Steve Benen finds a striking admission from a GOP strategist about opposition to the financial reform bill:
“This bill, in the minds of most Americans, is just a big amoeba,” said John Feehery, a Washington-based GOP strategist. “Because this bill is so complicated, it makes it easier for Republicans to oppose it, and by opposing it, call it a job killer.”
To my mind, this is one of the central problems of contemporary American politics: any reasonably complicated bill can be twisted into a soshulist, unAmerican, job-killing atrocity. The media doesn’t help, obviously. Conservative pundits are happy to help with the twisting, straight reporters mostly write “shape of earth, views differ”, and there’s always Charles Lane to tell us that, while, it isn’t truly a job-killing machine, there are legitimate concerns that we can read about in an American Enterprise Institute study.
Clearly, the only solution here is to make sure that all bills are no longer than the Constitution.
Zifnab
They did better with the HCR Bill. The Dems released some very simply white papers that stated
(*) No more recission
(*) Mandatory Insurance Coverage on penalty of fines
(*) No denial of coverage
and a half dozen other secondary points to flesh out the core idea.
The Finance Reform Bill? Total black hole. I’ve heard the “Volcker Rule” mentioned half a dozen times, as though I’m supposed to know what that means just because Volcker is so gosh darn famous. I’ve heard about a bank tax, but I believe that got dropped. I’ve heard about reinstating Glass-Steagel, but I don’t think that made it through either.
So I am genuinely in the dark on the new regulations. Even DKos has been rather hollow on the issue.
cleek
of course it is. so is the Constitution. so are the words to “Born In The USA”. so is a map of the USA (“half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map”).
exploiting widespread ignorance should be a felony.
beltane
The problem the Republicans will have with this is that many Americans would have liked to see a bank-killing bill. In this economic climate, it might not be easy to convince people that what’s good for Citibank is good for them.
debbie
At least they didn’t whine about the Democrats’ moving too fast or not having enough time to read the bill.
Bob Loblaw
We would be better off if this bill was a job killer.
GambitRF
After the Senate bill passed yesterday I went on Scott Brown’s Facebook page (which is always a comedy goldmine after he votes with Democrats on anything), and in between the requisite Benedict Arnold comparisons, people kept saying stuff like “What about Fannie and Freddie”?! How can you vote for a bill that doesn’t address Fannie and Freddie?!?”. None of them seemed to actually know what that meant, or what Fannie and Freddie even were, they were just sort of yelling it because they heard it on Limbaugh or something.
matoko_chan
well…..the problem actually is that the conservative base has lower IQ and g.
Consider the last 50 years of memetic selection; selection for voters who can be scammed into voting against their economic self-interest, who are sufficiently undereducated to not understand ToE and basic meiosis, who are highly xenophobic, who despise science, intellectuals and acadame and whose religiosity index is extremely high.
Its like biomemetic engineering to produce a tractable population that is extremely permeable to fearmongering and demagoguery.
Bob Loblaw
Tragically, this country is indeed in need of GSE reform. Though I’m sure for the Republicans this is somehow a race thing. Probably conflating Fannie and Freddie with the FHA and their grand ideological nemesis, the Community Reinvestment Act.
jrg
Maybe the bill could get some support if we could have Palin read it while inserting some grunts, nasal whines, and rambling free-association.
We are a nation of complete morons.
Davis X. Machina
I didn’t know she did Keith Jarret impersonations….
Davis X. Machina
Not just on Limbaugh….and not just from the right.
In the one case it’s because they bought colored people houses for them, or something, in the other case, it’s because Rahm…
Sentient Puddle
You know what talking point I’ve found most amusing from those who oppose the bill?
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be a bad thing because, by being required to help consumers, business will suffer.
Spoken by the same morons who brought us “Free markets solve everything, and will give the consumer the best option!” Apparently, these people think the best thing for consumers is an assfuck.
Third Eye Open
Isn’t this just saying that America is too ignorant or apathetic to understand difficult policy questions? Perhaps the Dems should just run on that theme:
“The GOP thinks that you’re too stupid to understand hard issues.”
jrg
The GOP thinks that
you’re too stupidcommon sense means that you don’t have to understandhard issuesanything at all.Fixed for accuracy.
