Erick Erickson's Blog, page 124

About Charleston and Rick Perry

According to news reports, Rick Perry is announcing he'll be running for President at the RedState Gathering.

I know nothing. My information comes from these same news reports.

The RedState Gathering is the same day as the straw poll in Ames, IA.

If the Governor announces or, as Reuters suggests, "strongly hints" well then that's just cool and fine with me.

See, I told you people you should have registered for the Gathering. It is my understanding that his speech will be carried live by several networks. He will speak at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 13th.

In other words, last week House Republican Leaders were pushing a story that neither I nor this site have any credibility or influence and now . . .

In All Seriousness, What If Barack Obama Is Right?

Seriously. All you people on left and right, suspend your disbelief for one minute. Seriously.

What if Barack Obama was right and S&P just got it wrong.

Here's what I'm hearing and it gives credence to this theory.

S&P, I'm told, began telling some of its clients about the downgrade on Friday morning. That's why the market was so screwed up on Friday.

By Friday afternoon, the Treasury Department told S&P it had made a $2 trillion math mistake.

But S&P had already told its clients about the downgrade. So it couldn't walk it back now without a major loss of confidence in its credibility. Could you imagine that conversation? "Hey . . . um . . . Joe. Yeah, Charlie here from S&P. So . . .um . . . we made a $2 trillion math mistake in our downgrade analysis. . . . What's that? You just lost $500 million in the market because of it? Oh . . . um . . . sorry Joe. Better luck next time."

So it had to come up with a different reason.

It's reason? Acrimony in Washington — in other words, nothing to do with the U.S.A.'s ability to pay its debts or financial issues, just typical Washington politics. And it couched its statement in such a way that the tea party movement could say, "see, see, we told you Washington needed more cuts," and the left could say, "see, see, we told you we needed tax increases."

Acrimony in Washington is nothing new. Despite a lot of rhetoric about compromise this past week, it is a feature, not a bug, of the American system of government. And major debt and growing deficits are nothing new. And they are bipartisan, pre-existing, long term, and long existing problems.

In other words, nothing new.

But S&P did the downgrade. And by any objective measure, it would need to downgrade France for the very same reasons it gave, but it has not done so yet — though that may change.

So maybe the White House is right and S&P figured it needed to save face, do the downgrade, and come up with a loosey-goosey reason that both sides could seize on to fight it out while ignoring that S&P just made a major mistake and the country took it on the chin because of that mistake.

Now, to put my partisan hat back on — if the White House is right and this is what happened, why the hell is David Axelrod out blaming the Tea Party Movement, a movement that at best has the support of a few dozen members of the United States House of Representatives and has only seen those members in office for six months?

That's as irresponsible as S&P, and it also does not compute if S&P is the one that screwed up.

* By the way, to lend further credence to the idea that maybe the White House economic team is right and S&P screwed up, where did investor cash flee to during the market collapse of Friday and now, it seems, again today? Why U.S. Treasuries of course.

The GOP Should Be Mindful Of August And Take Back Up Holding the Line

A funny thing happens each August in Washington. The politicians leave and the press gets bored. It is the August silly season where stories start that sometimes snowball.

Monica Lewinsky started around August. The Chandra Levy story started in August. The "does Bush vacation too much" story started around August. The Cindy Sheehan stories started around August/ When the House GOP parked itself on the floor of the House with the lights out, that too was August.

These stories take on a life of their own with a bored press covering no news. So we can expect that the debt ceiling story and the credit rating will take on a life of its own. And we can already see online and in the press that the White House spin will be to blame the GOP and Tea Party.

The White House no longer has a commander in chief in charge, but a professional victim. Last week, it was the Arab Spring, those damn Europeans, Mother Nature, etc. Now it is all about those evil tea partiers.

For three years, Barack Obama has blamed George W. Bush for all his ills. Yes, it is true, Barack Obama inherited an economy sliding backward. But it is also true Barack Obama inherited a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush. Obama's policies have exacerbated a bad economy and caused us to lose our credit rating.

But still, expect a full court press to blame the GOP and Tea Party.

So I have some quick advice for the GOP.

Back when S&P said it was considering a down grade, it set out two criteria to avoid losing the downgrade: (1) at least $4 trillion in cuts and (2) bipartisan support. Only the tea party movement came up with such a plan — Cut, Cap, and Balance.

