The Dish

Alex Hart answers in the negative.

Brain-dead and Rovian. Greenwald:

As The Washington Post's Greg Sargent writes, and I couldn't agree more:  "this is Karl Rove's playbook.  I don't care how often Republicans do it — this blog is not on board with this kind of thing from either party."  Indeed, at The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol revealingly echoed the DNC, demanding that Steele resign for his "affront" to the soliders.  Ironically, there was just a vote on war funding last night in the House, and numerous Democrats — 93 of them on a mild anti-war measure and 22 on a stronger one — voted to end the war in Afghanistan, many arguing exactly what Steele just said about the futility of the war.  Do the DNC's Rovian insults mean that these anti-war Democrats are also guilty of wanting to "walk away from the fight against Al Qaeda," "undermin[ing] the morale of our troops," and "betting against our troops and rooting for failure in Afghanistan"?

Behold:

Meanwhile, Bill Kristol has a cow:

You are, I know, a patriot. So I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican party …

Needless to say, the war in Afghanistan was not “a war of Obama’s choosing.” It has been prosecuted by the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama. Republicans have consistently supported the effort. Indeed, as the DNC Communications Director (of all people) has said, your statement “puts [you] at odds with about 100 percent of the Republican Party.” And not on a trivial matter. At a time when Gen. Petraeus has just taken over command, when Republicans in Congress are pushing for a clean war funding resolution, when Republicans around the country are doing their best to rally their fellow citizens behind the mission, your comment is more than an embarrassment. It’s an affront, both to the honor of the Republican party and to the commitment of the soldiers fighting to accomplish the mission they’ve been asked to take on by our elected leaders.

There are, of course, those who think we should pull out of Afghanistan, and they’re certainly entitled to make their case. But one of them shouldn’t be the chairman of the Republican party.

This, to my mind, is a fantastic development. To have a real debate on the right about the war in Afghanistan would be a service to the country. If Steele is forced to resign, it might ignite some real – and long avoided – discussion among Republicans. Ron Paul may finally become less lonely.

I will, in part to piss him off. I don't believe in treating the sick as suddenly tender souls who cannot enjoy humor and debate – and that would apply in truckloads for my dear friend. I'm delighted that no one ever pulls a punch with me on the grounds of chronic disease and I'm sure Hitch would feel the same way. Goldblog meditates with pitch-perfect tone on this conundrum. Money quote:

This matter of theology brought to mind one of my favorite theologians, our mutual friend Rabbi David Wolpe, who has debated Hitch on innumerable occasions on the question of God's existence or non-existence. I asked David what sort of intercessory praying a believer should do on behalf of a declared non-believer, or if one should pray at all, and he wrote back with some very wise words: "I would say it is appropriate and even mandatory to do what one can for another who is sick; and if you believe that praying helps, to pray.  It is in any case an expression of one's deep hopes.  So yes, I will pray for him, but I will not insult him by asking or implying that he should be grateful for my prayers."

Amsterdam, Netherlands, 8.55 pm

"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, [Afghanistan] was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in. … It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed," – Michael Steele, still chairman of the RNC.

Wow. The RNC chair is now offering a brutal critique of the utopian delusions of neoconservatism. Pity Steele is an idiot. We could actually have a debate on the right on this if others in the GOP start to echo this common sense.

USA Today does some polling and reporting. Some thoughts. There is still no positive set of proposals on offer. What you get are complaints but no solutions; we know what they are against. They wanted no stimulus, no bailouts of the banks, no new access to private healthcare insurance for millions … if any of these meant government action. My own view is that unemployment could be well over 12 percent by now – and probably worse – if this had occurred. But one can see how they have a no-risk position: if that had happened, they would have blamed Obama anyway. Nonetheless, I like their broad philosophy:

"We've been running deficits for years, and we've been saying we're doing it to win the Cold War or to fight terrorism and fight poverty," says Michael Towns, 33, a linguist from Tallahassee who was among those surveyed. "I think our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves because they never would conceive that we would do this."

