The Easiest Job Around.

Do you like high wages? Job security? Obscene health and retirement benefits? Limited Oversight? Three months of vacation? Do you like being in a position of authority and the natural deference that comes with it? Do you want to believe that you’re changing the world? Do you hate to sacrifice, but like it when people at cocktail parties reflexively commend your nonexistent sacrifice? Do you like having the moral high-ground to sneer condescendingly at the primitivism of the profit motive?

Do you like children? Wait. Scratch that last one. It’s not  exactly a deal-breaker if you don’t. Be a public school teacher! Even better, be a public school administrator! It is, quite simply, the easiest job in the country.

I have a serious question: who out there doesn’t believe that they have the skills to teach 8th grade math? Here’s a small sampling of the brain-busting activities these intrepid teachers courageously plod through every day:

-Adding Fractions with different denominators

-Greatest common factors

-Identifying Triangles by Angles (i.e. “and this pretty shape here is “scalene!”)

-Finding the Area of a Triangle

-Simple equations and inequalities (4x+3 = FUN!)

Come to think of it, if you don’t believe that you could make an impromptu lesson plan and teach these items to a group of children, you were probably taught by a public school teacher.

Imagine, for a moment, being a career 8^th grade math teacher at 53 years old. Shake that feeling of dread that you’ve done nothing productive with your life and that you will die alone with your seven cats. That’s not part of this hypothetical. You made all your lesson plans when you were 23 and just out of college. You’ve been doing this for 30 years since. If you can’t explain how to find greatest common factors after thirty years of practice, you deserve a lobotomy, not a $100,000+ salary. Being a teacher simply isn’t very difficult. We’re not talking about actuaries, doctors, or professional athletes. We’re not even talking about mechanics, welders, or carpenters. In terms of the necessary skills required to be a functional public school teacher, the skill requirements are most analogous to those of the Opinions Page Editor at the New York Times. (Oh SNAP!)

Just as an aside, what are you doing on any given Tuesday afternoon next July? I’ll be working. You’ll probably be working. You kid’s teacher will probably be gulping down Mai Tais in St. Bart’s. I don’t begrudge teachers a vacation, but three months is obscene. On vacation time alone, teachers only work 80% as hard as the average American worker. Any other talk about benefits ought to start and end with “you get THREE MONTHS of vacation!” But it doesn’t. Public school teachers also get healthcare, dental, and retirement packages. For nine months of work. Even when they’re on the job, being a teacher requires very little actual work. In addition to three months vacation, teachers make the lesson plans their first year and coast the rest of their careers. They work about 7AM-3PM (the normal eight hours) but you get to take off recess, gym, art, and whatever other nonsense they do in schools these days. This is when teachers actually do the grading and lesson plan tweaking that teachers so often squawk they do on their personal time. Outside of the actual teaching, which requires little above mere literacy, the rest of the job is basically babysitting, a profession mostly occupied by sixteen year old girls trying to get enough money to give their boyfriends Justin Bieber haircuts or pierce their ankles.

It’s not hard to imagine why teachers work so little; they have no accountability and minimal oversight. With massive union protections, firing a teacher is virtually impossible unless they molest their students in plain view of the principal, a police officer, and three union representatives or start harvesting organs. Teachers fight tooth and nail against objective and standardized measurements of student learning, so administrators have no recourse against bad teachers. And considering how toothless the punishments are (three weeks paid leave for drinking on the job!) it’s a wonder teachers even crack open the books. The way schools work is so backwards and crooked, they can’t possibly succeed. There are no objective measurements of success. There is no punishment for failure, either in results or in process. The compensation structure encourages the most incompetent teachers to stay and pushes the younger, more competent teachers into saner professions. Finally, there is no feedback loop from the market to determine whether or not the services rendered are worth the cost (they aren’t).

Politically speaking, the idea that we need to bust the public unions that control teachers salaries, benefits, and job  security is true, but woefully inadequate. Schools in most states spend over $10,000 per student per year. Do you believe that a free-market education industry could do a better job with $10,000 per student? I certainly do. The solution is to have the state give parents a certificate worth $10,000 that they can spend in any educational facility (definition for “educational facility” is fluid, at the moment) they elect. Schools would compete against each other for students and revenue streams. Parents (and private organizations) would monitor and publish objective metrics detailing the effectiveness of the schools in much the same way that Moody’s or Fitch publishes bond ratings. Teachers compensation would be market-based, and all would be well in the world.

I suppose the short answer is that being a teacher is the easiest job in the world.

Speaking of Shakedowns and Shutdowns...

After Robert Reich just got done telling us that shakedowns and shutdowns were the worst thing that could possibly happen to a government, I bring you an ideological kin making the argument for shakedowns and shutdowns. Awesome.

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Oh Krugman, you rogue! It’s been too long. This is going to be fun.

Here’s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn’t Cairo after all.

If it takes you a colon, two commas, and an inappropriately antequated state abbreviation to say “I’m wrong,” this might be a good time to crack open The Elements of Style.

Maybe it’s Baghdad — specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.

In a middle east where Egypt is drifting towards state-sponsored extremism and Libya—which was a docile house cat in the wake of the invasion of Iraq—is descending into an anarchical bloodbath, are you sure this is the time to take on the only stable republic in the Islamic world?

As many readers may recall, the results were spectacular — in a bad way.

What deft verbal judo! This is the rhetorical equivalent putting “not” at the end of a sarcastic statement. Let’s all watch Waynes World and listen to Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”

…Actually, that sounds awesome.

Instead of focusing on the urgent problems of a shattered economy and society, which would soon descend into a murderous civil war,

So to be clear, this is an argument against nation-building?

those Bush appointees were obsessed with imposing a conservative ideological vision.

Far from the liberal caricature, W was far from a conservative ideologue. Outside of the Bush tax cuts in 2001, he did virtually nothing to decrease the size or influence of government. Why would one believe that he would impose on Iraq what he refused to back domestically?

