At first glance, this week's program seemed like your every Sunday, usual Meet The Press, but in actuality, this week was one of the more enlightening weeks, and it all points back to the Presidency of Barack Obama.
Today's program started with the antithesis of the President, and that is Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Governor Christie is what we would call a bull in a bull shop. Even though he occupies a room full of like minded animals, political animals, he still manages to stand out, knocking things and lesser bulls over at every turn. This is why so many find Mr. Christie an attractive Presidential candidate because he's willing to make a few small messes along the way to solving a bigger problem. To be clear, that's a commentary on his methodology, and not about the agenda behind it.
But it's the methodology that needs to be examined in terms of what President Obama is not doing. As the head of a state, you can afford to be more hands on, which was the tact of the criticism that Mr. Christie leveled against the President, that he hasn't been involved enough in these budget deals. "He needs to lead and bring the legislature to the table," paraphrasing Mr. Christie. David Brooks later described the President as the 'convener in chief,' as Mr. Obama searches for consensus on issues, but having surrogates in his stead, not personally being there.
It's an unfair criticism because unlike Governor Christie, President Obama has 49 other states to consider, and he does have the Vice President conducting the meetings. If you take the above criticisms of the President to heart, then it's actually better if Joe Biden is leading in this instance. Mr. Christie said he is a straight talker and that's what people respect, whether they agree with it or not, and in this instance it's better to ride with Mr. Biden's reputation. And we do mean this to be constructive criticism for the President.
In this column back in April (April 23rd, Take A Stand - http://meetthepressopinion.blogspot.com/2011/04/42311.html), we featured a clip of President Obama speaking at a fund raiser in a tone that more reflects the style that Mr. Christie spoke about. The public responds to this tone and Mr. Obama should employ it more, as President he is granted the bully pulpit - the title of biggest bull in the bull shop. Mr. Christie, for his efforts, has bad timing. When a constitute asks you why you don't send your kids to public school, and he retorts that it's none of her business, you can answer that with much better tact that doesn't come off defensive, which is a big negative. Leave it at - it's a private decision that my wife and I made. And it is amusing that Mr. Christie in one of his answers to Mr. Gregory said that when negotiating he doesn't demagogue the other side, no... just throw insults at them, which is what he does.
With regard to Governor Christie's policies, he's an east coast Republican, who represents a more moderate brand of the party where the Iowa Caucus is a loser, shown by the fact that Michelle Bachmann is now running neck in neck with Mitt Romney in the latest poll. Matt Bai and David Brooks, during the panel, made the plea that there are more moderates than people think. Mr. Christie said that New Jersey has civil union, but not same-sex marriage - that's Jersey. Most of the people in New Jersey would say, "Fine, don't call it marriage, but let these people have something. Civil Union, yeah whatever, who cares really? Live and let live." Mr. Christie doesn't seem to have an agenda that strays from that attitude. However, he also said that New Jersey is overtaxed, but comparatively to other states that's not true. New Jersey have the most millionaires per capita of populace in the country, and taxes are high, but have you ever lived in New Jersey? With the exception of town Elizabeth that smells of foul chemicals, it's underrated and the standard of living is quite high. (There, there's your freakin' plug New Jersey.)
But back to the President. Mr. Obama does seem to have a pattern of doing things behind closed doors and then sharing the results once the negotiations or the mission are over instead of debating the issues out in and with the public more. Matt Bai, from the New York Times Magazine, gave a key concise analysis in that when negotiating without public scrutiny, it emboldens everyone's positions in the room, where they may not in fact have public support for that position.
The obvious case in point here is Libya, where by all measure of the media, it seems the Administration didn't consult with anyone before making these decisions, nor did they go to Congress after 60 days of involvement in line with the War Powers act. Senator Reed (D-RI) said as much during today's interview. Not what we expected from this Administration, but then again blame on this can only go so far as Congress recently voted against the President's actions but then voted to keep the funding going, which just proves that they can't make a decision.
Senator Webb said that the Administration went to the UN Security Council and they voted for the action, but Russian, China, and Germany we among the ones who abstained from the vote. But as we said before, Libya is a case of the good and bad that go along with treaties, namely the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With that said, this column's opinion on ground troops is that they are not an option because what that leads to is some sort of permanent presence there, which is unjustified.
In Afghanistan, Senator Reed said that he felt the level and pace of the troop withdrawal was appropriate and something he supports. Senator Webb seemed to indicate that he wanted a faster withdrawal but wasn't definitive. With 99,000 troops in country at this moment, by this time next year, a third will be withdrawn. We would have liked to have seen at least half by next September, but if we're to acquiesce to the Administration's number, then there needs to be more public debate on how the political process in Afghanistan is shaping up - there needs to be a clear diplomatic plan in place along with the withdrawal.
