So much for 'he made it worse'

By Steve Benen

 - 

Fri Mar 16, 2012 8:00 AM EDT

For the better part of the last year, there was one claim Mitt Romney made more than any other: President Obama, he said, made the economy "worse."
Reality makes clear that the dubious claim just isn't true, but the Republican presidential hopeful repeated it anyway, ad nauseam, in nearly every speech, interview, and public appearance. It became the central point of the former governor's entire campaign: Obama made the economy worse, and Romney would make it better.
As national conditions improved, the argument became untenable, and the shift in Romney's rhetoric tells an important story.

Mitt Romney on Thursday night admitted that the economy is improving. "I believe we're in a recovery mode, finally," Romney told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "I think it's likely things will get better."

This isn't the first time Romney has grudgingly acknowledged that the economy is improving. He started moving in this direction two months ago, slowly acknowledging the economic upswing, but urging voters not to give Obama credit for the better conditions.
At a certain level, that's not an unreasonable point of discussion -- if Republicans want to debate Democrats over how and why the economy strengthened, it'd be a debate worth having.
But to have that debate is to concede the underlying point that the economy has obviously gotten significantly better since Obama became president. For the GOP, that's extremely dangerous -- going into a presidential election, Republicans will find it very difficult to win if the larger dispute boils down to "the nation is better off, and Obama deserves a second term" vs. "the nation is better off, but vote against Obama anyway."
For Romney, who likes to pretend the economy is his strong point, this is especially problematic. He can argue Obama made the economy "worse," and he can concede the "we're in a recovery mode," but he can't say both at the same time, at least if he wants to be taken seriously.
The more Romney acknowledges the facts -- Obama inherited an economic crisis, then helped turn things around -- the harder it is to imagine him winning in November. This clip from January continues to stick in my mind as one of the most important of 2012:

What the CBO said (and didn't say) about the Affordable Care Act

By Steve Benen

 - 

Thu Mar 15, 2012 3:49 PM EDT

The Congressional Budget Office released a new report this morning on the costs of the Affordable Care Act, and ever since, Fox News, congressional Republicans, the conservative Washington Times, and a variety of conservative blogs have been pretty worked up about the CBO findings.
They may want to take another look at it.

Associated Press

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) may want to read CBO reports more carefully.

In the right's defense, CBO reports can get a little tricky if you're not used to looking at them -- they're not light reading for lay audiences -- but that doesn't excuse folks like Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, from making bogus claims about a document he clearly didn't understand.
For conservatives, the CBO report shows that the cost of the health care law has nearly doubled, which makes Republicans feel better about themselves, and allegedly contradicts previous evidence that the Affordable Care Act will lower the deficit. For those who read the CBO report and understood it, the truth is more mundane. As Sahil Kapur explained, this really isn't that complicated.

CBO's actual revised estimate is that the "gross costs of the coverage provisions" -- the money used to provide people Medicaid or private insurance -- has risen by about $50 billion over the 2012-2021 period since its previous estimate, from $1.445 trillion to $1.496 trillion. That's the only relevant change to spending projections in the report.
So where are conservatives getting the idea that the cost of the law doubled? When it passed in 2010, CBO said its 10-year outlays would be about $940 billion. But because the law isn't set to be fully implemented until 2014, when the coverage expansion takes effect, that initial estimate included several years in which the law cost very little. Now that it's 2012, CBO's 10-year outlook captures more years during which the law will be in full effect. The law's price tag appears higher, but its costs in no way doubled.

The overall cost appears just a little higher -- about $5 billion per year for the next decade -- and as Ezra Klein noted, the CBO analysis "doesn't include the Medicare cuts, or many of the tax increases, that pay for the legislation."
Like it or not, the CBO report still shows the Affordable Care Act doing what it's supposed to do, while cutting the deficit, just as proponents argued during the debate in 2009 and 2010. The arguments Democrats made at the time are bolstered, not undermined, by the new data. Indeed, as Jonathan Cohn noted, "The real news of the CBO estimate is that, according to its models, health care reform is going to save even more taxpayer dollars than previously thought."
In other words, Republicans and their allies are pointing to a CBO analysis that, if read carefully, shows that Republicans and their allies are wrong.
Oops.

It's all about priorities

By Steve Benen

 - 

Thu Mar 15, 2012 1:03 PM EDT

Getty Images

Mitt Romney caused a stir this week when he told the NBC affiliate in St. Louis that he would "get rid of" Planned Parenthood if he's elected president. The candidate and his campaign are now pushing the context of the comment.

