For those of us on the left, anti-Obama madness on the right is bewildering. We think Obama is a centrist Democrat who will disappoint us once he’s in office. They think Obama is an all-consuming demon god, with twenty waving arms and each arm has forty hands and each hand is giving Jesus the finger while his mile-wide feet crush small pro-American towns with every step.
From Velociworld: ((Via Andrew Sullivan via Hunter at Random.))
Did I mention this man hates me? You and me? Yes he does. Why? Because he can. Yes He Can. Beneath that cool persona is a megalomaniac. Cool? Like Stalin after a purge, emotionally and sexually spent. Like Saddam after a torture session, dozing in his chair with someone’s genitals curled in his fist. Like Pol Pot after a petit mal seizure, mumbling a litany of the dead. Cool that way.
So I will cast my pathetic vote, and ramp up my relocation to the mountains. Reduce my footprint. Carbon? That will be a nice byproduct, but I mean my personal footprint. My credit footprint. My interface with authority footprint. I’m researching micro-hydro water turbines for that stream, windmills for water, a half-acre patch for vegetables, a few goats, and a bison. Just because I want a fucking bison. My address? Fifty rounds up that gravel road.
I do hate to sound Randy Weaverish. But this is the fundament of my world view right now.
And he’s not that far out there — or, rather, he is, but he’s nevertheless only a few feet down the road from what some mainstream conservatives are saying.
IMO, Obama’s personal politics are almost beside the point. Presidents have some power, but most law is made by Congress. The real danger, I suspect, is that Obama will rubber-stamp every ill-conceived piece of legislation that comes out of the currently-Democratic Congress. I actually wouldn’t mind a President Obama if we had a Republican Congress. The first six years of the Bush administration disabused me of the idea that much good could come of a Republican President and Republican Congress working together. I believe that the best we can hope for at this point is sweet, sweet gridlock to slow our inevitable decline into Eurosclerosis.
I’m also worried that he’ll appoint judges who believe that “interstate commerce” subsumes any and every form of human activity, but that ship’s pretty much set sail already.
I think the point is worth making that this kind of self-indulgent childish tantrum is bad for the country, especially when it seems that an entire political party is inclined to do it. It’s bad for a number of reasons, but my primary objection isn’t, as you’d think, that it makes Obama out to be evil, but rather that when one of the two parties in a two party system goes completely off the rails, that system simply isn’t going to function very well.
I mean, it’s as if one of the branches of government decided that checks and balances were for pussies and just wholesale announced that they were above the law … silly, I know, but try to imagine.
Now, I trust that there will be plenty of Democrats to act as the ‘loyal opposition’ to their own party until the Republicans can get their shit together and stop hallucinating, but it certainly frustrates me that it’s even necessary.
Seriously, dude? Seek help.
—Myca
Well, yes. They’re 100% beside the point when you’re dealing with people who feel free to just invent shit wholesale. He could be Ronald Reagan reborn, and as long as there was a (D) next to his name, to fools like these, he would be the Antichrist.
The attitude that his personal politics don’t matter, of course, is part of the problem.
—Myca
The question I’ve been wanting to ask is, once Obama is president, what would he have to do to make the anti-Obama voters breathe a sigh of relief? What kind of solutions would he have to create in order for people to go, “Oh. Huh. I guess he isn’t the Antichrist after all.”
(My SO says the only thing that would please them is if he accomplishes nothing at all. Even if he found a way to convert water to gasoline.)
He could not implement one single new program (or increase funding to any existing program) unless there is a concomitant decrease in funding to some other program so that any such thing is revenue/tax neutral.
He could tell the American people that he realizes that it is not the job of government to redistribute income from people who have earned it to people who have not regardless of what race or ethnic background or religion or sexual orientation or any other grouping those people who have not earned it belong to. He could tell the American people that the actual job of government is to preserve people’s right to earn their own income on their own responsibility and to make sure that people’s access to the tools they need to do that is not restricted by government action or by illegal private activity.
