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Architect Of GOP’s Constitution Reading On House Floor Says Social Security And Medicare Are Unconstitutional

By Zaid Jilani on May 25, 2011 at 7:45 pm

This past January, the House GOP caucus insisted that the session of Congress be launched with a reading of the Constitution. The member of Congress who led this idea into fruition was Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and he was also the first reader.

But at a town hall meeting that took place last week and was captured on YouTube, Goodlatte showed his pre-20th century view of the Constitution. At one point during the town hall presentation, Goodlatte displayed a pie chart to the audience showing the various programs that consume the federal budget, with Social Security and Medicare consuming the biggest sections. One constituent, referencing the pie chart, said that everything on the chart is unconstitutional. Goodlatte responded that he agrees, but that the courts keep ruling the opposite way:

CONSTITUENT: Everything that the federal government does on that pie chart is unconstitutional [...] If I violated my marriage contract the way the federal government violates the constitution I’d be in divorce court tomorrow!

GOODLATTE: I hope you’re not. Here’s the deal. You’re absolutely right! But you have one problem, the Supreme Court ruling that these programs are constitutional.

At another point, a different constituent made a similar point, saying that he couldn’t find Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security in the Constitution. Goodlatte agreed that the programs aren’t in the Constitution, but reiterated that the courts have stretched the document to say that these programs are allowed:

CONSTITUENT: I have three points I’d like you to elaborate on if you could. I’ve searched my Constitution for 20 years and I can’t find Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security in there. Those are forced on the American people by the courts. Now, we’ve all accepted that and American people have bought into that, but it’s unconstitutional simple as that, to me, I can’t find it –

GOODLATTE: Well, it’s not in the Constitution. The courts have stretched the Constitution to say its in the general welfare clause.

CONSTITUENT: So the courts are wrong, you can go back to Jefferson and check that –

GOODLATTE: Right, well we are where we are now.

Watch it:

It should be noted that Goodlatte voted, along with almost all House Republicans, for the GOP budget plan that would effectively privatize Medicare. Now we know why — he doesn’t think the health care system for seniors is constitutional in the first place. (HT: 2ndTCG YouTube account)

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on May 25, 2011 at 7:01 pm

The summer went right through your tires:

— “Israelis See Netanyahu Trip As Diplomatic Failure”.

— How “love child” went mainstream.

— Newt Gingrich is now the Ryan Budget’s biggest fan.

— EPI’s budget plan.

— The Roosevelt Institute’s budget plan.

— Ron Wyden says there’s a secret PATRIOT act.

— The root of knowledge.

For members of congress bold enough to keep pushing the Medicare Repeal budget, Ladytron’s “I’m Not Scared”.

Security

Right Wing Gins Up False Controversy That Wealthy Donor Will No Longer Give To Obama Over Israel Policy

By Ali Gharib on May 25, 2011 at 6:55 pm

President Obama was perhaps not specific enough when he told an audience at the State Department last Thursday, as part of his big speech on the Arab Spring, “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” With more time to focus on just what “mutually agreed swaps” meant at AIPAC’s annual summit, Obama readily offered details. But that didn’t stop legions of Israel’s right-wing supporters from launching attacks on Obama that mischaracterized his position (which incidentally lined up with his two predecessors in office).

But the latest salvo from neoconservatives on this front is perhaps the most factually challenged. At the neocon flagship magazine Commentary, writer Alana Goodman picked up on an interview given by Israeli-American businessman and high-profile Democratic Party donor Haim Saban. Saban told CNBC that he wasn’t planning on donating to Obama’s re-election campaign. Under the headline “Key Jewish Donor Breaks with Obama,” Goodman seized on the opportunity to show a potential weakness among Jewish supporters of Democrats:

There have been reports that Obama is losing Jewish support after his clash with Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, but this development is the most significant so far. If a key donor like Saban has decided to break with the president, then there are likely others who will follow suit.

The only problem with this analysis is that Saban is not breaking with Obama at all. As detailed in Connie Bruck’s 2010 profile of Saban in the New Yorker, the California-based billionaire never got on board with Obama in the first place. But the New Yorker article is long, so an easier way to fact-check the claim would have been to simply pump Saban’s name into any of the many databases that track financial donations. In the 2008 presidential cycle, Saban didn’t donate any money to Obama.

