Congress on plan to wreck nation: not our fault

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments
Boehner Reid

This picture has been consistently described as a hug.

My favorite part of the slow news period between Christmas and the New Year is the Times’s daily countdown to fiscal armageddon. This morning, Harry Reid pretty much told us all to buy canned food. According to the Times, he spent much of his day on the Senate floor “excoriating” House Republicans for their refusal to consider a bill extending the Bush tax cuts on households that make less than $250,000 a year. Thus excoriated, the House stayed home. We are going over that cliff. Having imposed a future penalty no one wanted in order to force itself to come to agreement, Congress has argued its way into penalization. The legislative branch of the US government is like an addict who flushes his drugs down the toilet and then drowns.

Continue reading

The insane stupidity of the Romney compromise argument

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments

“What’s that direction people look in when they’re lying? I can look the other direction if you want.”

Much has been made over the last few days of the Des Moines Register‘s endorsement of Mitt Romney. The Register‘s argument is two-pronged: first, they believe that Romney’s plan of lower taxes and decreased regulation is the best way to fix the economy. That’s obviously true; when businesses and rich people spend money, it goes into the economy, whereas when the government spends money it goes into a deficit. Low taxes and deregulation are known drivers of economic growth—that’s why we had a massive economic collapse when taxes and regulations were at their lowest. But forget that. The second, more important reason the Register endorsed Romney for president is that he is the better candidate to “forge compromise” in Congress. David Brooks made the same argument over at the Times, and he sounded just as nuts.

Continue reading

Everyone agrees fiscal cliff is huge problem, does nothing

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 2 Comments

This year will be our last Christmas, because the military programs that fund Santa Claus will be automatically cut in January 2013. That’s when the $1.2 trillion sequester of forced reductions in “defense and non-defense spending”—a weird epithet we have all agreed to use—will kick in as a result of the budget super committee’s failure to do dick about anything. Those spending cuts will coincide with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts to create a sort of economic compression pose known as the Fiscal Cliff. Ben Bernanke coined that expression. It’s his big accomplishment from last year. Meanwhile, businesses have delayed hiring and investment until they see what economic conditions will look like in 2013. The Republican and Democratic parties have agreed on two things this year. One, they will not talk about gun control no matter how many insane people shoot however many sane people. Two, going over the Fiscal Cliff would be bad. As we speak, Congress is working on a third agreement: to do nothing about it.

Continue reading

Friday links! Unchecked misanthropy edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 14 Comments

In a contemporary weltanschauung that has pretty much abandoned temptation narratives, misanthropy still exercises an evil allure. You must resist. Misanthropy is a sin in the classic sense, in that it feels really good now but will make you feel bad later, and in the long run it will wreck your life. You cannot succumb to it, lest you start treating new people as crises instead of opportunities. Yet evidence for misanthropy’s central proposition is all around—I would say the United States contains about 300 million supporting arguments—and the internet documents it for us in lurid detail. It’s Friday, Missoula has gone from dazzling sun to 40-degree rain, and the temptation to regard everyone as crappy runs high. Like Christ on the temple roof, we must refuse. But also like C on the T-R, we are allowed to get really close. Won’t you maybe indulge just a little with me?

Continue reading

Thursday corporatocracy watch: orange

By Dan Brooks in corporatocracy 2 Comments

Foster Friess, unfortunately likable gajillionaire Santorum donor

When I checked the corporatocracy meter this morning, it was damn near red. It turns out that the Rick Santorum victories in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri that came out of nowhere Tuesday night actually came from Foster Friess, a Tea Party supporter and mutual fund investor. Props to Mose for the link. When the Santorum campaign could not afford to purchase advertising, Friess’s donation to the Red, White and Blue Super PAC paid for a monster radio and television blitz in Minnesota. On Monday, meanwhile, President Obama announced that he would begin accepting the aid of super PACs, apparently reversing his position on entities he called a threat to our democracy. For a while there, it looked like the whole corporatocracy meter/valve/pump assembly was going to blow, but then the House banned insider trading by members of Congress. So we’re back to just running at maximum pressure.

Continue reading