2017: Whither Democrats?

Politics and religion
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Vox article on the budget

and (yet another) tweet storm that summarizes it.

For the tweeter averse I broke it down in bullet points:

  • The fraud here goes beyond “rosy” forecasts. It even goes beyond “voodoo economics”–the debunked theory that tax cuts pay for themselves.
  • The Trump team proposed a $5.5 trillion tax cut just four weeks ago AND COMPLETELY LEFT IT OUT OF THEIR BUDGET. 3/
  • But wait – it’s actually worse than that. Not only is the $5.5 trillion cost of the tax cuts not included in the budget numbers… 4/
  • But the Trump budget claims $2 trillion in ADDITIONAL revenue from economic growth RESULTING PRINCIPALLY FROM THOSE TAX CUTS. 5/
  • So in other words, they are claiming that tax cuts WILL PAY FOR THEMSELVES—something no credible economist believes—AND THEN SOME. 6/
  • My former colleague @GregLeiserson predicted this double-counting, here: http://equitablegrowth.org/tax-finance/will-the-trump-administration-double-count-its-magic-asterisk/ … 7/
  • Bears repeating: Trump budget claims that the tax cuts, whose cost is est. by @BudgetHawks at $5.5T, will actually INCREASE rev. by $2T. 8/
  • So this is not a $2 trillion “magic asterisk.” THIS IS A $7.5 TRILLION LIE. 9/
  • It’s obvious why they’re hiding the cost of tax cuts. 10/
  • Putting $5.5T in tax cuts for wealthy ppl & corps alongside ~$4T in cuts to progs serving low & middle-income people wld not be popular. 11/
  • Nor would it be seen as fiscally responsible. 12/
  • So they brazenly just disappeared the tax cuts, allowing them to claim that the program cuts are “tough choices” for deficit reduction. 13/
  • These are savage cuts to Medicaid, to Social Security disability, to nutrition, to student aid, to people & communities left behind. 14/
  • In sum, this is the Bernie Madoff Budget. A massive accounting fraud, designed to fleece vulnerable people. 15/15
543

I don’t get it. Didn’t the Trump administration propose a budget last month that ended up being roundly rejected? What’s different this time?

544

It hasn’t been rejected yet.

545

So the budget doesn’t have the tax cuts in it? Or it does? This is confusing.

546

It has them except it claims 5.5T in tax cuts for the wealthy will create 7.5T more tax revenue for a net increase of 2T.

547

You have to understand this was done with a proverbial crayon. Yes, the cuts are still in there, but it includes a projection which offsets them with magical thinking.

edit - what Lantz said

548

We went through this same game under GWB. The GOP budgets of the past 15 years have been solely based around the “Step 2: ???” meme.

549

So in two days, the Montana At-Large (the state has only one representative to the House) congressional special election takes place. This should have been an easy hold for the Republicans. They’re running a capable tech company founder and millionaire (Greg Gianforte) whose Christian-right bonafides put him in the mainstream of Republican candidates in this part of America.

But Rob Quist has run a really good campaign, with two days to go, this may be a race decided by 2-4 points in Gianforte’s favor…which would NOT be a good result for Republicans at all. Quist has also provided an interesting blueprint for Democratic congressional challengers in 2018, one that’s likely to be followed…and here’s where I’m gonna piss some folks off.

I realize that in some circles, spoiling for the impeachment of Donald Trump is a big important issue. I realize that the Democrats have been very muted about that. Hell, in fact the Republicans have made more mention of it than Democrats have in recent days.

There’s a reason for that. This may be anathema to some on the left. But here’s the thing: impeachment isn’t very popular right now. It just isn’t. Impeachment after just a few months (or next year, a few years) in office in places like Montana or Georgia is feels to voters there as if some know-it-all in a suit from DC is telling them they’re stupid. Which…probably isn’t inaccurate, but it’s no way to win a campaign.

At any rate, “impeachment” is a card that can be played too fast and create disasters. Witness the 1998 midterms. Republicans were chanting “Impeach!” about Bill Clinton over Monica Lewinsky, and it looked for sure as if they’d widen their 11-seat majority. And then on election night, 1998…Democrats picked up 4 seats. It was an historic night, the first time since 1934 that a party in control of the White House gained seats in the House in an off-year election. (It happened again in 2002 thanks to 9-11, but hasn’t happened since.)

Republicans know that, which is why they’re floating mild little trial balloons that have the word “Impeachment” in them. The idea? Get Democrats to fall into the trap and jump the gun.

That’s what’s interesting about Quist’s campaign in Montana (and also, Ossoff’s campaign in Georgia). Neither is running against Donald Trump as a figure of disdain. They’re running against Trump-era politics. For Quist, his big issue that’s moved the needle is healthcare, and protecting Medicaid. Ossoff is using a similar playbook. “I’ll impeach that jackass” isn’t a winning slogan, at least not yet. “I’ll protect your healthcare and medicaid benefits” is.

Just something to keep in mind before you type that “Where the hell are the Democrats!!!” post urging the ouster of El Presidente…;)

550

True enough, and at least Reagan used washable markers when he did it.

551

Ok, so this article goes into more detail about the budget:

And yes, so the issue here is that they simple do not count the revenue loss from the tax cut. As in, they just pretend it doesn’t happen.

