File this under cry me a river:
Big business groups like the Chamber of Commerce spent millions of dollars in 2010 to elect Republican candidates running for the House. The return on investment has not always met expectations.
Even though money for major road and bridge projects is set to run out this weekend, House Republican leaders have struggled all week to round up the votes from recalcitrant conservatives simply to extend it for 90 or even 60 days. A longer-term transportation bill that contractors and the chamber say is vital to the recovery of the construction industry appears hopelessly stalled over costs.
At the same time, House conservatives are pressing to allow the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which has financed business exports since the Depression, to run out of lending authority within weeks. The bank faces the very real possibility of shutting its doors completely by the end of May, when its legal authorization expires.
And a host of routine business tax breaks — from wind energy subsidies to research and development tax credits — cannot be passed because of Republican insistence that they be paid for with spending cuts.
Business groups that worked hard to install a Republican majority in the House equated Republican control with a business-friendly environment. But the majority is first and foremost a conservative political force, and on key issues, its ideology is not always aligned with commercial interests that helped finance election victories.
Some of what the teahadists want to kill is simply insane:
With its charter set to expire in May, the bank is the target of conservative groups. They are making the case to Republicans that the bank, created in 1934 to finance sales to the Soviet Union, has no place in a free-market system. Club for Growth is holding it up as the next Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, crowding out private lending and offering dangerous loans that ultimately could be left in the laps of the taxpayer.
“Those groups are just wrong, period,” said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers and a generous personal contributor to Republican candidates.
The bank is financed with a small percentage of each loan it makes to foreign buyers of American exports, producing $3.4 billion in profits for the federal government over the last five years.
Drew Greenblatt, president and owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products, in Baltimore, said he recently got a rush order for wire baskets from a firm in Singapore, assuming he could finance the sale. He went to the Export-Import Bank and paid a one-half-percent fee on the loan. The bank guaranteed 95 percent of the loan. He kept the plant working through the weekend and completed the sale.
“Think about all the winners in this transaction,” he said. “Ex-Im got half a point. Baltimore City steelworkers got extra hours. I got extra profits to meet payroll, and hopefully I got a client who will reorder from me.”
If anything, the anger over the stalled transportation bill is even more acute, business lobbyists say. The Senate, in a bipartisan vote, has passed a surface transportation bill that would keep money flowing for two years. The House, however, appears stuck.
They don’t even want to pay for roads. Think about that. They don’t even want to pay for roads.
TenguPhule
Feature, not a bug.
Serfs don’t need roads.
Roads might let them run away from the Lord’s Manor and Hunting Preserve.
We will not have peace until the Last Republican is strangled with the entrails of the last Serious Villager.
Rick Massimo
It’s almost as if turning the government over to people who failed sixth-grade civics, don’t really think there should BE a federal government and actively hate the principles this country was founded on was a bad idea.
Bort
All this road building talk sounds like socialism John!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Non-cognito, ergo no sum, motherfuckers. This is what happens when you puts de cart before de horse.
GregB
The Villagers allowed the monster to set the windmill on fire before they got out.
Burn, baby burn.
It serves these assholes right.
Satanicpanic
This would be funnier if the rest of us didn’t need roads either.
barath
So in the scheme of things it’s actually a good thing not to fund highways any longer (unless we’re going to put equal or greater money into electric rail systems). We need to stop subsidizing things that are going to hurt us in the long run.
As for local roads, though, we shouldn’t stop their funding, though I’m not sure how much federal money goes into that.
Violet
Anyone who needs to use a road can pay for it with a toll. Too poor? Too bad. You should work harder. Freedumb!
patrick II
We should each pay only for the part of the road that runs in front of our house. We are not responsible for other people’s roads.
I once heard that argument made in an economics class. The student got an A.
eemom
You create a monster, you wake up with fleas. Or something.
Polish the Guillotines
@Violet:
This. “Freedom Turnpike”, brought to you by David H. Koch.
trex
@Rick Massimo
Not if you’re a Villager or a wingnut. Pissing off liberals while talking seriously about the dismantling of the greatest nation on earth? Totally worth it!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I work in the Defense industry and the GOP controlled house has been nothing but an utter disaster. They will authorize projects like their no tomorrow and then turn around and refuse to fund them. There is no way in hell these clowns can claim to be pro-business.
Linnaeus
Noam Chomsky (and, I’m sure, others) made the observation that free-market rhetoric is fine for economics departments and newspaper editorials, but few if any out in the functioning business world take it seriously. They’re certainly all about government intervention when it suits them and they figured the Republicans they supported were in on the double-speak. Oops, looks like some of them weren’t.
