Gridlock Eric Cantor

A conservative friend of mine, who remains an avid Herman Cain supporter, recently bemoaned via Twitter, “Conservatives seem to be lost. We throw Cain over the cliff, embrace Newt. Something is wrong.” My response tweet came quickly. “Conservatives aren't lost. They got mugged by Bush/Cheney and let the Tea Party phonies in the House. It's tough.” It is also cynical and two-faced, epitomized by the House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor of Virginia.

According to the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives, since the 19^th Century the majority leader is the officer “charged with scheduling legislation for floor consideration; planning the daily, weekly, and annual legislative agendas; consulting with Members to gauge party sentiment; and, in general, working to advance the goals of the majority party.” The purpose of having such an officer is to “expedite legislative business and to keep their parties united.”

Cantor has done little to expedite legislative business and even less to keep his party united.

In 2010 the House Majority Leader went about recruiting most of the Tea Party backed freshmen who claim to be conservatives. Although Cantor is attempting humanize his image and present himself as more reasonable, such as the recent fluff piece on 60 Minutes, it does not change the fact that he has lead the obstructionism in the House and fractured its leadership.

Cantor told Politico, “the most important issue facing the people that sent us to Washington, and that is how do we help small businesses create jobs.” That is not what the record shows. Creating jobs has been House Republicans’ last priority. Here is the short version of the 112^th Congress’ numbers for their 2011 agenda:

14        Votes to repeal patient health care protections

10        Anti-Consumer votes

7          Votes to keep unnecessary subsidies for Big Oil companies

4          Votes to restrict women’s access to health care

3          Votes to end Medicare

3          Votes to roll back workers’ rights

0          Comprehensive jobs bills

So it should come as no surprise, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows 84 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, with almost two-thirds saying they “disapprove strongly.” Just 13 percent of Americans approve of how things are going after the 112th Congress’s first year of action, “solidifying an unprecedented level of public disgust that has both sides worried about their positions less than 10 months before voters decide their fates.”

“I think last year showed us where sort of the differences lie between the two sides and hopefully we could use the knowledge gained there to focus on progress that we can make over the next 10 months leading up to the election,” Cantor said in his recent Politico interview. The problem is that during most of those 10 months House members will not be in Washington since they will be at home trying to woo their constituents.

In the latest New York Times-CBS News poll, Mr. Cantor’s party gets the blame for Washington gridlock. Curiously enough, the poll also found that “nearly half of the Republicans surveyed do agree with Democrats and independents on one thing: Congressional Republicans are not working with the president to make progress on the legislative agenda.”

In GQ Magazine’s “The 50 Most Powerful People in Washington,” Eric Cantor tops the list. GQ questions whether Cantor will wait for the retirement of Speaker of the House John Boehner, ranked number 12, or shove the Ohio Republican out of the way. “The Virginia Congressman masterminded, and then masterfully carried out, the GOP's strategy of legislative intransigence that has stymied the White House these past three years,” the article says. “In the process, he imposed his will on all of Washington, refashioning the city into a hyperpartisan capital of gridlock.” GQ notes, "People with the last names Obama and Biden not included."

However, running on such a record could be problematic for Republicans. Just in case the country forgets about the political theatre of last year’s gridlock, the House started off 2012 with a protest vote against raising the debt ceiling.  The 239-176 vote suggests that GOP members, especially the Tea Party freshmen, still think that a default on US obligations is an acceptable goal of the Republican Party. It also demonstrates the schism in the party orchestrated by Majority Leader Cantor, who has demonstrated disinterest in party unity.

Such high school political posturing explains why conservatives such as my friend feel somewhat lost. Intransigence and obstructionism are neither conservative nor progressive traits. Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson practiced the art of compromise, something presently absent in Washington. They articulated an American ideology and eschewed the bumper sticker rhetoric that poses for it today. But from time to time the country suffers a bad decade. That explains gridlock Eric Cantor’s perceived power, such as it is. 

Originally published as Gridlock Eric Cantor on Blogcritics.