He could tell people that it is the job of a regulatory agency to ensure that people and corporations make and sell safe and effective products and do so without cheating or deceiving their customers. He could tell them that it’s not the job of a regulatory agency to insulate people from the consequences of their own sloth or inattention or willful ignorance or unwillingness to accept a reasonable level of personal responsibility. It is not the responsibility of a regulatory agency to make law, that function being limited to elected not unelected officials.
He could stop claiming that people have a “right” to things like healthcare, abortion, etc., that are not mentioned as actual rights in the Constitution until and unless he makes it clear that having a right to such things means the same thing that the rights enumerated in the Constitution do. That would be that it’s your job to earn enough money or otherwise accumulate the resources to exercise that right (whether it’s to afford a doctor, a rifle or a printing press) and it’s the government’s job to make sure that your right to do so is not interfered with. That would NOT mean that if someone does not manage to earn enough money or otherwise accumulate the resources necessary to exercise that right then such persons have the legal right to demand and get the taxpayers (via governmental force) to give money to them so that they can.
He could back off of his threat to appoint judges who will make rulings based on their empathy with someone’s race, economic status, etc. and appoint judges who will instead hew to the oath they will take upon assuming office – “I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal justice to the poor and the rich, …” and address inequities in the law (which certainly exist) through the legislature, respecting the central American principle of separation of powers.
He could listen to the officers and troops in Iraq and not try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory there. He could use what influence he will have with the Western democracies and others to get them to commit actual useful resources to Afghanistan (economic development as well as troops). Did you know that countries like Germany have stipulated that the troops they send can only be used in support and cannot be put into combat? He could make sure that our military gets the support it needs instead of gutting it as I suspect people like Rep. Barney Frank wants.
He could actually implement (by which I mean develop and then convince Congress to pass) tax policies that don’t increase taxes on the middle class. Yes, I know that’s what he said. I simply don’t believe it. I don’t trust him. I think he’s lying. I’ve heard it all too often before from his colleagues in Cook County and Chicago and Illinois government only to see them turn right around and do the precise opposite (which is why, for example, as a resident of Cook County I now pay the highest sales taxes in the entire country). I will not believe it until I actually see it happen and see it continue through the end of his tenure in office. He gets no benefit of the doubt from me at all on this issue.
He could make sure that a tax policy that reduces taxes to 90% of Americans means 90% of taxpayers and does not include giving money to (what I am told is) the 30% of Americans that do not currently pay income tax.
He could implement a financial policy that would actually save Social Security.
He could tell the legislators of both parties publicly and privately that they are there to do the people’s business and not their own and that they should get down to it and take a stand on difficult issues and get something done, and that they should quit if they don’t have the guts to risk their political careers on it.
Back in the ’60’s and ’70’s, an editorial cartoonist called Herblock used to caricature Richard Nixon in his cartoons by including a rather heavy “5 o’clock shadow”. Nixon actually had one, and Herblock exaggerated it to give his caricature a sinister look.
The day that Nixon took office, Herblock’s cartoon was of Nixon walking into a barber shop that was advertising free shaves for new Presidents. He didn’t draw him with that sinister look again for a very long time.
Some people will keep seeing Sen. Obama with a 5 o’clock shadow no matter what he says or does. Some of us will give him a shave on his inauguration day. But we’ll be looking to see if it grows back. Nixon’s did ….
RonF,
He could tell the American people that he realizes that it is not the job of government to redistribute income from people who have earned it to people who have not
Except we always have had a progressive federal income tax, and McCain also supports such a tax. Basically Obama has to reject what every other president has done, in order to pass conservative muster? Maybe now you see why some of us are skeptical that all of the opposition to Obama is fueled purely by concern for his policies.
He could tell them that it’s not the job of a regulatory agency to insulate people from the consequences of their own sloth or inattention or willful ignorance or unwillingness to accept a reasonable level of personal responsibility. It is not the responsibility of a regulatory agency to make law, that function being limited to elected not unelected officials.