Cat Lady
@GambitRF:
And yet, he’s polling really high here. He’s a policy nitwit, but he’s an above average politician. He’s got Barney Frank (their districts overlapped when he was a State Sen.) and several of Kennedy’s ex-staffers schooling him, and he’s got his eyes on his re-election in ’12. There’s no way he gets re-elected by being a full metal teabagging moran.
John Bird
Well, yeah, they may have found a chink in the armor of good government here: it’s complicated, and if you declare a war on complexity, American discourse has little defense, because telling people “it’s complicated” makes you “an elite”.
SRW1
Clearly, the only solution here is to make sure that all bills are no longer than the Constitution.
No, if you understood that govmint per se is TEH EVIL, you’d understand that the only real solution is to have no bill at all, fer Christ sake.
Library Grape
The GOP strategist’s quote translated from strategy-speak into English:
El Cid
No law should be more than 10 words.
Library Grape
@El Cid: And they must be written at a fifth grade reading level. In crayon
E.g. Better finance reform law:
“Banks must not be risky. Killing economy again is prohibited.”
El Cid
@Library Grape: And entirely written in words used in the King James version of the 10 Commandments.
Library Grape
@El Cid: “Thine banks shalt not createth complex derivative instruments.”
and
“For ye shall know hope, for now and forever after, the Lord and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency shall watch over thee.”
cleek
Let him who wagers his neighbor’s money reside in damnation. Amen.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
Fixed-eth.
Oh, and about that Golden
CalfBull on Wall St., the less said the better.ThatLeftTurnInABQ
“Thou shalt covet thy counterparty’s collateral, for unto he who asks little, little shall be given, and the meek shall inherit the flaming bag of dogshitte”
Svensker
@Davis X. Machina:
LOL
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
To my mind, one of the central problems is that nobody calls a spade a spade. We’ve largely advanced the agenda advertised in the 2008 campaign despite intransigent, relentless, dishonest, nasty opposition, and yet all we do is sit around and talk about how clever the opposition is.
Isn’t that a problem? It’s a problem, isn’t it?
I think it’s a problem.
cleek
A. On the pricing of Oxen
i) The asking price of thine ox shall not exceed his worth by more than 10 sheckles except
ii) If thine ox be with calf and the calf be due within the moon, then
iii) thou may ask up to 15 sheckles with 5 to be refunded if the calf be stillborn
B) On the pricing of Houses
i) The asking price of thine house may not exceed the average on thine neighbor’s dwellings by more than 10% except
ii) When thine house be appraised for more than %20 above thine neighbors and
iii) Thine neighbor’s house hath decreased in value more than 20% in the last five years or
iv) Thou hast added improvements and upgrades suitable to thine station and
v) Thou can bear the receipts and invoices to the magistrate upon asking.
C) On the regulation of usurers
…
drkrick
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
As well as how disappointing it is that they didn’t pass a fantasy version of the 2008 campaign agenda that was about 45 degrees to the left of the real one.
Davis X. Machina
@Svensker: I dunno, The Köln Concerts always reminded me of porno flicks….
Brachiator
Some of this seems to be a bit of a dodge. If the financial reform bill simply said, “Don’t do evil,” the Republicans would find a way to oppose it, since their message, ridiculously simple and simpleminded, is that everything that the Democrats propose is bad for the economy and bad for America.
But maybe it’s a reflection of how the Democrats try to deal with Republican continual opposition, but there is one aspect of the “amoeba” criticism that makes sense. Instead of a series of discrete bills related to financial regulation, the Democrats produced an ungainly omnibus bill that confounds as much as it explains.
While the average citizen keeps looking for the government to make the economy better, to create jobs, and to curb financial industry abuses, most news reporting explain the financial regulation bill as most of all intended to ensure stability of the financial markets. Here is the NY Times:
These measures may be necessary, but it’s hard to see how anything here quickly and directly helps the average citizen, and the one piece that the average citizen might relate to, the consumer financial protection bureau, seems like a small part of a big cog of stuff more related to macroeconomic issues, more Wall Street than Main Street.