"Planned Parenthood is a private organization. What I want to get rid of is the federal funding of Planned Parenthood," he told Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times. [...]
His spokesperson, Eric Fehrnstrom, soon clarified that Romney did not mean to eliminate the organization altogether.
"It would not be getting rid of the organization," Fehrnstrom said. "They have other sources of funding besides government appropriations, but in order to achieve balance, we have to make some tough decisions about spending."

In fairness, there's some truth to the explanation. When Romney said he intends to "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, he was, in context, talking about federal funding.
But that doesn't make the pushback persuasive. For one thing, as a practical matter, if a Romney administration keeps its campaign promise and cuts off Planned Parenthood from all federal aid, it would very likely crush the health organization's ability to function.
For another, Romney prioritizing the elimination of Planned Parenthood support continues to be pretty ironic, since he's traditionally supported the group -- including having attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser during his Senate campaign.
But it's Fehrnstrom's point that warrants special scrutiny. As far as the campaign's spokesperson is concerned, Planned Parenthood needs to be cut off due entirely to "tough decisions about spending."
To borrow a line, that's bullpucky -- and it's important to understand why.
Planned Parenthood receives a fairly small amount of money from Congress, and eliminating every penny of the aid would barely scratch the surface when it comes to deficit reduction.
Indeed, the larger budgetary context is extraordinary. Mitt Romney wants to increase spending on defense by billions of dollars, and slash taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. How would he pay for this? So far, Romney hasn't been willing to answer that.
But look again at the Romney campaign's line: "We have to make some tough decisions about spending." The Republican, who claims to be a "numbers guy," seriously seems to believe he can take a $1.1 trillion deficit, increase spending on the Pentagon without comparable offsets and cut taxes for the wealthy without comparable offsets, but still bring the budget close to balance by blocking women from accessing contraception, family planning services, pap smears, cancer screenings, and tests for sexually-transmitted diseases.
In his much-derided speech to an empty football stadium a few weeks ago, Romney said his plan "calls for sacrifice." He added, "It requires a leader ... to call for sacrifice."
Perhaps, but in this case, Romney doesn't want shared sacrifice. The only folks Romney wants to suffer are women who rely on Planned Parenthood -- defense contractors and the former governor's millionaire friends wouldn't have to sacrifice anything.

Why Romney's pass on Medicare matters

• By Steve Benen

   - 

  Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:23 AM EDT

  Mitt Romney celebrated his 65th birthday this week, which made him eligible for the popular, successful Medicare program. The Republican presidential candidate's campaign wasted no time in letting reporters know a key detail: Romney isn't signing up for the health care benefit.
  This is, of course, his right. But Romney's decision matters because of what it tells us about his approach to the bedrock American program. The former governor has already endorsed Paul Ryan's House Republican budget plan, which would eliminate the Medicare program altogether, replacing it with a private voucher system. Romney also wants reduced entitlement benefits for the most well-off Americans (which, obviously, would include him).
  But Jonathan Cohn explained this week that the problem with Romney's approach is that his plan "wouldn't simply reduce Medicare coverage for the very wealthy. It'd reduce Medicare coverage for many other people, too."
  

  [G]iven Romney's promise of a tight cap on federal spending, [the value of the voucher he would give seniors to pay for care] would likely decline relative to health care costs, so that large numbers of seniors would face significantly higher out-of-pocket medical costs. (Either that, or there'd be massive cuts to other programs, inevitably putting seniors at risk of other hardships.)
  Romney has indicated he'd protect the lowest income Americans, by giving them larger subsidies. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that's what he really intends. But it's not just the poor who need protection. Given the budget constraints he's promised to impose, many near-poor people would end up in trouble. (And that's assuming he really would protect the poor. Given that Romney also wants to cut Medicaid, which provides supplemental coverage to seniors who need extra help, I'm not sure that's realistic.)
  Why would Romney think that putting middle-class seniors at greater financial risk is even tolerable, let alone advisable? Who knows. But you have to wonder whether his affluence blinds him, or at least desensitizes him, to the threat medical expenses can pose -- and the difficulty older Americans traditionally have in the private insurance market.