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One more thing - What we found worrisome was a comment made by Senator Webb, he said that by being over-engaged in Middle East affairs, we're "approaching a Munich moment with China." Honestly, we're not sure what that means exactly. '72 Munich? We'll get back to you on that one, but it didn't sound good. Unless he's referring to China gearing up its military for action with Taiwan, which could be truly catastrophic for America.
Round Table - BBC's Katty Kay, The New York Times Magazine's Matt Bai, and New York Times Columnist David Brooks.
Presidential Politics Update: Katty Kay said that Sarah Palin's position looks less strong for a Presidential run, so here's our quick take on Ms. Palin. If she enters the race at all, it will be late in the game, but that will be too late. It will cause the media storm that she'll want, but ultimately no nomination. And that's if it even gets to that, and we think that it won't. Sarah Palin will not run for President. Right now she's back in Alaska trying to figure out a way of staying relevant without having to do the heavy lifting of campaigning, let's not even presume governing at this point. She'll keep testing the waters, but Michelle Bachmann has taken all of Ms. Palin's thunder, filed down those Mama Grizzly claws a bit so we're predicting she's not in.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
6.19.11: So Are We Greece?
Chuck Todd, during today's round table, said that the American people just want to see the Congress do something on the economy replacing the endless gridlock we seem to be having. And everyone realizes that we have to do something and as Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) urged, we have to put everything on the table, to which his counterpart on the right, Senator Lindsey Graham, stated that Republicans are not going to vote on raising taxes. This means, in fact, that everything is not on the table.
Never raising taxes, as we've said in this column numerous times, is an unrealistic position if this country is to ever be genuinely serious about solving our budget problems. However, and there's a big however, Mr. Graham did say that we should end the oil subsidies being doled out by the government to the giant oil companies. In Grover Norquist's world, this is considered a tax hike and is unacceptable. In a reasonable person's world, it's a handout from the government to entities that don't need the assist.
By the way, the ending oil subsidies idea came from Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) standing up with common sense against Mr. Norquist's influence and since Mr. Coburn jumped this fence, we've seen other Republican politicians follow. If this is the way in which we have to tackle our country's revenue intake problem, then at least it's something and a start.
With regard to cuts, we side with Mr. Durbin in that Medicare is a basic promise that the U.S. Government (our politicians) have made to the American people. Medicare is something that by paying taxes we pay into. To cut the benefits later that we pay for now, it literally taking money from us for nothing in return.
At this point, Mr. Gregory asked both Senators if we were headed in the direction of Greece, whose government has made what he termed draconian cuts, which has sparked civil unrest in that country. Both politicians said no, and Mr. Graham pointed out that the 2010 mid-term election was a referendum on spending and the deficit, which was to say that the American people want severe cuts in spending of the Republican variety therefore no civil unrest. As we've previous discussed in this column, the Republicans have misinterpreted the result of this election since the results came in.
But as we know now, the Republicans have in most people's estimation, overreached with the Ryan budget and on local points of scale. For example, in Wisconsin, where Governor Walker stripped union collective bargaining rights. However, soon the people could view what's going on through this prism - the Democrats are ineffectual and the Republicans aren't considering the true human cost of their actions, and so where does that leave us?
Major shifts in spending have to happen for this country to become solvent, and Republicans haven't faced the truth of that. On the other hand, Democrats do not have the necessary unity within the party to fight with a solid voice to re-prioritize where the dollars go.
Right now, many members of Congress are deciding one place where they don't want the dollars to go and that place is to the military effort in Libya. And though this is a North African country, we're all over the map with this place. Politicians from both parties are calling for defunding the NATO effort, and cite the War Powers Act as the reason - the 60-day time limit for the President to act unilaterally has passed and Congress wants answers.
Today, Mr. Graham said that the War Powers Act isn't worth the paper it's print on and that the President should in fact step up his game in Libya. Chuck Todd, during the panel, said that the President did not do his due diligence in telling members of Congress his reasoning on our actions in that country, and that is definitely a mistake. But the conundrum with Libya is that this action is part of a NATO operation, and in that we may have to do things we don't necessarily want to, just as it was correctly pointed out during the panel that we asked our NATO ally Italy to participate in our was in Iraq, which that country did not want to do, but did.
[Aside: In the phrasing of that last sentence, we said "war in Iraq," not war with Iraq. We have three wars going on, and we're at war with no country, just in countries. In WWII we were at war with Germany and Japan, but how times have changed in a more disturbing direction. Using maximum war power force in countries who we're not technically at war with creates a climate of the U.S. at will going into sovereign countries and using military force. This is happening now and if the roles were reversed in some way, where a country arbitrarily came into this country and started shooting things up, how do you think people would react. A bad long-term trend is what we're on here.]
Now, Mr. Gregory pointed out that NATO isn't working in the case of Libya, about which he is correct, but that's most likely because the U.S. hasn't taken the lead and the President with two other wars on his plate, is hesitant to take the lead on this deferring to our NATO allies, who aren't doing a good job. This is probably because they are now so used to the United States doing the heavy lifting that now that they're asked to do it, they're not quite prepared.