Zifnab
@matoko_chan:
This didn’t happen overnight. Check the Nixon Years and White Flight and the Drug War. Check the Red Scare in the 40s and 50s. Check the Coolidge and Hoover administrations. Check the Red Scare in the turn of the 20th century. Check the Civil War and the following rise of the KKK. Check the Andrew Jackson Administration. Check the French Revolution. Check the Salem Witch Trials. Check the Dark Ages and the better part of the history of Feudal Europe, where Kings and Popes turned herding ignorant serfs on each other for fun and profit into a freak’n art form. And on and on backwards through time.
If anything, we’ve been slowly developing a people and a society that can’t just be herded like cattle or scarred into submission.
CalD
Why do Republicans hate Wall Street Reform?
catclub
@cleek:
I think if you have an ox that is with calf… that is a very special ox. You could ask any price you like.
eemom
And the bankers knew the Congress, and they begat deregulation. And the Republicans knew the Supreme Court, and they begat the Bush administration. And the Bush administration knew the Congress, and they begat tax cuts for those abundant with gold and jewels. And those abundant with gold and jewels went forth and built their city on the banks of the River Wall.
And these were fruitful and multiplied, and the City of Wall prospered.
Then came unto the City of Wall, the Masters of Mortgage; and they knew the Elders of the City, and begat derivative instruments. And then lo, the Children of Mortgage went forth, all along the land and across the sea, and multiplied in great numbers among the People.
And behold! The Angel of the Lord descended upon the City of Wall, and smote Lehman Brothers; and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth, and great fear among the Elders of the City.
But the Angel of the Lord said Fear not! For I bring you tidings of great joy that shall be to all bankers. For unto you is borne this day from the Congress, a Bailout; and ye shall be safe among the penthouses, and the mansions of the lands of Hampton.
And there was great rejoicing in the City of Wall, and among all those abundant in gold and jewels.
But lo! The Pestilence spread forth outside the City, all along the land and across the sea; and the Children of Mortgage sickened, and spread forth their sickness and wrought great suffering among the People.
And the People crept forth unto the Congress, and wept; and they spake unto the Congress, and said, “And will ye not deliver us from evil, even as ye have delivered the City of Wall and all those abundant in gold and jewels?”
And the Congress spake unto the people, and said, “Go forth, and liveth the American dream; rise forth from poverty by the toil of thy Labor, and then shall ye too be abundant in gold and jewels; and then, but only then, may you come among us and be delivered from evil.”
But the people said, “Gladly would we toil; but the Pestilence hath stricken the grain from the fields, and upon the sea, the Sultans of Oil have rendered forth their poison, causing all the fish to perish; and thus is all of our toil rendered for naught.”
And from the Congress there came a great silence; for all those who resided therein, had fled unto the mansions of those abundant in gold and jewels, and these together cavorted, and ate of rich foods and drank of sweet wines; and they were heedless of the cries of the People.
And that, is why we are all KNOWN.
Andy K
I see. As complicated as a unicellular form of life. Hmmm…
Brachiator
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective:
Current NY Times article that perhaps relates to this (Obama Pushes Agenda, Despite Political Risks):
It’s not so much that the opposition is clever, but that they seek to frame every legislative victory as a betrayal of the American people.
licensed to kill time
@eemom:
Oh, well done! A lovely rendition of such a sordid tale.
NonyNony
@Zifnab:
(Emphasis added)
Exactly.
People look at this with half-glass empty eyes, but right now humanity as a whole is more free, better educated, better at critical thinking and less scared than we’ve been probably in the history of the world.
Yeah we have to fight tooth and nail for every inch, and yeah the more conservative of our species are more afraid of the hypothetical fears of the future than they are of the very real fears of the present and they hold us back constantly. But that’s always been true – and it’s less true now than it was a thousand years ago or even a hundred years ago.
I think too many people have this mistaken idea that the past contains a lost Golden Age – that’s a fallacy that goes back to the Greeks if not before that. There was no Golden Age – the present is objectively better than the past. If you think some point in the past really was a Golden Age compared to now do some reading – you’ll find that things were shittier for the majority of the population than they are now. Hell things are better off in the US for US citizenry as a whole over any time in the history of our country except perhaps for a short span of time in the 1990s after it became obvious that the Soviet Union wasn’t a threat anymore and before the War on Terra started. Even with that, it’s better to be gay in the US now than it was then.
cleek
@catclub:
heh. it’s friday.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@NonyNony:
Well said.
