Charles Pierce must be off his meds because he’s in one of those brilliant manic phases right now. His lastest post on David Brooks and his Irish setter, Moral Hazard is deadly funny. And today, he posted his assessment of the Republican budget plan and the Democratic side of the aisle’s response. Basically, the Republicans are doing a Haka, demonstrating just how berserked with battle lust they are so that the other side is completely freaked out. Judging by the reactions I’m reading, it’s working. But Charles says it so much better:
Consider the new budget proposed by zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan. We had our say about it yesterday. So did practically everyone else. It is a blueprint for dystopia beyond anything concocted by Dickens. It is a perfectly fine budget, if you’re planning to recreate the golden age of the industrial slum. It should not be taken seriously by any journalist who is conscious and not a hack. Paul Ryan himself should be shuffled off to the back of the call-back lists wherein reside the UFO enthusiasts and the actual liberals. (This, of course, will never happen. Paul Ryan is a serious man of ideas while Bernie Sanders, say, is “extreme.”) However, it looks like the monkeyhouse is preparing to pass this mess. But I call your attention to one passage in the story.
There are people on the Republican side of the House who believe that a budget that would virtually decimate the federal government’s constitutional obligation to promote the general welfare doesn’t go far enough in making the lives of the nation’s poor as miserable as possible, and doesn’t go far enough in eviscerating the middle class, and doesn’t go far enough in permanently fastening onto the political commonwealth an income inequality incompatible with effective self-government. The passage:
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a conservative member of Ryan’s Budget Committee, said he would vote against the plan, saying it broke the GOP’s “Pledge to America” and did not cut spending deeply enough. Huelskamp voted for the Ryan budget in 2011. “It’s not good enough,” he said during an appearance with six other conservatives at an event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.Huelskamp said he was troubled by a lack of specificity on tax reform and the budget’s failure, in his view, to hold to spending levels that will be lower because of $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts set to take effect next year.The half-dozen other members of the Heritage panel said they were undecided on the budget resolution.Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) criticized the proposal for not cutting spending at the levels promised in the 2010 Pledge to America.“I’m not sure if I’m going to vote for it or not,” Gohmert said. “I appreciate so much the great work of Paul Ryan, but we took a pledge a year and a half ago, and we said we would cut more than is being cut. So that’s my struggle.
These people belong in a cage.
Hypergraphia is my muse but it looks like she has graced Charles with abundance this week.
Filed under: General | Tagged: charles pierce, David Brooks, freaking out the Democrats, haka, Republicans |
The Confluence 
(just checking in to say I’m off reading all these links….)
OMG: “In that spirit, let me say that the House of Representatives, under its current majority management, has degenerated into a complete madhouse, an asylum for nihilists and vandals who literally do not believe that the government of the United States has any legitimate function beyond organizing and training the military. There is no reason to mince words about these people any more. In 2010, the voters, in their infinite wisdom, visited upon the country the biggest bunch of fantasts, paranoids, and general whackaloons since the last time Glenn Beck dined alone. This is a legislative body that is not only an embarrassment to democratic self-government, but also an embarrassment to all human endeavor back to the Bronze Age. This isn’t a Congress. This is a pre-school, the political equivalent of that Twilight Zone episode in which the little boy terrorizes all the adults and then turns one of them into a jack-in-the-box.
I think he’s too subtle.
(taking a break from looking for razor blades)
“The White House should laugh at this. The Democrats should take it and hammer every breathing Republican over the head with it. It should be hung in the town square like a piñata and beaten until all the nonsense and bullshit comes tumbling out on the ground. It should be taken seriously only in the sense of a demonstration of how committed the conservative movement — and the political party that it now completely controls — is to maintaining corporate power and its deeply perverse effect on the political commonwealth. I have no reasonable expectation, however, that any of that will actually happen. Somewhere in this deeply dystopic ruin of a budget is something that “compromise” will dictate that we all have to live — or not live — with.”
Or as Susie Madrak says, Fuck the Poor.
