The Republican Agenda
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-29/republican-agenda
Republican leaders have pledged to make dramatic legislative changes if they retake control of Congress in the midterm elections. The GOP's plans for tax cuts, deficit reduction, jobs creation and health care.
Guests
Brendan Steinhauser
director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks.
Naftali Bendavid
national correspondent, The Wall Street Journal; author of "The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution."
Brian Gaston
managing director, government relations practice, The Glover Park Group.
Congressman Phil Gingrey
Republican, 11th District, Georgia.
Comments
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I was set to write a long comment because I was so frustrated and disappointed while listening to the Diane Rehms show today. Then I read all of the other comments and realized that I did not have to because of all the other opinions that have already said all that I would have.
Diane was not moderating today and I hope that is the reason for the outrageously one sided opinions. I hope that it was hijacked by the guest host and not the work of Diane. We were told that this show was in place of a show with President Carter.
I just told my friend that I especially liked this show because Diane ensured that all sides were represented and that, in her interaction with the guests, she made sure that each person had a chance to put forward any opposing views.
I could not say that today and I hope that I do not have occasions where I cannot say that again. If so, I will join the many people who will turn off of NPR when it is time for the Diane Rehm's show.
I love the setup for the presentation of the GOP's "Pledge to America" - everyone is in shirt sleeves, with open collars, make sure there are some younger people and at least one woman. They're still all white though. Where's their token black or other minority mannequin?
BTW, how many of our elected representatives are in the top 2% income tax bracket. There should be a conflict of interest disclosure requirement. Obama care doesn't affect Congress' very nice health care benefits and their retirement entitlements are outrageously generous and quickly vested. Still, they pretend to be in solidarity with the ordinary working American.
Well said!
Thank You!! There were so many things I wanted to rail against on this show...this included. Texas is no prize when it comes to environment, health care, unemployment insurance. It is Exhibit A for the consequences of letting business run amok, w/no rules to hold them accountable.
Part 1:
It is pleasing to see that nearly every web comment and the majority of callers voiced opinions in _opposition_ to those expressed by the guests.
My objection to supply-side logic:
The first rule of (unregulated) Capitalism is that Capitalists don't care about Capitalism. All they wish to do is excise as much value as possible in the short term from wages and benefits - which they view as just another operational expense - in order to maximize profits for management and shareholders immediately (by the way, in 2004 90% of shares were held by 10% of people; the rates are more disparate today). In the long term, what happens is that they enervate the buying power of the consumer base by depriving it of sufficient compensation and opposing at all times every kind of price floor (like min. wage), and public good which can enable the mass labor market to remain specialized and diversified. Public goods = universal education, health care, infrastructure, social security, etc. With less and less buying power going to the majority of the population, consumption and demand decline, markets contract, profits fall and job losses mount and there is even less wealth for the provision of public goods (let alone the political voice necessary for the impoverished to demand basic services that would enable them to educate themselves into higher income positions).
Part 2:
It has been shown by notable economists, Robert Reich and Joseph Stiglitz among them, that when - as in our society - an enormous share of the GDP is funneled into a very few hands, not only do markets contract due to reduced potential consumption, but prices for many goods rise beyond the level they would if wealth were more equitably distributed through better wages for low wage workers (the majority). This is due to a simple principle: the rich have higher savings and commodity investment rates than the poor and middle incomed. When very large amounts of wealth go to a single consumer, he/she is not able/likely to spend all of it on products and services. A single man can only buy so many paninis, boats and massage therapy sessions. Where does the non-consumed remainder go? Into savings and investments, which include commodity purchases (commodities = undifferentiated goods that usually are remade into other goods; e.g. steel, wheat, rice, sugar, platinum). This savings is money that is not being spent - and thus is contributing to a decline in potential consumption (the consumption that would exist were the wealth not saved but spent), which means that there is not a need for another panini baker, another massage therapist, another boat manufacturer. The investment in commodities causes prices of those commodities to rise due to increased demand (see how Goldman Sachs spearheaded a wheat bubble in the 1990s in Frederick Kaufman's "The Food Bubble" article in the July 2010 ed. of Harper's Magazine). This causes products made to be even more expensive than they would be otherwise and thus contribute to an overall decline in consumer spending, which again produces contracting effects. Thus $$ to the rich at a certain point does not actually end up stimulating job growth but rather causes it to decline.
