Jonathan Bernstein recently argued that you don't get liberals as hacks for anything the Democratic party does like you get in the Republican party which is perhaps why no liberals have been celebrating the drop in healthcare costs over the last 4 years as a victory for ObamaCare.
I argued that maybe we liberals should at least be willing to point out tat this takes the need for austerity off the table. As for ACA, while we don't know how much impact it has had, it is believed to have had some and that it makes sense to hold off on any further reforms to Medicare until we get a better idea as to just how big the ACA effect is. It seems that while part of the drop was no doubt the effect of the recession, nevertheless it is believed that this drop is permanent. So why shouldn't we get "hacky" about that?
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/05/slowing-health-care-costs-and-case-for.html
However, such wonky discussions now seem like another lifetime ago. Starting with the revelation that the IRS may have targeted Tea Party groups to investigate whether they deserve their tax exempt status, we have had a good old style Republican Scandal O'Rama.
Darrell Issa is getting his hearings-he once said that he wants a different hearing every day of the week and no doubt all this is Christmas for him-though not for the country. He now has three scandals-Benghazi, the IRS, and now the AP subpoena story.
If you're a Republican it's understandable that you want to talk about nothing but scandals. Who cares about policy? It's notl like they have any ideas anyway. And the press is already going into 90s Whitewater-Lewinskygate mode.
True, the 90s hunting of the President ultimately failed-though technically he remains the only President every impeached. The GOP ultimately lost on ram ping up the scandals in the 90s, yet the country as a whole also suffered as things more or less screeched to a halt. The media abetted the GOP by ignoring policy and playing up Lewinsky, etc.
Between the GOP's Benghazi hobby horse-it's been their security blanket since the tragedy in October-the IRS Tea Party scandal, and now the AP phone records scandal, when do you imagine we might discuss the economy and employment again?
This is why I argue rather hyperbolically that we need some liberal hacks. Look at it this way: the DOJ is supposed to do what it does in the public interest. It is supposed safeguard justice for us and protect our rights. Yet no one thinks that they don't need oversight.
If the DOJ does need oversight are you telling me that Darrell Issa doesn't? We are at the old problem of just who is it who will police the police?
Listen, I'm no doubt, the resident Obama apologist. I don't say this ashamedly. I always prefer to take the long view. Ultimately which party and which Administration is likely to on balance do the kinds of things that will make us a better society over the long term?
There's the irony about being a Keynesain: we're accused of only caring about the short run. Yet, the Keynesain view is that there is no long term in Macro; however, by taking care of the short term in Macro this will give us long term stability and also have a long term stabilizing effect on society.
So my argument for liberal hacks comes down to this. We need to police the policeman, and his name is Darrell Issa.
Now some, no doubt, will see my position as that of an unprincipled partisan hack. To that I must disagree: In fact I'm a principled, partisan, hack. Listen, there's more than enough liberals and Democrats in Congress who seem willing to join the GOP in throwing stones.
So think of what you get here at Diary as a simple corrective. In economic terms, you could say that what may on the micro level be bias on the macro level correct the huge bias going the other way right now against the President and this Administration.
I have a simple question: While the AP story is troubling and does need to be investigated-my complaint is just that we need an investigation not a scandal and the GOP wants a scandal-and the IRS deserves clarification as well-the Benghazi canard on the other hand remains on the trivial level of what is the difference between an act of terror and a terrorist act?-should the President be impeached? Should Eric Holder-who Issa has had a special onus on and has hounded in virulently unprofessional way since the day after the Tea Party victory of 2011-be forced out?
You think I'm wrong to see this as mostly about politics? Rand Paul doesn't agree with you. He's claimed that Benghazi proves that Hillary Clinton is no unfit for the Presidency. Do you agree with that? If not, then to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a liberal hack.
What I want to urge all liberals and Democrats is to fight back. Prostrating yourself to please the GOP is a losing strategy. All three of these scandals are about nothing but benefiting the Republican party. Think about it.
The IRS? The GOP hates the IRS anyway-which might be a good reason the IRS may have had to be skeptical of the nonprofit designation. Remember to call a Tea Party group nonprofit, we're basically bankrolling their activities. And the sequester cuts-remember them?-are damaging the IRS' ability to implement ACA. Of course, the GOP worries that the agency has itself "overextended" ignoring that it's they who have made them shorthanded thanks to the sequester. Another benefit of the IRS scandal is to hobble their abliity to police these groups who wrongly claim tax exempt status. A final benefit of the IRS scandal is they hope to hobble their implementation of the ACA fee.
Benghazi has been the GOP's security blanket, it's little hobby horse that they have simply wallowed in hoping that it will give them something-anything-to hang on the President. Now they're thinking it might be able to damage Hillary with it.
As for the AP subpoenas, please remember this is the GOP, the party of McCarthy and George W. Bush. What do they care about civil liberties and the right to privacy?
It's a political hatchet job. Every day wasted on this is a day the GOP doesn't have to talk about it absolute intellectual and moral bankruptcy and why it's policies are so unpopular. They don't have to discuss employment which they don't care about anyway. They don't have to answer to the sequester straitjacket that they've hung over the entire economy, while preening and bragging that this is their victory.