Nonetheless, Goodman went on to quote former AIPAC official and director of a neoconservative think tank Steve Rosen — who recently dodged questions about whether using 1967 lines as a basis for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations had been U.S. policy “for years” — to back up her misleading implication that Saban’s comments are “significant”.

Neocons, who are mostly though not exclusively Jewish, have long sought to explain why, unlike them, most American Jews are liberals, seeking to use Israel as a partisan wedge issue to peel off Democrats’ Jewish support. Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for Obama in 2008 despite a whisper campaign to paint him as anti-Israel.

The absence of any evidence to back up Goodman’s claim, however, didn’t stop other media from picking up the assertion. The right wing New York Post, with the headline “Jews may actually close their wallets to Obama”, described wide-reaching implications of the fictitious story of “Saban’s choice to cut off Obama.” And the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot wrote, under the headline “Haim Saban: No More Donations To Obama”, that Saban “hinted that he will not continue to donate (to Obama) in 2012.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition’s twitter feed has also been going nuts all day, pushing the story and playing up its significance. Ron Kampeas, one of the best reporters in Washington’s Jewish journalism scene, pushed back in a reply: “I know you want to run with it, but it’s time to give it up.”

To their credit, all the outlets noted that Saban explicitly said that he expects to continue making robust donations to Democratic election committees and other Democratic candidates. But this further evidence contradicting any shift still leaves the basic question unanswered: Where is the “break” with Obama? (HT: @lrozen)

Yglesias

The Declining Federal Commitment To Investing In America’s Transportation Infrastructure

By Matthew Yglesias on May 25, 2011 at 6:46 pm

Have you noticed how America’s transportation infrastructure seems pretty shoddy? Like everything’s broken all the time and new projects don’t get completed. Why’s that? Because government just sucks? Well, maybe. But as CAP’s new “Budgeting For Growth” document points out, a big part of the answer is that since the Reagan Revolution we’ve been disinvesting in this area:

Did transportation spending become less important over the past thirty years? If anything, I’d say they’re more important. Over time, we get better at making almost everything. But we don’t add hours to the day. Letting people move from place to place in a rapid and convenient manner is very important. That’s one of the reasons the CAP budget plan includes a 20 percent increase to the level of gross federal investment in transportation and infrastructure, adjusted for inflation.

Security

Herman Cain Says All Americans Deserve Due Process, Opposes Assassinating U.S. Citizens

By Zaid Jilani on May 25, 2011 at 6:35 pm

One of the most controversial national security policies of the Obama administration revolves around the case of radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen living in Yemen. Awlaki is suspected of being engaged in helping inspire and organize terrorist attacks against the United States. More than a year ago, the Obama administration gave the green light to a potential targeted killing of Awlaki, effectively targeting a U.S. citizen for assassination.

As the New York Times reported at the time, “It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.”

Now, in an interview with The Atlantic, GOP Presidential contender Herman Cain was asked about this policy and whether he would also approve of assassinating Americans. Cain at first seemed unaware of the policy, but later affirmed that he believed every American has a right to due process and that we should not be assassinating U.S. citizens:

INTERVIEWER: President Obama has said that he has the authority to assassinate American citizens if he’s declared them an enemy combatant in the War on Terror. Al Awlaki is one guy who is on the official government list where he can be taken out. Do you have any thoughts on that? Is it a good policy because it allows us to take out Americans who may have joined Al Qaeda? Or is it a bad policy -

CAIN: Well first of all, this is the first that I have heard – you’re saying it’s okay to take out American citizens if he suspects they are terrorist related. Is that what you said?!

INTERVIEWER: Yes, that’s what I said.

CAIN: I’ve got to be honest with you. I have not heard that. I had not heard that’s something that he said. I don’t believe that the president of the United States should order the assassination of citizens of the United States. That’s why we have our court system, and that’s why we have our laws. Even if the person is suspected of being affiliated with terrorism, if they are a citizen of this country, they still deserve the rights of this country, which includes due process. Osama bin Laden was not a citizen of the United States of America. So I would not have changed the decision the president made in that regard. But if you’re a citizen, no, it is not right for the president to to think he has the power to have you assassinated. No. He has the power to make sure you’re locked up, but you have to go through due process.