What is this Fox News Commentary? I turn on my radio and I hear one host, one conservative and one radical conservative commentator ... and then to balance it out, a call-in commentator who happens to be a republican congressman from the South!?!? Where is the balance in this news? Where are the people who can call out obvious B.S. like: not cutting taxes on the top 1% will hurt the economy by killing small business? What kind of small business person falls into the top 1% tax bracket, mafiosi? get real! And DR: Get some balance this is absolutely ridiculous. I am very disappointed in today's show.
Part 3:
This is why we must address the crisis in American politics, which have - even when in Democratic hands - been bottlenecked by the Right during the past 3.5 decades. Rather than attempting to identify what is "rich" or "wealthy," it would behoove us to define what is "poor". Robert Owen's golden compromise for the worker - 8 hours work, 8 hours leisure, 8 hours rest - was a revolutionary dictum in his own time that became, with the New Deal, the norm through decades of labor's blood and struggle. We must ask, can the 40 hour work week deliver what is necessary for the minimum wage worker to have enough food, clothing, shelter and access to health care and some degree of education? If not, such a worker is poor. In 1968, the real value of the Fed. min. wage was $9.82; now the real value of Fed. min. wage is about $7.30 (it was last set at the nominal value of $7.25 in 2007 after a bitter fight). Almost nowhere in the US does that wage provide for the individual worker - let alone the one with dependents - to meed the material requirements that would evade poverty, so defined. We must raise wages and provide viable public goods if the workforce is to provide the value added services that our advanced industrial economy should demand - doctors, engineers, physicists, psychologists, journalists, philosophers, composers. Such goods include universal health care and very affordable higher ed. If we do not, where will the incomes be that will support the taxes for such services that allow people to acculturate themselves above the status of boor and peasant? This was the dream of the industrial social democracy!
If we do nothing to stop the Rightist agenda of no taxes, rock-bottom wages and no public goods, we will see our buying power and demand continue to fall, causing markets to contract, job losses increase, wealth further stratify and social development decline.
Great observation! And at a lumber yard, at that!
This show was filled with misinformation and much of it has been pointed out in these comments. I miss Diane when she does not host shows like today's as she sufficiently challenges guests representing one point of view. Katty Kay was not at all the skeptical questioner while Ms. Rehm is in these instances. I recall another show (http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-06-03/juliet-b-schor-plenitude ) where Frank Sesno was so hostile to the guest's point of view it prevented her from illuminating it. I hope Diane's replacements will emulate her style in this regard.
Republican policies favor corporations and the rich. Here's the study noted on the Newshour last night which concluded Republican presidents preside over periods of increasing income inequality while Democratic presidents have seen decreasing income inequality. http://www.russellsage.org/publications/workingpapers/bartels/document
The latest example of Republicans favoring corporations is another filibuster, this time on a bill to punish companies that move jobs abroad. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/us/politics/29cong.html?_r=1&ref=politics
For 30 years campaigning Republicans have told Americans they can cut taxes and spending and balance the budget but when they are in charge deficits rise precipitously. This clearly proves they are not fiscally conservative since tax increases are completely off the table with them. Democrats should call for fiscal austerity similar to the UK and call themselves the fiscally conservative party and Republicans the fiscal have your cake and eat it too party aka don't tax rich people/corporations, spend more, borrow more party.
I am waiting for the show where progressives get an hour to defend the accomplishments of this Congress and propose their solutions for the future.
Awesome idea! Please do this!
Please, please please challenge your conservative guests when they utter terms like 'government takeover of health care', which is NOT true. They should not be allowed to lie and then get a pass.
I was absolutely stunned listening to this show--and what was alleged to be panel discussion of the House Republicans' "Pledge to America."
Which in truth was more like a right wing choir practice--given that the--um--panel consisted of a current Republican member of Congress (Phil Gingrey,) a former Republican member of Congress (Brian Gaston,) a paid agent for a Republican astroturf operation (Brendan Steinhauser) and for--I'm not sure what--journalistic cred--Naftali Bendavid--from Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal--the show was nothing more than a parade of right wing fictions, fables and talking points--with no serious attempt by the "host" of the show to challenge the nonsense being broadcast.
Frankly, I turned the show off after the "host" of the show let stand one of the panelists' assertion that just in the last year "...we've spent a trillion on Obama's health care."
The assertion is a flat out lie.
I can't say after the last ten years that I am the least bit surprised when Republicans spout baldfaced falsehoods.
But I am aghast that NPR--an organization that I have long held in the highest regard--would give them a platform to do so--without the slightest effort to challenge their opportunistic fabulism and partisan fear-mongering.
