Ultra-Conservative Texas Has Bigger Budget Gap Than Liberal California

A common theme in Republican Teabagger talking-points is that the coastal elites can’t manage budgets, but those in the heartland can and always do.  This won’t cause any Teabaggers any lost sleep, but for those of us in the real world:

Ultra-Conservative Texas has a bigger budget gap than California.  How big is their budget gap?  A ridiculous 25% of current spending: $25 Billion!  How did “fiscal conservatives” mismanage their budget so badly?  Maybe it’s Texas Governor Ricky Perry’s absurd obsession with secession from the U.S.  Maybe it’s tax cut after tax cut after tax cut that the Texas Cons passed in recent years.  Naaaah, that can’t be it.  According to Republican Teabagger Economic Orthodoxy, tax cuts always result it balanced budgets, more jobs and economic prosperity for everybody.  Texas can’t look to the federal government for relief like they did in past years because Teabagger Orthodoxy has taken hold of national economics since then.

In short, Texas is about to feel the full impacts of just how extreme that Orthodoxy has been.  Unfortunately, a lot of Texans who don’t adhere to that orthodoxy are going to be affected by it.

The Deficit Commission, Bipartisanship & Incrementalism

As President Obama’s deficit commission grows from an idea to actually considering policy recommendations, one of the co-chairs has, through his inartful and backwards thinking language, provided additional evidence why incrementalism and questing for the Holy Bipartisan Grail are both bad ideas.

I will state once again that all of today’s calls for deficit reduction are pure b.s.  Few, if any, of those calling for fiscal prudence were doing so during the Bush Regime.  Very little discussion was offered by the Very Serious People inside D.C. regarding Bush’s explosion of the federal debt from $5.73 Trillion to over $11 Trillion.  Now that it’s up to $12 Trillion, those same serious people have decided they want to hold this President’s spending accountable.  So the calls to rein in spending today hold no weight with me, especially since I was one of the few calling Bush’s out of control spending into question.

But I’m not going to waste much energy backing Obama up on this subject.  He and his team would prefer to continue many of the same counterproductive economic policies that Bush’s team, Clinton’s team, Bush Sr.’s team and Reagan’s team put into place.  I think Obama’s team is continuing along this path because of their desire to appear bipartisan.  In an age in which those same very serious people chatter about Obama’s deficit spending, they also make much of the partisanship of Washington.  Again, this comes about too late.  Democrats didn’t run around for eight years screaming that anyone who disagreed with them were traitors to their country; the Republicans did.

Instead of standing up to the very serious people and reminding them that they won the 2008 elections quite handily, Obama’s team instead has chosen to roll over at the feet of their accusers and try to make nice with them.  Listening to alternative viewpoints is one thing.  But when Obama himself uses language like “drove the car into the ditch” and “we won’t give them (the Republicans) the keys back”, then establishes a deficit reduction commission and stuffs it full of people who have spent their political careers calling for an end to programs like Social Security, one wonders what his agenda truly is.  If he believed his rhetoric, he might listen to such talk, but rightfully cast it aside as the extremist viewpoint that it is.  Instead, he coddles it.

For those who advocate for incrementalism and bipartisanship, as was the case during the Health Care Insurance Debate of 2009-2010, allow me to ask you this.  How far are you willing to push such approaches?  Health care might be one thing.  But what happens when Obama’s commission calls for a reduction in Social Security payouts or another increase in retirement age to qualify for full benefits, all while the War Department spends billions a year on unregulated mercenaries as part of its overseas and domestic campaigns, all while Bush’s tax cuts for the super-rich get extended?  How many of you will continue to stand behind Obama then?  Will you be proud to call yourself a Democrat when a Democratic President does what no Republican President dared to do?  Or will you instead begin to listen to more progressive voices in holding Democrats accountable for their actions in the same way that we wanted Bush and the Republicans accountable for theirs?