  Romney, worth in upwards of a quarter-billion dollars, can simply write a check for any and all of his family's health care needs. But the number of Americans who enjoy that level of financial security is extremely small.
  It's why the DNC responded to Romney's announcement this week with a new video noting that he may not need Medicare, and he may even want to scrap the existing program, but for the rest of the country, this would be a disaster.
  <object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/o_mVQgYhtGc&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/o_mVQgYhtGc&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></embed></object>

House GOP plans to renege on budget deal

By Steve Benen

 - 

Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:00 AM EDT

Getty Images

Last summer, as part of the debt-ceiling crisis, Democrats and Republicans agreed to spending levels for the upcoming year, suggesting the budget process would go relatively smoothly in 2012. After all, with the figures already locked in, the most contentious part of the process was already addressed. As far as everyone was concerned, a deal's a deal.
And then GOP officials started whispering that they didn't much like the deal anymore.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters earlier this week, "This wasn't a handshake, it was a law we passed.... I guess [House Republicans] love government shutdowns, or at least the threat of them."
That threat is becoming increasingly real. Reuters reports that House GOP leaders are "ready to break a hard-fought budget deal," in large part because rank-and-file Republicans are insisting upon it. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are now reportedly seeking a compromise on the compromise, asking Dems to accept an additional $19 billion in cuts, on top of the cuts Democrats already agreed to swallow.
How would congressional Republicans justify reneging on a deal they struck just seven months ago? To hear them tell it, there's room for a semantics debate -- both sides agreed to a $1.047 trillion cap on discretionary spending for fiscal 2013. GOP officials are now arguing that the cap is simply a ceiling, and that there's nothing wrong with pushing a budget that's lower than the agreed-upon maximum.
While I'll gladly give Republicans credit for creativity, the argument is dishonest to a jaw-dropping degree. Greg Sargent set the record straight by reminding us what GOP leaders were saying before they changed their minds.

...Dems and the White House will argue that even Mitch McConnell himself recently acknowledged that what was actually agreed upon were “discretionary spending levels.” Eric Cantor also has described the deal as one that set a “level of spending.”
Get ready for a rerun of a very bad movie. We're hurtling towards another government shutdown fight, in which the House GOP leadership will be dealing with a Tea Party wing that prioritizes shrinking government above all else -- this time, in the lead up to the elections.

That's exactly right. The next question is how serious this situation really is.
The divisions are getting increasingly messy. Democrats want Republicans to honor the bipartisan deal; House Republicans want an additional $116 billion in cuts; the GOP leadership wants rank-and-file members to settle for $19 billion in cuts.
But the Boehner/Cantor request won't work for anyone -- their cuts aren't deep enough for right-wing members, and their willingness to renege on their own compromise guarantees Democratic rejection.
The crisis, at this point, is still on the horizon, and cooler heads may yet prevail. Indeed, given Congress' record-low approval rating, and the severe unpopularity of the Republican Party, it's hard to imagine even the most unhinged GOP members risking their majority in an election year, forcing a government shutdown.
Then again, it was also hard to imagine literally every Republican in Congress last summer agreeing to destroy the economy on purpose unless Democrats accepted significant spending cuts -- but that's exactly what the GOP did during the debt-ceiling fiasco.
I'd bet against a shutdown, but the circumstances at this point are unpredictable. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said last week, "Republicans are playing with fire here." As of this week, they've already lit the match

Why the highway bill matters

By Steve Benen

 - 

Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:43 PM EDT

Getty Images

It's been an unusually busy afternoon for the U.S. Senate. A deal was struck on judicial nominees; the "JOBS Act" is set to advance; and an important highway bill cleared the chamber with ease.

A two-year, $109 billion measure providing federal funding for the nation's roads, rails bridges and airports for the next two years passed the Senate on a 74 to 22 vote Wednesday with broad bipartisan support. [...]
The Senate bill's supporters -- Democrats, Republicans, labor unions and business groups -- say the bill will help create or sustain almost 3 million jobs, mostly in the construction industry.
"This is a wonderful opportunity for the Senate and a great accomplishment for our country," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said, heralding the fact that one of the chamber's most liberal members -- Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) --and one of its most conservative -- James Inhoffe (R-Okla.) -- joined together to draft the bill.

