Big Money Invented Paul Ryan To Work For Them, Not For Teabaggers

Palin's not happy with the Republican Party Establishment-- and she claims she may be ready to bolt and start one of her own. No one represents that Establishment better than Paul Ryan. Ryan's a packaged product, courtesy of Wall Street and Madison Avenue. That's all he's ever been and Boehner was more than happy to boost him into the chair of the Budget Committee to please the banksters both serve. Recall, if you will, Ryan's first big effort for the criminal banksters who lifted him out of obscurity.

It's September 2008 and the GOP kleptocrats are winding up their last months in office. They wanted to deliver one more grand giveaway to Wall Street-- Henry Paulsen's bankster bailout. One problem: enough Republicans (133 of 'em) joined with Democrats to defeat it 205-228 when it was first brought up for a vote. Wall Street's best-paid shills, Boehner, Cantor and Paul Ryan, mobilized for battle. At the time Ryan, a relatively junior Member, had already taken $1,704,095 in legalistic bribes from Wall Street (a number that has now risen to $$3,303,872, just slightly more than the $3,283,687 the banksters gave Democratic crook Steve Israel). After the defeat in the House, Wall Street and the banksters went bonkers and pulled all Bush's strings and he and Paulsen easily got the monstrosity passed in the House of Lords and then went back to the House with a no less odious version of the bill that they had rejected a few days before. This time it passed 263-171 with not 65, but 91 Republicans joining in. Among the vote switchers who had had their arms twisted by Boehner, Cantor and Ryan plus the official registered Wall Street lobbyists:

• Gresham Barrett (R-SC- $807,723)
• Judy Biggert (R-IL- $1,675,717)
• Charlie Dent (R-PA- $760,872)
• Mary Fallin (R-OK- $336,576)
• Jim Gerlach (R-PA- $1,670,352)
• Pete Hoekstra (R-MI- $295,830)
• Gary Miller (R-CA- $807,688)
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL- $928,068)
• Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH- $458,449)
• John Shadegg (R-AZ- $1,218,261)
• Lee Terry (R-NE- $1,246,007)
• Patrick Tiberi (R-OH- $2,438,284)

At the time some people wondered if teabaggers and fiscal conservatives would hold a screamingly hypocritical Ryan accountable at all. Yesterday's selection by Romney-- popular with the GOP base-- shows they didn't give a damn. At the time, Ryan was the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. He' had assigned himself the job of spokesperson for fiscal austerity but he had already taken more money from the banksters than any other politician in the history of Wisconsin politics and, as we saw, he voted for the bank bailout not once, but twice. In fact, Ryan was one of the hypocrites exposed in Michael Moore's film, Capitalism: A Love Story:

In a section of the critically acclaimed examination of how Wall Street insiders diverted hundreds of billions of tax dollars into their accounts, Moore illustrates how the bailout happened. Democratic and Republican members of Congress who do the bidding of the bankers scared their colleagues and the American people into approving a massive bailout of the speculators whose misdeeds created the financial meltdown that shocked the nation in September 2008.

Ryan, the Republican congressman from southeast Wisconsin's hard-pressed 1st District, is shown playing the fear card by telling the House that it had to steer almost $800 million BILLION to Wall Street's sleaziest players.

"If we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us-- if we fail to pass this I fear the worst is yet to come," claimed Ryan.

The statement from the Wisconsin Republican who has positioned himself as a budget specialist in the House played a significant role in securing support for a bailout bill that had not been adequately analyzed and that included few protections against fraud.

Had Ryan used his reputation and his role on key committees to aggressively oppose the bailout, he might have blocked the rush to judgment that economists now say could end up costing American taxpayers trillions of dollars-- and a big chunk of their country's future.

Instead, the GOP establishment's favored point man on fiscal issues claimed-- without benefit of facts, figures or any grounding in economic reality-- that a failure to give the bankers everything they were asking for could bring on a depression.

"This is a Herbert Hoover moment," Ryan told the House, as he reached a fear-mongering crescendo. "(Hoover) made mistakes during the Great Depression-- let's not make those mistakes."

It was a virtuoso performance. Moore was right to highlight it.

The filmmaker has given Wisconsin taxpayers a dramatic illustration of how it came to pass that we are bailing out bankers and billionaires at the same time that auto plants are closing in cities such as Janesville and Kenosha-- both of which are in the 1st District. More importantly, Moore has reminded the voters of southeastern Wisconsin how key members of Congress such as Paul Ryan determined to take care of the speculators on Wall Street rather than working families on Main Street.

Ryan was overjoyed to bail out his bankster/paymasters on Wall Street but when it came to bailing out their victims who, through no fault of their own, were swamped with screwed up mortgages, he changed his tune... drastically. Ryan always stands up for corporations and never stands up for working families.

And Ryan's a gift that keeps on giving. Over the weekend, a far right propaganda website wigged out at the way Ryan's playing Pied Piper to Republican House backbenchers over immigration, just as he did in the TARP battle.

Ryan has been meeting with House conservatives to persuade them that reform of the immigration system, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, is an economic necessity and critical to fixing the nation's fiscal problems.

...Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist said the sheer amount of time Ryan has spent talking with House Republicans about budget issues gives him the credibility to court them on immigration reform.

"I would bet you a nickel that he has had more face time with each member than anyone else in the caucus," said Norquist, an influential conservative who also believes immigration reform is vital to the economy.