I argued that maybe we liberals should at least be willing to point out tat this takes the need for austerity off the table. As for ACA, while we don't know how much impact it has had, it is believed to have had some and that it makes sense to hold off on any further reforms to Medicare until we get a better idea as to just how big the ACA effect is. It seems that while part of the drop was no doubt the effect of the recession, nevertheless it is believed that this drop is permanent. So why shouldn't we get "hacky" about that?
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2013/05/slowing-health-care-costs-and-case-for.html
However, such wonky discussions now seem like another lifetime ago. Starting with the revelation that the IRS may have targeted Tea Party groups to investigate whether they deserve their tax exempt status, we have had a good old style Republican Scandal O'Rama.
Darrell Issa is getting his hearings-he once said that he wants a different hearing every day of the week and no doubt all this is Christmas for him-though not for the country. He now has three scandals-Benghazi, the IRS, and now the AP subpoena story.
If you're a Republican it's understandable that you want to talk about nothing but scandals. Who cares about policy? It's notl like they have any ideas anyway. And the press is already going into 90s Whitewater-Lewinskygate mode.
True, the 90s hunting of the President ultimately failed-though technically he remains the only President every impeached. The GOP ultimately lost on ram ping up the scandals in the 90s, yet the country as a whole also suffered as things more or less screeched to a halt. The media abetted the GOP by ignoring policy and playing up Lewinsky, etc.
Between the GOP's Benghazi hobby horse-it's been their security blanket since the tragedy in October-the IRS Tea Party scandal, and now the AP phone records scandal, when do you imagine we might discuss the economy and employment again?
This is why I argue rather hyperbolically that we need some liberal hacks. Look at it this way: the DOJ is supposed to do what it does in the public interest. It is supposed safeguard justice for us and protect our rights. Yet no one thinks that they don't need oversight.
If the DOJ does need oversight are you telling me that Darrell Issa doesn't? We are at the old problem of just who is it who will police the police?
Listen, I'm no doubt, the resident Obama apologist. I don't say this ashamedly. I always prefer to take the long view. Ultimately which party and which Administration is likely to on balance do the kinds of things that will make us a better society over the long term?
There's the irony about being a Keynesain: we're accused of only caring about the short run. Yet, the Keynesain view is that there is no long term in Macro; however, by taking care of the short term in Macro this will give us long term stability and also have a long term stabilizing effect on society.
So my argument for liberal hacks comes down to this. We need to police the policeman, and his name is Darrell Issa.
Now some, no doubt, will see my position as that of an unprincipled partisan hack. To that I must disagree: In fact I'm a principled, partisan, hack. Listen, there's more than enough liberals and Democrats in Congress who seem willing to join the GOP in throwing stones.
So think of what you get here at Diary as a simple corrective. In economic terms, you could say that what may on the micro level be bias on the macro level correct the huge bias going the other way right now against the President and this Administration.
I have a simple question: While the AP story is troubling and does need to be investigated-my complaint is just that we need an investigation not a scandal and the GOP wants a scandal-and the IRS deserves clarification as well-the Benghazi canard on the other hand remains on the trivial level of what is the difference between an act of terror and a terrorist act?-should the President be impeached? Should Eric Holder-who Issa has had a special onus on and has hounded in virulently unprofessional way since the day after the Tea Party victory of 2011-be forced out?
You think I'm wrong to see this as mostly about politics? Rand Paul doesn't agree with you. He's claimed that Benghazi proves that Hillary Clinton is no unfit for the Presidency. Do you agree with that? If not, then to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a liberal hack.
What I want to urge all liberals and Democrats is to fight back. Prostrating yourself to please the GOP is a losing strategy. All three of these scandals are about nothing but benefiting the Republican party. Think about it.
The IRS? The GOP hates the IRS anyway-which might be a good reason the IRS may have had to be skeptical of the nonprofit designation. Remember to call a Tea Party group nonprofit, we're basically bankrolling their activities. And the sequester cuts-remember them?-are damaging the IRS' ability to implement ACA. Of course, the GOP worries that the agency has itself "overextended" ignoring that it's they who have made them shorthanded thanks to the sequester. Another benefit of the IRS scandal is to hobble their abliity to police these groups who wrongly claim tax exempt status. A final benefit of the IRS scandal is they hope to hobble their implementation of the ACA fee.
Benghazi has been the GOP's security blanket, it's little hobby horse that they have simply wallowed in hoping that it will give them something-anything-to hang on the President. Now they're thinking it might be able to damage Hillary with it.
As for the AP subpoenas, please remember this is the GOP, the party of McCarthy and George W. Bush. What do they care about civil liberties and the right to privacy?
It's a political hatchet job. Every day wasted on this is a day the GOP doesn't have to talk about it absolute intellectual and moral bankruptcy and why it's policies are so unpopular. They don't have to discuss employment which they don't care about anyway. They don't have to answer to the sequester straitjacket that they've hung over the entire economy, while preening and bragging that this is their victory.
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