On Sunday, President Obama honored the tradition of presidential interviews being given to the network broadcasting the Super Bowl. Rights for the 2011 edition were held by Fox, and Bill O’Reilly was selected as the interviewer. As might have been expected, the interview that aired before the game was an irritating showcase of rudeness, where Pompous Bill spent 15 minutes interrupting the President (43 times in all) and trying to trip him up.

O’Reilly’s questions started on the topic of Mubarak and Egypt, and the President fielded each of them adeptly, in spite of O’Reilly’s repeated interruptions and attempts to box him into a corner. Having failed to get a reaction on Egypt, O’Reilly moved seamlessly to health care, but only after quickly planting his own opinion on the Muslim Brotherhood: “Those are tough boys, the Muslim Brotherhood. I wouldn’t want them anywhere near that government. Federal judge in Florida said, your health care law is unconstitutional.”

After a brief back and forth on the fate of the healthcare law under the review of the Supreme Court, Mr. Bill took the conversation where he really wanted to drive a stake. Loosely quoting the Wall Street Journal that depicted President Obama as a “determined man of the left whose goal is to redistribute much larger levels of income across society,” O’Reilly asked for a reaction. The president tried to dodge the question, but O’Reilly pressed, “Do you deny that you are a man who wants to redistribute wealth?”

Amazingly, President Obama stepped into BillO’s snare. “Absolutely,” he answered, denying that he wanted to redistribute wealth, and he supported his denial with the fact that he had lowered taxes. O’Reilly pressed again, “But the entitlements that you championed do redistribute wealth in the sense that they provide insurance coverage for 40 million people that don’t have it,” and rather than reframing the issue, the President accepted the pat conservative spin and went directly to defending “Obamacare.”

Make no mistake about it, even though the President held his ground from that point forward arguing certain points regarding healthcare, he missed the opportunity to reassert his previously stated position on taxation of the rich and actually helped to fortify the notion of taxation as redistribution of wealth. As relaxed and articulate as he seemed, President Obama allowed himself to fall into the favorite trap of conservatives — to be cast as a “big government liberal.”

Why Democrats never reject this framing with a legitimate picture of reality, one that’s based on facts and consistent with history, is beyond me. One would think that their only problem would be which conservative myths to refute, and in what order.

Taking on the charge “Big Government” first, it would be a simple task for Democrats to start by offering any one of a number of factual arguments. Each would prove that, to the extent there is a party of fiscal irresponsibility and huge deficits, it’s the Republican Party.

They might base their argument on the debt to GDP ratio resulting from each presidential administration. Going back to the 1970s, that effort would show that Nixon/Ford increased the ratio by .2%; Carter decreased it by 3.3%; Reagan ramped it up by 20.6% and Bush Sr. by another 15%; Clinton brought the ratio back in the right direction, improving it by 9.7%, and GW Bush gave it all back, skyrocketing debt upward and increasing the ratio by 27.1%. The truth of the matter is that all presidents from Truman on have reduced the gross federal debt, except Reagan and both Bushes.

Perhaps pure budget discipline would be a better meter, thereby eliminating the general economy as a variable. Using that metric, one would only have to point out that over the course of the past 100 years, of the 6 presidents presiding over the largest increases in federal spending, 5 were Republicans. Reagan grew the federal budget by 21.9%, and Bush Jr. by 32.2%, both while reducing federal revenues through huge tax cuts — which tends to amplify deficits.

The inescapable truth is that hanging the label of “Big Government” on Democrats is possibly the most unbelievable public relations coup of modern times. It has absolutely no basis in fact. The records show clearly that the Democrats have consistently been more fiscally responsible, and that any connection between the Republicans and small or efficient government is pure myth.

But as flawed as President Obama’s defense of the record was in allowing O’Reilly to paint him as a “big government liberal,” it pales when compared to accepting the paradigm of “redistribution of wealth.” This is classical conservative framing of an issue in order to paint their distorted view of reality.

According to conservative dogma, wealth is earned through the market and later redistributed through taxation and government spending. It has sort of a common sense ring to it, as does the extension of the paradigm — that when the government taxes, it takes what belongs to citizens. Of course, as with all simplistic arguments designed to promote a given agenda, the model presented is fundamentally flawed.