Republican strategist Whit Ayres calls Ryan "one of the most effective messengers the Republican party has in the House," adding that "If Paul Ryan talks, the House Republicans will listen."

That assessment may be overly optimistic, considering the large number of House Republicans from conservative districts who see legalization of illegal immigrants and offering them a path to eventually become U.S. citizens as an "amnesty."

But Ryan said a Republican-backed amendment to the Senate bill to boost security on the U.S.-Mexico border improves the chances that the House and Senate could ultimately agree on a compromise version of the legislation.

The amendment "brings the Senate bill closer to the House's position and that gives me the belief that we have a better chance at getting this law fixed at the end," he said.

Unlike Republican Senator Marco Rubio, an architect of the Senate immigration bill and a potential rival for Ryan if both seek the presidency, Ryan is not writing legislation or participating in a congressional working group on the issue.

But both Ryan and Rubio face risks from the divisiveness of the immigration issue among Republicans.

Support for immigration reform could cost either man votes with conservatives who will nominate a 2016 Republican candidate. On the other hand, the influence of Hispanic-Americans in U.S. elections could make it harder for any candidate who opposes immigration reform to win the White House.

...In April, Ryan teamed up with his friend, Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez, who is a staunch supporter of immigration reform, to tout the issue at an event in Chicago. He has also co-sponsored immigration reform bills in the past.

Like Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, Ryan talks of the work ethic of immigrants and the high proportion who start businesses. He often tells of his Irish ancestors who fled the potato famine in the 1850s and started a family farm in Wisconsin.

In the interview, he cited future budget deficits as a reason for urgency on immigration reform. With 10,000 baby boomers retiring from the workforce each day, "our economy is going to need more labor in the future," he said.

Ryan said he believes the country needs a system "designed for the economy, to bring workers in to do jobs that people won't do or to bring their high-tech intellectual capital."

The fiscal argument helped fuel momentum for the Senate immigration bill when the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would reduce deficits by $197 billion over a decade because of additional workers paying income and payroll taxes.

If Ryan is worried about a conservative backlash on immigration, he is showing no signs of it.

He has offered to debate anyone who says an "earned" path to citizenship is the equivalent of amnesty.

And the man who has sparred for years with Democrats on budget issues believes he can play a role in getting the two parties to work together. "I think when you get Democrats to listen to Republicans and Republicans to listen to Democrats you can find the common ground," he said.

Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute said Ryan could give other Republicans political cover to support immigration reform. "Nobody is going to question the conservative credentials of Paul Ryan," he said.

Really?

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Is It Political Suicide For Paul Ryan To Still Be Hawking A Failed European Austerity Agenda?

Martin Wolf's autopsy of Europe's Austerity Agenda for the New York Review of Books doesn't even mention Paul Ryan. But I hope Democrat Rob Zerban, who nearly beat Ryan in 2012 and will take him on again next year, is reading it and absorbing it. It really is-- at least as much as Ayn Rand's adolescent writing-- what Ryan is all about.

After Ryan's buddies in the state legislature gerrymandered WI-01 to make it redder and safer, Ryan managed to beat Zerban 55-43%, his closest call since he was first elected. Zerban won his home county, Kenosha, and he also won Ryan's home county, Rock. Ryan swamped him, 73-25%, in the clueless, blood red Republican heartland that had been appended onto the district in Waukesha County. The biggest county, Racine, was very close. Ryan took it with 51%. Next year Zerban will win Racine by a bigger margin than that. I doubt many people in Waukesha read the NY Review of Books or even have a clear idea what the Austerity Agenda Ryan has been trying to import to America, even is. It will be up to Zerban to help these folks understand it-- and how it impacts them and their families. Wolf, who works for the Financial Times, is one of the world's most highly regarded and influential economic journalists. In his words, "Austerity has failed. It turned a nascent recovery into stagnation. That imposes huge and unnecessary costs, not just in the short run, but also in the long term: the costs of investments unmade, of businesses not started, of skills atrophied, and of hopes destroyed." He isn't alone as seeing it as one gigantic blunder, one that should, in a rational world, sink the careers of austerians like Paul Ryan.

Austerity came to Europe in the first half of 2010, with the Greek crisis, the coalition government in the UK, and above all, in June of that year, the Toronto summit of the group of twenty leading countries. This meeting prematurely reversed the successful stimulus launched at the previous summits and declared, roundly, that "advanced economies have committed to fiscal plans that will at least halve deficits by 2013."

This was clearly an attempt at austerity, which I define as a reduction in the structural, or cyclically adjusted, fiscal balance-- i.e., the budget deficit or surplus that would exist after adjustments are made for the ups and downs of the business cycle. It was an attempt prematurely and unwisely made. The cuts in these structural deficits, a mix of tax increases and government spending cuts between 2010 and 2013, will be around 11.8 percent of potential GDP in Greece, 6.1 percent in Portugal, 3.5 percent in Spain, and 3.4 percent in Italy. One might argue that these countries have had little choice. But the UK did, yet its cut in the structural deficit over these three years will be 4.3 percent of GDP.

What was the consequence? In a word, "dire."