Who ever said that it is a regulatory agency’s job to insulate people from their own sloth, inattention, etc? I thought conservatives blamed the plaintiffs’ bar for this, not regulatory agencies. Moreover, precisely how do you differentiate between regulations (which you think agencies should make) and law? You go to jail for violating regulations too, you know. The only difference in the effect of regulations versus statutes is that regulations face a lower standard (Chevron) for being overturned by the Supreme Court than statutes do. Finally, regulations ARE made through an elected official: the president. Administrative agencies can’t make regulations without being authorized to do so by Congress, and then having the regs approved by President. If you think Congress has the time to enunciate the type of goggles that should be used on construction sites, you live in a fantasyland.
it’s the government’s job to make sure that your right to do so is not interfered with
Er, what do you think the “right to abortion” entails? In fact, the government does interfere with the right to abortion in many ways: it mandates that doctors read scripts about how abortion kills an individual human life; it mandates unnecessary ultrasounds; it proscribes abortions of post-viability fetuses except where the pregnancy threatens the health or life of the mother.
Did you know that countries like Germany have stipulated that the troops they send can only be used in support and cannot be put into combat?
Shockingly, countries that got treated by Bush and the Republican Congress like they were enemies because they refused to join our adventure in Iraq aren’t inclined to risk their citizens’ necks for a U.S.-run mission in Afghanistan. I can’t imagine why Germany would do such a thing. But yes, maybe having a president in the White House who doesn’t divide the world into allies who have to support everything he does, and enemies who don’t support everything he does, will help rebuild our alliances and encourage Germany et al to take bigger risks. Their government also has to face the voters, and German voters have little reason to love us right now.
Yes, I know that’s what he said. I simply don’t believe it. I don’t trust him. I think he’s lying.
Based not on HIS actual record, but on your perception of a group to which he belongs. You don’t point to a single instance of Obama’s breaking a promise on taxes. You’re not building the case for rational distrust of Obama by conservatives.
None of Obama’s tax cut will go to a household that is not working. Any working household pays federal taxes, through payroll taxes if nowhere else. He is offering a credit back on those payroll taxes. I am really sick of the “Obama is handing out welfare” rhetoric that McCain is putting forward.
Nice analogy about Herblock. :-)
Most of your long comment, Ron, seems to say that if Obama takes on the failed economic policies of the right, then you’ll stop calling him a neo-criminal because he’s from Chicago and all people from Chicago are eeevvviiiill. That doesn’t sound very attractive to me.
Although I disagree with 99% of what you just wrote, I’ll just respond on a couple of items where I suspect you might be open to minor changes in your view.
Ron, it’s true that the majority of soldiers who have an opinion trend Republican; but not all of them do. It’s not like the thousands of soldiers who will vote for Obama aren’t risking their lives (or, in some cases, not getting to vote because they gave their lives), and it’s disrespectful of them for Republicans to speak as if they don’t exist.
That aside, it’s not up to the soldiers to give the President policy orders; it’s the other way around. There are certainly many areas in which the President should listen and pretty much obey what the military says (questions about tactical capabilities, for example); but high policy decisions like whether or not to withdraw from Iraq are properly made by the person elected to make them, not by the army.
Nor on any other, that I’ve seen.
I actually hope he backs down on the tax-cut promise, since the responsible, non-childish thing to do is to raise long-term taxes (while using short- and medium-term stimulus to mitigate the effects of the Bush recession).
But I doubt he will. Obama has shown it’s possible to counter the endless (irresponsible, childish) Republican mantra of “tax cuts!” in elections, by responding with larger tax cuts for the middle class and poor, offset with raising taxes on the wealthy. The fiscal situation would have to be genuinely desperate before he’d be willing to give up an electoral advantage that he pioneered.
Americans who pay no income tax, still pay taxes, Ron. Why is giving a refund to taxpayers only okay for some taxpayers (the ones who pay income taxes), but objectionable for other taxpayers?
So if he doesn’t do those things, then he’s the Antichrist? Talk about lacking subtlety.
Yes. A progressive income tax – hell, any sort of progressive tax in general, by definition redistributes income. Anyone who supports a progressive tax supports income redistribution – all we disagree on is the margins.