Indeed, with looters still prowling the streets of Baghdad, L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy,

For the record, viceroy is necessarily a monarchical term (from the latin vice- “in the palace of” and the French roi- “the king”). When you’re criticizing someone for too rapidly dismantling totalitarian institutions, it is downright counterintuitive to simultaneously criticize them for being monarchical totalitarians.

told a Washington Post reporter that one of his top priorities was to “corporatize and privatize state-owned enterprises”

When a government has a stranglehold on the economy, and the government topples, privatizing state-owned enterprises is synonymous with stimulating the economy. That of course leads to jobs and gets looters, vandals, and potential terrorists off the street. I was under the impression that economics was supposed to be your wheelhouse.

 — Mr. Bremer’s words, not the reporter’s — and to “wean people from the idea the state supports everything.”

In other words, the Bush Administration’s goals were to erode the cultural tolerance towards totalitarianism and building the fledgling ideal of self-determination, which is the foundation of a culture in which a democratic republic can take hold. My goodness, that sounds almost like a well thought-out plan!

The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,”

Can someone please stop professional writers from turning their columns into 8^th grade book reports on obscure drivel that no one bothers to read? Editors? Executives? Typesetters? Please?

which argued that it was part of a broader pattern.

I’m bored with this book already.

From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested,

That does involve the Iranian hostage situation as part of the “control group,” right. Given the Obama Administration’s callow response to the unlawful detention of an American diplomat in Pakistan, I’d say the precedent of indecision and half-measures from the left is far more unsettling. What about Clinton’s complicity with turning North Korea into a nuclear-armed rogue state?

right-wing ideologues have exploited crises

Of course, it was the great Republican thinker Sarah Palin who said “never let a crisis go to waste.” Wait…that doesn’t sound right.

to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises,

Seriously, how’d the Iranian Hostage Crisis get resolved, again?

and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal,

If we wanted to impose an equal society, we’d all be socialists.

less democratic society.

Again, how does an ideology permissive of totalitarian government interference at the expense of individual liberty promote a democratic society?

Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011,

Actually, it takes you to the end of Ms. Klein’s book, which is currently selling it’s 162^nd copy for 85% off at Borders. Congratulations, Ms. Klein. If you want to transition to Wisconsin, you actually have to make the transition, not just state that one occurred.

where the shock doctrine is on full display.

Part of not turning your column into a book report involves avoiding the obnoxious verbiage from someone else’s work and applying it to something wholly unrelated.

In recent weeks, Madison has been the scene of large demonstrations against the governor’s budget bill, which would deny collective-bargaining rights to public-sector workers.

Keep in mind, these are public sector workers. And only select public sector workers at that. Police and Fire workers are excluded.

Gov. Scott Walker claims that he needs to pass his bill to deal with the state’s fiscal problems. But his attack on unions has nothing to do with the budget. In fact, those unions have already indicated their willingness to make substantial financial concessions — an offer the governor has rejected.

Unless these concessions are single-handedly enough to get the state of Wisconsin out of debt (they’re not), then the concessions are less important to the budget than giving the legislature the tools to cut the budget now and in the future.  Which means, if you’re playing America’s favorite drinking game “Paul Krugman is wrong,” you need to take two shots of Jagermeister and switch right shoes with the person sitting to your left. (The rules to this game are really tricky.)

Sadly, since the peace prize was awarded to Obama, I can no longer in good conscious advocate playing the drinking game “Nobel Lauriates are wrong.” Seven people died of alcohol poisoning during the State of the Union.

What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy.

Well it’s certainly a nice side-effect. The idea of public funds financing public union dues financing partisan political contributions should be loathsome to, well, anyone.

And the power grab goes beyond union-busting. The bill in question is 144 pages long, and there are some extraordinary things hidden deep inside.

It takes some stones to criticize Republicans for overly long bills. 144 pages? That’s 1/16^th the size of Obamacare.

For example, the bill includes language that would allow officials appointed by the governor to make sweeping cuts in health coverage for low-income families without having to go through the normal legislative process.

Funny. That actually was in Obamacare.

And then there’s this: “Notwithstanding ss. 13.48 (14) (am) and 16.705 (1), the department may sell any state-owned heating, cooling, and power plant or may contract with a private entity for the operation of any such plant, with or without solicitation of bids, for any amount that the department determines to be in the best interest of the state. Notwithstanding ss. 196.49 and 196.80, no approval or certification of the public service commission is necessary for a public utility to purchase, or contract for the operation of, such a plant, and any such purchase is considered to be in the public interest and to comply with the criteria for certification of a project under s. 196.49 (3) (b).”

What’s that about? The state of Wisconsin owns a number of plants supplying heating, cooling, and electricity to state-run facilities (like the University of Wisconsin). The language in the budget bill would, in effect, let the governor privatize any or all of these facilities at whim.

Should state government really be a utility company?

Not only that, he could sell them, without taking bids, to anyone he chooses. And note that any such sale would, by definition, be “considered to be in the public interest.”

While I’m not a fan of the language that opens the door to corruption, I understand the reasoning behind it. The language expedites the process considerably, because generally dealing with the government is as slow as it gets.

If this sounds to you like a perfect setup for cronyism and profiteering — remember those missing billions in Iraq? — you’re not alone.

This is an article about unions and you’re mentioning cronyism and profiteering without mention of the stimulus. Of course, that’s cool with me. Just acknowledge your biases.

Indeed, there are enough suspicious minds out there that Koch Industries, owned by the billionaire brothers who are playing such a large role in Mr. Walker’s anti-union push,

Which was completely refuted when a liberal activist called the governor posing as one of the Koch brothers and tricked the Governor into saying…exactly what he says in public.

felt compelled to issue a denial that it’s interested in purchasing any of those power plants. Are you reassured?

Certainly it’s uncomfortable, but is it any more comfortable than Wisconsin tax dollars financing the Democratic Party through the public union siphon?

The good news from Wisconsin is that the upsurge of public outrage — aided by the maneuvering of Democrats in the State Senate,

Well that I agree with, but most of the outrage is coming from the right.

who absented themselves to deny Republicans a quorum

A fancy way of saying “shut down the legislature in a purely anti-democratic technicality.”