Senator Graham continued by saying that he wanted to see U.S. air power back into the mix, a view that is shared by Senator John McCain (R-AZ). There is no question that Republican Senators would like to see Col. Quadafi out of the picture. As pointed out during the panel, Libya is not going well for NATO, but the United States will kill NATO if it doesn't support this action, which brings us to Robert Gates' citation that the Republicans in particular do not have consensus on the United States' role in the world. It makes us think of leading by example, which the United States certainly does not do, we're more like do as I say, not as I do, at least right now we are.
And the news maker for the day was when Senator Graham warned Republican candidates that if they try to go left of President Obama on Afghanistan, Libya, or Iraq, that that position will certainly be a loser because that's not a Republican position. But the Republican candidates seemed more in an isolationist stance collectively on Monday night's debate.
Former Governor Romney said that only the Afghanis can win their freedom, to which Richard Engel, making a rare stateside appearance said that if you're going to make decisions on foreign policy, you better know that the people are Afghans and the currency is Afghani. The fact is that the Republican candidates don't care about such details. But Mr. Romney has shown that he'll say anything as long as it is politically expedient and that's why people aren't really excited by his candidacy - this from the solid front runner as Mr. Todd termed him.
Getting back to the macro look for a moment, Richard Engel called Secretary Gates' statement on one of his reasons for retiring chilling. And if you think about it, it is in fact very disconcerting what Mr. Gates said, which was that because of our economy, we do not have the ability to lead the world and that he didn't want to be part of that. In other words, our longest tenured Secretary of Defense doesn't want to represent us, our military, around the world because we can not get our shit together here at home.
And speaking of which, it was very helpful to have Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa from Los Angeles on the program because he does have his finger on the pulse of what cities face, and it all starts with our cities. He posed the proposition that if we had the $126 billion that we spend on the war in Afghanistan for domestic purpose, think what we could do, given the local budget crises we have around the country. His perspective was grounding and should be noted - he said that when Washington is focused on scandal, it feels like that city is coming from another planet. He also pointed out that Washington politicians contemplating defaulting on our debt do not have any idea what that would do to the economy, where we interpreted as 'local economies and people's pocketbooks.'
Given the content above, are we Greece as we posed in the title of this week's column. The answer is no, but we're more going the way of Brasil. In Brasil, there are many nice houses and apartments and living standards for a segment of the population are quite good. But after the churrasco and capirinhas, take a walk to the edge of the lush property, look across the street and down the hill, and what do you see? Shanties for a mile. A little over-dramatization? We'll concede, but at least Brasil is trying to move away from this direction instead of moving toward it.
Round Table: President-elect of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Antonio Villaraigosa, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor Paul Gigot, Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel and NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd
Presidential Politics:
On today's show as per usual, there was the discussion of Presidential candidates, most notably Former Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, and current Texas Governor, Rick Perry. In terms of what was discussed today, here's our quick take.
Tim Pawlenty during Monday's debate backed away from his 'Obamneycare' when face to face with Governor Romney himself. Plain and simple, Mr. Pawlenty wimped out, and then admitted as much in the days following. Here it is - he's done, no shot at winning - contributing to his campaign is wasting your money. America doesn't elect wimps, period.
With regard to Rick Perry, it seems that pundit and media land are salivating for him to get in the race. If Mr. Perry does decide to get in the race, he would get a huge push and would look great for a longer period of time than the others running now, but Mr. Perry has too many flaws. One is beyond his control, which is Texas fatigue - social conservative politicians from Texas are not the desired flavor of the Buck Country wealthy Republicans of the northeast as Ms. Godwin pointed out. Secondly, Mr. Perry has his August 6th National Day of Prayer coming up. We find this notion of mixing religion and politics so closely as Mr. Perry is doing, is in direction contradiction to the United States Constitution and frankly, we find that a little scary. We point out Iran's religious dogmatic approach to world relations so why do we want to go there? One religion is better than the other? In the end, Mr. Perry has some extreme views that will cause a potential candidacy to be unsuccessful - such as suggesting at one point that Texas secede from the Union. To reference Bill Maher, you can't run the United States, if you don't believe in the 'united' part.
Never raising taxes, as we've said in this column numerous times, is an unrealistic position if this country is to ever be genuinely serious about solving our budget problems. However, and there's a big however, Mr. Graham did say that we should end the oil subsidies being doled out by the government to the giant oil companies. In Grover Norquist's world, this is considered a tax hike and is unacceptable. In a reasonable person's world, it's a handout from the government to entities that don't need the assist.
By the way, the ending oil subsidies idea came from Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) standing up with common sense against Mr. Norquist's influence and since Mr. Coburn jumped this fence, we've seen other Republican politicians follow. If this is the way in which we have to tackle our country's revenue intake problem, then at least it's something and a start.