Though the bill had broad, bipartisan support, all 22 of the senators who voted against the bill were Republicans.
Ordinarily at this point, easy Senate passage of the highway bill would lead to a lot of sighs of relief. After all, the highway bill is critically important to financing infrastructure projects nationwide, and is usually one of the year's least-contentious legislative fights. Everyone knows this bill has to pass.
But with the Republican caucuses moving so sharply to the right, this year is ... tricky. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made his transportation bill one of his top 2012 priorities, only to see it fail spectacularly. The Speaker instead signaled last week he'd try again with the Senate bill once it passes.
Now that the Senate work is complete, there are two questions: (1) can the House pass the Senate version? and (2) what happens if it doesn't?
On the first question, this should be an easy lift for the House, but as we've seen many times over the last year, what should happen in the lower chamber and what does happen are two very different things. Rank-and-file Republicans effectively believe the nation will be better off if Congress invests less in infrastructure, and the bipartisan nature of the Senate bill doesn't seem to matter.
As for the second question, if the House rejects the Senate bill, Congress will be forced to pass another short-term measure -- the latest in a series of short-term extensions -- before existing funding expires on March 31.
That may not sound especially troubling, but as Brad Plumer recently explained, these stopgap bills cause quite a bit of "chaos" outside the Beltway.

Transportation experts have long argued that Congress's barrage of stopgap and
short-term bills since 2009 have made it harder for states to do any sort of rational planning. "States are required by the federal government to develop long-term transportation plans," writes Paul Yarossi of HNTB Holdings. "Yet we are potentially looking at much shorter-duration authorization bills." Even the Senate's two-year $109 billion bill, which maintains current funding levels, is less ideal than a longer-term bill.

And what if House Republicans decide to reject the Senate bill and a short-term extension? Then we have systemic failures and mass layoffs.
The highway bill, in other words, matters.

Allen West has it ALL figured out

By Steve Benen

 - 

Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:23 AM EDT

As the domestic economy has improved in recent months, so too have the major Wall Street indexes. The Dow Jones industrial average soared yesterday, closing at its highest level since before the start of the Great Recession. The Nasdaq composite index, meanwhile, closed yesterday at its highest level in more than 11 years.
Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) offered a unique take on these developments yesterday, telling Fox News' Neil Cavuto the recent upswing may be tied to the 2012 presidential election.

WEST: Well, I would think maybe the markets are maybe looking five to six months down the road, when we have a change in leadership in this country –
CAVUTO: Wait a minute, you think that this is built on a Republican either capturing the White House or Republicans capturing the Senate? … You think that the markets are getting bubbly in anticipation of a Republican taking the White House?
WEST: Oh, absolutely.

Let me get this straight. In the Republican congressman's mind, investors are overlooking improved job numbers, improved consumer spending, and improved economic confidence, and are instead investing based on expectations that a new, unnamed president might take office 10 months from now?
Is this really going to be the Republican line on an improved environment for investors?
For what it's worth, much to Republicans' chagrin, Bloomberg News recently reported that the stock market invariably performs better under Democratic administrations.

Bloomberg News

In 2004, a Bush cabinet official said job creation and GDP numbers don't really matter because "the stock market is ... the final arbiter" of economic success.
If that's still true, Republicans appear to have some explaining to do.

Cheney: Canada too dangerous

Mar 13, 2012

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

Updated 6d 23h ago

By Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

Another intriguing Dick Cheney story.

The former vice president has reportedly canceled an April appearance in Toronto because of concern about security in Canada.

"He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high," said Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live, according to Canada's National Post.

Ruppert's company had booked Cheney for an April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Center.

Many Cheney appearances draw protests over his role in the Iraq War and enhanced interrogation techniques.

The National Post reports:

In September, Mr. Cheney was speaking at a private club in Vancouver when protesters massed outside the front door harassing ticket holders and in one instance, choking a security guard.
The former vice-president was reportedly held inside the building for more than seven hours as Vancouver Police in riot gear dispersed the demonstrators.
"God forbid there was ever an emergency," said Ruppert, noting Cheney's history of heart problems.
Ticket holders can either bring in their tickets for a refund, or go to a replacement talk by author Mark Steyn.

Incidentally, Cheney is using Spectre to line up his events? The scandal-plagued politician, who embraced war and torture, is relying on a promotional company that has the exact same name as an evil organization from the James Bond franchise?

"This Week in God"

By Steve Benen

 - 

Sat Mar 10, 2012 10:10 AM EST

As "This Week in God" settles in on Saturday mornings, the God Machine has plenty to offer again this week.
First up is the latest nonsense from radical TV preacher Pat Robertson, who argued the other day that brutal tornadoes that sliced across the Midwest and the South should be blamed on the victims. Seriously, that's what he said.


As Brian Tashman reported, Robertson was asked on his "700 Club" program why God allowed the natural disaster to do so much harm, and the right-wing host offered a rather startling response.

