This is going to be good.  A clueless Republican is preparing to walk the plank:

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), one of the co-sponsors of Rep. Paul Ryan’s Social Security-slashing budget proposal, went on Fox today to advocate privatizing both Social Security and Medicare. . . .

When asked by [Stuart] Varney how Republicans could reform entitlements without cutting benefits or raising taxes, Blackburn called for “cutting back the bureaucracy that surrounds the program,” and said many town hallers have suggested just that.

“You don’t necessarily have to have benefit cuts,” she said.

Good luck with that one, Marsha.  Republican teabaggers might not be too bright, but they are old.  Wait till they hear that you want to throw them off the government gravy train just so you can balance the budget in seventy years.  They won’t be amused.

So start popping the popcorn, Democrats.  Let the tap dancing, flip-flopping and backpedaling begin!

You’d think that when the House GOP point man on the federal budget lays out a detailed plan to cut the deficit to zero, his boss might give some props.  But you don’t know John Boehner.  Why, the Tan Master has hardly even heard of Paul Ryan! –

At his weekly news conference, Boehner stressed that Ryan’s budget is not the party’s proposal.  His spokesman repeated that point on Friday, while expressing disappointment with Democratic attempts to make political hay out of criticizing the proposal.

“This is sad and pathetic,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.  “At a time when Washington Democrats control the House, Senate and the White House, rather than working on the problems of the American people, they’re holding blogger calls and conference calls to attach a bill introduced by one member of the minority party.”

No, Mr. Steel.  What’s sad and pathetic is a political party that constantly rails against “government spending” but is too gutless to ever get specific. 

We’ve been listening to this garbage ever since Ronald Reagan found one of Art Laffer’s old cocktail napkins and proceeded to inflict supply-side economics on an unsuspecting world.  Paul Ryan is just a low-rent David Stockman.   

Nothing ever changes with Republicans.  It’s always Groundhog Day.

To repeat: Sad and Pathetic.  (And Gutless.)

Update: There’s a reason I compared Ryan unfavorably with David Stockman.  It’s because Ryan is, at bottom, simply a Republican hack with no more substance than your typical teabagger.  Indeed, here’s what one if his allies has to say:

Beyond the details of Ryan’s plan or its politics is the larger point.  As Ryan told me earlier this week, Obama’s budget “is about more than specific programs or policies — it is really about the American idea, and whether we want to move towards a European-style welfare state.”  The roadmap, he said, is part of offering voters “a choice of two futures” and detailing, in policy terms, how the GOP believes that “the individual is the nucleus of American life, and [Democrats] see the government in that role.”  That’s the true importance of his plan. [Emphasis added]

Republican budgeting is never about actual numbers.  It’s always about sloganeering and political posturing.  Massive deficits are the inevitable result. 

Trust me — before too long Paul Ryan himself will fall on his sword and disavow his own creation. 

Once again: The Triumph of Politics.

If Republican economic orthodoxy holds true, the top investment bank in the world is in serious trouble.  Its Fearless Leader is now toiling for a pauper’s wage:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., trying to show it is responsive to public pressure over its pay, said Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein would get a $9 million bonus for 2009, a fraction of the $68.5 million payout he got in 2007. . . .

Mr. Blankfein will likely make less than Richard Handler, the Chief Executive Officer of the lesser-known Jefferies Group Inc., who is expected to receive a bonus of approximately $12 million for his work in 2009.

I’m sure Ol’ Lloyd will find it hard to get up the gumption to go to work at all after this outrage.  I bet he’ll stroll into the office around ten on Tuesday, put in a few days of half-assed dealmaking, and call it quits right after lunch on Thursday — just in time for happy hour at his favorite CEO watering hole, where he’ll bitch and moan about how much fucking money that goddamn little pipsqueak Dick Handler is hauling in across the fucking street.

So I hope all you liberal commie pinkos are happy.  You can kiss another boatload of crappy American jobs goodbye.  The fruit juice of capitalism won’t trickle down to the unworthy masses if the Blankfeins aren’t compensated for their genius like Roman emperors.  