I just don't think the movement merits serious examination until it fleshes out what it's actually for. Then this:

Citing links to the Revolution has been a mainstay of American politics since the nation's beginnings, Lepore says, but the way the Tea Party uses those symbols and language is original. "It is a fundamentalist way of thinking of the past: The founding documents are gospel; they come alive for us," she says.

This is a form of secular fundamentalism – the analog to "originalist" versions of constitutional interpretation. Now, I feel I understand it better. Having tried Biblical fundamentalism, the GOP is now trying secular fundamentalism. As a psychological response to a bewildering modernity with lots of least-worst options, this is a powerful force. As a practical politics, it is just performance art.

Why have they not disclosed that one of their bloggers also moonlights for the Obama administration?

A reader writes:

Your reader stated:

Someone earning $156,800 would have a tax increase of $6,200 under this proposal.  If that person supports a family of four in the DC metro area on that salary, are they rich?  Certainly not.

Your inbox is probably already full with dissents to this idiotic statement.  It always amazes me just how clueless some of my wealthier fellow citizens are about how the rest of the country lives.  Even in D.C., $156,800 for a family of four would be firmly in the upper class of incomes – maybe not "rich" like Warren Buffett or Bill Gates but certainly far better off than 85% of the country AND the District.  Households making over 150k are in the top 7% for the country and the top 15% for D.C.  It's these type of loony assertions about lack of wealth that make me (and probably many many others) far less sympathetic to arguments against raising any taxes on the rich.

Another writes:

I find your reader's anger at the suggestion that we raise the limit on social security taxes laughable.  A family of four making $156,800 already gets plenty of breaks from the government:

a credit for being married; for having kids; for mortgage interest; for their 401k contributions; for charitable donations; for employer-provided health insurance; for child care and even for using public transportation.  If they're long-time homeowners, they get a subsidy on their property taxes in many states.  They likely have capital gain and dividend income, which is taxed at lower rates than regular income.  They'll likely avoid the estate tax.  Every year, the AMT gets fixed so that it doesn't hit them.  Their marginal tax rates are lower than they were during the Reagan Administration.  And on top of all that, they want a regressive Social Security tax and benefit cuts for people who don't get quite so many gifts from the tax code?

Another:

Your dissenting reader objects to your characterizing the ceiling on income that can be taxed for Social Security as a "loophole", and calls it instead an "across-the-board marginal rate increase" of 12.4%.  Well, "Wow" back!  This argument could only be made by someone misled by the privilege of wealth.  I make over $106K per year, and every year in around late September I get an un-asked-for, automatic, and highly appreciated "raise" when that Social Secuirty tax deduction drops off my pay stub.  People who earn less than $106K do not get that raise.  I get a raise because I earn more than them.  How is that not perverse?  Why should the very part of my income that puts me in the top 15% (more or less) of wage earners not be subject to Social Security withholding?  Why should I get a bonus for being wealthier than people who make less than $106K? 

Believe me, I love getting that raise each fall, but I'm smart enough and honest enough to know that it is poor policy and definitely a loophole for high wage earners. It should be eliminated.

Another:

The reader's dissent is well taken, but there is a serious factual error.  The Social Security tax is shared between the employer and the employee.  The impact on the hypothetical DC couple would be 6.2%, not 12.4%.  This equates to around $258.00 a month.  It is hard to imagine that an additional $258.00 a month could have "serious detrimental consequences for labor supply and … economic growth".  

There are no free solutions to addressing Social Security.  Raising the retirement age, changing the basis for inflation indexing, means testing benefits – each of these will have an impact on some constituency and the same $258 argument will be made.  If it was easy and popular to fix, it would have been fixed already.  

The irony is that, under means testing, the hypothetical DC householder is likely to lose more than $258 a month (and at a time when that income is more significant).