McConnell says he’ll block any tax package without cut for top 2%

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 1 Comment

Mmmmmgyea.

Shortly after House Republican leader/medium-market weatherman John Boehner signaled his willingness to consider an extension of the Bush tax cuts that excludes the wealthiest 2% of Americans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’ll block any such package. Speaking on the floor Monday, he opined that “only in Washington could someone propose a tax hike as an antidote to a recession.” Like much of what the senator from Kentucky says, that statement is technically honest. Under current law, the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010. Letting them lapse—either by not voting to extend them, voting to extend them for everyone but households making over $250,000 a year or, say, filibustering the vote to extend them—would therefore constitute a tax hike, in that some or all taxes would become higher than they are now. Of course, by that reasoning, McConnell is proposing a tax hike as an antidote to the possibility that his party might compromise with a Democratic President. Only in Washington, indeed.

Continue reading

Ground Zero Mosque is perfect politics

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 7 Comments

Let the measured discourse begin!

Let’s quickly make a distinction about the word “perfect” above: I don’t mean “good politics,” so much as “politics untainted by any element of government.” The Ground Zero Mosque—located two blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center, and therefore separated from that hallowed ground only by the Ground Zero Chinese Takeout Place, the Ground Zero Strip Club and the Ground Zero Dunkin’ Donuts—will be built on private property. No governing body, from the City of New York City to the executive branch of the United States, can actually stop it. Yet politicians across the country have announced their opposition to its construction as if they could do something about it. One suspects that it’s precisely because they can’t.

Continue reading

Pete Sessions and the anatomy of an empty idea

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 3 Comments

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HLlSfgJQh4&feature=player_embedded

That’s Pete Sessions, Representative of Texas’s 32nd District and chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, explaining on Meet the Press how Republicans would balance the budget. As you can see, he’s a little vague. Sessions’s opening statement is such a tangle of catch phrases and boilerplate that it merits quoting verbatim:

It’s quite simple that the American people do understand the agendas that are before us. They understand what the President and the Speaker stand for, and they understand what Republicans stand for. Republicans—and especially our candidates, who are all over this country—very strong, standing with the American people back home. We need to live within our means.

I think we’re all relieved to know that Republicans very strong standing with the American people back home—apparently they’re in Iraq or something—and also that their candidates are all over this country. We’re going to need them to implement our innovative new plan for balancing the budget, which is to live within our means. Once we’ve taken care of that, we can win the war in Iraq by committing to victory, fix Social Security by ensuring its future, and finally talk to that pretty girl at the bookstore by taking a chance.

Continue reading

Congress weighs tax cuts for rich amid ethics investigation

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 0 Comment

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D–NY,) who left the floor during December's financial regulatory debate to attend a fundraiser with Wall Street execs, seen here with several men in nice suits

Those of you who can still bear to watch the sausage being made will be disappointed/heartened to know that the Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating eight members of Congress who accepted large donations from financial services companies while debating the financial regulatory bill. Suspect #1 is New York Democrat and Ways and Means Committee member Joseph Crowley. According to the Times, Crowley “left the Capitol during the House debate to attend a fund-raising event for him hosted by a lobbyist at her nearby Capitol Hill town house that featured financial firms, along with other donors.” Don’t worry, though. Once Crowley had finished accepting checks, he made it back in time to vote against several amendments that would have tightened restrictions on Wall Street. And he’ll probably maintain stellar attendance this week, as he and his colleagues discuss extending Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

Continue reading

That was fast

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments

And they wouldn't let them eat there? Even though that cut into profits? Sorry, that just doesn't sound right.

Good news, everybody! Non pixel-mosaic photographs of Rand Paul are now available on the internet. As usual, “good news” is shorthand for “good news for everybody except for Rand Paul,” since the sudden ubiquity of his image is due to his briefly held and brutally corrected position on the Civil Rights Act. In his first dive into public discourse, Paul executed a series of contortions before landing on his neck, becoming only the third person ever to cancel an appearance on Meet the Press. Rand Paul has met the press, and they are dicks. All he wanted to do was make a generalized point about his political views, and everybody treated him like he was talking about applying those views to specific laws. Can’t a man run for the Senate in peace?

Continue reading