Eideard

David Stockman, who was a young right-wing Congressman, back in the 1970′s and then served as Ronald Reagan’s OMB director, explains that the entire economic mess that the United States is in today is the fault of his party, the GOP.

Stockman…says he was more right than he ever could have imagined thirty years ago. The GOP — under Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and two Bushes — destroyed the economy. Maybe forever.

Stockman points to…the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.

Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion.

President Obama inherited the mess left by the GOP and its bluedog Democratic buddies. But, I have to say, that he helped undermine his own Presidency,and ended any chance for a serious change in course, by not allowing Congressional liberals expose what the GOP did. I suppose the Democrats were afraid that names like Chuck Schumer – who did his own part to undo the economy through his slavish devotion to Wall Street – might come up so the Democrats decided to let bygones be bygones.

Republicans plus the truly gutless Blue Dog Democrats are building a legacy. Future generations will get to pick up the tab.

Result? Our nation is solidly on the way to becoming second-rate.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

President Barack Obama is sending a proposal to Congress that would make it quicker and easier to trim wasteful costs from U.S. congressional spending bills.

The “Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act of 2010” would enable the president to submit a package of cuts, or “rescissions,” to Congress after lawmakers pass the various appropriations bills that fund federal programs every year…

His proposal, which requires congressional approval, would give Obama and his successors a stronger hand in cutting items they do not support from spending bills.

The White House said the proposal differs from a line-item veto in which a president unilaterally cuts specific provisions from a spending bill. The Supreme Court has rejected a presidential line-item veto as unconstitutional.

Under Obama’s proposal, Congress would have to look at the president’s slate of suggested cuts as a package and, without making any amendments, give them an up-or-down vote within a specific period of time.

This would speed up the process used by presidents to reduce special provisions, commonly called “earmarks” or “pork,” that lawmakers add to spending bills, making them more expensive…

But with congressional elections in November and voters increasingly nervous over record spending deficits, the proposal is likely to find allies on Capitol Hill.

Overdue.

Frankly, I’d favor a line-item veto, as well. I think it could be written into law well enough to satisfy our 19th Century Supreme Court.

What do you feed a Blue Dog Democrat?

Evan Bayh learned early that liberalism and ambition don’t always mix in a red state like Indiana.

It was 30 years ago that Bayh, then a 24-year-old law school student, helped run the re-election campaign of his father, Senator Birch Bayh. An unrepentant liberal with national aspirations (he’d run for president in 1976), the elder Bayh was targeted by a then-emerging network of “New Right” activists and fundraisers, who pilloried him as a big spender and slammed his support for abortion rights, gay rights and school busing.

As expedient as it might have been, Birch Bayh refused to back down from his principles in that campaign, an honorable stand that hastened his demise. On Election Day, he was defeated — handily. By Dan Quayle. At 52, his political career was over.

His son, it seems, was taking notes.

Evan Bayh inherited all of his father’s drive for national office but none of his progressive backbone. From his father’s defeat, he seemed to draw a lesson: You can dream big dreams if you’re a Democrat from Indiana — you just can’t be proud to be a Democrat. And that has been the defining principle (to the extent there’s been one) in Evan Bayh’s quarter-century political career, which began with a successful 1986 campaign for secretary of state in Indiana and which now may be ending, with his stunning decision to exit the Senate after two terms…

But now, at the age of 54, Bayh’s national window is closing. Three presidential cycles have come and gone since 1998 and he’s still in the Senate. Youth was always part of his selling point, but in 2016 — the next time the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nomination are likely to be open — he’ll be 60. He can hear the footsteps behind him. It raised the question: What’s the point of staying in the Senate..?

24 years ago, Evan Bayh set out to prove voters that he wasn’t like his father. As his Senate career ends, we can safely say: Mission accomplished.

RTFA. Lots of detail.

Any bookies out there giving odds on which healthcare corporation, insurance company, Bayh will be fronting for in his inevitable return to Congress as a lobbyist? His wife hustled a couple million$ shilling for Wellpoint.

Members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice will hold a news conference calling on the Senate to alter language in the House bill that places explicit restrictions on federal funding for abortion.

“Our health care system should be inclusive and respectful of diverse religious beliefs and decisions regarding childbearing,” the group said in a statement. “A health care system that serves all persons with dignity and equality will include comprehensive reproductive health services…”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pushed successfully to amend the House bill to prohibit abortion coverage in a government-run health insurance plan, as well as in private plans that accept anyone using government subsidies to buy insurance coverage.

“Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women’s access to reproductive health services,” 90 House Democrats opposed to the amended abortion language wrote in a letter to President Obama last week.

In an example of the complicated politics of the issue, all but one of the House Democrats who signed the letter had voted to pass the overall health care bill even though it contained the amendment they opposed. Their strategy now is to work with Obama and Senate Democrats to prevent inclusion of the language of the amendment from a final health care bill.

Anti-abortion Senate Democrats say they will seek strict funding restrictions for abortion when the Senate debates its own version of the bill in coming weeks.

These single-issue Senators are the sort who really don’t care about passage of healthcare reform under any circumstances. Presented with an opportunity to play kissy-kissy with reactionaries who hate the idea of women making choices about their own reproduction – and prove their worth to the lobbyist bankroll for insurance and hospital corporations – these clowns are so excited they can hardly keep from messing their drawers.

That American voters in general have always been pro-choice doesn’t matter much to politicians who would rather follow the money – than lead the electorate.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

So, you think being a Blue Dog Democrat exempts you from attacks by nutball Nazis?