Spiritual wickedness in high places

In 1776 John Adams was concerned that the deeply divided and fragile colonial union would fracture over its petty differences and fail to fulfill the destiny that lay before it.  He wrote of his fears that the Continental Congress’ decisions would be dictated ‘by noise, not sense; by meanness, not greatness; by ignorance, not learning; by contracted hearts, not large souls.’”

Adams wrote, “There must be decency and respect and veneration introduced for persons of authority of every rank or we are undone. In popular government, this is our only way.”

Many say that this is an important moment for our democracy.  Just like 1776, we appear to be vulnerable to the same small thinking.

Here’s a quick fact-check on the past week in politics

Let’s start with the convention.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune said the Obama administration “proposed banning farm kids from doing basic chores!”  That’s a “pants on fire” lie.  What he was referring to were new safety rules proposed by the Labor Department for minors working on farms.  The only chores it would prohibit were those that were dangerous and should be done by adults.

Rob Portman, a U.S. senator from Ohio said President Obama “never even worked in business.”  That’s also false.  He did work as a research assistant for a New York company in the 80’s and was a partner in a Chicago law firm.

Paul Ryan claimed that Obama broke a promise to keep a Wisconsin GM plant from closing.  In fact Obama never made that promise and the GM plant was closed before he took office and could have intervened.  Another lie.

Ryan misrepresented Romney’s record in Massachusetts saying, “unemployment went down, household incomes went up,” and the state “saw its credit rating upgraded.”  The truth is that household incomes, when you include inflation, went down.  While unemployment went down, there is little evidence that it was the direct result of any particular Romney policy.  The state’s credit rating did go up, but it was the result of a tax increase passed before Romney took office.  His office did lobby for the credit rating improvement, but was not responsible for the policies that improved the state’s financial condition.

Ryan repeated the claim that the Obama administration “funneled” $716 billion out of the program “at the expense of the elderly” to pay for his health care law.  In fact this number came from the CBO, not the White House.  It reflects projected savings from a reduction in the GROWTH of Medicare costs.  Those savings come from a deal that the administration struck with primarily Hospitals who agreed to a reduction in Medicare re-imbursements in return for getting a higher percentage of insured non-Medicare patients under the ACA.  It took no money from existing Medicare programs.  Big lie.

Ryan claimed that “The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate welfare and cronyism at their worst. You, the working men and women of this country, were cut out of the deal.”  If that’s true, Ryan was in on the deal.  Ryan’s pleas to federal agencies for stimulus funds included letters to Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis seeking stimulus grant money for two Wisconsin energy conservation companies.  He ended up securing over $20M for Wisconsin companies.

Ryan claimed that “Obama “created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way and then did exactly nothing.”  What he neglected to say was that he was part of that commission and voted against the final report.

Gov. Christie said, “Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy. … Tonight, our duty is to tell the American people the truth. Our problems are big and the solutions will not be painless. We all must share in the sacrifice. Any leader that tells us differently is simply not telling the truth.”

The reality is that Romney has promised to cut $500 billion per year from the federal budget by 2016 to bring spending below 20 percent of the U.S. economy, and to balance it entirely by 2020, but the math on what he has proposed so far doesn’t add up.  There are none of the “hard truths” Christie referenced.  Instead there has been a lot of political pandering.  The promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act will add $100B to the deficit according to the CBO.  He will decline to implement that Hospital Medicare cost reduction deal worth $716B.  He has also proposed increased military spending and decreased taxes without any specific plan to pay for either.  Since he has also pledged not to touch Social Security or Medicare, there just isn’t enough money left in the rest of the budget to fulfill his promises.

Senator Rob Portman leaned on his foreign policy expertise in criticizing Obama on his China policy.  “China manipulates its currency, giving it an unfair trade advantage. So why doesn’t the president do something about it? I’ll tell you one reason. President Obama could not run up his record trillion-dollar deficits if the Chinese didn’t buy our bonds to finance them. Folks, we are as beholden to China for bonds as we are to the Middle East for oil. This will end under Mitt Romney.”