I disagree. Ignoring any fairness, freedom, or compassion arguments for funneling money downward, doing so really is what is best for the economy on an ongoing bases. The fundamental folly of supply-siders, both capitalist and socialist, is that just because you build it does NOT mean they will come and buy it. Conversely, any time you have money to spend, you can be sure that someone will show up wanting to sell you something you’d like to have. In supply-side capitalism, this means that as wealth gets concentrated in fewer capitalists’ hands, there are fewer people who want to (or can) buy stuff, and the capitalists start hoarding their money in gold or real estate rather than risking it on expanding or creating new businesses. A permanent policy of taking wealth from those who have more than they want to spend and giving it to those who want, or better yet need, to spend more, creates a continual incentive to expand and create businesses, by providing those businesses with what they REALLY need: customers.
For a summary of empirical studies supporting my armchair demand-side analysis, check out the Economic Policy Institute here.
Thank you for saving my comment.
BTW, using the income tax system to give money to people who do not pay income tax was Milton Freidman’s idea. I guess everyone really is a socialist now.
Shorter RonF:
That’s awesome, and it makes the Republican party look way more reasonable. Shine on, you crazy diamond.
—Myca
Gee, Myca, you take what may be the most utterly depressing political comment I’ve read this month and make me go, “Wheeeeeeeeeee.”
Thanks.
*grin* That’s why I’m here, Jake. Glad to oblige!
—Myca
Amp:
I don’t dispute that it’s quite properly a civilian function to determine what policy objectives are and to direct the military accordingly. What I’m aiming at here is to ask Obama to understand that despite the protestations of his base the United States is actually on the cusp of achieving victory in Iraq – victory being defined as the establishment of a democratically supported Iraqi government that can take charge of it’s own security. What I’ve seen reported is that even in the fact of the demonstrated fact that the “surge” has propelled Iraq towards that goal he still wouldn’t have supported it. That gives me pause. There’s a responsible argument to be made that we should not have gone into Iraq in the first place. But a substantial portion of Obama’s base seems to think that there’s no hope for the situation there and that we should just clear out.
Now, if he wants to lean on the Iraqi government to get their shit together in various areas, fine. That’s diplomacy, which is especially effective when you can say “do it or we’re bailing out and letting the whacknuts hang you by your balls from the bridges”. Just so long as you don’t actually DO it. And just so long as you recognize that we’re trying to fast-forward these guys through a lot of history that took us a while to get through ourselves. It appears that a lot of his base is in denial about what the actual situation is in Iraq. I almost suspect that some of them WANT the effort there in Iraq to fail because it’ll make Bush look bad.
I actually hope he backs down on the tax-cut promise, since the responsible, non-childish thing to do is to raise long-term taxes (while using short- and medium-term stimulus to mitigate the effects of the Bush recession).
I’d say the responsible, non-childish thing to do is to spend less money. Kids always think Daddy and Mommy are a money tree and are being selfish and bad when they don’t give them what they want. The less money you spend, the less taxes you have to raise.
by responding with larger tax cuts for the middle class and poor, offset with raising taxes on the wealthy. The fiscal situation would have to be genuinely desperate before he’d be willing to give up an electoral advantage that he pioneered.
Are you holding that I argued against that? Look again. I’m talking about what he does with the money after he collects it. There’s places to spend the money on such as reducing the national debt and rebuilding our national infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) – the latter being a great source of jobs that would help move tax consumers to becoming taxpayers to boot.
Americans who pay no income tax, still pay taxes, Ron.
Then cut those taxes. As opposed to writing checks funded by taxes that other people are paying.
Why is giving a refund to taxpayers only okay for some taxpayers (the ones who pay income taxes), but objectionable for other taxpayers?
If I pay more income tax than I owe and the government gives me some of it back, that’s a refund. If I pay a lot of income tax and the government gives some of it to someone who didn’t pay income tax, that’s not a refund. That’s a grant, a form of welfare. Call it what it is. If you want to give people who don’t pay income tax a refund, give them back some of the money they paid in for the taxes they do pay.
My favorite bit is the railing against ‘redistribution’, since, as Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein sensibly point out, redistributing income is pretty much What Governments Do.
As John Chait put it, McCain’s latest attack (faithfully repeated by the poor mynah birds of the right, who make up in volume what they lack in understanding) seems to boil down to ‘Obama Wants to Have a GOVERNMENT in WASHINGTON!’
