Associated Press
In the closing months of the 2012 campaign, Republican candidates up and down the ballot came up with a new strategy to respond to news that GOP policymakers want to end Medicare and replace it with a voucher scheme: they hit the campaign trail with their parents.
The gambit wasn't subtle: voters were supposed to see a Republican congressman alongside his elderly mom, for example, and think, "Well, he can't be that bad; his mom says he doesn't hate Medicare!"
The strategy didn't work out too well -- Democrats fared very well in the 2012 elections, and polls showed Americans strongly rejecting GOP Medicare plans -- and so Republicans have a new photo-op idea. Grandparents are out; grandchildren are in.
Many politicians talk about the impact of the soaring U.S. debt on the nation's children. On Wednesday, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) actually trotted them out.
The newly elected chairwoman of the House Republicans convened a press conference outside the Capitol with about 10 fellow GOP lawmakers and more than a dozen littler Republicans, in an effort to highlight the real-world effects of the fiscal crisis.
"As the debate is looming over the fiscal cliff, we stand here to fight for those hard-working Americans and their families," McMorris Rodgers said as she stood surrounded by children whose ages ranged from toddler to teenager, including one who wore a tuxedo.
It turned out that some of the young children didn't belong to members of Congress, but were brought in by "friends and family of Republican staffers."
But even putting that aside, what's striking about a stunt like this is the notion that McMorris Rodgers and other Republicans seem to believe they have the moral high ground on debt reduction.
They don't.
As we talked about in August, towards the end of President Clinton's second term, debt clocks that had been established in various U.S. locations had to be shut down -- the deficit had been eliminated and the clocks had never been set to run backwards.
They started back up again during the Bush/Cheney era. Republicans took a massive surplus and turned it into an even more massive deficit, adding the costs of two wars, two tax cuts, Medicare expansion, and a Wall Street bailout to the national charge card.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) later referred to the Bush/Cheney era as a time in which Republicans decided "it was standard practice not to pay for things." In just eight years, GOP policymakers not only eliminated the surplus -- the nation had been on track to eliminate the national debt altogether by 2010 -- but they'd also added $5 trillion to the debt in eight years.
In other words, the "debt crisis" Republicans decry is a mess they themselves created. Indeed, it's GOP policies that are still driving today's deficits, even four years after Bush/Cheney left office and conservatives decided they now care about fiscal responsibility all over again.
In the Obama era, the deficit is shrinking at the fastest pace in generations. What's more, President Obama offered Republicans a $4 trillion debt-reduction package -- which GOP leaders turned out -- and proposed a series of policy proposals -- the Affordable Care Act, cap and trade, DREAM Act -- all of which would have reduced the deficit, and all of which Republicans refused to consider.
Even now, Democrats are eyeing a modest increase on income above $250,000, which would help reduce the debt, and despite strong public support, GOP policymakers oppose this, too.
Yesterday's photo-op on Capitol Hill made it seem as if those who care about children necessarily want to follow Republicans' lead on debt reduction -- as if GOP lawmakers have unique credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility and concern for future generations.
All available evidence suggests that's exactly backwards.
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"...the notion that McMorris Rodgers and other Republicans seem to believe they have the moral high ground on debt reduction."
What they do have is chutzpah! The nerve, to think that Americans actually would believe even now that the GOTP have any morality let alone concern for "working Americans" let alone future generations, that takes stones and amnesia! Sorry GOTP your behavior towards not just this fiscal "curb", but also toward the "debt ceiling & taking hostages" to get your way can and will no longer be tolerated!
See you at the ballot box in 2014!!
The standard line they are pushing with this is: young people are not counting on Medicare and Social Security. They interview clueless young people and ask them those loaded questions, my conservative mom is right on board with that. It's a gigantic lie, utterly monsterous. Of course we are counting on what we pay into, duh.
On another note, this McMorris lady is a lightweight IMHO. She got pawned by Rachel on a Sunday show, and has had a very ordinary career in Congress. Now that she is in "Leadership" I have studied her face while Boehner speaks, and her body language. She projects no knowledge or character, and she looks very uncomfortable. The fact that she has lady parts sure seems to be the only reason she gets trotted out IMHO.