With regard to cuts, we side with Mr. Durbin in that Medicare is a basic promise that the U.S. Government (our politicians) have made to the American people. Medicare is something that by paying taxes we pay into. To cut the benefits later that we pay for now, it literally taking money from us for nothing in return.
At this point, Mr. Gregory asked both Senators if we were headed in the direction of Greece, whose government has made what he termed draconian cuts, which has sparked civil unrest in that country. Both politicians said no, and Mr. Graham pointed out that the 2010 mid-term election was a referendum on spending and the deficit, which was to say that the American people want severe cuts in spending of the Republican variety therefore no civil unrest. As we've previous discussed in this column, the Republicans have misinterpreted the result of this election since the results came in.
But as we know now, the Republicans have in most people's estimation, overreached with the Ryan budget and on local points of scale. For example, in Wisconsin, where Governor Walker stripped union collective bargaining rights. However, soon the people could view what's going on through this prism - the Democrats are ineffectual and the Republicans aren't considering the true human cost of their actions, and so where does that leave us?
Major shifts in spending have to happen for this country to become solvent, and Republicans haven't faced the truth of that. On the other hand, Democrats do not have the necessary unity within the party to fight with a solid voice to re-prioritize where the dollars go.
Right now, many members of Congress are deciding one place where they don't want the dollars to go and that place is to the military effort in Libya. And though this is a North African country, we're all over the map with this place. Politicians from both parties are calling for defunding the NATO effort, and cite the War Powers Act as the reason - the 60-day time limit for the President to act unilaterally has passed and Congress wants answers.
Today, Mr. Graham said that the War Powers Act isn't worth the paper it's print on and that the President should in fact step up his game in Libya. Chuck Todd, during the panel, said that the President did not do his due diligence in telling members of Congress his reasoning on our actions in that country, and that is definitely a mistake. But the conundrum with Libya is that this action is part of a NATO operation, and in that we may have to do things we don't necessarily want to, just as it was correctly pointed out during the panel that we asked our NATO ally Italy to participate in our was in Iraq, which that country did not want to do, but did.
[Aside: In the phrasing of that last sentence, we said "war in Iraq," not war with Iraq. We have three wars going on, and we're at war with no country, just in countries. In WWII we were at war with Germany and Japan, but how times have changed in a more disturbing direction. Using maximum war power force in countries who we're not technically at war with creates a climate of the U.S. at will going into sovereign countries and using military force. This is happening now and if the roles were reversed in some way, where a country arbitrarily came into this country and started shooting things up, how do you think people would react. A bad long-term trend is what we're on here.]
Now, Mr. Gregory pointed out that NATO isn't working in the case of Libya, about which he is correct, but that's most likely because the U.S. hasn't taken the lead and the President with two other wars on his plate, is hesitant to take the lead on this deferring to our NATO allies, who aren't doing a good job. This is probably because they are now so used to the United States doing the heavy lifting that now that they're asked to do it, they're not quite prepared.
Senator Graham continued by saying that he wanted to see U.S. air power back into the mix, a view that is shared by Senator John McCain (R-AZ). There is no question that Republican Senators would like to see Col. Quadafi out of the picture. As pointed out during the panel, Libya is not going well for NATO, but the United States will kill NATO if it doesn't support this action, which brings us to Robert Gates' citation that the Republicans in particular do not have consensus on the United States' role in the world. It makes us think of leading by example, which the United States certainly does not do, we're more like do as I say, not as I do, at least right now we are.
And the news maker for the day was when Senator Graham warned Republican candidates that if they try to go left of President Obama on Afghanistan, Libya, or Iraq, that that position will certainly be a loser because that's not a Republican position. But the Republican candidates seemed more in an isolationist stance collectively on Monday night's debate.
Former Governor Romney said that only the Afghanis can win their freedom, to which Richard Engel, making a rare stateside appearance said that if you're going to make decisions on foreign policy, you better know that the people are Afghans and the currency is Afghani. The fact is that the Republican candidates don't care about such details. But Mr. Romney has shown that he'll say anything as long as it is politically expedient and that's why people aren't really excited by his candidacy - this from the solid front runner as Mr. Todd termed him.
Getting back to the macro look for a moment, Richard Engel called Secretary Gates' statement on one of his reasons for retiring chilling. And if you think about it, it is in fact very disconcerting what Mr. Gates said, which was that because of our economy, we do not have the ability to lead the world and that he didn't want to be part of that. In other words, our longest tenured Secretary of Defense doesn't want to represent us, our military, around the world because we can not get our shit together here at home.
And speaking of which, it was very helpful to have Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa from Los Angeles on the program because he does have his finger on the pulse of what cities face, and it all starts with our cities. He posed the proposition that if we had the $126 billion that we spend on the war in Afghanistan for domestic purpose, think what we could do, given the local budget crises we have around the country. His perspective was grounding and should be noted - he said that when Washington is focused on scandal, it feels like that city is coming from another planet. He also pointed out that Washington politicians contemplating defaulting on our debt do not have any idea what that would do to the economy, where we interpreted as 'local economies and people's pocketbooks.'