He said that the storms weren't a malicious act of God and instead turned it around on the victims, asking, "why did you build houses where tornadoes were apt to happen?" [...]
Robertson continued that the tornadoes may not have happened if people had prayed for divine intervention, "If enough people were praying He would've intervened, you could pray, Jesus stilled the storm, you can still storms." He also told people who live in areas prone to natural disasters that it's "their fault, not God's."

He did not appear to be kidding.
Incidentally, Robertson also caused a stir this week when he suggested that marijuana use should be legal, making this an odd week for the former Republican presidential candidate.
Also from the God Machine this week:
* The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them not to cut federal funding on safety-net programs, including investments in health care, Pell Grants, affordable housing, and food stamps. While Republican lawmakers take the Bishops' thoughts on contraception very seriously, GOP officials are expected to ignore the Bishops' appeals in this area.
* There's an interesting dispute in Bideford, England, where a move to end Christian prayers at public meetings has touched off a larger fight over "the question of whether Christianity should hold a privileged place in a modern, diverse and highly secular society" (thanks to reader V.S. for passing this along).
* And as Alyssa Rosenberg reported this week, TLC has cancelled a reality show called All American Muslim, which was at the center of a culture-war skirmish in which anti-Muslim activists pushed advertisers to drop their sponsorship of the program.

Obama's Defense of Religion

Believers have found Barack Obama and his Justice Department to be staunch allies.

Steve Chapman | February 23, 2012

Catholic bishops, evangelical pastors and Republican presidential candidates have been decrying the Obama administration's war on religious liberty. Amid all the uproar, it's easy to overlook something equally important: the administration's many battles for religious liberty.
The president has gotten deserved criticism for trying to force Catholic colleges and hospitals to buy insurance coverage for something they regard as evil: birth control. But that's only part of the story. In other realms, believers have found a Barack Obama and his Justice Department to be staunch allies.
The most conspicuous surprise involves government rules for faith-based organizations that get federal funding for social services. President George W. Bush issued an executive order allowing such groups to hire only people who share their faith—exempting them from the usual ban on religious discrimination. Liberal critics accused him of underwriting "theocracy" and "faith-based coercion."
One of the opponents was Obama. In his presidential campaign, he said his view was simple: "If you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them—or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion."
But it hasn't worked out that way. Obama has left Bush's rule in place, infuriating many groups that expected a reversal.
They have repeatedly pressed him to bar these groups from using religious criteria in deciding whom to hire and whom to serve. Last year, the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (CARD) wrote the White House complaining that "we have seen no forward movement on this issue."
That's not the sentiment at the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance (IRFA), which includes such perennial Obama critics as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptist Convention. It has taken the uncharacteristic step of siding with the administration.
"We commend your steadfast preservation of federal policies that protect the freedom of religious organizations to consider religion in making employment decisions," it informed Obama last year. "Mr. President, your appreciation for the good that religious organizations contribute on a daily basis to our society is evident."
In this instance, Obama may be accused of ignoring the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which forbids government support of religion. But if so, it's because he has given too much deference to religious freedom rather than too little.
His commitment is also on display in defending churches against municipal governments that would prefer to do without them. Under federal law, houses of worship are assured equitable treatment in land use decisions. But mayors and community groups often tell churches to go to the devil.
When that happens, they often find themselves at odds with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Last year, it forced the town of Schodack, N.Y., to retreat after it barred an evangelical church from renting space in a commercial area where nonreligious meetings were allowed.
It filed a brief in support of a Hasidic Jewish congregation's lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, which had forbidden it to hold services in a private home. A federal court ordered the city to back off.
The administration has also intervened in cases where prisoners are denied religious literature. After a South Carolina sheriff prohibited inmates from getting devotional materials and other publications in the mail, the Justice Department sued. In the end, the county agreed to let inmates receive Bibles, Torahs, Korans and related fare.
In doing all this, the administration isn't simply doing the politically appealing thing. Anything but. Those who endorse letting faith-based groups have a free hand in hiring are mostly religious conservatives who wouldn't vote for Obama if he resurrected the dead.
The congregations victimized by zoning regulations are too small to matter. Prison inmates generally can't vote. There is no detectable political gain in anything Obama is doing here.
University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock criticized the contraceptive mandate and opposed the administration in a Supreme Court case involving a teacher fired by a religious school. But on the faith-based hiring issue, he says, Obama has actually been "kind of heroic."
The president's detractors may continue to portray him as a secular fanatic with, as Rick Santorum claims, an "overt hostility to faith in America." Before they do, though, they might want to remember the Ten Commandments -- especially the one about bearing false witness.