In 2010, as a result of heroic interventions by the monetary and fiscal authorities, many countries hit by the crisis enjoyed surprisingly good recoveries from the “great recession” of 2008–2009. This then stopped. The International Monetary Fund now thinks, perhaps optimistically, that the British economy will expand by 1.8 percent between 2010 and 2013. But it expanded by 1.8 percent between 2009 and 2010 alone. The economy has now stagnated for almost three years. Even if the IMF is right about a recovery this year, it will be 2015 before the economy reaches the size it was before the crisis began.

The picture in the eurozone is worse: its economy expanded by 2 percent between 2009 and 2010. It is now forecast to expand by a mere 0.4 percent between 2010 and 2013. Austerity has put the crisis-hit countries through a wringer, with huge and ongoing recessions. Rates of unemployment are more than a quarter of the labor force in Greece and Spain.

...Why is strong fiscal support needed after a financial crisis? The answer for the crisis of recent years is that, with the credit system damaged and asset prices falling, short-term interest rates quickly fell to the lower boundary—that is, they were cut to nearly zero. Today, the highest interest rate offered by any of the four most important central banks is half a percent. Used in conjunction with monetary policy, aggressive and well-designed fiscal stimulus is the most effective response to the huge decrease in spending by individuals as they try to save money in order to pay down debt. This desire for higher savings is the salient characteristic of the post–financial crisis economy, which now characterizes the US, Europe, and Japan. Together these three still make up more than 50 percent of the world economy.

Of course, some think that neither monetary nor fiscal policy should be used. Instead, they argue, we should “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate.” In other words, sell everything until they reach a rock-bottom price at which point, supposedly, the economy will readjust and spending and investing will resume. That, according to Herbert Hoover, was the advice he received from Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary, as America plunged into the Great Depression. Mellon thought government should do nothing. This advice manages to be both stupid and wicked. Stupid, because following it would almost certainly lead to a depression across the advanced world. Wicked, because of the misery that would follow.

...The UK certainly did have alternatives-- a host of them. It could have chosen from a wide range of different fiscal policies. The government could, for example, have:

1. Increased public investment, rather than halving it (initially decided by Labour), when it enjoyed zero real interest rates on long-term borrowing.

2. It could have cut taxes.

3. It could have slowed the pace of reduction in current spending.

It could, in brief, have preserved more freedom to respond to the exceptional circumstances it confronted.

Why did the government not do so?

1. It believed, and was advised to believe, that monetary policy alone could do the job. But monetary policy is hard to calibrate when interest rates are already so low (at or close to zero) and potentially damaging particularly in the form of asset bubbles. Fiscal policy is not only more direct, but it can also be more easily calibrated and, when the time comes, more easily reversed.

2. The government believed that its fiscal plans gave it credibility and so would deliver lower long-term interest rates. But what determines long-term interest rates for a sovereign country with a floating exchange rate is the expected future short-term interest rates. These rates are determined by the state of the economy, not that of the public finances. In the emergency budget of June 2010, the cumulative net borrowing of the public sector between 2011 and 2015–2016 had been forecast to be £322 billion; in the June 2013 budget, this borrowing is forecast at £539.4 billion, that is, 68 percent more. Has this failure destroyed confidence and so raised long-term interest rates on government bonds? No.

3. It believed that high government deficits would crowd out private spending-- that is, the need of the government to borrow would leave less room for private borrowing. But after a huge financial crisis, there is no such crowding out because private firms are reluctant to invest, and consumers are reluctant to spend, in a weak economic environment.

4. It argued that the UK had too much debt. But the UK government started the crisis with close to its lowest net public debt relative to gross domestic product in three hundred years. It still has a debt ratio much lower than its long-term historical average (which is about 110 percent of GDP).

5. The government argued that the UK could not afford additional debt. But that, of course, depends on the cost of debt. When debt is as cheap as it is today, the UK can hardly afford not to borrow. It is impossible to believe that the country cannot find public investments-- the cautious IMF itself urges more spending on infrastructure-- that will generate positive real returns. Indeed, with real interest rates negative, borrowing is close to a “free lunch.”

6. The government now believes that the UK has very little excess capacity. But even the most pessimistic analysts believe it has some. Of course, the right policy would address both demand and supply, together. But I, for one, cannot accept that the UK is fated to produce 16 percent less than its pre-crisis trend of growth suggested. Yes, some of that output was exaggerated. There is no reason to believe so much was.

We, on this side of the argument, are certainly not stating that premature austerity is the only reason for weak economies: the financial crisis, the subsequent end of the era of easy credit, and the adverse shocks are crucial. But austerity has made it far more difficult than it needed to be to deal with these shocks.

The right approach to a crisis of this kind is to use everything: policies that strengthen the banking system; policies that increase private sector incentives to invest; expansionary monetary policies; and, last but not least, the government’s capacity to borrow and spend.

Failing to do this, in the UK, or failing to make this possible, in the eurozone, has helped cause a lamentably weak recovery that is very likely to leave long-lasting scars. It was a huge mistake. It is not too late to change course.

It won't be easy, but if Rob Zerban can convey this to suburban votes in southern Milwaukee County, the suburban areas of Racine County and to at least some of the folks living south and west of the city of Waukesha from Muskego to Mukwonago to North Prairie and Wales, we'll never hear from Paul Ryan again-- which would be a tremendous boon to working families all over America.

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Paul Ryan Gets A Letter From A Constituent

Hey Paul Ryan!