Given the content above, are we Greece as we posed in the title of this week's column. The answer is no, but we're more going the way of Brasil. In Brasil, there are many nice houses and apartments and living standards for a segment of the population are quite good. But after the churrasco and capirinhas, take a walk to the edge of the lush property, look across the street and down the hill, and what do you see? Shanties for a mile. A little over-dramatization? We'll concede, but at least Brasil is trying to move away from this direction instead of moving toward it.
Round Table: President-elect of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Antonio Villaraigosa, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor Paul Gigot, Presidential Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel and NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd
Presidential Politics:
On today's show as per usual, there was the discussion of Presidential candidates, most notably Former Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, and current Texas Governor, Rick Perry. In terms of what was discussed today, here's our quick take.
Tim Pawlenty during Monday's debate backed away from his 'Obamneycare' when face to face with Governor Romney himself. Plain and simple, Mr. Pawlenty wimped out, and then admitted as much in the days following. Here it is - he's done, no shot at winning - contributing to his campaign is wasting your money. America doesn't elect wimps, period.
With regard to Rick Perry, it seems that pundit and media land are salivating for him to get in the race. If Mr. Perry does decide to get in the race, he would get a huge push and would look great for a longer period of time than the others running now, but Mr. Perry has too many flaws. One is beyond his control, which is Texas fatigue - social conservative politicians from Texas are not the desired flavor of the Buck Country wealthy Republicans of the northeast as Ms. Godwin pointed out. Secondly, Mr. Perry has his August 6th National Day of Prayer coming up. We find this notion of mixing religion and politics so closely as Mr. Perry is doing, is in direction contradiction to the United States Constitution and frankly, we find that a little scary. We point out Iran's religious dogmatic approach to world relations so why do we want to go there? One religion is better than the other? In the end, Mr. Perry has some extreme views that will cause a potential candidacy to be unsuccessful - such as suggesting at one point that Texas secede from the Union. To reference Bill Maher, you can't run the United States, if you don't believe in the 'united' part.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
6.12.11: Red Meat
Yes, we realize given most of the political talk this last week that this week's title is a little dubious, but rest assured it's more benign than you would originally assume. But it's apt given the debate in the opening part of today's program between the new DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and RNC Chair Reince Priebus.
The discussion lead off with what the respective players thought on the ultimate fate of Anthony Weiner. The newsworthiness of which is that Ms. Schultz said that even though he needs to resign, it is ultimately up to the Congressman. Mr. Priebus, on the other hand, has called Mr. Weiner a creep on several occasions this week, but deferred from that term on Meet The Press. He said that Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, didn't call for his resignation. However, that's completely false. Once she learned of his lying, she called for him to resign and an ethics investigation to start. Her position has been very clear. But it's the scandal in and of itself that Mr. Priebus wants people to focus on - the red meat, that Democrats are creeps. The reason is that the Republicans, who are focusing on the economy and which we'll get to shortly, don't have popular platforms to run on. Mr. Ryan's budget proposal changes Medicare to the dislike of most all seniors and now Social Security, which Rick Santorum, former Senator (R-PA), spoke about later on today's program.
Yet, when Ms. Schultz brought up the case of David Vitter, the Louisiana Senator who hired prostitutes and was not called on by any Republicans to resign, Mr. Priebus dismissed it as an old case. Republicans do not answer well, as Mr. Priebus couldn't today, to the double standard obviously at play, but what we have in the present needs to be dealt with. Richard Wolffe, during the round table put it best in questioning, "How can he be at all effective with that level of embarrassment?" And how it will be dealt with, given this weekend's announcement by Mr. Weiner that he'll be taking leave, is something they touched on in the round table as well, which is redistricting. And yes, probably while he's on leave, the Congressman will be redistricted out so that the story will in effect go away.
And for the record, this column hasn't weighed in either way on whether or not Mr. Weiner should resign, but make no mistake that we've gone back and forth about it, weighing heavily. The conclusion, to which we've come and we believe is the right thing is to not make a call on it. What would a call like that from this column do? Nothing, it would have no effect so there's no reason. However, if it turns out that Mr. Weiner may have broken the law in some way, then he should definitely resign - no one is above.... well... (let's not go there.)
As we mentioned above, another large part of the Republican's Atkins diet is the economy, in which Mr. Gregory pointed out that unemployment, debt, and gasoline prices are all up significantly since Mr. Obama took office, whose disapproval rating on the economy is at a bulging 59%, a downright ugly number. Mr. Priebus lead with the loss of 2 million jobs since Mr. Obama took office in his rhetoric. Conversely, Ms. Schultz lead with "we've (Democrats) have turned the economy around."