Three Men Who Were Responsible For the Great Recession

I saw this picture in a Meteor Blades diary on dkos and had to comment on it:

Here is a comment made at the end of the post:

[The Time magazine cover photo is of Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers from February 15, 1999, right after Gramm-Leach-Bliley repeal of Glass-Steagall was signed. h/t to Paul Krugman for the reminder.]

Remember how good the economy was doing at the end of the 1990s?  Remember how little growth the economy and families in the U.S. experienced in the next decade as the Bushies ran the country into the ground?  The efforts of these three men, among others to be sure, was to stave off a global economic meltdown for a little while.  Their solutions were temporary and actually made the fundamentals worse than before their tinkering.

What’s the point?  Two of these men – Robert Rubin and Larry Summers – are part of President Obama’s economic team.  Does anybody seriously expect the changes necessary for long-term economic recovery will be made with two of the three Marketeers Mouseketeers back in decision-making positions of power?  Think again.

I realized during the Bush years that the President doesn’t matter so much on most issues that matter to people on a day-to-day basis.  It’s the people they put in power around them that matter.  Think that doesn’t make sense?  Think about Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and dozens of others.  They were around for Nixon’s failed presidency.  What did you expect would happen if the architects of that epic failure were put back in positions of power?

Now think of Obama.  Robert Gates is a holdover from the Bush “administration” – in the Department of War.  Has our approach been significantly altered abroad?  In Iraq, the answer is a tentative yes, but that has more to do with Iraqis exerting control than any desire in the Obama administration or the too-powerful War Industry to leave the 2nd largest proven-oil reserve area without direct control.  In Afghanistan, a surge has been proposed.  So no change there.  Economic policy?  Ben Bernanke, Greenspan’s replacement and the man who stood by while the global economy went down the toilet, has been selected by Obama to serve another term as Fed Chairman.  Two of the clowns in the picture are an integral part of Obama’s team.  Their failed economic ideology gets another chance.

The reforms necessary for full economic recovery will not take place with Rubin and Summers in charge of anything important.  They’re devout believers in the false “Free Market” religion.  It has failed every time it’s been implemented according to leading “Free-Marketeer” dogmatists.  It will fail again – count on it.

Colorado Infrastructure: Bad and Worse

Colorado infrastructure was graded by the Colorado chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. They gave the state’s infrastructure an overall grade of C+ in a report released two weeks ago, rating Colorado’s aviation system highest and its roads as the worst.  It also forecast that 10 of the 13 systems evaluated will deteriorate in the next two years: dam safety, drinking water, wastewater treatment, aviation, roads, environmental cleanup, bridges, education, energy and mass transit.  Billions of dollars in infrastructure maintenance and upgrades are needed.  The anti-investment folks have ruled the roost for a generation.  Now, the bill is coming due.  Will we do the right thing and decide to continue to invest in ourselves and our communities?

Not if the anti-investment crowd has anything to say about it.  They have put out a proposal for bridge “fixes”.

The plan hinges on essentially mortgaging out a number of public buildings to private investors, and the debt would be paid off over the next 10 to 15 years.

This is exactly why I identify them as Cons.  This is a shell game: selling buildings that the public owns will constitute a one-time cash infusion.  That’s great for this year.  What about next year?  Sell more buildings?  Eventually, the public owns nothing, private “investors” own everything and they’ll charge the public to use the places the public used to own.  What the state needs is a regular inflow of money to keep and maintain the property it’s supposed to keep and maintain.  This situation is exactly what Grover Norquist, Douglas Bruce and the rest of the Cons wanted to create.  They wanted to force the issue of whether the public gets to keep its property.  Automobile registration fees should be fair game.  The gas tax hasn’t increased in 17 years, while number of vehicle-miles driven has skyrocketed, placing ever-increasing pressure on the bridges in question.  That’s the other thing the Cons want: something for nothing.  Too bad life doesn’t work out that way.