Haven’t you read Atlas Shrugged?

A job creation chart from Nancy Pelosi (via TPM):

It’s not good enough, and we need to do more, but don’t you think John and Sean will. . . Oh, never mind.

REUTERS – Following a fifteen minute meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) President Barack Obama has released a statement announcing that the federal budget will be balanced by the end of fiscal year 2012.

“Republicans have asked me to meet them halfway, and I have responded to their requests,” reads the statement from the President. 

“In a spirit of bipartisan compromise, I have directed Peter Orszag, my Budget Director, to accept a list of programs chosen by my Republican colleagues that we will pay for through emergency supplementals.  As a result of this bold — dare I say audacious — action, the federal budget might very well be in surplus by the end of my first term.”

McConnell hailed the agreement.

“President George W. Bush was faced with two wars and innumerable tax cuts on his watch,” said the Minority Leader.  “By stepping up to the plate and keeping lots of expenses off budget, he was able to steer us through the post 9-11 period without unduly upsetting people about arcane fiscal matters.  I applaud President Obama for choosing what works over what’s responsible.”

Rep. Boehner, still recovering from treatment for third-degree sunburn, had no comment.

Wingnut politicians like to think they’re completely in sync with the Gipper’s “core beliefs”.  But on the ridiculous “issue” of gays in the military, these fossils might be barking up the wrong presidential pant leg.  (Mixed metaphors for mixed-up hacks!)

Here’s Senator Saxby Chambliss, uber-douchebag from Georgia, warning gravely of the Lavender Menace that now apparently lurks just outside the gates of the Pentagon:

“Military life is very different than [sic -- This is one of my grammatical pet peeves! -- Rick] civilian life.  Military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs and traditions including restrictions on personal behaviors.”

Chambliss also pointed out a few of many behaviors regulated in the military that can result in a court martial.

“Examples include alcohol use, adultery, fraternization,” Chambliss said.  “If we change these rules, what are we going to do with these other issues?”

Again quoting the statute, Chambliss said, “The military must maintain personnel policies that exclude personnel whose presence in the armed forces would present and unacceptable risk to the armed forces’ high standards of morale, good order and discipline and unit cohesion.”

“In my opinion, the presence in the armed forces of those who present a propensity and intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk to those high standards of morale, good order and discipline and effective unit cohesion,” Chambliss concluded.

If our military personnel can’t carry out their duties in the presence of a few gays, we don’t stand a chance against Al Qaeda.  But I digress.  Back to the point of this post:

What would Ronald Reagan do about this issue in today’s political climate?  Perhaps he’d be forced to knuckle under to the knuckle-draggers in his midst, but I can’t see it happening without a fight:

According to biographer Lou Cannon, Reagan shared the common view of his time that homosexuality was a sickness.  He was not above telling jokes about gays.

Still, perhaps because he worked with gay actors in Hollywood and had gay friends, Reagan was relatively tolerant.  Cannon notes that Reagan was “respectful of the privacy of others” and was “not the sort of person who bothers about what people do in their own bedrooms.”  This attitude was consistent with Reagan’s larger philosophical commitment to individual liberty and limited government. . . .

Aside from his tolerant personal attitude, Reagan’s actual record on civil liberties for gays was surprisingly good.  Cannon reports that Reagan was “repelled by the aggressive public crusades against homosexual life styles which became a staple of right wing politics in the late 1970s.”

In 1978, for example, Reagan vigorously opposed a California ballot initiative sponsored by religious conservatives that would have barred homosexuals from teaching in the public schools.  The timing is significant because he was then preparing to run for president, a race in which he would need the support of conservatives and moderates very uncomfortable with homosexual teachers.  As Cannon puts it, Reagan was “well aware that there were those who wanted him to duck the issue” but nevertheless “chose to state his convictions.”. . .