The fact of the matter is that ALL monetary exchanges represent redistribution of wealth, and the government plays a part in each and every one. The issue isn’t whether or not the government should make rules that impact the redistribution of wealth; it does so by default. The question is “should the rules favor upward or downward redistribution,” and on that topic there is a distinct, if shrinking, difference between the two major parties.

Government policies that allow tax advantages for multinational corporations that offshore jobs are every bit as much about redistribution of wealth as programs designed to subsidize the cost of education for low income Americans. The only difference is that the former benefits the wealthy while destabilizing the economy, and the latter benefits the less fortunate while enhancing our national capacity. Republicans are quick to label education spending as “redistribution” but hold tax loopholes as something entirely different — which it’s not.

Instances of this distorted spin on reality are virtually limitless. Healthcare reform, energy policy, mining and drilling regulations, campaign finance, monetary policy, military spending, banking regulation, the list goes on, and in each and every case, government policy will impact the redistribution of wealth. For Republicans, so long as the flow of wealth upward is not impeded, distribution has occurred, not redistribution. This holds true even if it means reductions in compensation for workers, elimination of social safety nets, high unemployment, an under-educated populace — whatever the case may be.

President Obama would have been well served by responding to Bill O’Reilly’s question about redistribution of wealth with a heart felt “Hell yes! But no more than my Republican colleagues — just in the opposite direction” The truth is that government policy over the past 30-plus years has significantly redistributed the wealth of America — straight to the top.

Americans suffered the first decline in median household income since 1967 under George Bush, and meanwhile the average annual income of the top 1% grew by 73%. This is not the result of a free market but rather the result of a rigged market, one that is designed to redistribute wealth in ever increasing concentration amongst the most elite.

Since President Obama didn’t turn the inquiry back on Bill O’Reilly, I’ll ask the question here: how sustainable is an economy that continues to establish policies that have already concentrated more financial wealth in the top 1% than is held by the bottom 95%? I’ll even give Mr. Bill a clue — think Hosni Mubarak.

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Article first published as GOP vs. Dems; No Compromise Equals No Solutions on Technorati.

Politics can be very complicated, or at the very least confusing. Case in point: what is it about the Republican pronouncement of “NO COMPROMISE” that President Obama and the congressional Democrats don’t understand?

Did they miss it when John Boehner, the presumptive Speaker of the new Republican controlled House, announced that, “This is not a time for compromise?”  Perhaps they misunderstood high-ranking Republican House member, Mike Pense of Indiana, when he said, “Look, the time to go along and get along is over,” even though he reemphasized, stating, “If I haven’t been clear enough yet, let me say again: No compromise.”

Is it possible that the President took Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statement that, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” as some sort of conservative jest?

It’s hard to tell what the President hears when congressional Republicans throw down the gauntlet and demand that he move in their direction. But, in response to the wave of emboldened Republicans taking intransigent positions against any sort of compromise, President Obama told the nation, “I believe there’s room for us to compromise and get it done together.”

The saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Fool me over and over again, and maybe the people who believe I’m actually being fooled are the ones being hoodwinked. Is President Obama really so foolish as to believe that the Republicans will engage in open, good-faith negotiations, or is he merely a performer in a stage show written and produced to convince the American people that somebody in Washington wants the status quo to change?

When the President spoke in Cleveland in September, he came out swinging. He artfully painted the Republicans as the champions of the very wealthy and articulated a plan for the extension of the Bush tax cuts that drew a line in the sand, defining $250,000 of taxable income as the divide between the middle-class and upper-crust. It was the perfect issue for the closing weeks of campaign 2010, but cowardly Democrats backed away in fear that the Republicans would paint them as tax-and-spend liberals.

Well, not only did the Democratic retreat fail to impress any independents, but it also ensured that there would be no resurgence of enthusiasm within progressive ranks. In fact, the real story of Election 2010 wasn’t the great turnout of Republican supporters, but rather that blacks and young voters stayed home. If even half of those who poured out to the polls in 2008 had been moved to vote, the election results would have been much different.

But whatever the case, the 2010 election is over, the Democrats got their collective butts kicked, and the Republicans have already started Campaign 2012. Republican leaders now insist that the election was a refutation of President Obama’s policies and promise a Republican led Congress that will focus on jobs and the deficit.