This program was very disappointing. We turned it off halfway through. The viewpoints were all one sided and very little rebuttal was offered. These tea party people are already getting enough publicity, (primarily funded by corporations). We don't need our publicly funded radio jumping on the band wagon. Faux news already does their publicity quite well thank you very much.
It is very disheartening to hear these viewpoints continually touted as solutions to our problems. If these ideas are instituted, we will be going backwards in time to the 19th century. A good example would be Dicken's England. Scrooge comes to mind, "are there no workhouses?" Merry Christmas, indeed. I especially resent some 28 year old telling me I should share in tough choices (like giving up or reducing my social security, not heaven forbid taxing the rich.) This in an economy, when person in their 50's, like myself is supposed to give up on having a decent job and live on what I've earned (not) before this. Fat chance.
You've hit it on the noggin'. The overall political strategy for conservatives since Reagan is to siphon the wealth and political power of the middle class up to the top. If they have their way, the gulf between rich and poor will forever widen until we have an aristocracy of 1 or 2 percent controlling the rest of us, and we will have no voice at all.
Will it every be possible for Republicans (including the TP's) to speak without their tiring coined phrases... "The American people want"... well I'm "The American people" and I want them to stop speaking for me. I don't agree... and then there is the "tax and spend", "Obama health care", "government takeover"... Good grief!! Get a thesaurus and learn to speak for yourselves - not your party!!
Had to turn the dial on the radio this morning, don’t understand why there was not more of a balanced view among the guests. It seemed to be more of a love fest to the Republican’s agenda. Freedom Works!?! So many false statements that were not corrected or challenged. Please screen your guests better in the future and Diane get well soon, we miss you.
Diane Rehm:
While you were away Katy Kay was a "bad girl" who was trying to bring the USA down to Britain's post-empire hopeless level by helping fascists take over.
Also- Your show may have secretly been sold to Koch Industries for a song through the efforts of the staff elite at WAMU. Boy will they be rolling in Brawny paper towels!
When you return please bring a hazmat crew because three wild animals spewed excrement all over the studio floor.
Boy, are listeners ever mad!!!!!!!!!
You will have to act fast to recoup your ratings and the pledges that support your show.
UNLESS, you plan to go All-T-Party All the time on corporate underwriting.
I say all this in good humor, but I'm seriously worried.
I'm convinced this is not your fault, Diane. You need to kick some butts. We may reunite on XM/Sirius if they kick you out.
Your longtime friend,
Grady Lee Howard
Diane, I think you owe your listeners an apology for the way your show was handled today. I know you weren't there, but it is your show. I had to check the station twice to make sure I was listening to NPR, not Fox "News".
i felt a wave of stress today listening to the show! the reason being is there was no opposing view! the guest host though usually enjoyable didn't put up a strong enough balance to these so called conservatives/republicans! there were so many points even i could have brought up to challenge the two guest's ideas! one being the numbers show that for months and almost years after the bush tax cuts unemployment actually went up! not by huge amounts but still up! the exact opposite of what these people try to make us believe! i would love to hear a future show with these guest's and say a Kieth olbermann or Chris mathews. i know i know they are quite left but it would have brought some balance and they're not afraid to challenge these stale ideas of which we hear sooo much of from the right!
i thought it was horrific and diabolically funny that this show had such a lack of opposing view that even the republican felt like he had to stand up for a democratic view! i think that quite clearly illustrates the problem of this day's show!
I have too much to say and I don't know where to start. I heard the show and I agree with other comments that have been made.
My one queston is why is it necessary for the United States Government to offer incentives to business? Isn't doing the business and making a profit it's own reward? Obviously not. Those who claim the government is too large need to remember that it was only a few months ago that many companies (very large companies) came hat in hand begging to the America People for help in their hour of need. Please remember it was our tax dollars (those guys were still under Bush tax cuts)
Please remember, what is too big to fail is all those workers who make less than $30,000 a year. Without them this country would stop -
Yes indeed, when a repub has to speak up for the dem side on an npr talk show,just out of a sense of fairness, you know the show is off kilter. but i think most of the so called liberals i hear on the rehm show are too weak, inadequate and not agressive enough. Even when diane is the host. When are you going to have robert reich on?
I hope NPR's ombudsman listened to this horrible show and is reading the comments. Look at the guests? See any balance? I can't believe you wouldn't have one Democrat or Progressive to at least add balance to this show. I also can't believe this show would devote all that time to the Republican's latest P.R. ploy--a phony press conference, a phony New Contract With America that provides glossy pictures but no specifics. In one show, you became mere stenographers. Heck of a job, Katy.