To which the response is that they're both wrong. The Democrats haven't turned the economy around and we saw today that when Ms. Schultz said it, she reacted to want to pull that one back a bit. It is true however that Mr. Obama's actions saved this country some catastrophic economy pain, actions which Republicans criticize. As for the 2 million lost jobs, those were all lost in the first months of Mr. Obama taking office, a residual effect of the last Administration so laying that at the feet of President Obama is wrong and frankly a weak argument considering that there has been job growth, though modest, for the last 15 months. But it sounds great to the Republican base - it plays as a reassuring fact that Democrats aren't good for the economy and that Republican politicians can do better.
However, when Mr. Gregory asked about a specific proposal that should come from the Republican-controlled House, Mr. Priebus offered small business tax cuts. What is so frustrating about this is 1) Republicans have no other solutions other than tax cuts, 2) the Democrats since Mr. Obama has been in office have passed many tax cut bills for small business already, and 3) over the past 30 years tax cuts have never lead to any sort of respectable job growth in this country - a statistical fact. Small business tax cuts just equal to more roast beef on the plate.
This is all not to mention that Mr. Priebus was on the attack, in a hyperbolic degree, looking up to make the argument, which is body language that speaks of an inherently weak position. Speaking of weak positions, we feel that Mr. Gregory missed a big opportunity during this debate, which was to ask, Mr. Priebus in particular, about the staunch Republican support, all but 4 Senators, for the Paul Ryan budget plan, which would change Medicare in a way that it would be controlled by private insurance companies. Given this, Mr. Priebus is correct when he said that the President has a tough 'road to hoe,' as a CBS poll indicates that he's running even with Mitt Romney, 47% a piece.
Given that, as head of the Republican party, we would have liked to have heard from the chairman himself, as the party defends that when so much of the American populace is against it. For this column, this is a required answer. Another requirement answer is on what to do with Social Security, which leads us to the Rick Santorum interview.
Mr. Santorum described himself and Jim DeMint (R-SC) as Senators running up the Hill to spearhead Social Security reform when then President Bush called for it. The basic premise of which, if you remember, was to put Social Security into private investment firms. The American public was against it and were then proven right when the market and economy taken in September of 2008. Most would have been wiped out. This was the reason Mr. Santorum lost his Senate reelection by 17 points, however, today he turned it into a positive... and he almost made the argument.
He said that we should change Social Security from a wage-based pay system to a price-based system. He continued by saying that when he asked seniors, they would say that they want to be able to cover their cost of living and that by changing the system in this way would save money. Now, we're not experts here but this is our take on that. By moving the system away from a wage-based system, as Mr. Santorum says it is now, would save money by reducing the Social Security benefit to everyone. In a priced-based system, if prices go down so will benefits even if wages stay the same or go up. It leaves no leeway for a senior to have any extra money on hand or any disposable income of significance for basics outside of food, rental, and utilities. It seems to us that when Mr. Santorum asked the question, frankly, seniors didn't understand what he meant or he's twisting the answer to fit his rhetoric. We're not sure.
Mr. Santorum stands by some troubling convictions like that the President doesn't believe in Americans and is... his words... centralizing power in Washington - he uses health care as the example. He explained that Mr. Obama doesn't believe that Americans can make their own choices with regard to health care. This is the Republican rhetoric for their argument to put control of Medicare in private insurance company hands. It's a false argument, but as we said, Mr. Santorum takes the tact that somehow the President of the United States is against the American people - the "he's not one of us" argument.
Mr. Santorum said his loss did not come at the expense of his principles, which he believes are right for all Americans, and that he showed leadership in going down the way he did. Republican strategist, Mike Murphy, during the round table said that he could see Mr. Santorum's realistic path to the nomination citing name recognition and eluding that even though his extremely social conservative views will play well in Iowa, nationally they wouldn't play well.
On the economy, Mr. Santorum that corporate tax rates should be lowered so that major American companies bring back the trillion dollars in assets from oversees. Aside from making our point again about Republicans and tax cuts, whose to say that those companies will bring back the money. If there's no demand here for that investment then why would those companies make it. For that to happen, Republicans would have to legislate their way to lower overall wages for the American middle class for the jobs to come back in the way they think they will. He talked about maufacturing and the need to rebuilt the sector of our economy, how he used to pass the steel mills and smell the smoke and that said to him that people were working. Was it here that Mr. Santorum made a controversial statement? He said that we don't want the smoke anymore, but we want the people working. Mr. Santorum, why do we not want the smoke anymore if you believe that climate change is in no way caused by human activity. If it isn't then the smoke doesn't matter, correct? He needs to clarify that for us. But to be fair to Mr. Santorum on the economy, he did say that he would be coming out with a more comprehensive plan soon. However, there are some positions of his that are complete fringe, and frankly, stupid.