What do you think of the $52 billion in profits to the US Treasury made by the government taking over student lending?

Haven't heard you praising the outcome of a "Government Takeover."

Why?

Could it be that those profits would have been gravy profits to your benefactors?

It sure seems to me this is an excellent example of Government gone right.

I understand why this is not something you would not like to discuss. Like a wealthy guy (hmm... you!) paying for a private school college education on the Social Security benefits you want to cut.

Same with Obamacare. You don't talk about that much, except your repetitive screech about how all government managed healthcare it is unsustainable. Obama care and Medicare bad, private insurance good. Despite the fact that Obama care is private insurance.

Sincerely,

Bula

I am so tired of politicians dragging that old dead goat of government can't run anything around the yard. Yet, they seem to be perfectly capable of paying politicians. Along with everyone else that makes this country run. Last time I checked, this country has been running well for over 236 years.

Politicians like Paul Ryan are unconscionable. They are gross caricatures of a Gilded Age politicians. Hypocrites. Beholding to special interests. And in Paul Ryan's case being slapped down by his own Church.

Hey Paul,

How much more could be money could be made (and not stolen from borrowers ) from the US Government doing the same for 1st time home buyers with 300k or less mortgages?

Well?

How about a Postal Banking system for lower income folks to save on check cashing fees and curb predatory lending (this is common in other countries).

Did I miss something, or is Paul Ryan all in on predatory lending? Let's all check his website. Because I know his district, and the hardships his constituents face have led them to use those services (abominations in both Jewish and Muslim teachings, and I seem to remember Jesus had a problem with them too). For those of you who don't know the of the horrors of the Paul Ryan representation, let me share. Real simple. Thousands of high paying union jobs lost from GM in Janesville (ironically his hometown-- and he lives in the Parker Brothers Pen mansion-- (another Janesville sad story). Did he put his nuts on the line for his constituents? You be the judge. He lost his hometown in Janesville and Kenosha to Obama... well... apparently those that know him really hate him.

I suppose you could claim the government would inevitably screw it up. Worse than the existing system that collapsed the economy? Hmm...

Really. Think about it. What is the worst case scenario? We bail out ourselves instead of Jamie Dimon?

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Into The Lair Of The Beast... Bula Journeys To A Paul Ryan Town Hall In Elkhorn

Yesterday our Wisconsin correspondent, Bula, covered Paul Ryan's town hall meeting at the Monte Carlo Room in Elkhorn the Walworth county seat. Last November it was heavy big margin Ryan had rolled up in Walworth County that helped him overcome Rob Zerban's big win in Kenosha County.

Has The Shine Worn Off Paul Ryan In The Conservative Heart Of WI-01?
- by Bula

That was the question I wanted to find out at a Paul Ryan town hall meeting in Elkhorn, WI.

This is not an election year for the Congressman, so I was curious to see the turnout. The parking lot was only half full, but the police presence was as large as usual... The Sheriff, Deputies, Elkhorn PD. No crowds mulling around outside, I walked right in and was greeted by the usual staff and aides handing out questioners.

The crowd was noticeably smaller than recent meeting I have attended, but the make up had not changed. Older white people. Exclusively. Not a person of color in the house. The burning question in my mind was how damaged was Ryan after his catastrophic implosion as the VP pick of the Romney campaign. I would soon find out.

sanpaku

I sat down in the 2nd row, off to the right side where Ryan would be entering (I've been to a few of these before), a few feet from the Sheriff and officers standing guard along the wall. As it turned out, Think Progess had a research assistant at this meeting, taping it, and I sat next to her. It felt a little more comfortable having an independent journalist taping the event. It gave me more confidence to speak out and push back on Ryan. At least, I thought, if I get tased and removed it will be recorded.

My strategic seating location, along with the initial malaise of the crowd allowed me jump in for the first question. I knew from previous meetings, you get one question (if you are lucky), and it will be your last. That's quite a dilemma with Ryan. A had a list. An abbreviated one. Not even the top ten. The top 3.

  I decided to pull the trigger on an issue he owns. My question is in regard to the bank bailout. He challenged me immediately. Do you mean TARP or Dodd Frank? I said the bill you twisted arms to get through Congress. He tried desperately to confuse the bailout and Dodd Frank. He began regurgitating his talking points.

  Once I was able to get him to own TARP, I asked if he would support the bi-partisan bill Senators Brown and Vitter have proposed to break up the big banks.

Let me digress for a moment. When Ryan walks out on the stage he explains how this is going to work. I'm going to give a PowerPoint presentation (all discredited talking points recycled), and then I will take questions. He goes on to say he does not want back and forth in the audience. Or any State or local issues.

Seemed to me to defeat the purpose of a town hall, a meet your congressman and discuss issues,  kind of thing.

   So after a couple of minutes of gibberish, where he finally said he does not support that bill, but he does support the Volker rule and wants to repeal Dodd Frank.

Are you clear yet? Me neither. At this point I decided to break the Ryan Rule and call him out. So, I said, then let's bring back Glass Steagall!

A stumble and a glare. Well, he says that would make the banks uncompetitive (?) and he could not support that, and let's move on!

One of his loyal followers was upset about the lack of White House tours caused by the sequester.  All those disappointed kids (whose parents have enough money to send them), what about them? She asks, you guys fixed the FAA traffic controller problem?