--has slowed the bum’s rush.

Great. In the meantime, the people of Wisconsin are due a budget, and the Democrats have taken their ball and gone to an out-of-state protectorate.

If Mr. Walker’s plan was to push his bill through before anyone had a chance to realize his true goals, that plan has been foiled.

Does anyone really believe that Governor Walker didn’t want any attention paid to this bill? He has majority support both in Wisconsin and nationwide.

And events in Wisconsin may have given pause to other Republican governors, who seem to be backing off similar moves.

Really? What’s going on in Indiana and Ohio?

But don’t expect either Mr. Walker or the rest of his party to change those goals. Union-busting and privatization remain G.O.P. priorities, and the party will continue its efforts to smuggle those priorities through in the name of balanced budgets.

Smaller government is the GOP’s priority. They said it throughout the 2010 campaign; this rallying cry was noticeably absent in George W. Bush’s second term, to the detriment of the party. But here’s the question that no one really has an answer for: how does stripping public unions of the right to collectively bargain on benefits hurt Wisconsin? The answer, of course, is that it doesn’t.

Of Inconvenience and Truth

Robert Reich

Fmr. Secretary of Labor; Professor at Berkeley; Author, Aftershock: 'The Next Economy and America's Future'

The Republican Shakedown

You can't fight something with nothing.

You also can’t fight nothing with something. Similarly, You can’t fight everything with nothing, or something with everything. You also can’t fight Chris Cristie with anything, because that dude will Bruce Lee your ass.

But as long as Democrats refuse to talk about the almost unprecedented buildup of income, wealth, and power at the top

They refuse to not talk about it! I’ve tried to make them stop. I asked politely, then I asked forcefully, then I kidnapped Nancy Pelosi’s dog. That is, after all, the escalation process for conservative ire. The next step is tying an orphan to the railroad tracks. Does anyone else think the Democrats’ caricature of Republicans is a vaguely plagiarized synthesis of Snidely Whiplash and Bo Duke?

and the refusal of the super-rich

Maybe throw in some Gordon Gecko.

 to pay their fair share of the nation's bills --

It’s always fun to watch liberals squirm when you ask them to define “fair share.” Especially the rich ones. Sadly, the written medium is not fertile grounds for squirming.

Note to self: never use the words “fertile” and any variation of “squirm” in the same sentence ever again.

Republicans will convince people

Well that’s kind of fatalistic, coming from the opposition. Come on, buddy. Buck up.

it's all about government and unions.

Goodness, no. We believe there’s a hell of a lot more damage done than that to government viability. It’s certainly a nice place to start, though.

Republicans claim to have a mandate from voters

That’s pretty much what a 60+ seat Congressional swing means. Also, try varying sentence structures.

for the showdowns and shutdowns they're launching.

They do. As a Republican supporter, let me say that I would be dreadfully disappointed if they hadn’t started this process. I wrote a column on election defining exactly what conservatives were expecting by voting for Republicans: conservatism.

Governors say they're not against unions but voters

They make a distinction between private and public sector unions. We all should.

have told them to cut costs, and unions are in the way.

True.

House Republicans say

Republicans will… Republicans claim… Governors say… House Republicans say…

This guy desperately needs a copy editor. Or a quick refresher-course from seventh grade English.

they're not seeking a government shutdown but standing on principle.

Also true. They were elected because they stood distinct from the President.

"Republicans' goal is to cut spending and reduce the size of government," says House leader John Boehner, "not to shut it down."

Word, Speaker Boehner. Word.

But if a shutdown is necessary to achieve the goal, so be it.

He didn’t say that, but also, word. The deficit is up to about 10% of GDP; The national debt is over 100% of GDP. Short of hyperinflation or organized default, there’s no other way out. We’re in it for the country, boys and girls.

The Republican message is bloated government is responsible for the lousy economy that most people continue to experience.

True.

Cut the bloat and jobs and wages will return.

Cut the taxes that fund the bloat. Then jobs and wages will return.

Nothing could be further from the truth,

That’s a pretty audacious claim, considering that the popularity of Keynesian economics has been on the wane for years now.

but for some reason Obama and the Democrats aren't responding with the truth.

You might as well start capitalizing “Truth.” You protect it with such fervor, while claiming the Republicans to be idolaters and heretics.

Their response is: We agree but you're going too far.

This is what happens when you get absolutely crushed at the ballot box. See: Republicans circa 2008. Exception: Rush Limbaugh. Humility is an opportunity for self-reflection..or some other vaguely inspiring platitude I read on a fortune cookie once.

Government employees should give up some more wages and benefits but don't take away their bargaining rights. Private-sector unionized workers should make more concessions but don't bust the unions. Non-defense discretionary spending should be cut but don't cut so much.

At least this time when he doesn’t vary his sentence structure, there’s at least an implied cadence to it. Still, it feels ticky-tack.

More to the substance of the issue at hand, the people of Wisconsin are already with the Governor. They elected him and he campaigned on this. Democrats had the opportunity to make this case to the American people—and tried mightily—throughout the first two years of the Obama Administration that spending is good for the economy. The Democrats failed miserable, not because they didn’t make the right speeches, but because the American people strenuously disagree.

Educated Americans see that government spending ballooned in the Great Depression, which probably prevented economic recovery before the late-30’s war-time boom. They see the effect of the stimulus package in the wake of the bubble of 2008 and see an economy whiling away in mediocrity. Meanwhile, they saw the tech bubble in 2000, in which many of the structural weaknesses of the US economy were exposed, coupled with the attacks of 9/11, and the economy recovered fairly quickly. For a laugh, go back to 2004 and read what liberals were saying about that “recession.”

In the face of showdowns and shutdowns, the "you're right but you're going too far" response doesn't hack it.

Neither does the “I know the people elected you in a sweeping landslide of an election, but I still like to pretend they agree with me” response. I guess that’s why so many Democrats are fleeing to Illinois. It’s hard to respond to a Republican if you’re out of ear shot. OH! IDEA!!! Can we get the President to go back?

