Economic Royalists Still Dismissive Of Average American's Struggles

Two moments on the Sunday sows yesterday typified why a Democratic takeover of the Presidency and additional gains in Congress are nearing so close to reality - Republican spinners remain in total denial about the impact of failed conservative economic policies.

In an eye-popping statement on ABC's This Week, George Will told us that we're all doing much better than we were eight years ago, and shut up-a-you face, nervous ninnies, and let the free market do its job and reap untold fortunes (for a select few, of course). The astonishing transcript:

REICH: I don’t think you can separate economic security from national security. This is why I find John McCain’s position so interesting, because he wants to and needs to separate himself from Bush, a failed presidency, particularly if you look at the polls. And yet, on Iraq and on the economy, he is going beyond what George Bush has done. I mean, his tax cuts are beyond anything that –particularly for the wealthy—beyond anything that George Bush has proposed or did implement.

WILL: But Bob, today we have a bifurcated economy. The export sector is doing wonderfully, it’s pulling the country along, and the Democratic Party is raising doubts about its commitment—indeed, it’s affirming its lack of commitment—to free trade.

Now it is true that I think there is a disjunction in the public mind without precedent in 200 years of American history. We’ve always assumed that the very process—the dynamic market capitalism—produces increased national wealth simultaneously produced increased family and individual security. Now the doubt is that today’s capitalism on steroids, if you will, globalized capitalism increases national wealth, but undermines family and individual security which will produce a great flinch from free economics.

REICH: That’s exactly the point. That’s exactly the problem, George. Americans now have lost their faith in free trade; they’ve lost their faith in economic growth because they haven’t seen the benefits of it. It’s all gone to the top. That’s why Obama’s tax cuts for the middle class and for the poor are so critical for this campaign.

WILL: Because friends like you are misinforming the country by saying that they have not seen benefits. Even housing, Bob, housing today after the big decline, the average American house is worth a third more than it was in 2000.

REICH: George Will, you tell average Americans that they are better off today than they were in 2000-2001…

WILL: I will.

REICH: …and they will not believe you.

It's almost not worth arguing this point. Just let George Will on a national speaking tour telling everybody in the country how well they're doing, empirical evidence notwithstanding. I'd be willing to bankroll that tour if I weren't an American trying to pay for $4.50 a gallon gas and seeing my home value and purchasing power shrink.

(Will is also lying about so-called "free trade" - its benefit on prices is only on relative prices, good for people who buy things but bad for people who make things. And while America is moving toward a model of only buying things, it's beyond obvious that such a model is unsustainable.)

But for those who think that it must be only Will who is overlooking stagnant wages, growing unemployment, flat investment portfolios and inflation on necessities, let me direct you to another high-profile confab from yesterday:

WILLIAMS: One last point on this economic thing. I think if you say to most Americans that the tax cut is going — is simply a matter of not continuing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2010, they don’t view that as raising taxes.

That’s the wealthy who might say that, but it’s not on average people who are feeling higher gas taxes. It’s not on average people who have to pay more for food.

It’s almost like you guys are out of touch with what ordinary Americans are going through in this country at this time. People want government to respond to need and not simply to talk about more tax breaks for the rich and for big corporations.

HUME: (sarcastically) That’s what McCain’s doing, for sure. He’s saying, I want more tax cuts for big corporations, and I want the rich to get richer off the tax code. Oh, what baloney. That’s not what it’s about at all.

WILLIAMS: Well, where’s the pro-growth? If we have 5 percent –the other day we had the biggest jump in unemployment in this country in 20 years.

HUME: Juan, right. You know what that came from? People coming out of school for the summer, and they’re going into the job market.

WILLIAMS: Oh, come on.

HUME: We’re at 5.5 percent unemployment.

WILLIAMS: Right.

HUME: By historical standards, that is remarkably low. The growth policies and particularly the tax cuts that were passed in this administration have, I think, unquestionably helped this economy through some severe blows — 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and so forth — to the point now where despite a predicted recession the economy is still managing to eke out a little bit of growth.

That’s a strong economic performance, on balance, and not a particularly good argument for allowing the tax cuts that were…

WALLACE: All right.

WILLIAMS: Nobody’s saying that. Justice Hume thinks that ordinary Americans aren’t feeling any pain.