Americans rightfully rejoice that the promised focus is exactly where it should be, but in what has become the united chorus of one-trick-pony conservatives, the legislative remedy being offered is the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, fed by their new found sense of power, Republicans have become more intractable regarding any compromise on the wealthfare benefits and now insist that the extensions for the rich be made permanent.

Prior to the election, Republicans seemed amenable to a potential decoupling of the cuts along the lines suggested by President Obama. The notion was that cuts for the top 2% might be extended for a limited time period while those for the bottom 98% were made permanent. But according to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, there will be no such compromise. In a recent interview, Cantor told Greta Van Susteren of Fox News that the election gave the GOP a mandate to hold fast and accept only an extension of all cuts.

Just how the Republican leadership can reconcile their position on the tax cuts with their promise to focus on either jobs or the deficit is the subject of some serious snake oil peddling.

According to Cantor, it’s all about clearing up that “uncertainty“ the Republicans keep talking about: “We’ve got to put certainty back into the game and get these tax rates to stay the same.” But of course this is complete nonsense, since whichever way the cuts are decided, once the decision is made, the uncertainty is removed.

To the man, each of the Republican leaders has also associated the cuts for the top 2% with small business, claiming that 50% of small business revenue will be affected. Sadly, the small businesses they’re referring to are large hedge funds, law offices, and billion dollar companies like Bechtel and Koch Industries. These are the clients of the Republican Party, not the 98% of all small businesses that make less than $250K.

The sad truth is that no respectable economist believes that cutting taxes for the rich will do anything to create jobs. That horse just doesn’t run anymore — not since the results of 8 years of the Bush presidency where such cuts were a mainstay were tabulated and found to be severely lacking. The worst job creation record since the 1940s and the first decline of median household income of any cycle since 1967 are not sound arguments for repeating the policy.

And where the tax-cuts-create-jobs argument is no more than a con-job, even that bar is too high when discussing the impact on the deficit. Virtually all reputable economists agree that tax cuts are the worst form of economic stimulus, and cuts for the rich the worst of all. The Republicans are essentially without even a distorted con to explain away the $700 billion cost of the tax cuts for the top 2% over the next 10 years.

The cuts the Republicans are fighting for won’t create jobs but will add significantly to the deficit. These “fiscal conservatives” espouse fiscal responsibility and feign help for small business and middle-class America but willingly sacrifice both for the wellbeing of their corporate overlords. And the Democrats respond by offering compromise.

Just what part of slam dunk, hanging curve, lob-ball pitch do the Democrats not understand?

The Democrats need to go back on November 15 and work to pass the extension of the Bush tax cuts for those making under $250K during the lame duck session. It’ll be interesting to watch the Republicans argue why the very rich need the cuts and explain to the American people why increasing the deficit for those who don’t need the money makes sense. Their argument promises to be a mind-numbing spectacle of double-talk and diversion.

This is a win-win for the Democrats — any compromise is just once again playing into Republican hands and allowing them to set the agenda and color the conversation. The Democrats need to accept the fact that the Republicans who would not negotiate in good faith while in the minority are certainly not going to do so now. They need to figure out that the Republican campaign for 2012 has already begun and launch their counteroffensive. If they’re not willing to do so, they might as well just start packing their bags now.

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Article first published as Tea Party; GOP Friend, Foe, or Foil? on Technorati.

Many people scoffed when the Tea Party first appeared on the political scene last year. The nascent movement was labeled “fringe” and dismissed as inconsequential. But now, more than a year and a half later, polls show around 20% of Americans claim to be a part of the Tea Party. The growth and success of the movement cannot be denied. Thus far, the GOP has been the beneficiary of the movement’s enthusiasm. But as we press nearer the November election, one serious question remains unanswered — is the Tea Party really helping or hurting the GOP?

When the movement originally began to gather steam, certain prominent figures in the Republican Party took notice and positioned themselves to leverage the excitement. Former House Majority Leader, Dick Armey was amongst the first, throwing the support of his FreedomWorks behind the Tea Party, he embraced the movement and helped craft their “Contract from America” in time for “Tax Day” 2009.

Sarah Palin was another early proponent. The former Republican candidate for vice president actually resigned her post as Governor of Alaska three months after the “Contract” was formed and soon thereafter became a vocal advocate of the movement. The half-term governor solidified her position as co-figurehead of the movement, sharing her influence with Fox News political barker Glen Beck, when she appeared as the keynote speaker at the Tea Party’s inaugural convention this past February.

