House of Eratosthenes

On ABC’s “This Week,” White House economic adviser Larry Summers said the president had proposed a “strategic budget” that “will let us have a sound economic expansion” through a combination of “substantial cuts” and new spending on education, health, energy and environment.

The president himself plans to carry that message in the coming week, “engaging directly with Congress more, and speaking more forcefully on behalf of his budget,” a top adviser said.

And officials throughout the party plan to hammer the idea that Republicans are just saying “no” to the president’s budget plans without offering their own alternative.

Vice President Cheney, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” articulated the harshest conservative case against the president’s plans, accused the Obama administration of “using the current set of economic difficulties to try to justify a massive expansion in the government, and much more authority for the government over the private sector.”

“I think the programs that he has recommended and pursuing in health care, in energy, and so forth, constitute probably the biggest or one of the biggest expansions of federal authority over the private economy in the history of the republic,” Cheney said.

The Democrats’ new plan follows the private complaints of some Democrats that Obama let the GOP get the better of him during the debate over pork in the budget bill he just signed, and growing concerns among some Democrats that charges of big spending could stick to the president.

A participant in the planning meetings described the push as a successor to Democrats’ message that Rush Limbaugh is the Republican Party leader. “We have exhausted the use of Rush as an attention-getter,” the official said.

David Plouffe, manager of Obama’s presidential race, helped design the strategy, which includes the most extensive activation since November of the campaign’s grassroots network. The database—which includes information for at least 10 million donors, supporters and volunteers—will now be used as a unique tool for governing, with former canvassers now being enlisted to mobilize support for the president’s legislative agenda.
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Democratic strategists explain that the message is designed to accomplish three things:

—First, it could deflect attention from the size of Obama’s budget and blunt attacks on the ambition of his agenda.

“It helps change the conversation from their criticism of the president’s plan,” a top Democratic official said. “If they want to say he’s going to raise taxes in the middle of a recession or he’s got socialist tendencies—none of which we agree with—one of the easy things for us to come back with is: We have tough choices to make right now, and you have nothing to offer.”

—Second, by painting Republicans as politically motivated, the conservative House Democrats known as Blue Dogs may be less likely to side with the GOP.

“As long as they’re seen as reflexively political—saying ‘no’ to everything—the Blue Dog Democrats can say, ‘I don’t agree with everything the president proposes, but at least he has a plan, an outline of what we should be working on,’” the official said.

—Third, Republicans could look like they’re playing politics in a time of crisis, rather than disagreeing based on substance.

The DNC on Saturday issued a “Party of ‘No’ Update” accusing House Republican leaders of “obstructionist rhetoric.”

Left-wing bloggers are already following suit. It isn’t an ideology, it’s a way of life.

Oh me oh my, how in the world are Republicans going to reply to such a devastating assault?

Republican public-relations dudes and dudettes: Do you really need me to do all your work for you? Really? C’mon…come on. The democrat party wants to be the party of ideas, huh. They wanna be idea-people. They’re the only ones who have any ideas — oh, let me guess the next three words — “on the table.” They’re going to jack up our public debt to $23 trillion in the next ten years and they want to defend this with “well look, it’s not like anybody else has an idea about what to do.”

By 2019, that will have made eighty-seven years of the democrat party coming up with one idea after another after another…all of which have to do with spending loot. That’s the only idea they’ve had for better part of a century by now. “Which party has the ideas”…I do not think this is a discussion they want to get going. Especially not when the question is “we’re all out of money and our economy is grinding to a halt, what are we to do?” You want to be the guy that says — Spend Faster?

One of the reasons the democrat party is not fit for leadership, although there are many, is that they have incorporated into their party philosophy one of the tell-tale signs that a complete stranger is probably a clueless turd. It’s Number Seven on my list of such indicators…

Speaking of a tax cut as something that “costs” money.

I think I’ve found a compromise that will make everybody happy. The strange fools on Planet Liberal think that tax cuts costs money…okay. And, they won the election, we have to let them run everything now — besides of which, they’re the only ones with any ideas. And for eighty years or so all their ideas have had to do with spending money. They think tax cuts are a part of that. They are committed to the idea that tax cuts constitute a form of money-spending.

See where I’m going with this?

No, I won’t complete the thought. Let some young upstart up-and-coming guy in the Republican spin machine, think it was his idea. Take it and run with it. Better yet, let the democrat party take it and run with it. They like to spend money, they’ve got this bizarre idea of what that is, and like Rahm Emmanuel said, you never want to let a good crisis go to waste.

Unfortunately, counter it we must. It will be presented in the media as “here’s our simple solution, and look at all the good we intend” and it won’t be questioned, just repeated until it is “true” in the minds of the news-watching hoards.

It’s now the game apparently works. Republicans accuse Obama of something, and he comes on and says “No I’m not”, and that’s it. “Teh One” has spoken.

The counter, is of course, Tax cuts work and keep government size in check. Spending doesn’t work and increases government size by definition.
- philmon | 03/16/2009 @ 11:38
Oh, and what’s this cr*p about “politically motivated”? Politically, Conservatives want smaller government, less government interference in our lives, lower taxes.

So if they fight against the opposite of these things… well yeah, it’s “politically motivated”, just as increased spending, higher taxes, and larger government on the Left is “politically motivated”. I mean, duh, people.

It’s like the whole “false choice between science and morality”. The only thing false is that it’s not a choice. Science tells us what we can do… ideology is about what we should do. Or shouldn’t. Take the ideological constraints off of what we do with science, and some pretty ugly things are bound to happen.

I see a blatant attempt to remove morality from the public discourse by marginalizing it as “sky fairy dust”.
- philmon | 03/16/2009 @ 11:45
The hell Republicans haven’t “come up with anything” in the last couple of months in the midst of this recession. It’s called tax cuts. Having had their feet held to the fire by their constituents, I now hear this from our reps in Congress more clearly now than in years.

“Oh,” the Democrats in Congress (and the media, and the blogosphere) will say, “Nah, we tried that and it didn’t work. Been there, done that.” Uhm, excuse me? Just when did it “not work” when it was tried for real? Tell me. It’s like I explained to your buddy Buck a week or so ago…tax cuts are part of our platform and it’s a cause that the party faithful can rally behind. If you’re a registered Republican and you don’t think across-the-board tax cuts for everyone and his brother are THE number 1 solution right now…then get bent and get the hell out of our party. You have no business calling yourself a member of the GOP, a conservative, or a Reaganite if you don’t agree conceptually with tax cuts, at least from current levels.

I think what irritates me the most about the Left’s consistent opposition to Republicans’ tax cuts, though, is the consistent “reminder” that this will surely increase the deficit (and therefore the public debt) by causing a short-term reduction in government revenue. My question for that line of reasoning? So frickin’ what? Even if you could conclusively demonstrate that would happen, it would be the best possible kind of debt, because in the long run it would spur on economic growth, which in turn would INCREASE government revenue. This has been proven over and over and over. As the global-warming nuts would say, “The science is settled; the verdict is in.”

Besides, I’ve noticed that liberals seem to have no problem with skyrocketing deficits brought on by our leaders SPENDING too damn much. So their alleged opposition to debt kind of rings hollow with me.

Then again, I happen to think liberals the world over are a bunch of damned hypocrites, so what else is new?
- cylarz | 03/17/2009 @ 00:05

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Exhausted the Use of Rush Limbaugh as an Attention GetterSunday, March 15th, 2009

Exhausted the Use of Rush Limbaugh as an Attention Getter
Sunday, March 15th, 2009