Mr. Santorum said himself that he believes that life begins at conception, when two cells collide (our positional interjection), and that under the Constitution that life should be protected, even in the case of rape or incest. Furthermore, doctors should be criminally charged for performing an abortion. Who is Mr. Santorum to make these judgements, which are solely based on a belief, a belief as an American, that we don't have to share. Mr. Santorum is completely outside the mainstream and also, this position goes against Republican libertarian thinking, and democratic (small d) thinking in that it dictates that one person has control over another person's body. Mr. Santorum knows what's right for a woman's body and mind... hardly.
The other troubling position is his philosophical opposition to public schooling, but not just that, but the entire premise of school children collectively getting together to learn in favor of home schooling. He said that children going to a place for eight hours to interact with children the same age isn't natural and not how the world works. This is insane thinking - it's exactly how the world works. People interact best mostly with other people their own age. How the world works is that everyone has different opinions, cultural traditions, races, religions, et al. and being home schooled, how is an individual supposed to interact in the world without any exposure to things outside the comfort zone? You can not - it's ultimate not healthy for the individual.
Please... Mr. Santorum speaks well and declarative on his positions, but his are the type that the founding fathers (We're purposely throwing this out there to prove a point.) sought to free themselves from.
Round table: Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D), GOP strategist Mike Murphy, MSNBC's Richard Wolffe, and the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel.
The discussion lead off with what the respective players thought on the ultimate fate of Anthony Weiner. The newsworthiness of which is that Ms. Schultz said that even though he needs to resign, it is ultimately up to the Congressman. Mr. Priebus, on the other hand, has called Mr. Weiner a creep on several occasions this week, but deferred from that term on Meet The Press. He said that Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, didn't call for his resignation. However, that's completely false. Once she learned of his lying, she called for him to resign and an ethics investigation to start. Her position has been very clear. But it's the scandal in and of itself that Mr. Priebus wants people to focus on - the red meat, that Democrats are creeps. The reason is that the Republicans, who are focusing on the economy and which we'll get to shortly, don't have popular platforms to run on. Mr. Ryan's budget proposal changes Medicare to the dislike of most all seniors and now Social Security, which Rick Santorum, former Senator (R-PA), spoke about later on today's program.
Yet, when Ms. Schultz brought up the case of David Vitter, the Louisiana Senator who hired prostitutes and was not called on by any Republicans to resign, Mr. Priebus dismissed it as an old case. Republicans do not answer well, as Mr. Priebus couldn't today, to the double standard obviously at play, but what we have in the present needs to be dealt with. Richard Wolffe, during the round table put it best in questioning, "How can he be at all effective with that level of embarrassment?" And how it will be dealt with, given this weekend's announcement by Mr. Weiner that he'll be taking leave, is something they touched on in the round table as well, which is redistricting. And yes, probably while he's on leave, the Congressman will be redistricted out so that the story will in effect go away.
And for the record, this column hasn't weighed in either way on whether or not Mr. Weiner should resign, but make no mistake that we've gone back and forth about it, weighing heavily. The conclusion, to which we've come and we believe is the right thing is to not make a call on it. What would a call like that from this column do? Nothing, it would have no effect so there's no reason. However, if it turns out that Mr. Weiner may have broken the law in some way, then he should definitely resign - no one is above.... well... (let's not go there.)
As we mentioned above, another large part of the Republican's Atkins diet is the economy, in which Mr. Gregory pointed out that unemployment, debt, and gasoline prices are all up significantly since Mr. Obama took office, whose disapproval rating on the economy is at a bulging 59%, a downright ugly number. Mr. Priebus lead with the loss of 2 million jobs since Mr. Obama took office in his rhetoric. Conversely, Ms. Schultz lead with "we've (Democrats) have turned the economy around."
To which the response is that they're both wrong. The Democrats haven't turned the economy around and we saw today that when Ms. Schultz said it, she reacted to want to pull that one back a bit. It is true however that Mr. Obama's actions saved this country some catastrophic economy pain, actions which Republicans criticize. As for the 2 million lost jobs, those were all lost in the first months of Mr. Obama taking office, a residual effect of the last Administration so laying that at the feet of President Obama is wrong and frankly a weak argument considering that there has been job growth, though modest, for the last 15 months. But it sounds great to the Republican base - it plays as a reassuring fact that Democrats aren't good for the economy and that Republican politicians can do better.
However, when Mr. Gregory asked about a specific proposal that should come from the Republican-controlled House, Mr. Priebus offered small business tax cuts. What is so frustrating about this is 1) Republicans have no other solutions other than tax cuts, 2) the Democrats since Mr. Obama has been in office have passed many tax cut bills for small business already, and 3) over the past 30 years tax cuts have never lead to any sort of respectable job growth in this country - a statistical fact. Small business tax cuts just equal to more roast beef on the plate.