If Republicans are correct on principle, they're more likely to be seen as taking a strong principled stand than as going "too far."

It’s amazing how much I agree with this guy’s analysis while knowing with certainty that his conclusions are completely wrong.

If they're basically correct that the problem is too much government spending why not go as far as possible to cut the bloat?

Agreed.

The truth that Obama and Democrats must tell is government spending has absolutely nothing to do with high unemployment, declining wages, falling home prices, and all the other horribles

Horrible is an adjective, not a noun. Horribles doesn’t exist…except in French, which isn’t a real language anyways. Is now the wrong time to start pushing the “freedom fries” agenda again? That movement kicked ass.

that continue to haunt most Americans.

If the President acknowledged that spending and economic activity are not related, then he undercuts his own justification for a) the stimulus package, b) the second stimulus package, c) cash for clunkers and d) any future legislation directed at the economy that he may want to propose. In essence, you are asking the President to completely abandon an economic philosophy that he spent the first two years of his presidency propagating. More than that, you are asking the Democratic Party, by supporting that President, to reverse an economic philosophy that has guided the party for decades.  

Indeed, too little spending will prolong the horribles

Still not a noun, no matter how cute you try to make it.

for years more because there's not enough demand in the economy without it.

Here’s a fun exercise. If government spending spurs demand, and government taxes (which fund the spending) reduce supply, what is the net effect?

Answer: Inflation!

The truth is that while the proximate cause of America's economic plunge was Wall Street's excesses leading up to the crash of 2008,

Whenever liberals start blaming Wall Street, I start giving them the Charlie Brown teacher’s trombone voice in my head.

its underlying cause -- and the reason the economy continues to be lousy for most Americans -- is so much income and wealth have been going to the very top that the vast majority no longer has the purchasing power to lift the economy out of its doldrums.

…Wait, what?

American's aren't buying cars (they bought 17 million new cars in 2005, just 12 million last year). They're not buying homes (7.5 million in 2005, 4.6 million last year). They're not going to the malls (high-end retailers are booming

That’s awfully vague, especially considering that most high-end retailers with strong international brand recognition have made a concerted effort to monetize that brand equity in emerging markets recently, whereas low-end retailers--like Dillards, for example

 but Wal-Mart's

Or Wal-Mart—have to compete based on price with entrenched local retailers and rarely achieve the level of profitability abroad as they do domestically.

sales are down).

Only the richest 5 percent of Americans are back in the stores because their stock portfolios have soared.

Yes, but after they tanked. Who did the recession hit hardest? The wealthy. That’s because the very wealthy are generally risk-tolerant people. Considering that the stock market is a high-risk, high-return vehicle, a high-wealth investor was much more likely to hold Lehman Brothers stock than to hold gold.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has doubled from its crisis low.

Which just goes to show you, getting out of the market at the trough of a recession is fucking stupid.

Wall Street pay is up to record levels. Total compensation and benefits at the 25 major Wall St firms had been $130 billion in 2007, before the crash; now it's close to $140 billion.

For those of you without your financial calculator handy, that’s a measly 2.5% annual increase. Snore.

But a strong recovery can't be built on the purchases of the richest 5 percent.

The truth is if the super-rich paid their fair share of taxes, government wouldn't be broke.

You could confiscate 100% of what every American produced in 2011 and do nothing but pay down the debt; it still wouldn’t get us out of the hole. Meanwhile, pretty much anyone with sense understands that government revenues, regardless of income tax rates, generally average out to 18.2% of GDP.

By making taxes confiscatory, the government encourages aggressive tax avoidance (legal), tax evasion (illegal) and outright fraud (Charlie Rangle).  Concurrently, it depresses growth by increasing hurdle rates for capital budgeting. This isn’t complicated stuff.

If Governor Scott Walker hadn't handed out tax breaks to corporations and the well-off, Wisconsin wouldn't be in a budget crisis.

The states are in an even more precarious position than the federal government. The hurdles for a business to up and move from Wisconsin to Texas are relatively minor. In fact, it’s a large part of why the south is demographically booming. Meanwhile, not too far from Madison, Chicago businesses are seeing lower tax rates across the border and a well-educated workforce in Madison. This is one reason Chicago’s population is roughly what it was in 1920.

If Washington hadn't extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich, eviscerated the estate tax, and created loopholes for private-equity and hedge-fund managers, the federal budget wouldn't look nearly as bad.

That happened about 12 weeks ago. The Bush tax cuts have had absolutely no impact on the actual debt or deficit yet, only on the projections of government revenues, which I will bet come out somewhere close to 18.2% of GDP anyways. The only difference is that by not increasing taxes in a recession, we now have a feint glimmer of hope to actually get the economy running and increase the base from which our government gets 18.2%

And if America had higher marginal tax rates and more tax brackets at the top -- for those raking in $1 million, $5 million, $15 million a year -- the budget would look even better.

No, but tax attorneys would certainly make more money.

We wouldn't be firing teachers

Why not?

or slashing Medicaid

We’re not. But I can make an excellent case for doing so without even invoking the deficit.

or hurting the most vulnerable members of our society.

Save it for denouncing child predators. A vulnerable sector of society implies a need for a paternalistic government. No thanks.

We wouldn't be in a tizzy over Social Security.

Again, no one has even mentioned Social Security, but I could make an excellent case for ending social security without even invoking the deficit.

We'd slow the rise in health care costs but we wouldn't cut Medicare.

How?

We'd cut defense spending

Why?

and lop off subsidies to giant agribusinesses

Also known as the “green economy.”

but we wouldn't view the government as our national nemesis.

So you’ll finally get serious about our foreign nemeses? Color me doubtful.

The final truth is as income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power.

When you give politicians trillions of dollars to play with, it’s really no surprise that politics attracts money, is it? The solution? Give politicians less money to play with.

The reason all of this is proving so difficult to get across is the super-rich, such as the Koch brothers,

Name any other American billionaire, and there’s about an 80% chance he’s a Democrat. (That doesn’t even count George Soros)

have been using their billions to corrupt politics,

[Show your work]

hoodwink the public,

Seriously, show your work. This is approaching libel.

and enlarge and entrench their outsized fortunes.