What he didn’t say is that he was the ambassador to China in the Obama administration during a time when imports increased 25%.  During the same time the deficit increased only 10%.  He also failed to mention that both Bush and Obama have opened unfair trade practice cases against China with the World Trade Organization.  Finally he didn’t say what Romney would do that is any different than what Bush or Obama have done in their attempts to rebalance the relationship with China.

Former Senator Rick Santorum dragged out Romney’s welfare claim saying “This summer (Obama) showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare. Now, I helped write the welfare reform bill. We made a lot crystal clear. No president can waive the work requirement, but as with his refusal to enforce our immigration laws, President Obama rules like he is above the law.”

The facts are that the administration did not waive a work requirement. Instead, it invited governors to apply on behalf of their states for waivers of administrative requirements in the 1996 law. Some states have complained those rules tie up caseworkers who could be helping clients directly.

In a July 18 letter to congressional leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that to be eligible for a waiver, governors must commit that their plans will move at least 20 percent more people from welfare to work. Moreover, states must show clear progress toward the goal within a year, or lose the waiver.  Big Lie.

Up next fact checking the movies.

Among other things I was a wrestler in school.  One of the things that you learn in wrestling is that there is a counter for virtually every move.  So wrestling ends up being much more about desire, conditioning, and who makes the fewest mistakes rather than who is the strongest.

There was an example of this on the campaign trail this week.

The Romney campaign successfully turned the conversation from tax returns to Medicare by selecting Paul Ryan as their VP candidate.  The Obama campaign immediately pounced on that selection by pointing out that Ryan had proposed turning Medicare into a voucher program.  This produced a whole set of back and forth about Medicare which I will cover in another post.  Whether or not this was working for Romney, he clearly appeared to have regained some footing and was at least engaging the Obama campaign in a substantive debate about the future of Medicare.

Then out of the blue Romney finally responded to Senator Harry Reid’s claim that he hadn’t paid taxes in ten years.  Romney’s response was that he has paid at least 13% in taxes for the past ten years.  This response came six weeks after Reid’s original claim on the floor of the Senate.

During the past six weeks, the Romney campaign called Reid a liar.  They said they weren’t going to release additional returns because those returns would only result in the Democrats asking for more returns and the whole campaign would become a discussion about personal taxes rather than the economy which is what Romney REALLY wants to talk about.

So why say anything more, particularly after this long delay?  The delay in itself further re-enforces the claim, whether true or not, that Romney has something to hide because virtually every taxpayer remembers at least in general numbers how much they paid in taxes.  So why did it take him six weeks to confirm that he didn’t have a year where his taxes dipped below the 13% threshold?  Is he really that disconnected from the process of paying his taxes?

The Obama campaign, just like a good wrestler, responded quickly with their counter.  They offered Romney a deal.  Just release three more years of tax returns which, in addition to the two years of returns that Romney has already promised to release, would comprise five years.  In return the Obama campaign said they would not request any further information and they would step criticizing the Romney campaign on this issue.

The Romney campaign rejected that offer almost immediately.  That rejection allowed the Obama campaign to ask all of the same questions again that they had been asking the past six weeks.  In addition the rejection of what many would regard as a reasonable compromise reinforces another claim the Obama campaign has been making that Obama has tried to compromise but these Republicans at least are so ideological that they can’t make a deal.  This plays into one of the major issues that I posted about with swing voters – the desire for both parties to figure out how to work together.

The Obama campaign is right back where they want to be questioning what Romney has to hide and the Romney campaign is right back in the same place they were before they announced Paul Ryan as their VP pick.  They are defending their candidate’s decision to withhold information that a majority of the American people say they are interested in.

The Romney campaign in their rejection said, “It is clear that President Obama wants nothing more than to talk about Governor Romney’s tax returns instead of the issues that matter to voters, like putting Americans back to work, fixing the economy and reining in spending.”  This is the same thing that they have been saying for the past six weeks, but now they are the ones responsible, at least in the mind of some voters, for the campaign being stuck on this issue.

The Romney campaign is correct about the Obama campaign, but wrong about what voters want.  Obama continues to push this issue because it is working for him, particularly with swing voters in battleground states.  It cuts to the core of whether or not this guy can be trusted, and Obama is winning this argument.

Romney said, “As long as I continue to speak about the economy, I’m going to win.”  This week, he failed to talk only about the economy and he lost.