Narcissus
Do they really think they can get Feudalism back
I mean do they really think we won’t string them up by their bowels
Gee
Wow, there are no words … Ugh.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
They seem to question the whole idea of the Nation State, as that term has been currently understood for over four centuries.
__
This, from the party that ultimately takes its name from res publica.
pragmatism
if you’re ever sad/bored and want a pick-me-up, ask a glibertarian how non-public roads would work. i even grant them the ability to start from scratch with no existing roads.
Chris
Christ. And I used to work at the ExIm Bank…
@Satanicpanic:
This.
Fucking hell, I understand that not everyone likes modernity with its roads and health care and shit, but guess what – that’s what Amish Country’s for. Go live your admirably ascetic lifestyle somewhere else and stop making the rest of us pay for your psychotic fantasies.
Paul (@princejvstin)
Neo-feudalism is not the science fiction future I would have picked.
gnomedad
People drive on roads to get to abortion clinics!
Comrade Dread
Conversation at the Club for Growth:
Bob: “Hey, Bob.”
Bob 2: “Howdy, Bob. How’s the wife and girlfriend?”
Bob: “Just fine. Say Bob, you know those Republicans we helped finance and elect in 2010?”
Bob 2: “You mean the ones who ran on the platform of drowning government in a bathtub and taking us all back to the days of the Articles of Confederation?”
Bob: “Heh heh… yeah, crazy bastards. Always with confederacies. Heh… anyway, Bob, you know, these guys we paid for, they’re not using their power to help us. They’re actually trying to drown government in a bathtub and take us back to the days of the Articles of Confederation.”
Bob 2: “Huh… who could have known, Bob?”
Bob: “Precisely.”
Bob 2: “What should we do, Bob? My company needs some of that Federal construction money.”
Jim: “Well, you know, we could try giving more money to Democrats to get these guys out of office. I mean, we’d probably have to pay some higher taxes, but in the long run, that’s better than drowning government in a bath tub and taking us all back to the Articles of Confederation.”
Bobs: (Laughter) Oh, Jim… that’s that kind of talk that makes us think you’re a woman sometimes. Go put on a dress and bring us some beers.
Jim: Seriously, **** you guys.”
Jim leaves.
Bob: “This is a conundrum, Bob.”
Bob 2: “Wait. Bob. I have an idea. Okay, now, I may be off, but what if we threw more money at these guys and helped them get re-elected to Congress this year. Surely that would get them to start voting some sweet Federal money our way.”
Bob: “I don’t know, Bob. That sounds a bit… crazy.”
Bob 2: “Exactly. It’s just crazy enough to work.”
Bob: “Damn, you crazy sunnavabitch, I love it. Where do I send the check?”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Satanicpanic:
You know who else likes having a modern, well-maintained road system? That’s right, the US military. I can only imagine what Dwight Eisenhower would make of all this.
arguingwithsignposts
@barath:
But no house GOP member is going to fund ANY public transportation, because welfare queens and strapping young bucks use trains.
PeakVT
They don’t even want to pay for roads.
Most people in this country don’t want to pay for roads, which is why the gas tax hasn’t been raised in almost two decades.
But the current Republicans are so crazy they don’t even want to spend on roads. That’s truly out there.
WereBear
Are these those Non-Cogitive Elites I keep hearing about?
barath
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yeah, until we’re on the declining slope of oil production and they realize that their isolated sunbelt suburbs are going to need some light rail to stay viable. (Unless they all have some strange fantasy to become suburban deer hunters.)
Tonal Crow
It *is* rape to suggest that there is any defect in Ayn Rand’s philosophy, or in the way Republicans are applying it. This is what the sainted prophet Andy Breitbart was getting at when he very courteously and reasonably asked those vile Occupy protesters (all your friends, no doubt) to “Stop raping people”.
/typical wingnut
Chris
@Comrade Dread:
We’ve got threadwin here!
Tonal Crow
@Comrade Dread: That captures the dynamic very well.
Catsy
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: The linguistic irony is indeed rich.
David Koch
— with a black guy in the white house.
/fixed.
Seriously, this isn’t about ideology, it’s about doing everything they can to sabotage the economy before the election.
Violet
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The US Military? You mean those soshulists who drink from the government teat? When they’re home and want the healthcare and retirement benefits they were promised, I mean. When they’re serving as cannon fodder without proper equipment (equipment is expensive!), they’re Heroes.