Ryan says the sequester is horrible plan hatched by Obama. The Republicans wanted to be more reasonable, this is Obama's fault, only he can fix it.

This is where I broke the rules again. WHY DID YOU VOTE FOR IT! I interjected. Dirty looks from the audience, Ryan and the Sheriff.

Stumbles, admits he voted for it, but... Next Question!

It was like I was a 10 year old in church, being scolded by the old people around me with dirty looks for kicking the kneel-er. But, I figured, go big or go home.

I waited. Minding my manners. I wanted to get a question about CISPA in, but how (without being tased)? Then, as luck would have it, a Republican unknowingly laid a trap for the Congressman Formerly-Known-as-a-Wonk (does anyone still think he is?). "What is your view on a federal law requiring taxing internet purchases according to state laws"... was the question.

A very tricky subject for a Republican, in a state dominated by a Republican Governor and legislature who would love free (of having to vote for it) revenue. He handled it, let's say, in-artfully. He appreciates that small business's, brick and mortar businesses are being hurt by on-line retailers. It is not fair. But how to do it?

  Are you waiting for his concerns?

Here it comes (I'm paraphrasing.) Well then Amazon and all the big retailers will have to keep a database of purchases and the federal government will have access to your financial information.

THEN WHY DID YOU VOTE FOR CISPA! I shout out.

Major scolding. Deputies had their hands on the taser's. Boo's, catcalls.

  Ryan stumbles again. I did vote for CISPA, but it has protections built in so... (he mumbles, voice trailing off... I'm getting verbal abuse).

My last gotcha came at the last question. He picked on a friend in the front row... who gave him the softball question of "What are we going to do about Obamacare! My company's premiums have gone up 30% this year!" A truly sympathetic Ryan wished he could repeal the law, and make it all better. He went on to say, "I don't know of any other costs that have gone up 30%... and you're lucky! I've heard of even higher increases!"

To which I shouted out (in my last act of defiance) GASOLINE! AND I DON'T OWN OIL WELLS LIKE YOU DO!

Ironically, I had the first question, and also got in the last word.

Paul Ryan has stayed true to his benefactors principles.

  And from what I can tell his voters want it that way.

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Big Business And Immigration... And Paul Ryan

It wasn't a very Tea Party thing for Paul Ryan to do to vote to bail out the Wall Street banksters. In fact, it was even less teabagger-friendly when Ryan joined with Boehner and Cantor between September 29, 2008 and October 3. It was less than a week, but it's the real story of Paul Ryan that Tea Party activists would rather not face.

The long, catastrophic Bush Regime was finally coming to an end and the GOP kleptocrats were winding up their last months in office. They wanted to deliver one more grand giveaway to Wall Street: Henry Paulsen's bankster bailout. One problem: enough Republicans (133 of 'em) joined with Democrats to defeat it 205-228 when it was first brought up for a vote on September 29. Wall Street's best-paid shills, Boehner, Cantor and Ryan, mobilized for battle. At the time Ryan, a relatively junior Member, had already taken $1,704,095 in legalistic bribes from Wall Street (a number that has since then risen to $3,207,247, the most any Wisconsin politicians has ever gotten from Wall Street in history). After the defeat in the House, Wall Street and the banksters went bonkers and pulled all Bush's strings and he and Paulsen easily got the monstrosity passed in the House of Lords and then went back to the House with a no less odious version of the bill that they had rejected a few days before. This time it passed 263-171 with not 65, but 91 Republicans joining in. Among the vote switchers who had had their arms twisted by Boehner, Cantor and Ryan plus the official registered Wall Street lobbyists, not many are still in the House, although all these big bankster bribery recipients are:

• Charlie Dent (R-PA- $1,186,979)
• Jim Gerlach (R-PA- $2,607,380)
• Gary Miller (R-CA- $1,453,324)
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL- $1,360,707)
• Lee Terry (R-NE- $1,813,883)
• Patrick Tiberi (R-OH- $4,100,845)

We all, already know that Wall Street rewards its shill handsomely. This post isn't about that. It's about how Paul Ryan never hesitates to sell out the far right base that idolizes him and sticks its collective head in the sand when presented with the evidence that he's nothing-- and has never been anything-- but a shill for Big Business. That's right-- just a garden variety old timey Republican hack, only younger and not as ugly... on the outside. His latest foray on behalf of his Establishment overlords-- to the dismay of the right-wing base-- is how he's embraced immigration reform, which is popular nationally, hated by the Know Nothing and racists who dominate the Tea Party/GOP activist army... and an absolute must for the big money donors who want the cheap labor.

Call it a marriage of convenience. In the battle to win over the majority of the Republican Party on immigration reform an alliance has been formed between two of the GOP's rising stars. Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) has endeavored to assist Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in his push to convince the Republican Party to go along with the immigration reform plan proposed by the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" group of senators.

Both Rubio and Ryan are widely seen as potential frontrunners for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Although helping the other will boost their profile in the minds of voters, the risks of sitting on the sidelines during this debate are too great to not take action.

Rubio was a member of the Gang of Eight and this immigration reform effort is widely seen as his first major legislative opportunity to build up a profile in the minds of voters toward 2016. After the release of the plan, Rubio has essentially went all in on efforts to convince fellow Republicans to support it, appearing in ads that tout the plans conservative values, especially border security and no social assistance to undocumented immigrants who go through the 13 year process to become legal. Rubio has essentially tied up much of his political capital in this bill and a defeat would be catastrophic for any future higher office ambitions.