Oh for @!$%#S SAKE. When are they going to trot out the kids whose ONLY meal of the day comes from the free lunch program at school? When will they trot out the kids that come home alone and can't get help with homework or reading because single mom is working two jobs? When are they going to trot out the kids that live in the ghetto and aren't allowed outside to play because mom is afraid they will get shot, but god forbid you give anyone a little money to try to get an education so they can try to get OUT of the ghetto. When will they trot out the kids who would DIE if they didn't have medicaid to pay their medical bills.
It takes no courage to cut programs that help poor people.
Melanie: exactly right! When these pols talk of "caring about the future of our children and grandchildren" they mean their *own* children and grandchildren and those of their rich friends, not the rest of us, and certainly not the poor. A poor child of today who doesn't have enough to eat, or a stable home, or a good education, or health care - that child has no future. Or at least a very bleak one. I wish the Dems would call the Rs on it every time they repeat their ridiculous refrain.
I can't be certain, but in the red coat, in the middle of the crowd, isn't that Representative (CRAZY) Virginia Foxx?
Next thing the Republicans are going to try is rolling people out in wheel chairs.
Yeah, that's her! The fact that she might have procreated is far scarier than the Mayan Calendar! The stupid, it burns!!
Eek!
Their shamelessness as well as their ignorance is bottomless.
A spokesperson said, "Yes, they are not our actual "grandchildren", but the cameras were about to roll, and Rent-A-Tot was just across the street."
Would you please just take the damn picture.
My Tea Party brother-in-law is always going on about how it is "immoral" to leave our kids with all our debt.
And yet he's totally opposed to raising taxes to pay off that debt.
And he's quite all right with taking Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare away from those same kids. As well as leaving them with a climate in which it will be increasingly difficult to maintain crop production as we know it.
I don't get it -- does he care about these kids or not?!? Not.
Holidays with your family must be a laugh riot.
The GOP just wanted a photo-op with their peers, except that the real children aren't as petty and stupid...
But the British House of Lords refused them entry.
Since one kid was outfitted in a tuxedo, doesn't that mean he'll later opt in to his personal investment account when he's older (and can use it after reaching the age of 70)?
I see they have a token dark-skinned child, carefully dressed in a tux so the Republicans can point out their "diversity." The rest of the kids are white. Just sayin'.
For all those prone to worry about debt being passed on to the next generations, perhaps this will temper your pessimism and gloom and doom:
- Dean Baker: The Debt Is Not a Measure of Generational Burdens
- Ezra Klein - Galbraith: The danger posed by the deficit ‘is zero’
- Economist's View: Bogus Arguments about the Burden of the Debt
- The Forty-Four Trillion Dollar Deficit Scare | Reports
I'm a whole lot more worried about whether my (as yet hypothetical) grandchildren will grow up in a country without good schools, good universities, clean air and water, usable bridges, working water and sewer systems, affordable health care, and good jobs for them when they grow up.
All of which seem to be in the Republican "enemies list."
The ordinary (heated) confusion of being labeled a parasitical moocher through leeching from a dull witted government , is sometimes the best you can hope for . These frauds (Non magical Job creators) believe they are responding to a fund they paid into for (Weekly , Bi weekly , or Monthly through real deductions from real earnings) their entire lives not as being a confidence game called "entitlements" , but as a real financial security . It is insulting to the real confidence people among us , to imagine something more secure than the dirt soap being peddled these forty years as Trickle Down (!) economic security . The unimpeachable because of its lack of substance , Supply Side (hilarity if not so deceptively destructive) Economics where according to the book of Chicago economists you need to tell lies to prime the Ponzi pump of Reaganomics . After that for every john or trick you pull in you get to keep arms distance to the hero , Bernie Madoff . Our Masters of the Universe just keep increasing the fees on the "Public", or ala Abe Beame , remove the days you cannot afford from the calendar .
Changing the subject is the bestest kind of kindness a confidence game provides . Or as Wanda Sykes likes to say "Everything you've got for the next generation , or your life ." Next ?
I smell desperation.
They'll use anything as long as it moves. Imagine those kids feelings about being paraded around for special interests. Shame, shame.
he kid in the tux looks photoshopped to me, look at his hair...
'Sunscreen and swimming lessons and a really good hat and sensible shoes and a bible and a waterproof voucher holder, and condoms, lots of condoms,' from "Too Bad You Ain't Got No Rich Relatives" by P.Ryan and R. Paul.