Eric Cantor's Rhetorical Deniability

An important part of being a politician is to keep your name before the public in the press. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) did a lot of that recently in the debt ceiling hostage taking by the Tea Party wing of the GOP as its articulate spokesperson and rising star. While congress is on vacation, to keep his name in the press, Cantor has signed off on an opinion piece in the Washington Post, “Removing the obstacles to economic growth.” He says there are two: “The first is the federal government’s debt crisis” and “The second is the jobs crisis.” He should know since his majority is responsible for creating the first one and for doing nothing about the second one. Cantor blames President Obama for each.

The so-called “debt crisis” is a product of the previous Republican administration that decided to wage two wars and to finance them with deficit increases instead of tax increases. “In fact, you need a war to really get a big deficit,” Christopher Chantrill says on usgovernmentspending.com. “The peak deficits came during World War I (16% of GDP in 1919) and World War II (24% in 1945),” he says. Moreover, “The deficits of the Great Depression only came to about five percent of GDP, and the big $1.4 trillion deficit for FY 2009 amounted to 13% of GDP.”

The real problem with extreme government debt would be the interest burden it would create. If interest payments reached 12% of GDP, that could cause a government default. The US is far from reaching that point. However, it was using the debt ceiling to extort political concessions that made a routine financial process look like the crisis it became. Cantor kept his name in the press then by walking out of negotiations with Vice President Biden.

In his Washington Post opinion Cantor writes, “Republicans passed a budget this spring, written by Rep. Paul Ryan, that would address our challenges head-on by putting in place common-sense reforms to manage our debt over the short and long term.”

That is not what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's analysis says. The CBO found “that by the end of the 10-year budget window, public debt will actually be higher than it would be if the GOP just did nothing.” In addition to requiring additional raises in the debt ceiling, the CBO also acknowledged “that seniors, disabled and elderly people would be hit with much higher out-of-pocket health care costs.”

Who needs facts when rhetoric will do?

“President Obama is wrong to think that the answer is to increase spending or raise taxes when so many millions of Americans are out of work.” Cantor’s interpretation of what the president thinks is not what the president says. In a televised address on July 25, 2011, President Obama petitioned for a "balanced" approach that includes spending cuts as well as revenue increases from tax increases for wealthier Americans. In that speech Obama also debunked the Cantor/GOP rhetoric about the debt ceiling allowing the congress to spend more money.

As to jobs, Congress has offered only one piece of legislation that has the word “jobs” in its title, but that is all. It is HR 1745, the ‘‘JOBS Act of 2011.” Cantor does not mention it in his op-ed piece, probably because it does not have anything to do with jobs. What it does is to allow states the option of using federal unemployment-benefit dollars to repay federal loans to help balance their budgets or provide tax breaks to businesses.

According to Cantor, however, “the Obama administration’s anti-business, hyper-regulatory, pro-tax agenda has fueled economic uncertainty and sent the message from the administration that ‘we want to make it harder to create jobs.’” HR 1745 takes money away from the long-term unemployed. Where is the job creation in that?

While Representative Cantor keeps his name before the public, with such rhetorically inflamed publicity as his Washington Post piece, he deserves consideration as one of Congress’s rising stars.

The Treasury Department used $267 million of taxpayer funds to buy preferred stock in a private banking company that employed his wife, Diana Cantor. As part of a Treasury Department program to boost "healthy banks" with extra capital, New York Private Bank and Trust (NYPBT) received its bailout money in January 2009. NYPBT is the holding company for Emigrant Bank, a savings bank with 35 branches in and around New York City. She ran the Virginia branch of the wealth-management division of Virginia Private Bank & Trust, a subsidiary.

To be fair, Cantor's deputy chief of staff Rob Collins said the congressman didn't know the bank was seeking bailout money and never interceded on the bank's behalf with government regulators. Additionally, a spokesman for the bank said Diana Cantor had nothing to do with the operation of NYPBT and was "never aware that the parent bank was seeking or received [bailout] funding."

Last year the Wall Street Journal reported, “Eric Cantor, the Republican Whip in the House of Representatives, bought up to $15,000 in shares of ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury ETF last December, according to his 2009 financial disclosure statement. The exchange-traded fund takes a short position in long-dated government bonds. In effect, it is a bet against U.S. government bonds—and perhaps on inflation in the future.”

