stuff! Normal women, not really.

Kevin Drum wrote the best headline I’ve seen all week, Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor. It is based upon a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The information from it alone is amazing. It looked at data for fiscal year 2015. And it found that states that accepted the Medicaid expansion saw their Medicaid expenses go up by 3.4%. But for states that did not expand Medicaid, their Medicaid expenses went up 6.9% — even more than the recent average of roughly 6.1%. Let’s be clear here: this isn’t per capita spending; this is total spending. So the Medicaid expansion states are covering vastly more people and seeing their costs rise much slower.

Drum looked at what the red states spent on Medicaid in 2014 ($61 billion), and took the difference in the growth rates. So in 2015, they spent $65.3 billion. But if they had taken the Medicaid expansion, we can assume their costs would only be $63.1 billion. Thus, they did indeed spend more than $2 billion. Now I’m not sure that we can say that they did it specifically to screw the poor. That was certainly the result. But I think it is more correct that they don’t have a cogent explanation for why they haven’t taken the Medicaid expansion. It seems to be some ridiculous notion that if they just hold out, Obamacare will be destroyed. (Even if you grant that this might have once been a reasonable notion, it no longer is.)

The other side of this is that the states that have opted out of the Medicaid expansion are still paying into it. That’s what’s so crazy about the whole thing. The states that did not expand Medicaid are still paying a combined total of $20 billion in taxes for a program that they refuse to accept benefits from. This is in distinct opposition to how these people look at Social Security. Conservatives always justify taking the commie plot Social Security money under the rationale that they paid into it. And they are right! But here, no way.

Of course, we all know what’s really going on. The people don’t think in these terms. In fact, they wouldn’t even care about this issue if the party elites and Fox News hadn’t made such a big deal of the fact that Obamacare was the end of freedom as we know it. But these people don’t look at budgets. They don’t see that billions are going out for the program that they refuse to accept benefits from. But the Republican legislators and governors do. But they keep going with this because they are cowards and they’ve been trapped by their own “cunning” plans.

The good news is that numbers like these indicate the the red states will soon start taking the Medicaid money. We just have to wait until Obama is out of the White House. Then the conservatives will forget that they ever said he was born in Kenya. And they will forget that he was determined to destroy America. And, “Oh, look at all this money we’re throwing away; it just makes sense to get back money we are forced to send to the federal government!” And for the first time in a long time, these Republicans will be right.

I’m writing this before Hillary Clinton testifies before House Select Committee on Benghazi. I don’t expect anything to come from it. None of the Republicans actually want to hear what Clinton has to say, because they aren’t trying to figure out what happened in Benghazi in 2012. We already know this. They are, as usual, just trying to create a lot of smoke. And I’m with Brian Beutler that they will probably be pretty nice to her. At this point, they are more in damage control mode. But it hardly matters. The conservatives of this country are fanatical about this.

Last Wednesday, Crooks & Liars published, Fox News‘ Andrea Tantaros Has Conspiracy Laden Meltdown After Joe Biden Speech. It doesn’t have anything to do with Joe Biden, of course. It is just that it is always a good time to talk about Benghazi! Tantaros went on about a grand conspiracy in the White House and even in the Democratic presidential race (Bernie Sanders is in on it too!) to stop the truth about Clinton’s evil doings from getting out. She said, “They’re all singing on the same song sheet because they’re all in on it!” This is the thinking of the conspiracy mind. Never mind the facts or even any internal consistency.

Think about this. Why would the Democratic Party want to protect Hillary Clinton if she had some deep dark secret? The reason that Democrats love Hillary Clinton is actually not personal, except in the sense that she is a woman and we would all like to elect a woman president — all else being equal. But the main reason Democrats like Clinton is because we think she’s a strong candidate. If there was any indication that there were anything behind these allegations, she would lose almost all of her support. Most Democrats can find other candidates that they agree more with.

So what does Tantaros think is going on? That Hillary Clinton is a political time bomb? That the entire Democratic Party — including the people running against her — are willing to cover for her so she can get the nomination and then lose the general election to Donald Trump? That’s madness. What’s more, wouldn’t Joe Biden have already leaked information to sink Hillary Clinton’s campaign? And more important: wouldn’t he have been right to do so?! I have a lot of problems with the modern Democratic Party, but it is well managed. Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have become the star of the party if she had any of the baggage that the Republicans claim.

On the other hand, in terms of a political machine, the Republicans are a mess. This is why they allow this kind of stuff. Every time they take a wild swing at Clinton that misses, they look that much more ridiculous. And it makes their claims that much more difficult to accept. In the case of Tantaros, it is crystal clear: her problem is not with anything that Hillary Clinton ever did; her problem is with Hillary Clinton as a formidable presidential candidate. When you make Chris Wallace seem like a sage, you know you’ve gone on tilt.