Hungry Joe
A libertarian once explained to me how it will work. Roads will have sensors that identify every car and the distance it drives. At the end of the month you’re billed by the company (or companies) whose roads you have used. When I asked if they could charge whatever they liked, he said, “Of course,” but assured me that through the magic of the marketplace the price point will inevitably be just right. “No more highway taxes,” he said. “Everybody wins except the government.” The comforting part is that he looked as nutso as he sounded. (Semi-related observation: If a man has a beard but no mustache there’s about a sixty percent chance that he’s a crank of some sort — libertarian, perpetual-motion-machine inventor, etc.)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Violet:
And so ladies and gentlemen, we go to war with the roads and bridges we have, not the roads and bridges we wished we had.
The Other Chuck
@David Koch: @arguingwithsignposts:
A Democrat anyway. Their entire governing philosophy, if they have one at all, is never to cooperate with The Enemy (Democrats) and to sabotage the entire country to undermine said Enemy.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
You know who else used public money to build roads? Bolsheviks. Think about that.
Also, too: Nazis.
Bludger
Free Market Roads! They are awesome. Awesomely bad…
dp
We’re now rehashing arguments from about the 1820s.
These people want the Articles of fucking Confederation.
Martin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: And you know who Ike got the idea for a modern highway system from? Uh huh.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
Ha, we should call them Reprivatans from now on.
arguingwithsignposts
@barath:
Just like they’ll realize the earth’s climate is changing because of human production of chemicals. Oh, wait …
Mike in NC
The Tea Party types who elected these morons are mostly retired and many live in gated communities where the roads are already paid for, so they don’t care about building stinkin’ new roads.
Comrade Dread
@Hungry Joe: Of course, in such a libertarian paradise, the first thing any rational person of means would do is buy a bigger, better army than his rivals, take over, declare himself Grand Poobah and have the libertarians promptly shot.
So, hey, it might not be that bad living under Warlord Bob. At least we’d have nice roads and no more talk of Ayn Rand.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hungry Joe: I think you just changed the sex of that anecdote to hide the fact that you were talking to Megan McArdle.
Thoughtcrime
@Hungry Joe:
You mean like these guys:
http://magdalenaperks.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/amish-men-on-scooters-via-last-fm.jpg
barath
@arguingwithsignposts:
Yeah, I agree – they won’t realize it. So they’ll just be stuck.
Zifnab
@The Other Chuck: And it’ll work, too. People hate their incumbents when nothing gets done. And Republicans have long ago mastered the art of vilifying the “other”.
You can have otherwise smart, rational, productive people know absolutely nothing about politics except “Republicans Good, Democrats Bad”, and live by it to their dying breath. And they aren’t the 27%. These guys make up a big enough contingent that they can win a sizable number of national elections.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
A minor nitpick: almost as important was the miserable experience Ike had when he was a Major in the Army tasked with organizing a convoy to cross the US, a convoy which ended up averaging 5 mph in speed because the roads were so bad. This was in 1919, well before you-know-who was amounting to anything.
Concerned Citizen
@Hungry Joe: I have a mustache but no beard. Is there a corollary?
ruemara
Of course they don’t want to pay for roads. Real, True Conservatives™ levitate because they’re closer to Baby Jebus. Other than that, these people won’t learn a damned thing from this.
Comrade Dread
@Concerned Citizen:
I’ll go with: if a man has a beard but no mustache there’s about a sixty percent chance that he’s a traffic cop, porn star, or hipster being ironic.
Gin & Tonic
All of the European visitors I’ve driven around the US with, without exception, have asked why our roads suck so bad.
Rick Massimo
@barath: Don’t be silly. There will always be another Middle Eastern country to invade – in their lifetimes anyway. After that, who cares? AMERICA!
piratedan
well doesn’t this philosophy dovetail into IGMFY? Why should YOUR kids go to college, want a future, have a dream? As long as there’s beer in the fridge and football on Sunday, there’s a good number of folks that simply don’t give a damn and wish you would simply leave them alone.
bemused
The funniest thing is that the tea party types who don’t want to pay for roads are the same people who write constantly to the local newspapers complaining bitterly about roads. Why can’t those overpaid, lazy state, county, city employees fill those potholes, plow that snow, sand the highways, paint faded lines, light intersections better, signs are in the wrong places, resurfacing is taking too damn long, blah, blah.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
@TenguPhule: Roads lead to serfdom, too, also.
ReflectedSky
I wonder if maybe they figure “no new roads” will help them keep “outsiders” from entering their fair states.
Nah, who am I kidding? That notion requires thinking. Flawed thinking, but still thinking.
Whoever upthread said they want the Articles of Confederation back is dead-on. But like abstinence-only sex ed, the fact that it has been tried and proved a failure will not deter them.