It received bipartisan support in the House, came within five votes of a majority in the Senate, and not only cut $4 trillion, but put caps on future government spending and balanced the federal budget. No other plan, including the public grand bargain and Barack Obama's own super-double-top-secret plan that no one has ever seen did that.

Were I in Republican Leadership in Washington, I would haul my butt back to D.C. right now and start fighting again for Cut, Cap, and Balance. 66% of Americans support the plan. It is the only plan that would have avoided a credit decline.

Go back and pick up the fight on the front lines for freedom. And if they just can't, they they better point out to the new Super Committee that it was, in fact, possible to cut $4 trillion without enacting job killing tax increases and encourage them to send back as its package Cut, Cap, and Balance.

Our Snake-bit President

You know, Barack Obama not only inherited a receding economy from George W. Bush, but he inherited a triple A credit rating too. Maybe we should call him Lemony Snicket, given the series of unfortunate events that have taken place on his watch.

There was the BP Oil spill and a terribly bungled Presidential response complete with a disastrous White House address. The Gulf Coast is still reeling from the loss of jobs the President's policies then caused.

There was and is the botched debacle in Libya where we may or may not be involved while we ignore the same thing happening in Syria. We are, after all, "leading from behind."

Then there was, going all the way back to the beginning, his bungled diplomatic support for the communist sympathizers in Honduras against that nation's own constitutional, democratic processes.Along the way, federal spending has gone up 76% from the time we got our last tax cuts, tax revenue has gone down due to economic conditions (not the Bush tax cuts), the number of people who have given up on searching for unemployment is the most it has been since 1983 and the number of people on food stamps is more than ever.

In fact, during this President's tenure, we've reached benchmarks not seen since the Great Depression in terms of negative economic news. His is a food stamp Presidency.

Now the stock market has gone down due a series of unfortunate events in a daily succession not seen since Jimmy Carter. But that's all because of the Arab Spring, mother nature, George W. Bush, and those damned Europeans. Please ignore all this about it being his economy.

"Give it to me," he said of the economy. We did and on Friday we lost our credit rating.

On Saturday, Seal Team Six got blown out of the sky in Afghanistan.

At least Katrina happened under someone else's watch.

And hey!, there'll always be Bin Laden, and we can presume the President knows it as he is helping Hollywood roll out a movie about it right before the election to help his poll numbers.

At some point we might want to consider that this President's Presidency is snake bit.

Through it all, the man has refused any responsibility and, if anything, behaved more like a professional victim than a leader. His Presidency's motto is not "the buck stops here," but "it's all George Bush's fault".

Of course, George W. Bush, even with a Congress controlled by Democrats, did not lose us our AAA credit rating and somehow was able to make progress without throwing up his hands and blaming gridlock. Maybe the Presidency is just too much for Barack Obama.

Morning Briefing for August 8, 2011

RedState Morning Briefing

For August 8, 2011

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

1. Our Snake-bit President

2. Only the Tea Party Had a $4 Trillion Plan

3. The GOP Should Be Mindful Of August And Take Back Up Holding the Line

4. Left Rushs to Blame the GOP for S&P Downgrade

5. Your Exciting Facts of the Day

6. Ron Johnson's Blue-Slipping of Joe Biden's Victoria Nourse.

7. RS Gathering: Book Now!

———————————————————————-

1. Our Snake-bit President

You know, Barack Obama not only inherited a receding economy from George W. Bush, but he inherited a triple A credit rating too. Maybe we should call him Lemony Snicket, given the series of unfortunate events that have taken place on his watch.

There was the BP Oil spill and a terribly bungled Presidential response complete with a disastrous White House address. The Gulf Coast is still reeling from the loss of jobs the President's policies then caused.

There was and is the botched debacle in Libya where we may or may not be involved while we ignore the same thing happening in Syria. We are, after all, "leading from behind."

Then there was, going all the way back to the beginning, his bungled diplomatic support for the communist sympathizers in Honduras against that nation's own constitutional, democratic processes.

Along the way, federal spending has gone up 76% from the time we got our last tax cuts, tax revenue has gone down due to economic conditions (not the Bush tax cuts), the number of people who have given up on searching for unemployment is the most it has been since 1983 and the number of people on food stamps is more than ever.