The Huffington Post picked up the story when it obtained information that said Cantor "stands to profit from U.S. treasury default, which thereby raises the appearance of a conflict of interest," and that he "may be sabotaging [debt ceiling] negotiations for his own personal gain."

Again, to be fair, Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said, "The insinuation is so outrageous that it shows a fundamental lack of understanding about how the markets work, how the U.S. economy works." Dayspring added, "Any member of Congress who would seriously identify themselves with this would reveal a complete inability to understand the United States economy and basic investing."

Maybe, but such ignorance does not stop people from acting, especially for personal gain.

Rhetoric and deniability are common in politics and in court. The Department of Justice is investigating the US credit downgrades by rating agencies Standard & Poor and Moody. The downgrade is a direct outcome of the debt ceiling crisis which congressional Tea Party members and House Majority Leader Cantor championed. The credit downgrade also spooked the markets. Cantor’s piece may keep him in the public eye, but it obfuscates the fact that the crisis and the downgrade cannot be laid at the president’s feet. They can be laid at Mr. Cantor’s.

Article first published as Eric Cantor’s Rhetorical Deniability on Blogcritics.

The Deadline Gambit

Vice President Joe Biden's debt ceiling talks stopped when the opposition party representatives, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), walked out in a dispute over the idea of raising taxes. Cantor left first. Somehow he told his colleagues what he was going to do but did not tell the Speaker of the House, if we are to believe that. Kyl couldn’t do much else but recite the GOP “job killing” mantra and participate in the display. It is much easier to strike a pose than to negotiate a deal, anyway.

Before his walkout on Thursday morning, Cantor told The Wall Street Journal, “As it stands, the Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases.” Cantor said in a statement, “Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue.” The tax increase idea means the elimination of Bush era tax breaks to which the Republicans are married. It does not mean tax increases for individual US taxpayers, but that is just GOP semantics.

During the Biden debt ceiling talks, Democrats argued that Republicans should at least join them in eliminating corporate tax breaks for chief executives with private jets. Republicans also rejected consideration of eliminating even temporary tax breaks, such as those for NASCAR tracks and Puerto Rican rum. As a result, a new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll found that more people say they would blame Republicans in Congress than President Obama if the debt-ceiling talks broke down.

Politicians deal in factoids, not facts. They live and breathe strategic ambiguities so that blocs of voters like the tea party can panic and over react. For example, “It's time to force our elected officials to stop spending cold turkey, and we can start by making sure they do not raise the debt ceiling,” announces Representative Michele Bachmann’s website. Never mind the fact it cannot be done.

Even one of her more staunch supporters William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, says such an idea is not only silly but irresponsible. “I've seen no plausible plan that would enable us to go "cold turkey" (to use her term) fast enough or dramatically enough that we could reduce the deficit to zero in a few months--which is what would be required if Congress were not to authorize an increase in the debt ceiling.”

Here is a quick review of some of the facts being ignored. For one thing, the government officially hit the federal debt limit on Monday, May 16. That forced the Treasury Department to make moves to avoid a default, like reducing government investments in two federal employee pension funds. For another thing, it is the Treasury Department that set an August 2 deadline to raise the country’s $14.3 trillion debt limit before the country risks defaulting on its debt obligations. For yet another thing still, although they don't admit it, every time Congress votes for a spending hike or a tax cut, lawmakers are agreeing to raise the debt ceiling whether they say so or not.

"Congress has already passed and the president has already signed legislation that increases spending or decreases revenues. Those decisions have already been made," said Susan Irving, director for Federal Budget issues at the Government Accountability Office. So arguing over the debt ceiling is like arguing over whether to pay the bills the country has already incurred. This is the United States. Its obligations will be paid. That is why they are called obligations.

The US Treasury Department says, “Since 1960, Congress has acted 78 separate times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit – 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic presidents. In the coming weeks, Congress must act to increase the debt limit. Congressional leaders in both parties have recognized that this is necessary.”