The military’s ban on service by homosexuals was firmly in place long before Reagan became president.  It remained in force during his tenure, of course, but discharges for homosexuality declined every single year of Reagan’s presidency, suggesting the administration wasn’t interested in anti-gay witch-hunts. [Emphasis added]

Reaganism was bad for the country, but at least its architect had one foot planted (albeit a bit shakily) in the twentieth century.  Son of Reaganism, as practiced by today’s Republicans, is a joke and an abomination.  They’re moving backwards.

Note:  Lots of Democrats are just as bad.  (Ike Skelton, anybody?)  But they’re a shrinking minority of the party — I hope.

Update: Colin Powell has now flip-flopped and seen the light here.  I’ve got to believe that if Ronald Reagan rose from the grave to run the Republican Party in a post-9/11 era, he would quickly grow tired of the Saxby Chamblisses and would begin trying to drag his party back into sociological relevance.  Reagan was wrong about most things, but he was also – nonetheless — a leader concerned with serious ideas.   Fearmongering about gays is not an issue for such men.

The distinguishing bias of “serious journalists” is not towards liberalism but towards endless gloom and doom.

David Sanger writes seventeen paragraphs detailing how federal budget deficits will lead inexorably to the end of civilization as we know it before  he finally drops this little nugget:

The absence of political will is also facilitated by the fact that, as Prof. James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas puts it, “Forecasts 10 years out have no credibility.”

He is right.  In the early years of the Clinton administration, government projections indicated huge deficits — over the “sustainable” level of 3 percent — by 2000.  But by then, Mr. Clinton was running a modest surplus of about $200 billion, a point Mr. Obama made Monday as he tried anew to remind the country that the moment was squandered when “the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it.” [Emphasis added]

Holy shit, Mr. Sanger, now you tell us!  I was just about to sell everything I own and move to a survivalist compound in Idaho.

There are two truths about the budget that the mainstream media is loath to report:

1) Deficits are largely dependent on the state of the economy. 

2) Republicans have zero credibility – zilch, zip, nada — when it comes to reducing them.

The president engaged in some long overdue bitch-slapping last Friday at the Republican “issues forum”, but many on the left are getting carried away.  Really now, people: How hard is it to make Mike Pence look like a stupid, robotic hack?  The man is incapable of uttering a sound that couldn’t be one of Ronald Reagan’s old talking points.

Obama needs to do a lot more if he wants to derail the wingnuts.  Here’s Digby:

If all this only means that Democrats will continue to move further right in order to reach across the aisle then I don’t suppose it hurts anything — they are already stretching themselves into pretzels to get there.  But if the Republicans continue to successfully obstruct and then criticize Obama for failing to achieve his promise of bipartisanship, I think it exacerbates the problems we already have coming up in November.  I suppose the American people may see through their ruse, but I think it might be just a little bit too complicated: they just see Obama unable to achieve bipartisan agreement with people he repeatedly portrays as rational actors.  Therefore, he is weak and the Democratic agenda isn’t mainstream.

Republicans are obstructionists.  They must be portrayed as the bad guys.  Period.

No more constructive engagement, Barack.  It’s a waste of time and it confuses the voters.  The next time you go into the Republican snake pit, come back with a nice pair of boots and a few hand-stitched wallets.

Has the GOP managed to housebreak the teabaggers?  That’s what the media is reporting, but I’m not convinced.

A Politico headline reads “Republicans reject purity test”, but the story itself is a little messier:

Bopp explained that he thought the RNC’s decision to, for the first time, make it party policy to urge candidates to pledge fealty to the GOP platform represented a significant step.

But Tiernan, standing just over Bopp’s shoulder, again rebutted his committee colleague.

 “I’m not going to take that back and make my candidates sign it, that’s ridiculous,” Tiernan said, gesturing toward the compromise resolution in a reporter’s hand. “We don’t have a litmus test and we rejected the litmus test today.”

 As Bopp continued, Tiernan again spoke up.

 “There’s nothing binding in there,” said the state chairman.