In fact, during this President's tenure, we've reached benchmarks not seen since the Great Depression in terms of negative economic news. His is a food stamp Presidency.

Now the stock market has gone down due a series of unfortunate events in a daily succession not seen since Jimmy Carter. But according to our President, that's all because of the Arab Spring, mother nature, George Bush, and those damned Europeans. Please ignore all this about it being his economy.

"Give it to me," he said of the economy. We did and on Friday we lost our credit rating.

On Saturday, Seal Team Six got blown out of the sky in Afghanistan.

At least Katrina happened under someone else's watch.

And hey!, there'll always be Bin Laden, and we can presume the President knows it as he is helping Hollywood roll out a movie about it right before the election to help his poll numbers.

At some point we might want to consider that this President's Presidency is snake bit.

Through it all, the man has refused any responsibility and, if anything, behaved more like a professional victim than a leader. His Presidency's motto is not "the buck stops here," but "it's all George Bush's fault".

Of course, George W. Bush, even with a Congress controlled by Democrats, did not lose us our AAA credit rating and somehow was able to make progress without throwing up his hands and blaming gridlock. Maybe the Presidency is just too much for Barack Obama.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Only the Tea Party Had a $4 Trillion Plan

"S&P's [John] Chambers is saying the ratings agency wants to see at least a $4 trillion deal, one that would come with bipartisan support, too, because the ratings agency fears without that support, Congress will upend any debt-cutting plan."

There was only ever one plan that did what S&P said was required — $4 trillion in cuts with bipartisan support. That'd be Cut, Cap, and Balance — a plan that cut $4 trillion and got bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

As Democrats tonight, and some Republicans, lash out and blame the Tea Party for causing the United States to lose its credit rating, it is worth pointing out that only the Tea Party offered up a plan to avoid what happened.

This is precisely why the GOP should have held the line.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. The GOP Should Be Mindful Of August And Take Back Up Holding the Line

A funny thing happens each August in Washington. The politicians leave and the press gets bored. It is the August silly season where stories start that sometimes snowball.

Monica Lewinsky started around August. The Chandra Levy story started in August. The "does Bush vacation too much" story started around August. The Cindy Sheehan stories started around August/ When the House GOP parked itself on the floor of the House with the lights out, that too was August.

These stories take on a life of their own with a bored press covering no news. So we can expect that the debt ceiling story and the credit rating will take on a life of its own. And we can already see online and in the press that the White House spin will be to blame the GOP and Tea Party.

The White House no longer has a commander in chief in charge, but a professional victim. Last week, it was the Arab Spring, those damn Europeans, Mother Nature, etc. Now it is all about those evil tea partiers.

For three years, Barack Obama has blamed George W. Bush for all his ills. Yes, it is true, Barack Obama inherited an economy sliding backward. But it is also true Barack Obama inherited a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush. Obama's policies have exacerbated a bad economy and caused us to lose our credit rating.

But still, expect a full court press to blame the GOP and Tea Party.

So I have some quick advice for the GOP.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Left Rushs to Blame the GOP for S&P Downgrade

The S&P has downgraded American credit from AAA to AA+, the first time in history. The left is scrambling to blame the GOP for this and is fixated on one paragraph.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Your Exciting Facts of the Day

With more and more media speculation that Rick Perry is getting in, I'm getting questions from reporters about a projected budget deficit in Texas and several of the reporters make clear that the Democrats are the ones pushing this.

Let's be clear about a few things:

1. Rick Perry has never signed into law a budget that did not balance while Barack Obama's own budget was rejected 97 to 0 by the United States Senate and never balanced. In fact, for the first time in at least 50 years, this year Rick Perry signed into law a budget that was actually less than the prior year's budget — a real cut to government, not just a cut to growth rates.

and my new personal favorite:

2. Rick Perry and Barack Obama both inherited credit ratings from George W. Bush. Perry raised his inherited credit rating to AA+ from AA and Barack Obama lowered his inherited credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. Ron Johnson's Blue-Slipping of Joe Biden's Victoria Nourse.

Let me tell you a tale of the incompetence of Vice President Joe Biden. Trust me, this one is even better than usual.

