"0ne of those pathetic bloggers who tries to make a living out of attacking other bloggers and media folk in an effort to illicit a reaction and draw traffic to his site." -- Owen Robinson of Boots and Sabers
Just recently I recalled Bradley Foundation intellectual Christian Schneider calling Scott Walker's union-busting budget repair bill a "jobs creator" (because slashing take-home pay for middle class Americans is a surefire stimulus plan) on Charlie Sykes' Sunday INCITE! (on the June 12 broadcast, about 9 minutes in if you can stand it). Scott Walker, job creator. That was funny.
Christian Schneider, of the rightwing think tank Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, joins the bum rush of Paul Ryan fluffers in the latest issue of the surely ironically named Wisconsin "Interest."
Titled "Rebel Without A Pause" we learn -- guess what -- that Ryan is a deep thinker, he's a rising star, he's humble, he's just a regular guy. He also likes Thai food.
OK, perhaps it's unfair to expect journamalism breakthroughs from Schneider, he who has candidly admitted he hopes unemployment stays high. But to give him credit, he does produce some bonafide howlers.
Such as this:
Ryan began to garner national attention in 2003, during the debate over President Bush’s proposal to expand prescription drug benefits to seniors through Medicare. Ryan is proud of the free market programs he inserted into the final bill (Medicare Advantage, Health Saving Accounts), and believes those are the “seeds” to a future overhaul of federal entitlement programs.
Actually what it laid the groundwork for was bigger deficits, with former comptroller general David Walker calling it "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s." And, as Bruce Bartlett notes, it was more expensive than Obamacare -- and unlike ACA it didn't include dedicated financing, offsets or revenue raisers. It was just tacked on to the budget. Plus the way it was passed made the Corhusker Kickback look like a goo-goo's wet dream.
Christian -- where's the research?
It's tough to outdo that risible work, but Christian struggles mightily when he describes Ryan "challenging" the president at the health care summit.
So when cameras turned to Ryan, he began systematically dismantling the Democrats’ rosy cost estimates. He pointed out that much of the cost was hidden, as it raised taxes for ten years to pay for six years’ worth of spending. He exposed the fact that the $371 billion “doc fix” (a plan to reimburse doctors more through Medicare) had been separated from the bill and considered as standalone legislation to keep the price tag down. “Hiding spending does not reduce spending,” he said.
As Ryan spoke, the cameras would occasionally make their way back to President Obama, who was glaring icily at Ryan.
“I wanted to throw a match on this thing,” Ryan remembers thinking.
Perhaps the icy looks are explained by the fact that Ryan, as is his wont, was trying to pass off bullshit as revelation. As Ezra Klein noted:
But he purposefully omits any mention of the bill's expected savings, disingenuously attaches the price tag of a broken Republican policy onto the health-care reform bill, and selectively stops extrapolating trends when they don't fit his points. It's a presentation designed to make the bill look less fiscally responsible than it really is.
But don't listen to me. Robert Reischauer is the head of the Urban Institute. He's also one of the CBO's most revered former directors, in no small part because his relentlessly honest cost estimates helped doom Bill Clinton's bill in 1994. I reached him earlier today and asked whether he thought this bill made fiscal sense. "Were I in Congress and asked to vote on this," he replied, "I'd vote in favor." The bill isn't perfect, he continued, "but it at least has the prospect for creating a platform over which more significant and far-reaching cost containment can be enacted."
Did Schneider and Ryan learn to do "research" at the same place?
Theda Skocpol last week laid out how the Republicans are undercutting the economic recovery (and Folkbum did a nicejob amplifying the point in these parts). The latest example: Thanks to Republican obstructionism, 1.3 million laid off workers (all of them clearly moochers) won't get their benefits reinstated before Congress goes into recess. Hundreds of thousands more face the threat with each passing week. Republicans, hilariously, claim they're concerned about adding to the debt, though the bond markets don't seem particularly punitive.
The hope, of course, is that a bad economy=bad results for Dems at the polls in November. The Republicans are rooting for high unemployment and economic pain to continue. How do we know that? Christian Schneider told us so last May!
Basically, the GOP has to secretly root for unemployment to stay high for another year, in hopes of regaining control and making fundamental systematic changes that help unemployed workers in the long run. It appears that endless fruitless bailouts have fatigued voters, which may form a good platform on which the GOP to rebound.
