January 25, 2011
David Corn
Republicans seem a tad cocky these days. After repealing President Obama's health care law -- I mean, voting symbolically to repeal it -- they are claiming this week that they have already rescued the economy, and they are highlighting their party's most unpopular positions without concern for popular backlash. Hubris, anyone?
On Monday morning, Dow Jones reported that a quarterly survey of 84 companies conducted by the National Association for Business Economics found that 42 percent of these firms expect to hire more workers in the coming six months. Fifty-five percent reported rising demand. As soon as the report was out, the office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) e-mailed reporters, "THERE ARE THE JOBS" -- as if the GOP could take credit for this encouraging news. But the survey was taken between Dec. 17 and Jan. 5, before the House Republicans had done anything. The trends the survey had captured had been in place for months -- and unconnected to any GOP action.
Still, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) also tried a similar stunt, during an interview with Bloomberg's Al Hunt. Here's the exchange:
HUNT: Let me talk about the Obama administration and business. Corporate profits are soaring. Goldman Sachs named 110 new partners. Bonuses are flowing. S&P has risen more than in any three-year period since the tech bubble. General Motors is -- the IPO. This isn't an anti-business administration, is it?
KYL: I would contend that, for the last two years, it's been highly anti-business. Some of the results that you just talked about, I suspect, are . . . coming from the fact that we extended tax rates that the president did not want to extend, but was willing to do so at the end of the year last year.
Reality check. The positive swing in the economic indicators occurred prior to the tax cut deal. And until that compromise was concocted last month, there was no telling which rates would be extended. (Remember, the Democrats and Obama supported extending the Bush tax cuts for mid- and low-income Americans, and the GOPers wanted to extend those tax rates plus the tax cut bonuses for the wealthy.) The math here is simple: Maintaining the tax breaks for the rich had nothing to do with the rise in corporate profits or GM's turnaround. Kyl, like Cantor, is acting like a rooster who believes its crowing is responsible for the sunrise. In this case, they're crowing in the afternoon.
The U.S. economy, believe it or not, does not move on the basis of GOP press releases. But that does not mean that Republican positions don't deserve scrutiny.
Take Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the new chairman of the House Budget Committee. The Republicans tapped him to deliver the GOP reply to Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. That sends a strong signal: Ryan is the Republicans' guy when it comes to the party's grand economic message. But Ryan is also a policy extremist.
Last year, he unveiled an economic plan dubbed "A Roadmap for America's Future." It is most notable for urging the privatization of Social Security and the elimination of Medicare and most of Medicaid. Citizens for Tax Justice concluded that Ryan's comprehensive scheme would lead to tax hikes for 90 percent of Americans and lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans -- and still cause massive debt. Last year, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), now the House speaker, declined to endorse Ryan's plan. And Cantor has kept his distance from the "Roadmap," hailing only "elements" of the plan. National Review magazine reports that Boehner, Cantor, and other House GOPers "are not showing much eagerness to take up the roadmap's specifics."
Yet the Republicans have placed Mr. Roadmap in the spotlight, consequently providing Democrats the opportunity to deploy one of their all-time favorite arguments: Republicans want to take down Social Security. And grab that opportunity the D's have. On Monday, the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) fired out a statement blasting Ryan:
In an unsettling development for America's seniors, ending Social Security and Medicare is now the official position of the Republican Party. Republicans tapped Rep. Ryan, the architect of a plan to end Social Security and Medicare, to deliver their response to the President's State of the Union.
The Reid statement exclaimed that "Republicans are not only endorsing Rep. Ryan's extreme plan, but giving him unprecedented power to carry it out." That was something of a stretch. But providing Ryan this coveted and high-profile spot does prompt an inconvenient question for Boehner, Cantor, and other Republican leaders: Do they or do they not support Ryan's proposal to privatize Social Security and end Medicare?
By anointing Ryan their pointman, the Republicans are inviting trouble. And by claiming that they are responsible for recent economic progress -- if only by mere presence alone -- they invite the charge of arrogance. When Boehner was sworn in as speaker of the House, he said that Republicans will "now move forward humble in our demeanor." Did he really mean it?