10.8.11

If Only ....

Who: Pat Garofalo
What: "Boehner Claims S&P Downgrade Happened Because Democrats Blocked The GOP's Attempt To Eliminate Medicare", ThinkProgress
When: August 10, 2011


If only those dirty, lowdown Democrats would have let the GOP destroy Medicare ....

Ever since the credit rating agency S&P downgraded U.S. credit to AA+ on Friday night, Republicans have desperately trying to pin the blame on President Obama, even though, as National Journal put it, "it's hard to read the S&P analysis as anything other than a blast at Republicans." S&P called out the GOP for using the debt ceiling as a political football and for its flat refusal to consider new revenue as part of any plan to reduce long-term deficits.

Earlier this week Rep. Allen West (R-FL) claimed that the S&P downgrade "has nothing to do with increasing revenues," while some Republicans have said that passing a Balanced Budget Amendment would have prevented the downgrade, both of which S&P disagreed with. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday jumped into the same pool, saying that the downgrade could have been avoided if only Democrats had embraced the House Republican budget and its plan to eliminate Medicare:
    House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) blamed President Obama and the Democrats Tuesday for the recent downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, saying that if Democrats had joined with Republicans in passing the GOP budget, which the House passed in April, "it's unlikely anyone would be talking about the United States being downgraded today." [...] "S&P said in its own report Friday that entitlement reform is the key to long-term financial stability. We passed a budget through the House in April that includes entitlement reform, and cuts more than $6 trillion. The Democrat-controlled Senate and President Obama have prevented most of those reforms from happening. And that's why we have a downgrade, Boehner said in an excerpt of his prepared remarks obtained by The Hill. [...] "The President and the Democratic leadership in Washington are trying to blame the tea party, because they know this downgrade is on [the Democrats]. When we took the bold step of proposing entitlement reforms, they reacted not by embracing them and joining us, but by demonizing those proposals for political gain," Boehner said.

MIT economist David Autor recently explained to Ezra Klein the idea of now-more-than-everism:

"Here's how it works," Autor wrote in am e-mail. "1. You have a set of policies that you favor at all times and under all circumstances, e.g., cut taxes, remove regulations, drill-baby-drill, etc. 2. You see a problem that needs fixing (e.g., the economy stinks). 3. You say, 'We need to enact my favored policies now more than ever.' I believe that every item in the GOP list that you sent derives from this three step procedure.

"That's not to say that there are no reasonable ideas on this list. But there is certainly no original thinking here directed at addressing the employment problem. Or, put it differently, is there any set of economic circumstances under which the GOP would not actually want to enact every item on this agenda? If the answer is no, then this is clearly now-more-than-everism."

Though Autor discussed with Klein the GOP's employment policy outlook, one can reasonably argue that this is the Republican strategy for Medicare, as well. There really isn't a time when the GOP proper—that is, excepting that faction of the Tea Party that wants to keep the government out of health care, except you damn well better not touch their Medicare—isn't looking to kill Medicare.

To the other, one should be cautious about projecting the NMTE approach onto the whole of the GOP platform. Among the cards in their employment policy deck, we find that there are, indeed, times when the Republicans don't want to cut taxes: "And remember," Steve Benen wrote last month, "a payroll tax cut is the GOP's preferred approach to job creation."

And wars, too. Bosnia and Libya weren't nearly as good of ideas as, say, Iraq. We cannot propose that the GOP supports all wars, anywhere, anytime.

In that sense, though, Boehner's if-only stands out even more visibly. If only .... If only the Democrats would give the GOP what Republicans have long sought. If only the Democrats would agree to the Republican agenda. If only the Democrats were not so unreasonable as to think it fair to close tax loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy. If only the Democrats were not so stubbornly impudent to suggest that a payroll tax cut would do more to help employment. If only the Democrats would do the right wing thing and kill Medicare.

If ... only ....

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