Ignorant and unjustified nostalgia is a gateway drug for conservatism. Just say No.
Brachiator
@NonyNony:
This doesn’t sound quite right. There may be a greater number of free, better educated people, etc, than before, but to say that “humanity as a whole” is more free, seems a stretch. But maybe my perspective is skewed by the NYT article I just finished reading about Afghan women setting themselves on fire to escape abusive marriages.
I take your point that the past was not a cheery, undisputable Golden Age, but the present ain’t hugs and kisses for hundreds of millions either.
Janus Daniels
“Clearly, the only solution here is to make sure that all bills are no longer than the Constitution.”
Also, we need more mavericks to point out that the Constitution itself is too long. And all those confusing articles, the general welfare clause, the Bill of Rights, have got to go. The amendments interfere with my property rights, like my right to own slaves. Also, too.
Kurzleg
DougJ – Nice John Hiatt lyric quote for the title. (I assume you know Hiatt wrote that tune and that Bonnie Raitt only covered it. Hiatt’s version is superior to Raitt’s, IMO.)
daveNYC
Seriously? The Stanford Prison Experiment? The Milgram experiments?
People are just as broken as they’ve ever been. Society has changed, but that is just a thin and fragile thing compared to the cesspool of potential human behavior that it covers.
Chris
There, fixed that for you. Don’t bother hoping you can make a bill attack-proof.
Also, I’m not sure why Feehery felt compelled to draw any kind of connection between opposing the bill and calling it a job killer (as a logical tangent, I mean; as rhetoric, I get that he’s stringing together random talking points to con reporters). Republicans oppose everything Democratic; for them to call something a “job killer” is just getting gratuitously specific.
Though Republicans calling anything else a “job killer” is a bit like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black. I think “job homicide-bombers” is probably the most apt way to describe Republicans.
MikeBoyScout
For years we’ve been dumbing down our educational system by starving it of resources. Any wonder a couple of thousand of pages of text are intimidating, not only to the masses, but to the better educated pundits?
Amerika teh stoopid!
El Cid
@eemom: Awesome.
eemom
there are two things about the present that make it a vast improvement on the past: (1) medical science; and (2) plumbing.
Other than that, I’m of the “not so much” view — unless the fact that it’s better to be gay in the U.S. now than it was before is supposed to trump the vast oceans of misery that engulf most of the planet.
That’s got nothing to do with idealizing the past.
DougJ
@Kurzleg:
Yes, I agree.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@Brachiator:
I agree for the most part.
FlipYrWhig
I looked upon eemom, and saw that it was good.
burnspbesq
As a serious John Hiatt fan, I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me five hours to remember where the title of this post came from.
Be assured, however, that I am ready for this thing called love.
burnspbesq
@Davis X. Machina:
It’s not Keith Jarrett she’s impersonating, it’s Glenn Gould.
burnspbesq
@Kurzleg:
The only great rock song in the key of F-sharp major.
artem1s
@eemom:
I think Strickland should use this as a campaign ad against Kasich. Maybe the asshats in Cincytucky will finally get a clue then.
Resident Firebagger
It’s not just conservative pundits spinning complex legislation. It’s mainstream pundits who are too fucking lazy to read it and too fucking stupid to understand it. So they put the helpful conservative pundits on their shows to do that for them.
Ta da!
And thanks for the John Hiatt reference. Long-time fan here.
Nik
Ummmm, what a stupid metaphor. An amoeba is a simple, single-celled organism. It is anything but big. It is one of the least complicated things in the field of biology to understand.
Leave it to a Republican strategist to try and feed their crowd talking points that make them live up to their ignorant uneducated stereotype.
Jebediah
@Kurzleg:
Second on that. This is the perhaps first ever political post title that I (internally) sang to myself in John Hiatt’s voice.
It has been a shitty 24 hours, but that helped…
Yutsano
@burnspbesq:
Which, if there were any justice in this world, should be illegal to compose in.