What the hell is an “outsized” fortune?

They're bankrolling Republicans who are mounting showdowns and threatening shutdowns,

Just like George Soros bankrolled Democrats that mounted healthcare showdowns and are likewise threatening shutdowns.

and who want the public to believe government spending is the problem.

It is.

They are behind the Republican shakedown.

A shakedown is theft. Who is stealing the money? What money? Where is it going? Who benefits financially? It seems to me that the assumption that the rich are stealing is predicated on the notion that their income is property of the state in the first place. That assumption can only mean that you support—implicitly or explicitly—the nationalization of the accumulated wealth of the bourgeoisie. That’s not even socialism; that’s flat-out Communism.

These are the truths that Democrats must start telling, and soon.

I believe in Truth, the Father almighty, creator of utopian promise.

I believe in Innuendo, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by usurped legacy of Deistic Jefferson, and born of the hippie commune.

He suffered under Ronald Reagan, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead. On the twelfth year, he rose again.

He ascended into heaven, and was seated in William Jefferson Clinton’s right hand (which on alternating Saturdays held the proverbial sticky cigar).

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the usurped legacy of Deistic Jefferson,

The Holy Church of Truthism, the communion of the Congressional Progressive Caucus,

The resurrection of the Truth,

And miserable fealty to a backwards-ass ideology everlasting

Amen.

Otherwise the Republican shakedown may well succeed.

I guess I kind of shot my wad (sorry, once I make a Clinton reference, I can’t help myself) a little early with the Apostles Creed thing. So I should probably say something even awesomer to close this one out…BOOGIDY BOOGIDY BOO!

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

Proud Americans, and Other Demographics Liberals Don't Understand

So much ridicule, so little time. Today might be a two-fer on postings, both because I’ve got a lot of time on my hands over the next four days and because I’ve still got Krugman’s article from yesterday backlogged. Collins is an easier target though; she doesn’t even strive for thematic fluidity or logical consistency anymore. Someday I’ll get tired of shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. Not today.

Sacred Cows, Angry Birds

By GAIL COLLINS

Published: February 18, 2011

The House of Representatives has been cutting like crazy!

Sweet! There’s a pun in here somewhere about Democrats in Madison “cutting class,” but I can’t get a handle on it. Oh well. Win some, lose some.

Down with Planned Parenthood

Would Democrats have ever funded the organization if it didn’t offer abortions? Trick question! Of course. Democrats will fund anything.

 and PBS!

Also known as “that channel that’s taking up valuable space between Fox and the History Channel.”

We can’t afford to worry about mercury contamination!

Actually, that’s more of an acknowledgement that the EPA is chock full of self-righteous lunatics. I just can’t imagine that I have anything in common with those assholes—except the self-righteousness.

Safety nets are too expensive!

The deficit is approaching 10% of GDP both because of Obama’s misguided stimuli and ballooning entitlements. I would say that yes, they are most certainly too expensive.

But keep your hands off the Defense Department’s budget to sponsor Nascar

It’s NASCAR. Thanks.

racers.

It seems like the military should have the money to recruit for the armed forces. The determination of where to spend that money should be theirs. As long as you throw in a few auditors to make sure there’s no abuse or waste, I’m good with them spending that money on whatever they believe is acceptable.

“It’s a great public/private partnership,” said Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen, a New Jersey Republican.

I believe that’s another way of saying “it works” but spruced up in the ludicrous vernacular of the leftist wing-nut to make it digestible to rhetorical wunderkinds like Collins. (See, it’s funny both because she’s and idiot and because she’s old.)

The Defense Department claims racecar sponsorships are an important recruiting tool for the Army. The House agreed — although this might be news to the Navy and Marines, which decided a while back that a Nascar

NASCAR!

 presence wasn’t worth the money.

This isn’t complicated. There is only one pool of potential military recruits that watch NASCAR. By crowding the market with three service branches, each has opened itself to the likelihood of diminished returns. The fact that the marketplace can only support one service branch to be cost-effective doesn’t diminish the cost-effectiveness of the advertising medium. What’s more, the Navy and Marines willingness to break from an unfruitful partnership implies a strong tendency for fiscal discipline within the military’s recruitment vehicle. This concept eludes the whizzes at Planned Parenthood and PBS.

“What makes U.S. Army’s motorsports initiatives successful?” Ryan Newman, driver of No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet asked his Facebook readers as he urged a show of support for the program. “In a 2009 study among fans nationwide, 37% feel more positive about the Army due to its involvement in motorsports.”

NASCAR races average some 3 million viewers for important races. That’s 1,110,000 viewers per race that are reminded that there exists another door for their lives or their childrens’ lives. Army commercials in the past few years have been geared more towards parents than children, which suggests that recruitment has been strongly impaired by family reticence towards the dangers inherent to military service. Unlike recruitment centers, which offer effective one-on-one interactions between military recruiters and potential recruits, sponsorships give the military the opportunity to tailor a message to the people that have the ear of potential recruits on a daily basis.

Let’s stop right here and think about this posting. Is it likely that racing fans would think less of the Army for sponsoring racecars?

No. But it’s a virtual certainty that they would think about it less. What’s more, it’s entirely possible to support the military wholeheartedly and still feel that it’s not the best opportunity for yourself or your child. That’s why the reminders from the Army are essential:  That it molds strong young men and women, That it pays for college, That it gives the opportunity for kids to develop life-long career skills. Basically, there are elements of the Army that are just like college, without the inane ramblings of a English 101 class.

Actually, wouldn’t you expect the percentage to be higher?

All advertisements are hit-or-miss.

Also, how many of you believe Ryan Newman actually wrote those sentences.

I do, but that’s because I don’t think all NASCAR drivers are illiterate hicks.

Can I see a show of hands?

Don’t be jealous that he’s got a stronger grasp on sentence composition than you. It’s not like you pretend to be a professional writer anymore.

Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, who sponsored an amendment eliminating the military’s Nascar

NASCAR. You don’t write Mlb or Nfl.

connection, said it could save taxpayers “tens of millions of dollars.”

You would think she’d be able to be a little more precise. There is a finite cost to the sponsorship. In fact, it’s pre-determined in a contract. $7mm per year.

She got a flood of angry letters and one death threat.

It takes some chutzpah to bitch about death threats with what’s going on in Madison.

Also, her amendment was rejected, 148 to 281.

Meh. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been upset at all if the Army had been forced to pull its NASCAR sponsorship. We need cuts.

The opponents didn’t bother with much debate.

It wasn’t worth much debate. It’s a tiny amount of money in the federal budget and it wasn’t a serious proposal—much like the proposal to cut off funding to Obama’s teleprompter. That one was at least funny though.

“This amendment is about politics in certain districts for certain groups of people,” said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a tad obliquely.

So pick a better quote.

McHenry was probably

No. Pick a better quote instead of embarrassing yourself by trying to interpret this one.

referring to the Democrats, who’ve often been branded by the Republicans as tennis-watching snobs.

Actually, she did a pretty good job. Democrats don’t “get” real sports.

The Obamaites actually spend vast amounts of time and money trying to woo “Nascar dads,”

First, that term hasn’t been used since 2004, which means it was John Kerry doing the dude-wooing (and really, is anyone surprised?) Second, in a column about fiscal discipline regarding NASCAR money, you’d think Democrats would be demanding a higher return for their efforts. The “NASCAR dad” demographic would still spurn Democrats if Republicans campaigned exclusively on outlawing Slim Jims and Keystone Light. Third, maybe the party would get some more traction in the demographic if it understood that it’s NASCAR, an abbreviation, as opposed to Nascar!

 although given car racing’s sinking popularity, it might make more sense to target some other fan base.

Good luck with baseball fans. We still remember that Obama throws like a girl and can’t name a single player from his “favorite team.”

What about all the people who play games on their cellphones and iPads?

Social-network gamers don’t count as a “fan base.” They barely count as people. I guess it’s good that 90% of them don’t get to vote.

Make 2012 the Year of the Angry Birds Dad or the Brickbreaker Aunt.

Are you trying to get me to punch a political strategist in the gut?

But I digress.

Yes. You do. Very often. It’s not charming or interesting. It’s just sloppy writing.

On Friday, the House was working its way through 129 amendments to its continuing budget resolution. There would have been 130, but Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas retracted his proposal to cut off financing for President Obama’s teleprompter.

That one still makes me chuckle. Props, Arkansas.

The majority did vote, however, to eliminate money for a park in Nancy Pelosi’s district. The former House speaker has been demonized to the point that it’s safe to do anything to her short of kidnapping the family dog.

Nah, I’d be cool with that. That dog has probably seen some terrible, terrible things. He deserves better, America.

Let’s give Speaker John Boehner credit for keeping his promise to give members more chance to debate and offer amendments. Really, if things get any more open, the members will start throwing themselves off the balcony.

So openness and transparency is only sort of a good thing sometimes?

But not such high marks on consistency.

Please show your work.

The newly ascendant Republicans have been howling that the deficit is so big, so threatening, that no target for cutting is sacred. “Everything is on the table. We’re broke,” said Boehner.

I’m digging me some Boehner these days. I immediately regret how dirty that sounded.

But the table is mainly crowded with stuff the Republicans didn’t like to begin with.

Is this supposed to be inconsistent?

Family-planning money and environmental protection,

This is what’s known as “low-hanging fruit.”

but not oil tax breaks

As soon as we quit subsidizing wind farms and ethanol (which, has been inflating food prices, in case you hadn’t heard) I’m so far down with eliminating tax breaks for oil companies it’s not even funny.

or Nascar

NASCAR.

sponsorships. “Sesame Street” is fair game,

Sesame Street is popular. I have no doubt that the program would get picked up by Nick Jr. or any one of 227 other channels designed for incontinent viewers.

 but the Daytona 500 is untouchable.

Untouchable, no. Our elected officials simply believe that it is an acceptable use of military recruitment funds.

“Spending is out of control,” cried Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, who argued for additional cuts in all nonsecurity discretionary spending — except aid to Israel.

They’re our staunch allies and they have been under siege for 60 years as the only stable democracy in a region dominated by fanatical neo-Neanderthals. For that alone they deserve consideration for their yeoman’s work to further our interests in the region.

In Wisconsin, the new Republican governor, Scott Walker, wants to strip state employees of their collective-bargaining rights

Now you’re confusing state debts with federal debts. See, I know this because you’re talking about a governor, who has absolutely no say in federal affairs (unless you’re talking about states ratifying amendments to the federal Constitution, which you clearly aren’t).

because: “We’re broke. We’ve been broke in this state for years.”

The difference is that Walker can’t print money to cover the government’s debts.

Wisconsin’s Democratic state senators went into hiding to deprive the Republican majority of the quorum they need to pass Walker’s agenda.

In other words, they whined like little girls, spat on the people of Wisconsin, and actively attempted to undermine the impact of last year’s elections and the democratic process in general. Who was it that said “elections have consequences?” Oh right. The guy who throws like a girl in the White House. Wait, that’s not specific enough…

The Senate majority leader, Scott Fitzgerald — who happens to be the brother of the Assembly speaker, Jeff Fitzgerald —

CONSPIRACY!!!

believes the governor is absolutely right about the need for draconian measures to cut spending in this crisis. So he’s been sending state troopers out to look for the missing Democrats.

The troopers aren’t out there because they want the proposed law. They’re out there because they value the rule of law and the legislative process. Democrats in Wisconsin have shown themselves to be irresponsible brats.

The troopers are under the direction of the new chief of the state patrol, Stephen Fitzgerald. He is the 68-year-old father of Jeff and Scott and was appointed to the $105,678 post this month by Governor Walker.

For the chief of the state patrol? That’s very reasonable. Chicago beat cops make $64,374 plus a few add-ons for various responsibilities.