This is all not to mention that Mr. Priebus was on the attack, in a hyperbolic degree, looking up to make the argument, which is body language that speaks of an inherently weak position. Speaking of weak positions, we feel that Mr. Gregory missed a big opportunity during this debate, which was to ask, Mr. Priebus in particular, about the staunch Republican support, all but 4 Senators, for the Paul Ryan budget plan, which would change Medicare in a way that it would be controlled by private insurance companies. Given this, Mr. Priebus is correct when he said that the President has a tough 'road to hoe,' as a CBS poll indicates that he's running even with Mitt Romney, 47% a piece.
Given that, as head of the Republican party, we would have liked to have heard from the chairman himself, as the party defends that when so much of the American populace is against it. For this column, this is a required answer. Another requirement answer is on what to do with Social Security, which leads us to the Rick Santorum interview.
Mr. Santorum described himself and Jim DeMint (R-SC) as Senators running up the Hill to spearhead Social Security reform when then President Bush called for it. The basic premise of which, if you remember, was to put Social Security into private investment firms. The American public was against it and were then proven right when the market and economy taken in September of 2008. Most would have been wiped out. This was the reason Mr. Santorum lost his Senate reelection by 17 points, however, today he turned it into a positive... and he almost made the argument.
He said that we should change Social Security from a wage-based pay system to a price-based system. He continued by saying that when he asked seniors, they would say that they want to be able to cover their cost of living and that by changing the system in this way would save money. Now, we're not experts here but this is our take on that. By moving the system away from a wage-based system, as Mr. Santorum says it is now, would save money by reducing the Social Security benefit to everyone. In a priced-based system, if prices go down so will benefits even if wages stay the same or go up. It leaves no leeway for a senior to have any extra money on hand or any disposable income of significance for basics outside of food, rental, and utilities. It seems to us that when Mr. Santorum asked the question, frankly, seniors didn't understand what he meant or he's twisting the answer to fit his rhetoric. We're not sure.
Mr. Santorum stands by some troubling convictions like that the President doesn't believe in Americans and is... his words... centralizing power in Washington - he uses health care as the example. He explained that Mr. Obama doesn't believe that Americans can make their own choices with regard to health care. This is the Republican rhetoric for their argument to put control of Medicare in private insurance company hands. It's a false argument, but as we said, Mr. Santorum takes the tact that somehow the President of the United States is against the American people - the "he's not one of us" argument.
Mr. Santorum said his loss did not come at the expense of his principles, which he believes are right for all Americans, and that he showed leadership in going down the way he did. Republican strategist, Mike Murphy, during the round table said that he could see Mr. Santorum's realistic path to the nomination citing name recognition and eluding that even though his extremely social conservative views will play well in Iowa, nationally they wouldn't play well.
On the economy, Mr. Santorum that corporate tax rates should be lowered so that major American companies bring back the trillion dollars in assets from oversees. Aside from making our point again about Republicans and tax cuts, whose to say that those companies will bring back the money. If there's no demand here for that investment then why would those companies make it. For that to happen, Republicans would have to legislate their way to lower overall wages for the American middle class for the jobs to come back in the way they think they will. He talked about maufacturing and the need to rebuilt the sector of our economy, how he used to pass the steel mills and smell the smoke and that said to him that people were working. Was it here that Mr. Santorum made a controversial statement? He said that we don't want the smoke anymore, but we want the people working. Mr. Santorum, why do we not want the smoke anymore if you believe that climate change is in no way caused by human activity. If it isn't then the smoke doesn't matter, correct? He needs to clarify that for us. But to be fair to Mr. Santorum on the economy, he did say that he would be coming out with a more comprehensive plan soon. However, there are some positions of his that are complete fringe, and frankly, stupid.
Mr. Santorum said himself that he believes that life begins at conception, when two cells collide (our positional interjection), and that under the Constitution that life should be protected, even in the case of rape or incest. Furthermore, doctors should be criminally charged for performing an abortion. Who is Mr. Santorum to make these judgements, which are solely based on a belief, a belief as an American, that we don't have to share. Mr. Santorum is completely outside the mainstream and also, this position goes against Republican libertarian thinking, and democratic (small d) thinking in that it dictates that one person has control over another person's body. Mr. Santorum knows what's right for a woman's body and mind... hardly.
The other troubling position is his philosophical opposition to public schooling, but not just that, but the entire premise of school children collectively getting together to learn in favor of home schooling. He said that children going to a place for eight hours to interact with children the same age isn't natural and not how the world works. This is insane thinking - it's exactly how the world works. People interact best mostly with other people their own age. How the world works is that everyone has different opinions, cultural traditions, races, religions, et al. and being home schooled, how is an individual supposed to interact in the world without any exposure to things outside the comfort zone? You can not - it's ultimate not healthy for the individual.
Please... Mr. Santorum speaks well and declarative on his positions, but his are the type that the founding fathers (We're purposely throwing this out there to prove a point.) sought to free themselves from.
Round table: Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D), GOP strategist Mike Murphy, MSNBC's Richard Wolffe, and the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel.
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