Once upon a time, back in the days when Joe Biden was a bad Senator instead of a bad Vice President, he had a staffer named Victoria Nourse. Ms. Nourse's major claim to fame was 'helping' to write the (later deemed partially-unconstitutional) Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that was one of Senator Biden's signature pieces of legislation; 'helped' is in square quotes because originally Biden took full credit for the law – like Biden typically does – until he got caught at it in 2007. This was, of course, perhaps a little awkward… but then events transpired in 2008 that Senator Biden became Vice President Biden, which meant that Ms. Nourse could be given a nice consolation prize of a federal judgeship.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

7. RS Gathering: Book Now!

If you have not booked your room for the RedState Gathering, do it now. We are running out of rooms fast and in a few days there will be none left at the venue hotels.

The Third Annual RedState Gathering is coming up very soon – and we'd like to invite you to attend.

With the race for the GOP presidential nomination shifting into high gear, this much-anticipated annual gathering promises to be the best one yet.

It will be held on August 12-14 at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina — and will feature as its keynote speaker South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, along with Governor Rick Perry, Senator Jim DeMint, and many more. You can find the full agenda here.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

Your Exciting Facts of the Day

With more and more media speculation that Rick Perry is getting in, I'm getting questions from reporters about a projected budget deficit in Texas and several of the reporters make clear that the Democrats are the ones pushing this.

Let's be clear about a few things:

1. Rick Perry has never signed into law a budget that did not balance while Barack Obama's own budget was rejected 97 to 0 by the United States Senate and never balanced. In fact, for the first time in at least 50 years, this year Rick Perry signed into law a budget that was actually less than the prior year's budget — a real cut to government, not just a cut to growth rates.

and my new personal favorite:

2. Rick Perry and Barack Obama both inherited credit ratings from George W. Bush. Perry raised his inherited credit rating to AA+ from AA and Barack Obama lowered his inherited credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Yes, Democrats, I think from now on it is worth Republicans pointing out frequently that while Barack Obama may have inherited a bad economy from George W. Bush, he also inherited a AAA rated credit rating. And yes, George Bush, like Barack Obama, had two years with Democrats controlling Congress and still managed to not lose our AAA credit rating. Barack Obama failed to do the same with the GOP only controlling one house of Congress.

Our Snake-bit President

Maybe we should call him Lemony Snicket, given the series of unfortunate events that have taken place on his watch.

There was the BP Oil spill and a terribly bungled Presidential response complete with a disastrous White House address. The Gulf Coast is still reeling from the loss of jobs the President's policies then caused.

There was and is the botched debacle in Libya where we may or may not be involved while we ignore the same thing happening in Syria. We are, after all, "leading from behind."

Then there was, going all the way back to the beginning, his bungled diplomatic support for the communist sympathizers in Honduras against that nation's own constitutional, democratic processes.

Along the way, federal spending has gone up 76% from the time we got our last tax cuts, tax revenue has gone down due to economic conditions, the number of people who have given up on searching for unemployment is the most it has been since 1983 and the number of people on food stamps is more than ever.

In fact, during this President's tenure, we've reached benchmarks not seen since the Great Depression in terms of negative economic news.

Now the stock market has gone down due a series of unfortunate events in a daily succession not seen since Jimmy Carter. But that's all because of the Arab Spring, mother nature, and those damned Europeans. Please ignore all this about it being his economy.

"Give it to me," he said of the economy. We did and on Friday we lost our credit rating.

On Saturday, Seal Team Six got blown out of the sky in Afghanistan.

At least Katrina happened under someone else's watch.

And hey!, there'll always be Bin Laden, and we can presume the President knows it as he is helping Hollywood roll out a movie about it right before the election to help his poll numbers.

At some point we might want to consider that this President's Presidency is snake bit.

Only the Tea Party Had a $4 Trillion Plan

Read this:

Here was the question to S&P exec John Chambers, and his reply:

Q: "There's been a figure of $4 trillion dollars circulating as an example of the scope of  fiscal consolidation measures that could work to stabilize the U.S. debt-gdp ratios. Could you explain how that figure was arrived at since it was mentioned in S&P's reports and where it figures in S&P analysis?"