But Rubio has faced backlash from fellow Republican legislators, conservative media pundit, and activists over the plan that emerged last week. From being attempted to be linked to the false "ObamaPhone" meme with "MarcoPhones" to dealing with members of his own party making statements that hurt his cause, such as Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) saying that Al Qaeda terrorists, "are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanic," Rubio has quite a bit of work ahead of him in convincing his fellow republicans to follow his lead on immigration reform.

Ryan is providing support on the fiscal front. Ryan has acquired a status among the Republican Party as a budget wonk so his involvement will be crucial for a House version of the Senate immigration reform bill to pass. His position on Capitol Hill allows him to vouch for the price tag and economic effects of the bill, providing much needed cover for nervous Republicans who would like his stamp of approval for the vote for the bill.

Ryan has already started taking heat for his position on immigration. Conservative radio host Mark Levin blasted Ryan on his program, saying, "he's creating a record here for himself that makes it very, very hard, in my view, if he chooses to run for president, to vote for him."

Listen to a radical right-wing nutjob Mark Levin, a virulent racist on whom it's beginning to dawn that Ryan is no friend of the right-wing base:



Ryan works, first and foremost, for Big Business. They invented him. They dragged him out of obscurity (or a gym), cleaned him up, taught him how to speak politically, taught him how to convince dumb DC pundits that he knows something about economics, got Boehner to make him Budget Chair and Romney to give him the VP nomination... and they're still investing in making him a governor or senator or president or something where he can further their agenda.

And there is nothing higher on the Big Business agenda, prioritized more highly than low taxes on the rich and low wages for the poor. Low wages for the poor means lots of immigrants. That's always been the irony of the GOP base opposing immigration and the GOP Establishment always trying to move it along. Bush certainly did and today Boehner, Rubio and Ryan are. Obviously, they want to do as much damage as they can to any bill that advocates anything smacking of humanitarian values-- like keeping families together and access to public services-- but the corporations who finance their cushy careers want cheap labor and they expect this guys to deliver-- regardless of what loudmouthed bigots like Mark Levin have to say.

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Will The Democrats Win Back The House In November? With Steve Israel Calling The Shots?

I'm always Mr. Optimism. I was thinking that the DCCC might have learned something from the dismal back-to-back failures of the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010 (a stunning 63 seats lost, overwhelmingly by incumbents following DCCC directives to vote with the Republicans whenever possible) and then their pathetic failure to even come close to taking back the House last November, as they tried stocking up the caucus with the kind of right-wing corporate whores (Blue Dogs and New Dems) grassroots progressives don't want to support. Funny how the Tories in the U.K. seem more open to learning political lessons than our own out of touch ruling elites.

In a recent (paywalled) column for the Times of London, Matthew Parris (one of the finest political essayists alive today) made a seemingly obvious but striking observation: nearly all of those arguing that Cameron should become more radically right-wing are either non-elected pundits or members of parliament with very large majorities, who are unlikely to be voted out of parliament even in the event of a heavy Conservative defeat.

What about those Tory MPs with a precarious hold on their seats, who will actually have to fight for every vote?

So this week I decided to tune out the media noise, the striking of ideological positions and the microphone-grabbing of those with the most colourful opinions, and ask the view of that part of the Parliamentary Conservative Party who must work the hardest simply to keep their seats at the next election: the MPs with such slender majorities that they wake up in the night and sweat about where each vote will come from. MPs with numbers like 333 (Lancaster & Fleetwood), 214 (Sherwood) or 54 (N Warwickshire) tattooed on to their eyelids.

Let’s call them the Forty: the 40 most marginal Tory seats in Britain: held (many of them) by men and women we hardly seem to hear from. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say men and women we hardly seem to report-- and for a reason. Swashbuckling opinions are not a luxury most of them think they can afford. They’re walking on eggshells. They don’t think it’s easy.

The results of Parris' canvassing are highly informative, if unsurprising: they regard Cameron as an electoral asset and very wary of the economic radicalism being urged on him by his critics. I urge anyone with an interest in the future of British conservatism to read the whole thing. It's a side of the debate we simply haven't heard enough of, and the analogies to American politics should be obvious.

And now I'm hearing from Members of Congress on a consistent basis that Steve Israel and his crew are "recommending" that vulnerable freshmen vote with Boehner and Cantor as a default position. ConservaDems like Pete Gallego (the only Blue Dog freshman in Congress), lifelong Republican (and opportunist) Patrick Murphy, Gloria Negrete McLeod, Suzan DelBene, Ron Barber, and Ann Kirkpatrick (who's been on the anti-progressive tip over 75% of the time since she wormed her way back into Congress in November) hardly needed any pushing; they're conservatives to begin with. But even a few candidates who campaigned as progressives have been on the wrong side in over half the crucial roll calls, like Kyrsten Sinema, Ann Kuster and Raul Ruiz.

"But Steve Israel made me" doesn't cut the mustard and is not an acceptable excuse. A close friend who was one of Kuster's biggest individual donors in 2012 brought me the pathetic letter begging for money from him last week. He threw it away, of course, but wanted me to see it first so I could feel as sick as he did about how she turned out.