Just for the record, “Between 1980 and 1990, the debt more than tripled,” the Treasury reports. “The debt shrank briefly after the end of the Cold War, but by the end of FY2008, the gross national debt had reached $10.3 trillion, about 10 times its 1980 level.”

Remember the Ryan Budget passed by the Republican House majority? The Congressional Budget Office and House Budget Committee estimates that “the spending included in the House Republican Budget Resolution would necessitate a nearly $2 trillion increase in the debt limit by the end of FY2012. Moreover, it would require trillions of dollars in additional debt limit increases beyond that amount for the next several decades.” But these are only government estimates, not facts.

As to the Cantor walkout the morning after his boss met with the president, it would be underestimating the Speaker to believe he did not know what his Number 1 was going to do. It would be more characteristic of Boehner to believe that he said, “Eric, you can go, now.” It’s a chess move where you sacrifice a Rook to a Queen.

"In the Bush years the Republicans said that tax cuts will produce jobs. They didn't. They produced a deficit," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. "Leader Cantor can't handle the truth when it comes to these tax subsidies for big oil, for corporations sending jobs overseas, for giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in our country while they're asking seniors to pay more for less, as they abolish Medicare," Pelosi said.

Congress and the Treasury seem to have a problem with the concept of a deadline. Showmanship seems to be paramount for the GOP. But it is the absence of any sense of urgency that gives the deadline gambit away. The Biden talks may be “in abeyance” after the Republicans pulled out, but Boehner's office says he's leaving town for an 11-day House recess, swaggering all the way to the golf course.

Article first published as The Deadline Gambit on Blogcritics.

GOP Leaders Breach Oath of Office

The GOP rhetoric is pernicious. It advocates the financial destruction of the United States. It is ignorant and stupid because it is based solely on emotional appeal as the dominant factor of GOP/teaparty cheerleading. It reminds me of the Miller Light ads “Tastes Great/Less Filling,” except those ads were not dangerous. What the Republicans are advocating is.

House Representatives Eric Cantor and Michele Bachmann suffer delusions of grandeur brought on by having to believe their own pernicious nonsense. Cantor seems to believe that he will succeed John Boehner as Speaker of the House. Bachmann seems to believe that she will succeed Barack Obama as President of the United States. They advocate that the United States should default on its worldwide obligations. That alone should be sufficient to disqualify them from achieving higher office. In fact it should qualify them for recall if not impeachment.

The financial destruction of the nation that these Republicans seek is beyond what any terrorist could hope to achieve.

It is a very serious statement. I do not make it lightly, either. The consequence of not raising the debt ceiling is default on obligations the US has in the world market. Look at Bachmann's website. Never mind the fact that such a plan cannot be done. Even her most ardent of supporters Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, says it’s “irresponsible.” He is being understandably kind and wrong. It’s not irresponsible, it’s negligent and dangerous.

Keep in mind that she has also claimed that the Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly” to end slavery, but facts don’t interest her. That conjecture is stupidity. Politicizing a function of government to make a headline is something the GOP/teaparty regularly does with flagrant disregard for consequences. It is not alright. It is bad for business and bad for the country. If that is a "negotiating tactic," it is a treacherous one.

What is worse is that the Republican Party leadership is enabling such treachery. Its recent Budget Resolution is an example because to go into effect requires raising the debt ceiling. By the way, the rest of the world is watching and so are world markets. They could not care less about Medicare. They care about the United States making good on its obligations. But the GOP does not care about anything except trashing the economy so they can blame it on the administration.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says that if the ceiling isn’t raised by Aug. 2, the government could begin defaulting on some of its obligations, triggering a financial crisis.

Republicans floated the idea of rewriting the 14th Amendment last year when they were waving the flag over Arizona’s immigration lies. Top Republicans Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), Senator Jon Kyl (AZ), and Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) advocated eliminating the “birthright clause” and demonstrated their antithesis to the Amendment. Senator Graham argued that the 14th Amendment no longer serves the purpose it was designed to address. Senate Minority Whip Kyl supported hearings on repealing the 14th Amendment. Senator McConnell said Congress should “reconsider the Fourteenth Amendment.”