A: "First of all, that figure comes initially from the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission, and it was embraced by President Obama  in his April 13 speech and Paul Ryan in his counter-budget proposal. And so you had policy makers converging around the amount. Now actually the $4 trillion, depending on whether it is front-loaded or back-loaded, is not going to do the trick in terms of stabilizing U.S. government debt-to GDP ratios. But it takes you pretty far along. And I think a grand bargain of that nature would signal, you know, the seriousness of policy makers to address the fiscal issues of the United States, to actually stabilize the debt-to-GDP. The IMF says it takes  7.5% of GDP consolidation. I think we have more than that."

The U.S. annual budget deficit is now around 9% of GDP. 

Chambers adds: "But $4 trillion would be a good down payment. We thought that..if policy makers could deliver the goods on that, then that would be a strong sign on our political scores and eventually on our projections on the fiscal side." 

S&P has already said it may slash the Triple-A rating if a debt ceiling deal is not accompanied by what it deems is a credible plan to cut the $14.3 trillion federal [debt] by $4 trillion. The plan has "to have bipartisan support," Chambers said. "If you have a plan that is only backed by one side or the other, even if you got it through, you would be faced with the prospect of it being unwound."

So, S&P's Chambers is saying the ratings agency wants to see at least a $4 trillion deal, one that would come with bipartisan support, too, because the ratings agency fears without that support, Congress will upend any debt-cutting plan.

There was only ever one plan that did what S&P said was required — $4 trillion in cuts with bipartisan support. That'd be Cut, Cap, and Balance — a plan that cut $4 trillion and got bipartisan support in the House of Representatives.

As Democrats tonight, and some Republicans, lash out and blame the Tea Party for causing the United States to lose its credit rating, it is worth pointing out that only the Tea Party offered up a plan to avoid what happened.

This is precisely why the GOP should have held the line.

Left Rushs to Blame the GOP for S&P Downgrade

The S&P has downgraded American credit from AAA to AA+, the first time in history. The left is scrambling to blame the GOP for this and is fixated on one paragraph

Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act. Key macroeconomic assumptions in the base case scenario include trend real GDP growth of 3% and consumer price inflation near 2% annually over the decade.

The issue here, however, is that while present law presumed the GOP tax cuts would go away, the policy presumption is that they would get extended. Likewise, this is not blaming the GOP. This is a statement of reality that the GOP wasn't going to raise taxes.

Consequently, because the GOP refused to raise taxes, the alternative needed to be more cuts.

And S&P clearly believes that the cuts the debt deal made were not enough. And who opposed big cuts? Why yes, a guy named Barack Obama and the Democrats.

We view the act's measures as a step toward fiscal consolidation. However, this is within the framework of a legislative mechanism that leaves open the details of what is finally agreed to until the end of 2011, and Congress and the Administration could modify any agreement in the future. Even assuming that at least $2.1 trillion of the spending reductions the act envisages are implemented, we maintain our view that the U.S. net general government debt burden (all levels of government combined, excluding liquid financial assets) will likely continue to grow.

The Democrats can spin this as blaming the GOP all they want since they clearly got outplayed and still saw a downgrade, but the S&P downgrade has nothing to do with any specific policy. In fact, S&P says

Standard & Poor's takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.'s finances on a sustainable footing.

The whole focus is on the debt burden. And if taxes are not going to go up, as is reality, spending must go down.

The left, spinning otherwise, is simply trying to escape blame.

Is Jon Huntsman Loyal to Anyone?

I had a brief chuckle yesterday when someone sent word that the biggest loser on the NYSE yesterday was Huntsman's company. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

But today comes to bits of information that should give people pause to think about just who Jon Huntsman is. I realize a lot of people don't get my outrage that a man who serve as the President's ambassador and, at the same time, plot against the President. I place a high value on loyalty.

But some responses were, "Meh . . . it's Obama."

Well, consider this by Peter Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com who was Huntsman's largest contributor in 2004. Huntsman won Byrne's support on school choice. Then, in office promptly threw the school choice movement under the bus to avoid controversy.

Likewise, having gotten lots of positive press about Utah cracking down on "naked short selling", Huntsman folded like a cheap suit the moment Wall Street came calling.

Huntsman seemingly has no great loyalty or convictions to anyone or anything other than his own naked ambition. Which may be explained by this piece from NBC-LA,which points out Huntsman's formative years were in California and he is the prototypical California Republican.

Given the track record of the California GOP in recent years, we may be able to add Huntsman to the "former" candidate list sooner rather than later.