—Myca
If I pay a lot of income tax and the government gives some of it to someone who didn’t pay income tax, that’s not a refund. That’s a grant, a form of welfare. Call it what it is.
I call it the Earned Income Tax Credit, instituted by a Republican president to encourage people to get OFF what we used to call welfare. Is the conservative idea that now that we’ve reformed traditional welfare and gotten thousands of people off it, we have to expand our idea of what welfare is, so we can continue to rail against all the lazy goodfornothings on it — including the lazy goodfornothings who have to work to be eligible for it?
To break away from the debate for a moment, my roommates family is from the Appalachians in Kentucky (she’s the first generation not to be raised there since her father went military and was stationed all over Europe.) According to her, her grandmothers church up there is preaching that Obama is literally the Anti Christ. I was I was joking
The perception of what group Obama belongs to, or the perception of what the actions of that group are? Sen. Obama is part and parcel of the Cook County/Chicago Democratic Machine. They backed him for office every time he ran. People associated with them helped him organize his campaigns and helped finance him. He has campaigned for them and has endorsed them over actual reform candidates. This is not just happening to share a seat on a board of directors with someone, or getting help buying his house from a developer and
convicted influence peddler. He’s a part of the Machine. Now, there’s no suspicion that he’s done anything illegal – and thank God for that – but he’s a part of the group. I don’t see how that can be disputed.
As far as what that group stands for, the idea that the Cook County and Chicago machine stands for corruption, nepotism and high taxes used in a wasteful manner to line the pockets of the well connected as opposed to benefiting the public is not a partisan position. The fact that the machine is a Democratic organization is from what I can see a label of convenience for an organization that operates in a highly urban mileu. I don’t consider what they do a property of the fact that they are Democrats but a property of Illinois politics in general.
The concept that Sen. Obama is selling is that although this is where he comes from politically, none of it has stuck to him. Hm. The man must be made of Teflon. Again, I don’t think that he’s connected with the kinds of things that, for example, Tony Rezko has been convicted for to the degree that he’s done anything illegal. I certainly haven’t seen him do much of anything to counter it, though. He’s had his chances to speak out against it and to support candidates that would try to do something about it, but he’s done little to nothing. Again, he’s supported machine candidates repeated against reform candidates. Then there’s the recent ethics legislation that the General Assembly passsed. The legislation was remarkable in that for just about the first time it tries to require that the Illinois legislators actually have some ethics. Our Governor, who will likely be in jail before Obama finishes his term (either as President or as Senator) vetoed it. The House passed it over his veto. The Senate President, another Chicago politician, tried to kill it. It took weeks of lobbying from both Chicago papers before Sen. Obama made the phone call to tell the Senate President to get off the dime. Now, yeah, Obama’s busy, but it only took one phone call. But it seems that Sen. Obama didn’t want to strike even this minor blow in opposition to the machine until he was shamed into it.
We’ll see. If we’re talking about refunding taxes to people who have already paid them in an amount not to exceed what they’ve paid, that’s one thing. Payroll taxes are income tax, Social Security and Medicare (Medicaid?) taxes. Now, if they don’t pay any income tax, any money they get back on that is not a refund, since they already would get a refund of all that if they were not due to pay taxes. If they get back SS taxes, how is that going to be made up into a system that’s going broke anyway? Are they taking the income cap off of SS payments? Is he planning to give them the Medicare taxes back? Is that amount going to exceed what they paid in?
RonF,
Once again, you don’t point to a single instance of Obama’s breaking a promise on taxes. You say he will because you consider him a member of the Democratic Chicago machine and therefore tarred with the brush of what other members of that machine have done. You are not judging him based on his own actions in the area of tax policy.
Sen. Obama is part and parcel of the Cook County/Chicago Democratic Machine. They backed him for office every time he ran
You don’t seem to know as much about Chicago Democratic politics as you claim. As even Newsmax, a rightwing news source, has noted, the Daley political machine did not support Obama early in his political career: not in the Congressional Democratic primary race he lost against Bobby Rush, and not in the Senatorial Democratic primary race in which he beat Dan Hynes, son of machine longtimer Tom Hynes.
Are they taking the income cap off of SS payments?