And here we go with the lame targeting again! The one minute on-line ad (above) they released about Ryan's Robin-Hood-in-reverse budget is very good and it makes the point real well. I can't image there's a district in the country where it would work better than in WI-01, Ryan's own lair, where Rob Zerban is running against him again. But here's the list of where the ad is being run:

• AR-02             Tim Griffin
• AR-04             Tom Cotton
• CA-21             David Valadao
• CA-31             Gary Miller
• CO-06             Mike Coffman
• IN-08              Larry Bucshon
• MN-02            John Kline
• MN-03            Erik Paulsen
• NE-02             Lee Terry
• NJ-03              Jon Runyan
• NY-11             Michael Grimm
• NY-23             Tom Reed
• OH-14             David Joyce
• OH-16             Jim Renacci
• PA-08              Mike Fitzpatrick
• VA-02             Scott Rigell
• WA-03            Jaime Herrera Beutler

It was a good idea to run the ad against Mike Coffman in CO-06. For one thing, there's a Democratic candidate who's being backed by both the grassroots Democrats and the DCCC, Andrew Romanoff and he'll need all the help he can get in a very plausible district that Obama won in both 2008 and 2012 (51.6-46.5%) and where Coffman only managed to beat Democrat Joe Miklosi with less than half the votes. There's also a Democrat, Michael Wager, who tossed his hat in the ring against David Joyce in OH-14, another excellent target where Obama basically tied McCain in 2008 and only lost to Romney by 3 points. Joyce won the seat with 54% against an opponent with no financing whatsoever. None of the other DCCC targets have committed opponents yet.

Meanwhile. last cycle Rob Zerban-- with no help whatsoever from the DCCC-- managed to raise $2,265,721 and hold Ryan to only 55% of the vote, his worst showing ever-- even with a Ryan spending frenzy of $6,651,221. Even with GOP gerrymandering, Romney only managed to win 51.6% of the vote in the district. This morning I asked Zerban, who has an official Exploration Committee and is likely to declare soon, if he thinks the Ryan budget will hurt him among the district's voters. "We've had a Presidential Election that proved it," he told me, "and now a nationwide Rasmussen Poll and a Marquette Poll in Wisconsin, that confirm it-- people do not support the misguided principles of the Ryan Budget. The more the DCCC holds House Republicans feet to the fire, the sooner we can move on, as a nation, from the backward economic philosophies of Ayn Rand." He pointed to the Gallup poll findings released yesterday that indicate most Americans no longer trust Republicans like Ryan because of their unwillingness to compromise. Ryan and Romney ran on the Ryan budget and we're beaten. Now they're obstructing the president's agenda for fixing the economy and, obviously, still demanding the enactment of the rejected Ryan budget.

Let's hope the DCCC decides to hold Ryan's feet to the fire where it can do some real good-- in his own Wisconsin district. Rob Zerban will make a much better representative.

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Can the GOP learn that pretending to be inclusive isn't the same thing as being inclusive?

The result of this deception is very strange to tell,
for when I fool the people I fear, I fool myself as well. . . .
Make believe you're brave, and the trick will take you far.
You may be as brave as you make believe you are.

--  "I Whistle a Happy Tune," from The King and I

"The spectacle of the Republicans, like teenagers longing to be invited to the prom, floundering about in search of more popularity with American voters, would be comical if it didn’t present the sad picture of a once great and proud party—the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower—working its way into near irrelevance."

-- Elizabeth Drew, in "Are the Republicans Beyond
Saving?," in the March 21 NYRB

"“Republicans like [Alaska Rep. Don Young] will soon be extinct, and that's a good thing for the GOP. But in the meantime, when they make these remarks, it makes it harder for those of us who are trying to grow the base of our party."

-- GOP consultant John Weaver ("who has worked for moderate Republicans in recent years") in The Fix's "Don Young and the Archie Bunker Problem"

by Ken

Sorry about the performance of "I Whistle a Happy Tune," but after sampling 20 or 25 "real" performances on YouTube, I was kind of relieved to settle for this one. (Do the people who post these clips really not know how wretched they are?)

You see, we're going to be talking tonight about pretending to be things you aren't. It's a strategy being pressed on 2013 Republicans by consultants as well as voices within the party, and I'm getting the weird feeling that they don't see the difference between pretending to be something and being it. And I couldn't help thinking of Anna in The King and I, and the lesson she tries to teach her son Louis at the top of the show. But the point here, surely (she makes it pretty explicitly), is that in the act of pretending to be brave, you may actually wind up being brave.

I'm not as optimistic about the strategy being pressed on depressed R's.

"Bemused" is what I've been, watching from the sidelines as those R's -- coming as close as they're apparently capable of coming to self-reflection -- at least consider the possibility that their 2012 electoral disaster was self-inflicted, that Republicans had come to be viewed by alamring numbers of U.S. voters as a party of exclusion, as a party whose only mission is to defend the interests of the 1%.

I had occasion to wonder the other day about the claim of some of these self-accusing elements in the party that they need to hearken back to the days of their old "big tent." The Republicans had a big tent? When was this? Even when Richard Nixon was fashioning the new Republican Party by adding Southern racists to the seething Silent Majority of Americans sick to death of challenges to orthodoxy and the status quo, it was a gathering of people housed in a number of modest-size tents coexisting on the same campground because they were all so mad at all those damn commies and hippies and assorted other riffraff out there.

