Are Republicans to blame for Washington’s problems?

Scholar Norman Ornstein is pointing fingers in a new book, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks," co-authored with Thomas Mann. Congress is partisan and polarizing, and one party, said Ornstein, bears the brunt of the blame.

"I wouldn't say it's all Republicans," said Ornstein, "it's 80-20 at this point."

"When you look at the data, including voting records ... the Democrats have moved left, to probably their own 25 yard line. President Obama's probably around the 40," said the American Enterprise Institute scholar. "The Republicans have moved behind their own goal post."

Check out this week's Top Line to hear Ornstein break down recent history and the gridlock in Washington.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-pl...102604505.html

I thought the liberal would be all over this...

Maybe here's why? http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Is it slowing down? No. Is it reversing? No. Is it sustainable? No. House of cards? Maybe.

The hard truth is that living beyond our means has become dogma to the left. Maybe these "extremists" are trying to break this dogma? It's hard to do.

Now for the funny part. Old Normy is a liberal; hard to imagine, no?

PBS Hypes Liberal 'Congress Watchers' Who Hit GOP as Extreme, With No Use for 'Facts'

By Tim Graham | May 04, 2012 | 08:48

Just like NPR, the PBS NewsHour on Thursday night invited on liberals Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein to pound away at the "extremism" of the Republican Party (Tea Party Edition). Propose defunding public broadcasting, and this is how the Empire strikes back.

Thomas Mann unleashed on the GOP: "They are ideologically extreme, contemptuous of centuries worth of policy, economics and social; scornful of compromise, no use much for facts, evidence, and science, and really not accepting of the political legitimacy of the other party." As if Mann is sounding like he believes in the political legitimacy of the Republicans?

http://newsbusters.org/category/people/norman-ornstein

80/20 Republicans fault. I happen to agree obviously. :)

And putting President Obama on the 40 yard line matches with what i have been saying about him being a centrist/moderate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Havakasha

80/20 Republicans fault. I happen to agree obviously. :)

And putting President Obama on the 40 yard line matches with what i have been saying about him being a centrist/moderate.

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Amazing how two like minded liberals agree................

I'm sure you agree that forcing Catholics to provide contraception is a fine idea. It doesn't trample on their beliefs. In fact, you probably think, "screw their beliefs, mine are better!"

Norman Ornstein is known as THE foremost expert on Congress. WTF are you talking about.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/op...nomy.html?_r=1


This Republican Economy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 3, 2012 645 Comments


What should be done about the economy? Republicans claim to have the answer: slash spending and cut taxes. What they hope voters won’t notice is that that’s precisely the policy we’ve been following the past couple of years. Never mind the Democrat in the White House; for all practical purposes, this is already the economic policy of Republican dreams.

So the Republican electoral strategy is, in effect, a gigantic con game: it depends on convincing voters that the bad economy is the result of big-spending policies that President Obama hasn’t followed (in large part because the G.O.P. wouldn’t let him), and that our woes can be cured by pursuing more of the same policies that have already failed.

For some reason, however, neither the press nor Mr. Obama’s political team has done a very good job of exposing the con.

What do I mean by saying that this is already a Republican economy? Look first at total government spending — federal, state and local. Adjusted for population growth and inflation, such spending has recently been falling at a rate not seen since the demobilization that followed the Korean War.

How is that possible? Isn’t Mr. Obama a big spender? Actually, no; there was a brief burst of spending in late 2009 and early 2010 as the stimulus kicked in, but that boost is long behind us. Since then it has been all downhill. Cash-strapped state and local governments have laid off teachers, firefighters and police officers; meanwhile, unemployment benefits have been trailing off even though unemployment remains extremely high.

Over all, the picture for America in 2012 bears a stunning resemblance to the great mistake of 1937, when F.D.R. prematurely slashed spending, sending the U.S. economy — which had actually been recovering fairly fast until that point — into the second leg of the Great Depression. In F.D.R.’s case, however, this was an unforced error, since he had a solidly Democratic Congress. In President Obama’s case, much though not all of the responsibility for the policy wrong turn lies with a completely obstructionist Republican majority in the House.

That same obstructionist House majority effectively blackmailed the president into continuing all the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, so that federal taxes as a share of G.D.P. are near historic lows — much lower, in particular, than at any point during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

As I said, for all practical purposes this is already a Republican economy.
Norm Ornstein just happens to be considered THE foremost expert on the Congress.


As an aside, I think it’s worth pointing out that although the economy’s performance has been disappointing, to say the least, none of the disasters Republicans predicted have come to pass. Remember all those assertions that budget deficits would lead to soaring interest rates? Well, U.S. borrowing costs have just hit a record low. And remember those dire warnings about inflation and the “debasement” of the dollar? Well, inflation remains low, and the dollar has been stronger than it was in the Bush years.

Put it this way: Republicans have been warning that we were about to turn into Greece because President Obama was doing too much to boost the economy; Keynesian economists like myself warned that we were, on the contrary, at risk of turning into Japan because he was doing too little. And Japanification it is, except with a level of misery the Japanese never had to endure.

Krugman? The guy who wants to save galactic civilization............. That Krugman? The special one who hold special knowledge that no one else holds?