Probably. If you read Obama’s economic plan — or even the criticism of it by the American Enterprise Institute — you would know about this. But hey, why research the candidate when you know everything you need to know about him based on his being a Chicago machine politician? You can’t trust anything he says, because he’s a Chicago machine politician and therefore a liar. Even though, if you relied on actual history rather than your biased memory thereof, you’d know that the Democratic machine didn’t favor Obama over other Illinois Democrats.
Roving Thundercloud:
The question I’ve been wanting to ask is, once Obama is president, what would he have to do to make the anti-Obama voters breathe a sigh of relief?
Personally, I’d relax a bit if he were to veto a social spending bill on the grounds that it cost too much.
Ampersand:
I addressed this argument here. To summarize, up to a certain point the taxes you pay are more like user fees—you’re helping to offset the cost of the government benefits that you consume (or in the case of FICA taxes the cost of government benefits that you’re expected to consume in your old age). Prior to that point, other people are subsidizing you. Beyond that point, you’re subsidizing others.
So to say that the poor “pay taxes too” just because they pay FICA taxes and maybe a bit in sales taxes is misleading, because for the most part they’re not even paying the full cost of the government services they consume. So the reason it’s objectionable to cut their taxes (without an offsetting cut in their benefits) is that it increases the extent to which the net taxpayers are forced to subsidize them.
To summarize, up to a certain point the taxes you pay are more like user fees—you’re helping to offset the cost of the government benefits that you consume (or in the case of FICA taxes the cost of government benefits that you’re expected to consume in your old age). Prior to that point, other people are subsidizing you. Beyond that point, you’re subsidizing others.
But almost no one will pay exactly what they consume, partly because that’s so difficult to measure (how much interstate highway do I consume?) and partly because it’s so unpredictable (I’m probably contributing more now than I consume, but just wait until I am unemployed, or my spouse defaults on government-backed student loans, or both of us have very expensive conditions to treat while we’re on Medicare).
Along those lines, since poor people as a whole have shorter lifetimes, I’m hesitant to assume that they will consume more from their FICA taxes than they contribute. Certainly any individual low-income worker who obligingly gets smushed by a bus in her 60th birthday will have contributed more than she ever got back.
From here:
Tony’s part of the machine. Not every member of the machine is an elected politician. The people who provide the money, the people who hold appointed positions, the people who get the contracts and hand out the bribes are all members of the machine. Money is the mother’s milk of politics, especially in Cook County, and Rezko has been a major player, funding numerous people including our current governor. He’s been convicted of influence peddling and bribery, and if you’re not part of the machine you don’t HAVE influence in Cook County.
Let the record show that Sen. Obama has returned at least the most recent donations for his Senatorial and Presidential campaigns. I don’t know about the contributions to his ones prior to that. Of course, now he doesn’t need the money. What was essential to his early career is chump change now.
If the elected officials opposed him early in his career, the money men did. And the elected officials have embraced him and he has embraced them subsequently. As I note, Obama supported the machine candidates over reform candidates in the most recent elections.
The people who provide the money, the people who hold appointed positions, the people who get the contracts and hand out the bribes are all members of the machine.
Out of curiosity, from whom can one get thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in Cook County who WOULDN’T be considered part of the machine? In your theory, the machine obviously is not the monolithic entity that the nomenclature implies; clearly one part of the machine (a single millionaire, Tony Rezko) can work in contradiction of another part of the machine (various elected officials and party bosses).
This seems to me a relatively worthless machine, as the whole point of a political organization is to get its preferred candidate elected to office. If the Chicago machine was in disarray about which candidates to support for any given election, it must have been a lot less effective than it has been credited to be.
I find this less plausible than the theory that Obama did not have machine support in his state legislature, Congressional and Senate races; rather, he had the support of a particular individual who went against the machine to support Obama. Rezko first took an interest in Obama in 1990, when he read about this Chicago community organizer who became president of the Harvard Law Review.
Brandon: fascinatingly irrelevant. We need people to spend money (the way that less wealthy people do, rather than using money we give them to buy other banks) in order to fix our economy and prevent those poor, mistreated rich people from losing more businesses.
Seriously, you can’t think of any vital service that billionaires receive from the government?