Perhaps the speaker’s/majority leader’s father was a super choice,

I have no idea, and neither do you.

and the fact that he was suddenly at liberty after having recently lost an election for county sheriff was simply a coincidence that allowed the governor to recruit the best possible person for the job. You’d still think that if things are so dire in Wisconsin, the Fitzgerald clan would want to set a better austerity example.

The man runs the state troopers. $105,678 is not unreasonable in the slightest.

And if Big Bird goes, we can spare the U.S. Army Chevrolet, too.

No. You  don’t get to do that. You have strayed so far off-topic that you don’t get to come back around and make a cute little one-off about NASCAR. The Wisconsin issues has virtually NOTHING to do with the federal deficit talks, at least until Boehner and McConnell decide that they have the juice to take on the federal public unions. (I’m crossing my fingers, but not holding my breath.)

What’s more, there is no link between Big Bird and the Army. One is federally funded because…well no one knows why a show that’s perfectly viable on the open market is federally funded. The other is funded by the military with full knowledge of the other options and a full set of market constraints. What’s more, my guess is that if you cut $7mm from the Army’s annual recruitment budget that they would still keep the NASCAR sponsorship. That is how you know that one is about politics and the other is about cutting fat.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on February 19, 2011, on page A23 of the New York edition.

The Era of Big Government is Over. Stage One: Denial.

Deficit hawks and the games they play

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

For 30 years,

In other words: since Reagan. Since the demise of Keynesianism as a serious economic philosophy. Since conservatives found their identity.

conservative ideologues

Keep in mind for future reference that he is implying that being an ideologue is somehow a negative.

have played moderate deficit hawks

[null set]

for suckers.

You'd think this might endow

I’m going to snicker quietly to myself, but I’m not going to make a penis joke. That’s the high road, people.

those middle-of-the-road deficit-busters

Again, [null set].

with a touch of humility.

I’m not entirely sure what point he’s trying to make here. Is it that the right has been tricking centrists into supporting deficit reduction that they already support? And that because of this Blofeldian deceit, that the centrists should then project modesty and meekness?

Fat chance.

Don’t act like your logical contortions make sense.

They stick with their self-righteous moralism, pretending to be bipartisan and beyond ideology.

Remember when he thought that being ideological was bad? Now, apparently not being ideological is bad. Quite a swing for two sentences.

In fact, they make the problem they want to solve worse by continuing to empower the tax-cuts-in-every-season conservatives.

Finally! A fair point! Not a good point, mind you, but a fair one. Dionne believes that lowering taxes significantly decreases revenues and accordingly increases the deficit. It’s woefully simplistic, economically myopic, and completely misdiagnoses the cause of the deficit, but let’s roll with it.

It's thus satisfying to see President Obama ignore the willfully naive who are wailing over deficits.

Is the assertion here that deficits aren’t a problem, that deficits aren’t an immediate problem, or that it’s satisfying to see the country’s leader pretend a problem isn’t there?

He knows that new revenue will have to play a big role in deficit reduction.

Read: we need tax increases.

He also knows that House Republicans are pretending we can cut our way out of this mess and would demagogue any general tax increases.

Of course, you can cut your way out of any deficit. Just stop spending. This is all theoretical, of course. The point is, the theoretical construct for cutting spending to eliminate a deficit is far more sound than the theoretical construct for growing revenues to implausible percentages of GDP while maintaining strong economic growth.

So he has proposed some serious spending cuts

[null set]

and some modest revenue increases

Read: new taxes.

to keep things stable as he embarks on a long struggle to move our dysfunctional budget politics to a better place.

He’s not even sort of doing that. He’s ducking for cover and hoping the issue goes away on its own.

This annoys his deficit-obsessed critics,

Again, is the assertion that the deficit isn’t a big deal, because you just praised the President for spending cuts and revenue increases.

by which I mean just about everyone who says he should simply embrace the proposals of the Bowles-Simpson commission.

It’s a good starting point.

Obama should smile, let them rage and go about his business.

What business? This is the job. This is, quite frankly, the most important part of the job. Without financial stability, we can’t fund essential functions of the government, like national defense and basic infrastructure maintenance. (Funding for a painting of Henry Ford in cow’s blood does not qualify as essential functions of the government.) He can’t go about his business because this is his business. This is what conservatives mean when we say that he’s not up for the job. Apparently, as Dionne displays, it’s not unique to President Obama. The progressive ideology is simply not suited to address the challenges that we are currently facing.

Let's look at history.

Excellent idea.

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he won big tax cuts coupled with big increases in military spending.

::Swoon::

The tax cuts and a severe recession tanked government revenue.

Mostly the recession.

Unlike today's conservatives, Reagan at least acknowledged mathematical reality and signed some tax increases.

These were largely simplifications of existing tax code.

But these were insufficient, and it fell first to George H.W. Bush - the last truly fiscally responsible Republican - and then to Bill Clinton to restore budgetary sanity.

It didn’t hurt that we had won the Cold War by that point, and that the economy went gangbusters—based on nothing related to federal policy—for about twenty years starting after the recession of the early eighties. This was accelerated by outsourcing (opposed by Democrats), and budgetary policies and welfare reform put in place by Republican congresses and erroneously credited to Clinton.

But the conservatives who dug the hole

Why is it that the deficit wasn’t a big issue when GW Bush left office?

did nothing to get us out of it. On the contrary, they denounced the first President Bush for raising taxes,

First, I was six, so don’t put that on me. Second, the objection was less about the taxes and more about the blatant disregard for his word. Republicans don’t believe blindly that there should be no taxes to finance the government. Nor do we believe that reductions in taxes will always increase federal revenues (we actually understand the Laffer Curve.) Quite simply, we are a reactionary counterbalance to the certainty that liberals will promote policies that advocate tax increases on an already woefully overtaxed society.

and every Republican voted against Clinton's economic plan.

He had one?

For their bravery in supporting tax increases in 1993, Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994.

Which is when the policies that propelled to the boom of the late-90s were crafted. Kind of like how the Republican legislators of today are cleaning up the mess from the “brave” members who voted in favor of Obamacare.