 “Can I finish?” a plainly annoyed Bopp asked.

 “Read the words,” replied Tiernan.

 “Shut up,” Bopp finally said.

James Bopp clearly isn’t through making trouble.  And the text of the supposedly “watered down” purity resolution drips with contempt for any Republican still displaying a shred of sanity:

WHEREAS, there will be many more decisions regarding the support of candidates, and many more opportunities to enhance or diminish the credibility of Republicans and Republican organizations, in the coming election cycle; now therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee urges its leadership and the leadership of all Republican organizations to carefully screen the record and statements of all candidates who profess to be Republicans and who desire the support of Republican leaders and Republicans organizations, and determine that they wholeheartedly support the core principles and positions of the Republican Party as expressed in the Platform of the Republican Party adopted at the 2008 National Convention. . . [Emphasis added]

“Core principles” is a wingnut buzzword.  Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have been using it for years, and they’re the ones who get to define its meaning.  Are they going to be good little Republican tools in 2010 and help the bosses keep the crazies in line?  We’ll see.  Radio guys do what’s best for their own bank accounts.

And in a conservative world dominated by Sarah Palin, even Newt Gingrich is running scared.  He’s always tried to use his powers of obfuscation to save the skins of endangered Republican moderates.  Now he wants to be an honorary teabagger:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich on Saturday conceded that he was wrong to endorse Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava in last November’s special congressional election in New York’s 23rd District. . .

“[The tea partiers] were right.  At the time, as a party builder and someone who has always been trying to help build the party, it struck me that she was the local nominee.  She turned out to be a huge disappointment.  And she turned out not to be frankly a loyal Republican.”

I still think the teabaggers will fall into line.  But it’s not a done deal.

Yesterday at the Republican “issues retreat” the President appeared clearly pissed off as Rep. Jeb Hensarling unleashed this disingenuous right-wing diatribe:

Mr. President, a year ago I had an opportunity to speak to you about the national debt.  And something that you and I have in common is we both have small children.  And I left that conversation really feeling you’re sincere commitment to ensuring that our children, our nation’s children do not inherit an unconscionable debt.  We know that under current law that government — the cost of government is due to grow from 20 percent of our economy to 40 percent of our economy right about the time our children are leaving college and getting that first job.

Mr. President, shortly after that conversation a year ago, the Republicans proposed a budget that ensured that government did not grow beyond the historical standard of 20 percent of GDP. It was a budget that actually froze immediately non-defense discretionary spending.  It spent $5 trillion less than ultimately what was enacted into law.

And unfortunately, I believe that budget was ignored.

And since that budget was ignored, what were the old annual deficits under Republicans have now become the monthly deficits under Democrats.  The national debt has increased 30 percent.

Now, Mr. President, I know you believe — and I understand the argument; I respect the view — that the spending is necessary due to the recession.  Many of us believe, frankly, it’s part of the problem, not part of the solution, but I understand and I respect your view.

HENSARLING: But this is what I don’t understand, Mr. President.  After that discussion, your administration proposed a budget that would triple the national debt over the next 10 years. Surely you don’t believe 10 years from now we will still be mired in this recession.  It proposed new entitlement spending and moved the — the cost of government to almost 24.5 percent of the economy.

Now, very soon, Mr. President, you’re due to submit a new budget and my question…

OBAMA: Jim (sic), I know there’s a question in there somewhere, because you’re making a whole bunch of assertions, half of which I disagree with.

(LAUGHTER)

And I’m having to sit here listening to them.  At some point, I know you’re going to let me answer.

HENSARLING: That’s…

OBAMA: All right.

HENSARLING: That’s the question.

You are soon to submit a new budget, Mr. President.  Will that new budget, like your old budget, triple the national debt and continue to take us down the path of increasing the cost of government to almost 25 percent of our economy?  That’s the question, Mr. President.

Maybe that was the last straw.  Maybe now Barack Obama knows he can’t work with these people.

Maybe enough is enough.