They say the tax cut will boost economic growth to 3%, which could potentially happen, and cite that such growth will result in around $2B new revenue…

But instead of then saying, “Well, this cut will cost around $5B in lost revenue, 2 of which is offset by the growth, leading to a $3B hole,” they just forget the actual lost tax revenue, and say, “This will give us a net gain of $2B!”

It’s basically just nonsense.

Here’s another way to think about it: A business sells 100 ice cream cones at $2 each, bringing in $200 in sales. They calculate that cutting the price to $1.50 per cone will allow them to sell 33% more cones, or 133 cones. This would bring in nearly the same $200 in revenue, but if they accounted for this as the Trump administration does, they would show $266 in revenue—or 133 cones at $2 each.

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So I agree with your premise that running a campaign on the idea of impeachment isn’t a winning strategy right now, but objectively, aren’t we already at a point where the smoking gun that nailed Nixon… the cover-up… has been exposed? Not just by all we’ve gotten from sources, but right from the mouth of the President himself in the Lester Holt interview?

553

Yes and no. The key difference here in “smoking guns” is that in Nixon’s case the secret gun was on a tape he fought for almost a year to prevent the release of, and the tape was heard after being entered into evidence to the special prosecutor and Senate Watergate Committee. In Trump’s case, the evidence hasn’t been asked for yet, the case hasn’t been built yet, there are hundreds of steps to go first.

For Nixon, the smoking gun admission was the capstone that slides into place and makes the arch stand up, a final, integral piece. In Trump’s case, we may have the capstone sitting there, but we’ve not built the arch up yet where it will be useful.

554

True. I guess I’d much rather have an airtight case because for sure he and his group of liars will be telling everyone that the case is fake for months to come…

555

And the Dems need to take a back seat here. Without the votes to impeach, talking about it simply lets right-wing media present this as politics. Pelosi has been pretty disciplined about this herself, and I hope she can keep her caucus in line. Let the investigation and the leaks drive the news cycle.

“Trump is unacceptable” didn’t work for Hillary. It is definitely smarter to switch to policy “Trump is taking your healthcare/ student loan protections/ the SSI Disability payments your cousin needs” is a lot more likely to work than “Trump’s an ass and so, by extension, are his voters.”

556

Not yet. ALso impeachment is a long-term loser for Dems. Folks just won’t be mad at President Pence then they are at Trump.

Call for investigations, but no impeachment talk until Trump starts running for re-election.

557

You need a majority of the House and 2/3 of the Senate to remove a President from office. It is hard to imagine that happening without an unlikely Democrat wave election in 2018.

He’s not going anywhere until 2020, earliest.

558

Or a majority of the VP and cabinet, but good luck with that.

559

I agree, unless he develops health issues or just quits because he’s tired of the job. The latter probably won’t happen, but I could see him getting his wall and tax cuts and saying he’s completed his agenda.

560

What a mess. Even beyond the “fake budget” numbers where a $3 Billion hole is magically turned into a $2 Billion surplus, the cuts to many of the programs proposed in this budget are an unmitigated disaster. Medicaid/Medicare and Disability stand out the starkest, for reasons already mentioned in posts above.

Right now, a BIG part of the Healthcare crisis in this country that many people don’t see on a daily basis is what is happening to our senior citizens. If you are a senior citizen and you don’t have $1 million in retirement savings to draw on (which most do not), and something happens to you that prevents you from living on your own anymore (death of a spouse, sickness, injury, mental deterioration, etc.) it’s unlikely your adult children are going to be able to take you in because they’re already housing their own adult children thanks to the student debt crisis or they’ve downsized to a home that only fits them because of the mortgage crisis or financial concerns. Even if they had room to take you in, many times they can’t provide for your medical needs in their home. That means you’re looking at an assisted living facility.

The state of senior assisted living in this country currently is horrific. I’m not just talking about the obviously awful stories you hear about the facilities where the elderly are abused or abandoned, stolen from, etc… I’m talking about the facilities where they are doing what they can to do things the right way, but because the majority of their residents rely on Medicaid/Social Security to pay the astronomical costs of care, there is only so much they can do. Even in those places it is a difficult, depressing and often horrifying way to live out your final months or years. Certainly not the end of life anyone envisions for themselves.

But it’s going to be all the more common if Republicans get their way with this budget, healthcare “reform” and more. We have a huge generation of Boomers maturing into their 60’s and 70’s now, many of whom did not save nearly enough for a 25+ year retirement that includes ridiculous medical expenses and assisted living costs at the end of it. Even those who did save got hit hard by the recession and retirement fund values that have fluctuated wildly over the past decade or more. When these folks hit the system en masse over the next few years, and Republicans have cut most benefits and put insurance out of reach for anyone over 65, it is going to be a crisis of epic proportions.

We need single payer healthcare now, so we can start planning for better benefits for elder care as part of the system, and give our parents and grandparents (and eventually ourselves) the dignified final years that they deserve. How this isn’t blindingly obvious to the older voting crowd has always baffled me, they’re voting directly against their own best interests when they vote present-day Republican party. In five years, when they’re sitting in a dark and cramped little nursing home room with a stranger for a roommate who pisses the bed, steals their food and screams incoherently at night, they’ll still be blaming Obama instead of themselves.

561

Nah man, Muchinich said that disability “isn’t what most people think about when they think of social security” so it’s fine to cut it.

lol he actually said that