Cain’s position puts him to the left of the Obama administration and many of his Republican colleagues. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example, vigorously spoke out against an American Civil Liberties Union legal challenge to the Obama administration’s kill order, saying that the lawsuit would have limited “the Commander in Chief’s options” and “do great damage to our national security.” (HT: @ggreenwald)

Climate Progress

Bombshell: High and rising price for carbon pollution emerges as credible deficit reduction strategy

By Joe Romm on May 25, 2011 at 6:15 pm

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation funded six groups from across the political spectrum to put forward plans addressing our nation’s fiscal challenges.  All the plans are here.   The Center for American Progress plan, “Budgeting for Growth and Prosperity” brings the deficit below 2% of GDP within 6 years and fully balances by 2030.

The CAP budget does so while boosting clean energy research and deployment funding roughly $10 billion a year — and instituting a high and rising CO2 price.  The plan achieves the CO2 reduction targets from the 2009 House climate and clean energy jobs bill (Waxman-Markey):  A 42% cut (from 2005 levels) by 2030, and 83% cut by 2050.

The CAP plan does not specify whether the carbon price would be instituted as a tax or some sort of trading mechanism.  Lower income groups are protected from the impact of higher energy prices through rebates and tax reform.  The plan creates a single 15% tax bracket for 80% of Americans.  Some of the additional clean energy funding can also go towards efficiency measures that will help lower people’s bills.

The CAP strategy probably isn’t a big surprise to Climate Progress readers.  But what is remarkable is that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) takes a strikingly similar approach on the revenue side — a high and rising CO2 price!  As AEI’s plan, “A Balanced Plan for Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth,” explains:

Read more

Politics

BREAKING: Medicare-Ending GOP Budget Dies In Senate With 5 Republican Defectors

By Alex Seitz-Wald on May 25, 2011 at 6:02 pm

Moments ago, the Senate killed the House Republican budget, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), that would effectively end Medicare. The bill passed the House in April with only 4 Republicans out of 242 voting against it, but in the intervening weeks, the plan proved to be extremely unpopular, as demonstrated by numerous confrontations at constituent town halls, devastating polling, and most recently, by an upset in a special election that hinged largely on the Medicare plan. When the bill finally came up for a vote tonight in the Senate, five Republicans out of the 47 voted against the plan, making the final vote 40-47. Watch it:

As the plan proves more and more toxic, Republican House members may regret their votes. But perhaps they should have considered that before hastily voting on a radical plan to privatize and effectively dismantle one of the cornerstones of the American social safety net.

Update

The Republican defectors were Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Rand Paul (R-KY). (Unlike the others, Paul voted against it because it wasn’t radical enough.) Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Pat Roberts (R-KS), and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) did not vote.

Alyssa

Chris Meloni, ‘SVU,’ and the Role of Men in Feminist Television

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 25, 2011 at 6:01 pm

Chris Meloni as Elliot Stabler.


At the panel I was on last night, one of the audience members closed out the conversation about asking what the role of men was in feminist television. It’s a great question, and it was sort of depressing to walk out of it to find out that Chris Meloni is leaving Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It’s not really shocking that he’s made that decision—the show is headed for an overhaul, and Mariska Hargitay, who plays Meloni’s partner on the show, is only signed full-time for the first half of the season. I totally get why Meloni would want to move on to other things after more than a decade of an often-grim role as Det. Elliot Stabler. But I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye to a male television character who is constantly engaging with issues of sex and gender.

The show’s also been very careful to establish Elliot Stabler as a kind of idealized man. He’s a Marine, and not just any Marine, but a hand-to-hand combat specialist. He’s supposed to be such an ideal father figure that he’s helped deliver almost all of his children, that the department shrink asks him to step in as a father figure to a traumatized victim. Stabler’s main flaw is that he gets too angry at perps. The show’s ongoing look at police brutality is problematic, mostly because it tries to let the audience enjoy the revenge fantasy of watching Stabler beat up rapists and pedophiles, and then try to make amends for it later, via therapy, confession—the character’s Catholic, but that’s taking it a bit far.