This Week in God

By Steve Benen

 - 

Sat Mar 17, 2012 10:50 AM EDT

As "This Week in God" settles in on Saturday mornings, the God Machine has plenty to offer again this week.
First up is a church-state case out of San Diego, where a 29-foot-high cross sits on a 14-foot pedestal on public land. The property was owned by the city, but Congress bought the space and declared it a war memorial a few years ago. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the display violates the separation of church and state, but this week, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.

The federal government is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case on the future of the Mount Soledad cross in La Jolla.
In a petition filed Monday with the high court, Justice Department lawyers said that a decision last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the landmark was unconstitutional because it signified government support of a religion on public land, has to be reviewed.
The government argued the appeals court decision improperly nullified an official act of Congress and conflicts with recent Supreme Court decisions on the display of religious symbols on public property.

What strikes me as interesting about this is the larger political context: it's the Obama administration siding in support of religious activism, at a time when Republicans argue the Obama administration is waging a "war" on faith. Indeed, Steve Chapman recently explained that, GOP rhetoric notwithstanding, religious people "found Barack Obama and his Justice Department to be staunch allies."
As Chapman put it, "The president's detractors may continue to portray him as a secular fanatic with, as Rick Santorum claims, an 'overt hostility to faith in America.' Before they do, though, they might want to remember the Ten Commandments -- especially the one about bearing false witness."
Also from the God Machine this week:
* A Pennsylvania atheist group is under fire for racially-charged billboards in Harrisburg.
* The Catholic Church in Sacramento cut off funding for a homeless-services agency because its new director's supports Planned Parenthood and gay marriage. The agency, Francis House, is now relying on private donations, which have been generous in the wake of the church's decision (thanks to reader R.P. for the tip).
* In the week's most cringe-worthy religion story, radical TV preacher Pat Robertson shared his thoughts on whether oral sex within marriage is a sin. If you watch the clip, prepare to be uncomfortable.

The details Paul Ryan has forgotten

 

Here we go again!

By Steve Benen

 - 

Mon Mar 19, 2012 9:25 AM EDT

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is set to unveil his caucus' new budget plan, and to help ensure it lands on fertile soil, the far-right Republican released a video trailer for his plan late last week.
For those who can't watch clips online, Ryan argues that the 2008 crash caught policymakers "by surprise," but he sees another one on the way.

"Let me ask you a question: what if your president, your senator and your congressman knew it was coming? What if they knew when it was going to happen, why it was going to happen, and more importantly, what if they knew what they needed to do to stop it from happening and they had the time to stop it? But they chose to do nothing about it, because it wasn't good politics?
"What would you think of that person? It would be immoral. This coming debt crisis is the most predictable crisis we've ever had in this country. And look what's happening. This is why we're acting. This is why we're leading. This is why we're proposing -- and passing out of the House -- a budget to fix this problem: so we can save our country for ourselves and our children's future."

The political motivations for all of this are pretty obvious: Ryan's plan is going to recommend brutal cuts to domestic programs, and he will do his best to say the slashes are necessary because of the "coming debt crisis." For the Ayn Rand acolyte, these aren't cuts he wants to make, but rather, they're cuts he thinks he has to make to prevent a debt-driven disaster.
Or so the argument goes.
There are a few angles to keep in mind as the debate begins again in earnest, and they share a theme: Ryan has absolutely zero credibility on these issues, and his fear-mongering is not to be taken seriously.
First, there is no debt crisis. The United States can easily borrow as much as it needs at low interest rates, suggesting there's nothing even close to a debt crisis. This is a fig leaf the right is using to rationalize draconian cut to domestic priorities, which they've long wanted to make anyway.
Second, if Paul Ryan and his allies were seriously panicked about reducing the deficit in a hurry to prevent a "crisis," they'd consider modest tax increases on the wealthy. Indeed, we know exactly what's driving the national debt, and much of it has to do with tax cuts the rich didn't need and the country couldn't afford. When Ryan acknowledges this, he'll start to have some credibility on the issue.
And third, for all of Ryan's alleged fear about the debt, his last budget plan ignored deficit reduction altogether, and instead prioritized more tax breaks for those at the very top.
Funny, these relevant details didn't seem to make the cut of Ryan's little video. What a shame.
Update: If Ryan's video looks familiar, there's a good reason for that.