WALLACE: I’m going to gavel you down.

WILLIAMS: Please.

Chris Wallace must have heard the shouting from the IFB in his ear to cut off the economic royalist telling them that the sky is actually red and the grass is blue.

Out of touch is an understatement. Americans are not so studious in tax policy that conservatives can't get away with telling some sweet little lies, like the pervasive statement that America "has the world's 2nd-highest corporate tax rate," which ignores all of the tax credits and deductions that makes the effective corporate tax rate the 4th-lowest among industrialized nations (and don't get me started about the offshore tax havens - in 2000 61% of corporations paid NO TAXES AT ALL).

But when you try to use the big lie - that actually the economy is going quite swimmingly and nobody's feeling any pain - that's where conservatives run into the brick wall of their own failed policies. You can't tell someone who has to stretch his budget more for basics that they're doing just fine. You can't tell someone who's home is in foreclosure that the fundamentals are strong. You can't look at the significant upsurge in bank robberies this year and make no connection to the broader economy.

And since royalists are wired to believe that what's good for the rich is good for everyone, since they are so convinced of conservative myths like how lower taxes equals increased revenue, or how the wealthy always convert their tax breaks into job creation and not trust funds, they're going to keep throwing out these fictions. They're going to keep telling Americans to their face that their empty bank accounts are actually full.

And Robert Reich is correct - "they will not believe you."

Lieberman Calls For War

Joe Lieberman just asked David Petraeus if it was time to pursue Iranian forces inside Iran to stop them from "intervening" in Iraq. Even Petraeus is sane enough to knock this down.

But he's been fanning these flames for two days now. His opening statement had plenty of information about how Iran was definitely supplying EFP's, a debatable point. He responded to the news that the Pentagon is building a base near the Iran-Iraq border by claiming that we already have a base there (wonder if that base is covert or not). He consented to a dreadfully propagandistic one-hour interview on Fox News called a "Briefing for America," where host Brit Hume glided the discussion toward belligerent statements toward Iran.

it wasn't until after the second commercial break (and by now we were halfway through the hour) that Hume got ready to ask his first truly penetrating question.

"Gentlemen, in both your testimony today, you indicated that there had been this bottom-up reconciliation which was sort of unpredicted and much welcomed, but it seemed to be mostly in Sunni areas. And the situation with the Shia seem -- and the possible misbehavior, difficulty, problems with Shia militias, and so on," Hume began.

And when, with the end of Hume's question still hanging, the camera panned to the faces of Crocker and Petraeus, both looked to be bracing themselves for the blow surely coming. Would Hume ask whether the Sunni reconciliation had come solely because of fear of the majority Shiites? Or whether Shiite partisans dominate the Iraqi army and police force, turning them into sectarian militias and leading to the conclusions of the Jones report, which said that the national Iraqi police force should be disbanded altogether?

Not quite.

Instead, Hume wanted to talk about the new boogeyman of the right and Fox News: Iran. He blamed the Iranians for the aforementioned Shiite "misbehavior" and problems with Shiite militias, saying, "With Iranian influence [that's] always something you worry about when it comes to the Shiites," then going on to ask,

"You indicated that Iran would be a big winner, in its own eyes at least, if this all went badly in Iraq. Why should we not believe that as progress is made with the Sunni, that progress is made militarily, that Iran could simply rachet up its interference in Iraq to the point where it would in the end spoil whatever progress is being made?"

So how could Petraeus possibly be surprised that the hyperactive Holy Joe Lieberman is asking that the new greatest generation go fight a new war in Tehran? Petraeus and the MNF-I under his leadership has done as much to hype the Iranian threat as anybody.

We have heard rumors that the Fourthbranch Administration would launch its marketing plan for war with Iran in the second week of September. We've had two days of briefings with Iran continually mentioned, particularly by GOP shills like Duncan Hunter, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, James Inhofe and Joe Lieberman. We've had an hourlong Fox News appearance that made the case for bombing Iran almost explicitly. The turn appears to be that the reason for failure in Iraq is Iran, and thus our only exit strategy goes through Tehran.

UPDATE: One of the recent pieces that raised the most concern about an impending attack on Iran relied on Alex Debat as a source, whose credibility has now been questioned. That's good, but the fact that this is slowly becoming the Petraeus IRAN report is unquestioned.