All that masculinity can get exhausting, but it’s probably a necessary pretext for a character on a popular, middlebrow network show who spends both his personal and his professional life dealing with issues of sexuality, sexual violence, and gender expression. If anything, the show’s a pretty effective critique of the efficacy of traditional masculinity. Trying to protect your daughter by forbidding her from doing things won’t keep her from being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Beating up pedophiles doesn’t actually prevent more people from raping children in the future. But engaging with your colleagues and with victims, talking about sex, sexual violence, and sexual expression, and having empathy with victims can make you better at your job and put bad people in jail—and maybe make you a better husband and father. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, whatever its flaws and lack of subtlety, made its male main character’s struggles with issues of sex and gender a major part of the show. I hope that commitment stays even after Meloni’s departure.

Health

Gingrich Says There Is ‘Nothing Wrong With’ 200 Pages Of Health Reform, Would Repeal Entire Law Anyway

By Igor Volsky on May 25, 2011 at 5:45 pm

At a town hall in Derry, NH this afternoon, GOP presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich admitted that the Affordable Care Act — which he seeks to repeal — has been successful in extending coverage to young people who would have otherwise gone uninsured.

Pressed by an attendee about reports that at least 600,000 young adults are now obtaining coverage through their parents’ plans until they turn 26 as a result of the Affordable Care Act, Gingrich conceded that the ACA does include 200 pages of effective provisions. He insisted, however, that Congress should first repeal the law and “take the 200 pages and pass them later”:

Q: I just read this morning in Forbes, I think, that over 600,000 people newly insured in the first quarter of just 2011 and most of those were young people who previously had no insurance. So I’m just wondering, what’s bad about that?

GINGRICH: Look, if you take a 2,800 page bill, you can find 200 pages that are okay. The other 2,600 are a disaster. And the parts that are okay, we can look at after we repeal Obamacare and we can decide whether or not to pass them as free-standing legislation. But I would always insist on passing the entire bill, because I don’t trust the Washington bureaucracy to tell us which part of the bill they’re going to repeal.

Q: But this is the largest health insurance companies reporting this in just the first quarter.

GINGRICH: That’s right. That particular piece there is nothing wrong with. I didn’t say there is anything wrong with that. I’m happy to concede out of 2,800 pages, at least 200 are good. But the bill overall is a disaster and we’re better off to take the 200 pages and pass them later, separately, having gotten rid of Obamacare.

Watch it:

At the event, Gingrich also laid out his own vision for health care, but did not specifically say that he would maintain the above dependent coverage provision or any other consumer protection.

Instead, Gingrich reiterated a “free-market approach” to health care that sounds a lot like Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) failed campaign health care proposal. He promised to equalize the tax treatment of employer and non-group plans and provide tax credits for individuals and families to buy insurance on the individual market. Gingrich would allow employers to buy individual insurance for their workers “instead of non-portable group insurance” and “extend health savings accounts throughout the health care system.” Everyone in Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-sponsored coverage “should be able to choose a health care savings account as part of their coverage, if the want it,” he said.

Yglesias

The Heritage Foundation’s Health Care Plan For “Millenials” Badly Needs an Individual Mandate

By Matthew Yglesias on May 25, 2011 at 5:15 pm

The Heritage Foundation’s budget proposal is presented in a variety of ways, one of which involves slicing the population up into demographic slices. One such slice is “Millenials” who Heritage defines as those of us born in 1981-1988. We like feature phones and oversize sunglasses:

Now the actual plan here suffers from a familiar problem. What Heritage wants to do, sensibly, is transition us away from a system in which health insurance is closely tied to employment. That means replacing the current tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance with a tax credit that goes to individuals to help subsidize our purchase of insurance. It’s a decent idea.

But there’s a problem. The employer-based system has a lot of problems, but it creates large risk pools of the kind that are needed to make insurance work. If everyone just buys on the individual market then the incentive for all insurance companies is to focus all its energy on implicit or explicit risk-screening. You’re going to need some kind of regulatory definition of what constitutes a minimum acceptable benefits package, you’re going to have to make sure that insurers take all customers, and you’re going to have to make sure everyone gets a minimum plan. Once you’re there, you’ve got the basic tripod of the Affordable Care Act—regulate, mandate, and subsidize—and then it becomes very sensible for people to disagree around the margin about exactly how generous the minimum plans and subsidies should be. And, indeed, just a few years ago this was the Heritage Foundation’s position—regulate, mandate, and subsidize but be relatively stingy about it compared to what people more enthusiastic about government-subsidized health care would want. This is the debate we ought to be having, but instead we’re stuck reinventing the wheel.

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