The first fruits of the movement were harvested shortly before the convention, when Scott Brown rode a Tea Party endorsement into being the first Republican elected to represent Massachusetts in the Senate since 1972. Tea Partiers basked in the glory of the first successful candidate, but in certain ways, the thrill was short-lived. Being more than a little moderate for the Tea Party, before February was done, Brown split from the GOP and became one of five Republicans to vote in favor of the jobs bill.

Since February, much more has happened. Sarah Palin has been fully engaged in the Tea Party speaking tour, often handing out her sought after endorsement and amassing a respectable record of primary victories. To date, Palin has made 43 endorsements of which 24 have been for Tea Party candidates, and 23 have been women and 21 men. She’s presently batting nearly .700 with 25 victories and only 11 losses, and just over half of the wins were by Tea Partiers.

But in the midst of the reverie surrounding the trail of victory are growing concerns that the momentum may be taking the Republican Party far right — right off the edge of a cliff. Four of Palin’s endorsees, including her most recent, are signaling cause for alarm. One early endorsement, Rand Paul of Kentucky, spoke out against portions of the Civil Rights Act that made it illegal for business owners to discriminate against customers on the basis of race. Another of her Tea Party candidates, Sharon Angle of Nevada, ran on the “transitioning out” of Social Security and the elimination of the “unconstitutional” Department of Education.

Palin’s more recent endorsements include Joe Miller, Senate candidate from Alaska, another advocate for privatizing Social Security and eliminating the Department of Education, who also believes that unemployment benefits are unconstitutional. But the crown jewel of Palin’s string of primary victories has to be Christine O’Donnell, who formed a successful underdog campaign and beat former Republican Congressman Mike Castle to be Delaware’s Republican candidate for the Senate.

O’Donnell, who also ran for the Senate in 2006 and 2008, is an avowed fiscal conservative who has spoken strongly against “spending money we don’t have,” yet seems to have trouble practicing what she preaches. Accused of criminal activity, the records indicate that O’Donnell misappropriated campaign funds, spending the money on personal expenses. She is on record stating that “America is now a socialist economy” and is on video talking about her teen years dabbling in witchcraft and how she believes that scientists experimenting with cross-breeding have created mice with “fully-functioning” human brains.

Obvious to the most casual observer is the fact that all of these Tea Party candidates are empty vessels. They consistently take positions popular to the far-right and routinely state opinions with little to no basis in reality. Not a one of this gang of four believe that global warming is an issue for America. They are all against abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Each of them is in favor of radical shrinking of the federal government and further cutting of taxes without being able to articulate how they would achieve the balanced budgets they promote. They’re all against cap and trade, in favor of the repeal of the healthcare legislation, and none of them will speak to the media except under the protected umbrella of Fox News.

These bagger candidates are the Frankenstein monsters of the leadership of the Republican Party. People like Armey, Gingrich, McConnell and Boehner seem to think that words and rhetoric are transitory, that they can spread whatever lies, distortions and half-truths they wish in order to promote their positions and obfuscate the truth. But the fact is that speech has creative power: it triggers emotional and intellectual responses that impact perception, direct opinion and in the end define political “reality.”

The problem for these Republicans is that their complete lack of veracity and substance has created a movement fueled by belief in a veneer of talking points. There is no substance beneath the surface. Guys like McConnell and Boehner, Gingrich and Demint all know how things really work, but none of them have spoken the truth in years. When you profess to support average people but in reality sacrifice them for the top 2%, you can’t speak the truth. So, now the dishonesty of these self-serving manipulators has taken the form of an army of zombies who have nothing to offer but the talking points through which they were created.

Palin, Paul, Angle, O’Donnell, or Miller, it doesn’t matter. None of them have a clue beyond their “government is bad” rhetoric. They all actually believe that tax cuts pay for themselves. They buy into “small government” blindly, without even evaluating what it might mean. The country needs thinkers, and the Tea Party is giving us winkers. What will they do when more than a sound bite is needed? Sadly, they’ve all gained power because American culture is so easily exploited, never looking for substance or asking for facts. Hopefully, they will fulfill their Frankenstein destinies and ruin their creators before they have a chance to govern and take a real toll on the nation.

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