The GOP is hoping short term pain brings long term gain. Let's hope it doesn't bloody Wisconsin's nose irreprably in the next twelve months.
Christian Schneider, resident scholar at "think tank" WPRI, scribbles 674 words packed with dubious history and analysis punctuated by this killer conclusion:
Basically, the GOP has to secretly root for unemployment to stay high for another year, in hopes of regaining control and making fundamental systematic changes that help unemployed workers in the long run. It appears that endless fruitless bailouts have fatigued voters, which may form a good platform on which the GOP to rebound.
The GOP is hoping short term pain brings long term gain. Let's hope it doesn't bloody Wisconsin's nose irreprably in the next twelve months.
You've heard it from the belly of the beast: The GOP is rooting for unemployment to stay high for another year.
Postscript: What does the Brawler mean by "dubious history and analysis"? Stuff like this:
In September of 2008, the John McCain presidential campaign was buoyed by a strong convention, briefly taking the lead in the polls over Barack Obama. Soon, however, the housing bubble burst, and McCain’s election chances went down the tubes along with the national economy.
It may not have penetrated the walls at the WPRI, but the economy was in recession for all of 2008 and the bursting of the housing bubble was old, old news by the time of the convention. The convention was "strong" only if you viewed "Drill Baby Drill" as a compelling political platform and if you thought selecting Sarah Palin as your veep was shrewd. McCain enjoyed, as everyone expected, a bounce after the convention but even at the time, if the Brawler recollects properly, there were big questions as to how sustainable it was going to be. Not very, as it turned out.
One of the more amusing aspects of the 2006 Wisconsin gubernatorial race was the way Republican shills would hail as "good news" polls that showed Big Jim Doyle ahead of their guy.
From that vantage point, Jim Doyle must be thrilled by a recent Survey USA poll that shows his approval rating at a devasting 35%. Why is that good news? Because it's actually 3 points ahead of his 32% approval rating the month before. If he can tack on 3 points a month between now and November 2010 -- and when voters get a close-up look at Scott Walker that can't be ruled out -- his approval rating will be in the 80s.
Of course, numbers are relative for GOP hacks. Instead wingnut welfare baby Christian Schneider hails this utterly meaningless poll as a sign of Doyle's vulnerability -- hilariously suggesting that Doyle's relative weakness among liberals means maybe, just maybe, some of them may stay home (note to Christian: "liberals" have never been particularly big fans of Doyle).
Fellow WPRI food stamp recipient Charlie Sykes flacked the poll and talked about it on his show. He went on to say that come election time Doyle and the left will try to win by smearing their opponents -- leaving one to wonder if Doyle et al will call Walker "sniveling" or "snot nosed" as Sykes called Obama or liken Walker to a segregationist, as Sykes has with Doyle. (Amusingly, Sykes ranted about how the media would cover for Doyle -- you know, the same in the tank lefty media that portrayed the Adelman non-scandal that shamed Steve Biskupic as Watergate.)
But as this time sequence shows, Big Jim doesn't score high approval ratings. Indeed, the month before he smoked Mark Green by a comfortable margin -- effectively tying him in Green's home turf of northeastern Wisconsin -- Survey USA charted Doyle's approval at 46%. Surely Doyle could rack up 11 points between now and next fall -- and with Doyle being a few points shy of 50% approval means he wins in a walk.
The Brawler can't remember whether this dynamic duo hailed the MacIver Institute poll showing Doyle easily beating Walker or Neumann, but since it's math they can't use, probably not. And while the Brawler suspects that the 2010 race will lead to such a result, godwilling it happens, that poll is meangingless as well.
As Mark Green has logged thousands of miles traveling Wisconsin, he has heard from folks from all walks of life that they don't like the path Jim Doyle has our state headed down. People simply don't believe Jim Doyle shares our Wisconsin values. These survey results are the latest indication that people are ready for change and they are looking to Mark Green to restore hope for a brighter future and integrity to the governor's office.
As people around Wisconsin become more familiar with Mark Green and his reform agenda, they are rallying to the Green Team. There has yet to be one independent survey in this campaign showing that Mark Green isn't the best hope Republicans have to beat Jim Doyle.
Don't you love the positive message and the total non-smearing of Jim Doyle from class act Mark Green? The 2010 election will be vastly more entertaining.