By the end of the Clinton years, we had a handsome surplus.

Let’s not get carried away; it was a surplus, but not a particularly large or sustainable one.

In came the second President Bush who, with Republicans in Congress, declared the surplus too big.

No, they declared that taxes were too high. They were, and still are. There is a good argument to be made that the structural problems that we currently have in our economy were there in the 2000 crash, but that President Bush’s tax cuts and a policy that allowed the free market to course-correct shortened a very bad recession. Regardless, deficits always increase in recessions because revenues always dip. Spending is never as reactionary.

It was one problem they worked very hard to solve. Two tax cuts and two wars later,

We were attacked. One of these wars is universally agreed to be absolutely essential. The second was essential based on faulty intelligence. Even with that faulty intelligence, it still proved to be a good idea.

we were plunged into deficits - again. And the economic downturn that started on Bush 43's watch made everything worse, cutting revenue

Revenue is taxes, FYI.

and requiring more deficit spending to get the economy moving.

Spending DOES NOT get the economy moving!

Where were the moderate deficit hawks in all this?

I keep telling you, moderation is incompatible with being a deficit hawk.

They have a very bad habit. When conservatives blow up our fiscal position with their tax cuts, the deficit hawks are silent - or, at best, mumble a few words of mild reproach to have something on the record - and let the budget wreckage happen. Quite a few in their ranks (yes, including some Democrats) actually supported the Bush tax cuts.

And bless their little hearts for cowing to political pressure to do the right thing.

But when it's the progressives' turn in power,

We vote our leaders into power. It’s not a second-grade class election where everyone gets a turn by virtue of simply being there.

the deficit hawks become ferocious.

That’s more a cumulative effect. Having a national debt that is the size of our GDP is a terrible thing. We are on the precipice of having our debt rating downgraded, which will immediately increase the cost of servicing our debt by increasing the required rate for US bondholders. Our deficit has risen to roughly 10% of GDP (up from a Bush-era average just shy of 2%). The reason that there is alarm is because this is pretty goddamn scary.

They denounce liberals if they do not move immediately to address the shortfall left by conservatives.

Well to be fair, we denounce liberals for sport. It doesn’t mean we’re not right to gasp in horror at the easily predictable (and, frankly, widely expected) results of Obama’s spend-happy policies.

Thus, conservatives get to govern as they wish. Liberals are labeled as irresponsible

Can I make an editing suggestion? Let’s just keep it as “Liberals are irresponsible” and leave it at that.

unless they abandon their own agenda and devote their every moment in power to cutting the deficit.

Except that President Obama has spent precisely none of his moments in power to cutting the deficit. NONE MOMENTS!

It's a game for chumps. The conservatives play it brilliantly.

It’s not really a game. The country is broke.

By winning their tax cuts and slashing government revenue, they constrain what liberals can do whenever they get back into power.

That’s limited government, and it’s why conservatism is a movement that has always been predicated on strong presidential leadership. Liberals have unwittingly given astonishing power to the executive branch to regulate, to interpret broadly written laws, and to spend vast reams of freshly minted greenbacks We simply need a leader to wield it with the strength to dismantle the bureaucratic machine.

How do we know our difficulties stem primarily from a shortage of revenue?

We don’t. In fact, we know precisely the opposite.

Consider what would happen if we allowed all the tax cuts scheduled to expire in 2012, including the ones enacted under Bush, to go away.

Dr. Peter Venkman: This [government] is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.

Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?

Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!

Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...

Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!

Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

Okay, that’s from Ghostbusters in case you suck as a person and couldn’t already tell.

That would produce nearly as much deficit reduction over the next decade - roughly $4 trillion - as all the maneuvers of the Bowles-Simpson commission put together.

Of course, that assumes completely unrealistic revenue projections and economic circumstances, but by all means, let’s leave the serious matter of the federal budget to nincompoops living in a fantasy world.

If you want to be serious about closing the deficit, ending the Bush tax cuts is a good place to start.

Why? If you give the government more money, they’re just going to spend it on useless programs. This happened here in Illinois. Right after a massive “one-time” increase in the income tax to pay off the state’s debts, the governor proposed a budget that increased spending.

The commission's work showed just how effective conservatives have been. By saying they will never, ever, ever raise taxes,

To be fair, the commission had numerous tax increases, most of which I object to.

conservatives intimidate moderates into making concession after concession.

Is the argument here that raising taxes in a recession is a moderate position? I’m pretty sure that’s not why we had a 60+ seat swing in November.

In the end, the Senate conservatives on the commission - but not the House conservatives - supported some mild tax increases. But Bowles-Simpson proposed about twice as much in spending cuts as in revenue increases. You would think that moderates could at least hold out for a 50-50 split. But no, they'll do anything to win over a few conservatives.

Is it just me, or is it starting to get uncomfortable how stridently he’s arguing that we should give more money and power to the federal government?

As a result, any conservative who supports even the smallest tax increase is hailed as courageous.

This is completely counterintuitive to what you’ve been trying to say for about 3 pages of drivel. Conservatives that support tax increases should be roundly condemned.

Any liberal who proposes moderate spending cuts is condemned as a gutless coward unless he or she also supports slashing Social Security and Medicare. What's "moderate" or "balanced" about this?

Not sure. It’s completely un-tethered to reality, if that’s what you’re asking.

I hope Obama has the spine to keep calling the bluff of the deficit hawks until they get serious about changing the politics of deficit reduction. We can't afford another 30 years of fiscal evasion.

Are you out of your mind? We can’t afford another 2 years of fiscal evasion. We’re poised to need to raise the debt ceiling in about a month, and I have serious doubts that Republicans are going to go along without a budget that actually addresses cuts to the bloated federal bureaucracy and ever-increasing siphon of the private sector. Moody’s has been warning us about dropping our credit rating for two years, but the warnings have been fast and furious recently. Having the national debt surpass GDP is a colossal milestone—one that Greece and Ireland reached not so long ago.

If the asinine idea that we can tax our way out of debt persists, we’re going to have to move from the politics of a deficit to the politics of default.