Please can we let them secede?
DonkeyKong
That motherfucker Abe Lincoln HAD to keep the southern states in the Union!!!!
pluege
the richtards have been amazingly stupid in funding the insane asylum to kill their golden goose.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@Comrade Dread: So which was Abe Lincoln?
Hipster porn star?
TuiMel
I found Dahlia Lithwick’s piece today sort of summarizes my despair about these folks…
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2012/03/supreme_court_and_obamacare_why_the_conservatives_are_skeptical_of_the_affordable_care_act_.html
Cargo
I don’t know what to do any more.
we’re all sitting here snarking about this, we can see it happening, have seen it happening for years, it’s obvious that we’re a nation and a culture in steep rapid decline.
are we fucked? what can it take to turn this around? it feels like we’re locked in a car with three sane people and one crazy person but the crazy person is driving, flooring the accelerator and screaming something about “illegals” while the car sails over the cliff.
Fluke bucket
What is really weird is that a great percentage of the IGMFY crowd don’t have two damn nickels to rub together. They don’t have shit but a burning desire to be rich while at the same time pretending to be.
Lurking Canadian
@Ozymandias, King of Ants: Vampire Hunter. I thought everybody knew that.
Trakker
More and more, the idea of enticing, or goading, them to secede dominates my imagination. They hate us so it wouldn’t take much. And they are so damn certain their way will result in the greatest nation the world has ever known. Let them try. Just take your guns and small government ideas and leave!
japa21
The thing is, the transportation bill that passed in the Senate easily would pass in the House. It is just that Boehner wont bring it to the floor because there are enough Republicans against it that he would need Democrats to vote for it (and most would) so it couldn’t be called a Republican bill. What an ass.
Brandon
The sheer ignorance from Republicans regarding the Ex-Im Bank would be funny if the repercussions weren’t so severe to US businesses.
I mean who wouldn’t laugh at someone trying to equate short-term trade finance to businesses which typically have repayment periods under 60 days, with consumer mortgage lending over 30 year tenors. And while their certainly is a private market for trade finance, export credit agencies exist for a reason because they can fill a gap that the private market cannot.
Why is it these people’s ultimate goal to destroy American manufacturing anyway? I could never understand that at all, starting with Reagan. Because all that is going to happen is that manufacturing exports from every other OECD country (who all have export credit agencies by the way), will have a comparative advantage to American firms.
Total dumbassery of the highest order.
japa21
All of this is to be laid at Boehner’s feet. All these things would pass if he brought them up for a vote. And I am pretty confident that he would vote for them as well. But, because he isn’t a leader and allows himself to be lead around by the nose by about 60 totally incompetent people, he is on the verge of going down in history as the person who singlehandedly brought an economic recovery to a dead stop.
S. cerevisiae
@Comrade Dread: All Hail Warlord Bob! Warlord Bob RULES the wastelands!
Logan
I had the same discussion with some teacher friends here in NC who were *shocked* *shocked* to find that the Republican General Assembly here actually voted to make their lived so #$%#^!! miserable that they are looking for ways to retire at 40 and homeschool their own kids.
Apparently no one actually listened to what any of the psychopaths said on the campaign trail, figuring that it was some existential improv skit instead of a serious political campaign. Now we are stuck with them.
Damn… I knew this was the wrong weak to quit huffing glue.
Don K
Seems to me the answer to the lack of votes for a roads bill is simple. The super-rich don’t need roads – they can helicopter anywhere they need to go locally and fly on private jets for anything long-distance. The merely rich don’t count anymore.
And yes it’s true nobody wants to actually pay for roads. Everybody in Michigan bitches about the state of the roads, but can an increase in the gas tax be passed to pay for it?
AA+ Bonds
Wow, BJ is hot for corporatism, who knew
__
I mean the Franco-style stuff, clearly
PanurgeATL
@bemused:
The really funny thing is that this is the sort of thing that feeds their animus toward the federal government.
A lot of this was also fed by the apparent problems of the other industrial democracies in the ’70s–i.e., “if Canada/Britain/France/Sweden/etc. is so great with their social safety nets why are they having these problems”, yadda yadda. In the backs of their minds, the person that really embodies what conservatives hate about “liberalism” may be Pierre Trudeau, who apparently ran a government right next door (that Americans actually paid attention to, no less) whose yearly deficit was bigger as a percentage of his country’s GDP than the U.S’s. Link that to “socialized medicine” and let voters’ imaginations do the rest.
Chris T.
[Nelson] Ha ha! [/Nelson]
MissTee
What is ‘conservative’ about this?