It's at least 12 hours since I listened to the show and I am still pissed off and disappointed.
1) Saying corruption in government is because government is too large is absurd and is just a talking point. Eliminating government has only given more power to the corporations, who now have their hands in the pockets of government. Consider: Who was one of the George W. Bush's top donaters? ENRON.
The only way to cut into corruption in government is to get the corporate money out of it through campaign finance laws. As long as profit dictates policy, as corporations that donate billions of dollars to candidates, we will continue to have a perverse system.
Note: There was more effective sollutions to corruption in government during the Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt Administrations than in any subsequent ones. Mainly because they concentrated in limiting corporate power.
So, what do want to trust, a system controlled by a greedy corporate interest? Or a government designed by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison? ... Sure GW Bush made the government look stupid, hiring a used car salesman to head FEMA, hiring an oil company executive to head the Environmental Protection Agency, lax regulatory policies that allowed the Banks to operate in corrupt ways, invading countries and running the deficit to astonomical levels.... and then he said, government does not work. ..... Get the corporate money out, and allow the elected to govern, and it will work.
2) The Republicans are not the party of "fiscal conservativism," and the U.S. deficity rose highest during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. How many of these lower-the-budget-deficit Tea Partiers voted for Clinton (who left George W. Bush with a large surplus)?
3) Cutting taxes for millionaires historically does nothing for the economy. (It does however make these millionaires who donate to their party of choice very happy).
4) The Republican Party is the party of The Corporation. Naturally, this party vilifies Labor Unionism which exists to give the working class members a better salary, safe working conditions, and some security. The Labor movement got us away from such things as the 12-hour workday and child labor. Is this bad?
During Republican administrations the gap between the rich and poor widened, and the middle class diminished.
Finally) So who benefits from voting Republican? Those who are in the top 5% bracket. The money. And the Tea Party seems just an extension of the Reagan-Bush era. People! Turn off Fox News and Open Your Eyes!
(Fellow commenters, I apologize for any longwindedness. )
This show was very uncharacteristic for Diane. Seldom has her show been so decidedly one-sided. The twenty-odd year-old twerp got really tiresome. "Wet behind the ears" says it all - he shouldn't deserve a national forum for his relentlessly right wing rants.
There's enough political snake oil to go around, but republican pundits have mastered the formula. I'm not for sure if money or ideology is the motivator for these spokesman, but will claim they are smart. Extremely smart. They have educated themselves in the art of deception. Fallacy is a principle of Argument Theory. My experience shows a general public unfamiliar with argumentum ad ignorantia, argumentum ad misercordiam, argumentum ad populum, argumentum ad verecundiam, and argumentum ad hominem.
The Diane Rehm program, as well as many journalist programs are either ignorant of fallacy or unwilling to call their guest out on tactics of deceit. When a political pundit calls an opponent out on a fallacy, then continues to use a similar tactic to persuade a point of view, the stink of deception is in the air.
Diane, your program on Constitution motivated the develop of a public service to understand the Articles and Amendments of the Constitution. This program has motivated a tool to help understand fallacies. An iGoogle account is required for the tool. Versions for other mobile devices are forthcoming. The Do Good Gauge website provides summary pages for tools of association.
The Do Good Gauge Fallacy Randomizer
The Do Good Gauge Constitution Randomizer
The Do Good Gauge Quote Randomizer
The Do Good Gauge Website - Describing a new forum for public discourse.
It is should be patently obvious that trickle down economics over the past 30 or so years has not proven beneficial to the middle and lower classes. So, it stands to reason that doing more of the same, that is, giving still more benefits to the ultra wealthy is not going to suddenly have the opposite effect.
Robert Reich has recently pointed out that 1% of Americans are now taking home 23% of the income. Many are putting their money NOT into jobs, but into speculating.
Middle class families have tried to make ends meet by increasing their hours of work and finally by borrowing, for example, by using their homes as ATM's.
It's no wonder the economy has been slow to recover. The people who have the money aren't spending it, and the people who would spend it, don't have it.
Its really difficult to listen to the republicans when their ideology is business(commerce), personal achievement and they turn around outsource thousands of jobs also cut funding from public schools. As for health care as soon Obama mentioned that he wanted everyone to have his kind of coverage, the expression on their faces said it all; not to mention their idea of religion in politics isn't that whats goin on in the middle east. I think the republican agenda is about "GENOCIDE Of THE MIDDLE CLASS"by outsourcing, cut funding of public schools, health care and leave Americans with the only choice to "JOIN the military and FIGHT THEIR WARS".