But there isn’t anything to interpret in Section 4: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned.” These Republicans took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution whether they like it or not. To prevail in their hypocrisy imperils the country and should be sufficient grounds for their impeachment and removal from office for breaching their oath of office.

Article first published as GOP Leaders Breach Oath of Office on Technorati.

Where Are the Jobs?

The 112^th Congress has passed 25 roll call votes. This is the result of its taking care of the people’s business: 7 bills have become public law, 9 bills are destined for veto and the balance faces Senate opposition. Speaking of the Democratic controlled Senate, 4 of those veto destined bills have been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and the balance are probably destined to failure. So, where are the jobs?

Let’s start with the legislation that has become public law. Bills on defense, Republicans never say “No” to the Department of Defense. There are lots of jobs in the armed services, but that’s not new. Roads will continue to be built and small business gets to save a lot of paper. There are continuing appropriations because bills must still be paid until a some kind of budget is enacted. But there are no new jobs in any of that.

The extension of the Patriot Act is contentious because it comes up for vote again. Key parts of the Patriot Act are set to expire on May 27^th. The Senate promised a real debate on this Bush Administration brain-child, but clearly that isn’t going to happen. The ACLU opposes its abridgement of the 4th Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. But they guy listening to your phone calls could have told you that.

The Banking Committee is looking at bills aimed at existing legislation and none is likely to pass. There is a Refinance bill to eliminate the Federal Housing Administration’s recently implemented short refinancing program. The White House has threatened to veto the measure should it pass the Senate. The Treasury’s Emergency Mortgage Relief Program, aimed at helping 3 to 4 million people by modifying at-risk mortgage loans, is a target. The HAMP Act [Home Affordable Modification Program], part of the TARP [Troubled Asset Relief Program] created by the Bush administration is a target and the administration has already said it will veto that bill. So far, however, there are no jobs offered in any of that business.

The new Republican House got lots of TV camera time by doing what it said it was going to do -- to attack and repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, which they call by the epithet “ObamaCare”. They passed the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act and Repealing the Prevention and Public Health Fund, the latter which seeks to defund the new Health Care law. Both of those were campaign promises to people who don’t like Obama by people whose platform is not to like Obama. They promised jobs to everyone, just not in these bills.

Remember the BP oil disaster in the Gulf last year? The new Republican House hopes you don’t. Their Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act would require the administration to move forward with lease sales along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico that it has delayed or canceled. Coincidentally, the Atlantic drilling is off the coast of Virginia, of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s home. The administration has said it will veto the bill.

And speaking about the environment, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases for the purpose of combating climate change. How that saves taxpayers money while it chokes them must be a gift to somebody. If you guessed an Obama veto is likely, you guessed right. As for the defunding of National Public Radio, when Rush Limbaugh is free, Who Needs NPR?

What else has the House done for us, the people, so far? It passed some more “Repeal Funding” bills, aimed at defunding provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act that probably will not make it through the Senate. I have previously written about H.R.3 [No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act] and Net Neutrality [Disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to regulating the Internet and broadband industry practices]. Both of those face major Senate opposition.

They passed a Scholarship bill that has to do with Washington, D.C. schools. Congress is responsible for the district. There is an FAA bill “to streamline programs, create efficiencies, reduce waste, and improve aviation safety and capacity,” and we all need safer skies. There is the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, but that is probably unconstitutional. The budget bill that passed the House last month is in the Senate Budget Committee. It is all about cuts that will put more people out of work.

The one thing that the Republican House has done that gets plenty of attention is to create controversy on the deficit and debt ceiling debates. Both are exceptional exercises in brinksmanship, not effective fiscal policy, and confirmed to investors that congress is clueless about financial markets. The financial crisis itself is a product of the Republican administration that started two wars and decided to finance them with deficits instead of taxes. Republicans are responsible for a problem that cuts cannot cure. Creating jobs would at least increase federal revenue though withholding taxes, but that is a promise they have not kept. They also expect to be reelected.

Article first published as Where Are the Jobs? on Technorati.