I think there’s something we’re missing. For years, decades, the Democrats were on the side of the little guy. Maybe the envied the rich Republicans but they were committed to New Deal programs. Now, they’re not. I can’t believe it is all about the money. But right now, it looks like Bernie Sanders is on his own. What the fuck happened? Are they all afraid of Fox News? If that’s the case, the first thing they should have done when they took office in 2008 was to control the message. They didn’t do it. Why? It’s like the voting public and their representatives are talking two, no, three different languages. The voting public will know it when they see it, the Republicans are reinterpreting it in a destructive way and the Democrats are at a complete loss.
What would happen to Congress if we replaced every one of them? Is seniority vital? Because I’m beginning to think that there is no alternative than to replace every one of them with a handful of exceptions.
I’ve been thinking that too. Things are so weird– I can’t believe the national priorities changed so fast. And without a complete turnover, how are the 2 or 3 good-guys supposed to have any impact at all?
We need a Liberal equivalent of that pledge the crazies signed.
but, I kind of think those pledges are crazy. So, I don’t know….
Maybe they all need a giant dose of Prozac. They seem to have lost all perspective.
Or maybe they’re taking to much?
“I can’t believe it is all about the money”–RD
OK, why not?
Because for a very long time, the Democrats were like Bernie Sanders. Sure, there were a few bad actors but for the most part, they were champions of the poor and middle class and they had no trouble getting elected.
So, I suspect that we are dealing with a different kind of Democrat. This may have something to do with Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy where he recruited more conservative candidates and that was followed up with Rahm Emannuel’s more “company man” candidates. I know that this is not a revelation. But when the number of these kinds of candidates was small, they didn’t make much of a difference. Now they have a critical mass so the very nature of the party is different. If Bernie sounds like he’s in the wilderness by himself it’s because he really is. There aren’t enough progressive types around to form a strong coalition.
No budget for 3 years…I just want these people whose salary I pay to do their job…at this point ANY JOB would be good.
There is not going to be a budget that makes everyone happy. Rather than simply dismiss what is presented, I would like to see alternative suggestions, recommendations, plans, etc – not from the pundits but from the people who are actually supposed to be doing this as part of their job.
I feel as though all we get anymore from our esteemed congressional critters is all talk and no action. It’s as though none of them made it past the 3rd grade and have no idea what the word COMPROMISE means. If they can’t get with the program, they need to find another job. Such gross negligience and incompetence ( and dare I say indifference) would never be tolerated where I work…
How do you find a compromise with people whose only priority is to “lower the deficit” and have signed a pledge not to raise taxes? THEY don’t have any room for compromise.
Yeah, what she said. How come it’s always the Democrats and progressives that are supposed to compromise? What if what you’re asked to compromise is so unacceptable to you that there is no compromise without seriously impacting your morality?
What you’re saying is that it’s ok for Republicans to hold a knife to your throat and threaten to kill you if you don’t “compromise” with them. But if you “compromise”, they’ll only kill your family and set your house on fire. Pick one. Some compromise.
BTW, either Digby or Susie Madrak has a post about the Progressive coalition budget proposal. It is MUCH more reasonable than anything the Republicans have put together.
I am really troubled by the inability of some voters to think this through and use the reasoning ability that nature gave them. If you impose gut wrenching austerity on the public, after having taken everything they paid in taxes, spent $3 Trillion on wars and more trillions on bankers, and then threaten their futures and all the money they socked away in Social Security and pensions and their 401Ks, you are going to hobble the economy and people will stop spending money. They will have to because every dollar they get will become precious. They will stuff it under their mattresses and pay off all of their debts and not incur any new ones. People are already making their cars last twice as long as they used to and are buying smaller houses in more urban areas. The tax base is going to shrink. It has to because no one is making any money. And because the tax base is shrinking, there will be fewer services and more people screaming their heads off that their taxes are too high and government is no good. And then they turn around and vote for the very same bastards who made government so lousy- the Republicans and conservative Democrats.
If you don’t like the crazy way we’re going STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN.
It’s really that easy. We did it in the early 60’s and it was very successful.
Digby: Budget for All.
(reading it now)
Voting for either corporate party nowadays equals voting Republican.
Words not coming from my mouth…I never said I thought it was only the dems duty to compromise…I seem to recall at one point the dems had the majority in the House and Senate…compromise in and of itself (at least in my mind) means both parties have to give a little to get a little. The very idea that our elected officials (no matter the party affiliation) cannot get a budget passed speaks volumes to me…they need to find another line of work…or start working with no salary.