Mark Thoma wrote a very insightful article over at The Fiscal Times, The Lofty Promise and Humble Reality of International Trade. Most of the article is about something I’ve written about a lot around here. Trade agreements may be great overall. But at least in the United States, the benefits have gone almost exclusively to those at the top. The claim is always that these are the job creators, but given that they just keep accumulating money, it is clear that they aren’t creating jobs. They are able to game the system for their own benefit. And a big part of that has been the The Job Creator Myth itself.

But Thoma mentioned something that I didn’t know. Apparently, economists see themselves as above the opinion game. That is, they have no opinion about the trade-offs of a particular policy. So if a policy will make everyone better off, then the field says it is good. But if it makes a whole bunch of people better off but a few people worse off, it has no opinion. This came as a bit of a shock to me, given how much economists push all kinds of policies that absolutely do have losers — often very large numbers of losers.

There are even phrases for this — things like “creative destruction” — an indication that they know capitalism is set up to create losers, but it’s okay because “in the long run” we are all dead everyone is better off. So how is it that economists are able to push policies that they know will cause harm? (I mean, other than by being the shameless hacks and lackeys for the rich!) Well, Thoma explained that:

That’s a hell of a loophole. By this, if a trade policy hurts millions of working Americans, that’s fine as long as it helps the rich by a greater amount. The fact that the gains could be distributed so that everyone is better off is all that matters. The fact that it literally never is doesn’t matter. That’s just details — nothing the economists need worry about! So they are able to push policies that could — in theory — be good for everyone, but are — in practice — only good for the rich. I’m finally starting to understand Greg Mankiw!

What I find fascinating about this is how much this is the way that libertarians think. For example, libertarians don’t believe in antitrust laws, because in theory a company with a monopoly could be open to another company coming in and winning market share. Of course in practice, that isn’t the way it works. But theory is all that libertarians care about. It’s bothersome that the economics profession uses the same kind of logic, which just so happens to give advantages to the power elite.

I find the whole thing upsetting, but it does explain why conservative economists can go around claiming that they they are just looking at the facts and yet be pushing for highly ideological policies. No wonder economics is such a screwed up discipline.

Paul Krugman highlighted a particular case of Republican silliness, Monetary Conspiracy Theories. Apparently, Donald Trump is now saying the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates low because it wants to make Obama look good. It’s almost funny. After all, raising interest rates is something that the Fed does in order to put people out of work. I wonder if Trump’s supporters know this? I realize they are mostly older people, but still. The implication is that raising interest rates is something that we should want to do. Donald Trump is as much a populist as I am a fascist.

Krugman’s point is that Trump may be crazy to think this, but back in 2010, Paul Ryan was arguing that “quantitative easing wasn’t a good-faith effort to support a weak economy, but an attempt to ‘bail out fiscal policy,’ preventing the fiscal crisis Obama’s policies were supposed to produce.” Same thing. But Paul Ryan isn’t just a moderate in the eyes of the mainstream press — he’s a super serious wonk! This isn’t just about monetary policy, of course. The entire Republican Party is crazy. They are all pushing the same nonsense. If you were a Republican voter, what would you want: a candidate who believed crazy things but spoke soft, or a candidate who believed crazy things and ranted about them? That’s not hard.

What we have here is a Republican base that is paying attention. There is nothing surprising about what they believe. What is shocking is that we have an establishment media that slices and dices the Republican Party. There is a clear narrative: there are crazies in the party, but it is at base a good old fashioned traditional political institution. There is no reason to believe this. They are basing their judgement on rhetoric, not policy. Trump yells about “illegals,” so he’s an extremist. Marco Rubio does not do this, so he’s a moderate. But the two men don’t actually disagree about immigration policy.

It’s clear enough what has happened. The Republican Party has pushed further and further to the right until they are all bunched up at the edge of the fascist cliff. So until they all decide to just take the plunge, the only thing Republican politicians can do is find more and more extreme ways to verbalize their displeasure.

But how did we get to this point? The media have just followed along, defining as acceptable political discourse anything that enough Republicans were shouting about. Supply side economics was always a crock. No non-partisan economist thought it would work. And after 35 years, it has failed to ever work. But will establishment reporters counter Republicans who spout this nonsense? Of course not! Allowing it has worked great for them these last decades; no reason to change now.

So let me reiterate. Republican base voters are making sense in being attracted to Donald Trump and Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. The “establishment” Republicans aren’t offering policies that appeal to reasoning, so all they are offering is crazy policy with boring rhetoric. The fact that the mainstream press can’t tell that the “establishment” and “extreme” candidates are offering the same policy is why we find ourselves with an insane Republican Party to begin with.