The only difference, really, it seems to me, is that the tents have gotten even smaller. But the purpose of the little tents was always to exclude the people who weren't inside them, even if for strategic purposes they voted in multi-tent unison on a lot of issues, especially when manipulated with the finesse of a Nixon or a Ronald Reagan or even a George W. Bush for as long "Chimpy the Prez" could hold his coaltion of excluders together.

A COALITION OF EXCLUDERS ISN'T THE
EASIEST THING TO HOLD TOGETHER

Rather obviously, you have to wonder how long it's going to be before they start excluding one another. Already, for example, there's a deep fissure between right-wing excluders who worry that they've been somehow perceived as too exclusionary and right-wing excluders who believe that 2012 happened because they weren't exclusionary enough.

I'll leave that to them to slug out. And among many considerations of the implications for Republicans if they don't come to grips with their exclusionary tendencies, I can recommend Elizabeth Drew's "Are the Republicans Beyond Saving?" in the March 21 NYRB, whose opening I quote atop this post. I just want to register a modest note of bemusement about this notion that the R's' problem is being perceived as too exclusionary. As too hating of (take your pick) women, immigrants, Hispanic voters, LGBT voters, etc.

What bemuses me is this apparent notion that the problem is perception. I look at it differently. If you get all huffy about being unloved because mean people keep saying you're bigoted, changing the perception may required that you be less bigoted.

Which brings me to the other piece from which I quoted atop this post, the post "Don Young and the Archie Bunker Problem" by Aaron Blake and Juliet Eilperin today on washingtonpost.com's "The Fix." It begins:

Less than two weeks after the Republican National Committee unveiled its 2012 election autopsy an emphasis on broadening the party's tent, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) used an ethnic slur for Latinos in a radio interview Thursday. Young's comments served as the latest wake-up call for Republicans in their nascent effort to woo a more diverse cross-section of America.

The message: whatever effort they make toward modernizing their brand, there will always be a few Archie Bunkers out there -- people, like the lead character in the 70's sitcom "All in the Family," who are unconcerned with or unwilling to moderate their tone. And these days more than in the past, their offhand remarks can derail the most carefully orchestrated PR campaign.

Young, 79, set off a fresh round of recriminations and hand-wringing among Republican leaders while talking about the people his father employed on his California ranch years ago.

"We used to hire 50 or 60 wetbacks and -- to pick tomatoes," Young said in the interview with KRBD. "You know, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It's all done by machine."

Oops!!! Or should I say: Whoops!!!

Now Don Young is an old DWT fave, not so much because he's an excluder and hater as because he's a crook, a man who seems capable of sizing up any situation that comes to his attention from the standpoint "What's in it for me?" (As a result of which, he tends to find himself facing far more than even the normal congressional share of big-league "What's in it for me?" opportunities.)

A constant thread in Aaron Blake and Juliet Eilperin's "Fix" piece is that R's are unjustly associated with louts like Don Young, or singled out for unfair heightened scrutiny, or subjected to a double standard -- the suggestion being that a Democrat could get away with reminiscing about "wetbacks." It seems to me, though, that on the contrary R's get away with far more than they're gotcha-ed for.

Various and sundry Republicans are quoted to the effect that Don Young isn't their guy, and they're all being tarnished by the same brush. And in the particular case of immigration, it's true that some Republicans are less exclusing than "Wetback Don." However, most of the Rs who are "enlightened" on immigration merely have a more "enlightened" view of the importance to the U.S. economy of all that cheap labor, which comes doubly cheap because so many of the immigrant workers -- directly contrary to the myth of being benefits sponges -- don't claim any benefits at all despite all the taxes they pay.

THE OCCASIONAL GOP "INCLUDERS"
ARE APT TO BE SERIAL "EXCLUDERS"

In addition, Republicans who happen to be "includers" with respect to one unfavored group tend to be extra-exclusive with many of the others. So those who may hold arguably inclusive views with regard to, say, immigration, or LGBT equality, are apt to be viral excluders when it comes to, say, the "47%" of so-called "takers not makers." It's a weird world indeed where cynical paper-pushers who produce primarily "deals" that don't produce anything except big profits for themselves and their cronies are considered "makers" while people who do the actual work in our society are dismissed as "takers."

A favorite GOP-apologist theme, for example, is that they're victimized as the perpetrators of a "so-called" War on Women. But again, the best way to answer such objections is to stop waging war on women. During the 2012 campaign, for example, when R's found themselves stuck with the obscenely frothing abortion imbecilities of Senate nominees Todd Akin (Missouri) and Richard Mourdock (Indiana), Howie and I pointed out frequently that there was no difference whatsoever between their beliefs about abortion and the law and those of right-wing darling Paul Ryan. But Ryan, unlike the neanderthal Akin and Mourdock, knows how to put a smiley face on his ignorance and savagery.

If Akin or Mourdock were to try whistling a happy tune, the effect would be creepy. (I think it's important, thought, that we not ignore their pre-2012 electoral successes. They were every bit as creepy before, just not as indiscreet, or perhaps more important, no so brightly spotlit when they were being creepy.) To me, Paul Ryan and the less visibly crackpotty R's are even creepier when they pretend to be wise or just or courageous.

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