Truth is it’s just more fun and games between the two sides…the longer the dems sit on their hands, the worse they republicans will look and the better for Obama’s re-election. Is there no one on the Hill that takes their job seriously anymore???
WE didn’t vote for Obama, remember? We knew he was going to fail and wasn’t going to use his majority to pass anything useful.
If you want a budget passed so damn badly, go bang on the doors of the Republicans and ask them why they’re acting like assholes who want to screw average Americans. Seriously. Why are you picking on both sides of the budget issue when it’s the Republicans who are being giant dicks? Who’s in charge of the House? Call Boehner and ask him why Ryan’s plan is going to cripple the country in a way that this generation has never seen. Ask him how the fuck people are supposed to retire or keep from getting sick. Ask him why rich people pay so little in taxes. Ask him why it is that in the 21st century, suddenly the rich don’t want to act like responsible citizens. Ask him why he is kow-towing to psychopaths.
Go ahead, we’ll wait.
The budget problems would go away if we had spent money on putting people back to work so they could pay their taxes instead of turning them all into broke, unemployed people existing on unemployment checks. The budget problem would go away if Grover Norquist hadn’t asked all of the Republicans to pledge to never, ever under any circumstances raise taxes on rich people.
All the pounding on Democrats to compromise will not make the assholes on the other side of the aisle yield in a way that will preserve our American quality of life. Ain’t going to happen. Ever.
If you want a reasonable budget that doesn’t give any more money to rich people who are going to sit on it and doesn’t make such severe cuts that we have a nation of poor working people forever living like slumdwellers in some South American country, you have to vote out every. single. Republican. You can’t spare even one of them. And some of the Democrats have to go too.
As always, love the passion…just wish it didn’t sometimes seem so personal to the commenter.
A budget will not begin to repair all of the ills we currently suffer from; but it would be refreshing if we could get the asshats (dem and repubs alike) to give and take something. I’m getting tired of circling the drain here and right now my personal life pretty much reflects everything economically that impacts many of us.
I do email, write, and call my reps…mostly what I get are canned answers that sound like they come straight from the white house web site…no original thoughts.
If we continue on a path of total resistance to anything that doesn’t fit the party ideology, we won’t get anywhere. I would rather they at least try to project some semblence of concern. And yes, I will be casting my vote to eliminate many of them from public office. That will at least put a smile on my face for a few minutes that day.
Sorry if it sounds personal. It’s not meant to.
However, Democrats have already conceded too much in the last four years. If you are suffering from the bad economy too it’s precisely because of too much compromise, not too little. At this point, I don’t want Democrats to yield a nanometer. Enough is enough. Compromise is only going to make the matter worse. If you ask for compromise from the Democrats, you’re only slitting your own throat. They will be all too happy to throw in the towel and then you’re really screwed.
The people who own the presses would very much like for the Democrats to just give in. That’s because they represent the moneyed class. Don’t be tricked into supporting this argument.
BTW, at this point, it goes beyond party ideology. One party wants to murder the middle class because they’re psychopaths and the other party is just cowardly. I want the Democrats to re-embrace New Deal ideology updated for the future. That was what made this country great. And we are not going to get it if people keep falling for this insane argument that the Democrats are being too partisan. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have their loyal base who will keep revoting their beloved Republicans back in again and again. The only officeholders that non-Republican voters have any power over the careers of is the Democratic officeholders. And since many of the Democratic officeholders are now secret-agent false-flag Republicans under Democratic cover; counter-Republican voters will have to vote against the false-flag Democrats to get them defeated and replaced with real Republicans. The only Democrats who should be voted into office are Democrats ready and eager to be a militant minority led by a pack of “Red Gingriches” to be chosen by a process of Darwinian selection. Those “Red Gingriches” have to be ready to behave exactly like the Gingrich we all know and love … ready to lead a militant minority of Hard Left Democrats who are prepared to “burn down the House” and “burn down the Senate too” to keep the Republicans and Blue-Dog Collaborators (also referred to as Vichy Democrats) from achieving so much as one single thing.
Scorching the earth won the fascist Republicans their victory and scorching the earth is the only hope for Militant Democrats to win any victories themselves (ourselves) on their own terms with their own agenda.