Blogs: The Big Con

I knew it was going to be a good day when the first thing I saw at CPAC was Herman Cain's bus.

I'm going to give Herman the benefit of the doubt that he sat in the front of the bus this time.

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In my previous post, I wrote that I'm likely to hear an old favorite conservative talking point repeated over and over again while I'm at CPAC: Married cures poverty, economic inequality, and just about any other economic complaint you can name — especially for black folks. The 9th circuit court's ruling that California's Proposition 8 — which prohibited same-sex marriage in the state — is unconstitutional guarantees I'll hear a lot about same-sex marriage while I'm at CPAC.

What I won't hear at CPAC, besides any specific plans for job creation, is how declining marriage rates are not to blame for economic decline, but economic decline is really to blame for declining marriage rates. I won't hear that the best way to increase marriage rates is improve Americans' economic prospects by growing the economy and putting people back to work. I probably also won't hear that marriage would actually improve the economic standings of one group of Americans: gay couples.

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"You gotta have a J-O-B, if you wanna be with me."

- Gwen Guthrie, "Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent"

I'm off to cover CPAC tomorrow, where — in light of a federal court ruling California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional — I'm likely to hear a favorite conservative talking point repeated: Marriage cures poverty, unemployment, and another economic problem. Ask any conservative, and they'll tell you as much — even though that particular talking point has no basis in reality.

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Funny how things change. When Herman Cain and Rick Perry imploded in one week last November, Jon Stewart called Mitt Romney "the luckiest motherfudger on Earth." That was before last night's "shellacking," when Rick Santorum trounced Romney in Minnessota, Missouri, and Colorado — three states that Romney won in 2008. Whupped by the same guy who snatched away his Iowa caucus victory, it safe to say Romney is no longer "the luckiest motherfudger on Earth." That title may pass to another 2012 presidential candidate.

To his credit, Romney isn't taking this latest humiliation lying down. He's hitting Santorum with the "Washington Insider" label — and it's likely to stick.

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Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games. more »

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I wrote earlier that Newt Gingrich's campaign is one of mutually assured destruction for the GOP. No one, I wrote, has to lift a finger to destroy Newt Gingrich. Just stand back, give him room, and he'll do it himself. The thing is, you want to stand way, way back — otherwise Newt's liable to try and take you with him. The problem for the GOP is that they can't put enough daylight between themselves and Newt. And even if they manage to do that, they're still stuck with Mitt.

The latest self-destruction of Newt Gingrich will be televised. If he's able to carry on after losing the Nevada Primary to Mitt Romney, and make good on his promise to campaign all the way to the convention in Tampa, we can look forward to more performances like his post-Iowa temper tantrum, his post-Florida flame-out, and his bizarre concession-speech-cum-press-conference after Nevada.

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Originally posted at Capital Gains and Games.

This should eliminate all doubts about how little some members of Congress understand about federal finances.

As Dana Milbank explains in his column from today's The Washington Post, eight House Republican freshman made a grandstanding play this week to get public attention and credit for something that makes no financial sense whatsoever.

First, the eight representatives didn't spend all of the amount they got in 2011 from the House of Representatives to pay for staff and other expenses in their Washington and district offices. They correctly claimed that they saved taxpayers money by doing so.

But second, the representatives then said that they wanted to return the unspent money to the Treasury and designate that the funds be used to reduce the national deb. They clearly felt that they should get big props for doing this.

This is wrong on so many levels that it's hard to know where to start.

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MItt Romney is taking a lot of heat for saying that he's "not concerned about the very poor." To be fair, he also said he's not concerned about the very rich either. Lucky for him the feeling isn't mutual that that side of the economic divide. According to recent FEC filings, the very rich are very concerned with Mitt Romney's campaign for his party's presidential nomination. And why shouldn't they be concerned? After all, some of them are Mitt's friends and former colleagues.

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The following was originally published at RobertReich.org

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.” more »

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Today, the nation is abuzz over Mitt Romney bluntly cold comment: "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there."

This is not a slip of the tongue. This is what he believes. We know, because he said it before.

In October, I reported here that Romney made this exact same argument while stumping in Iowa: "In our country, the people who need the help most are not the poor, who have a safety net, not the rich, who are doing just fine, but the middle class."

Why would Romney repeatedly make this claim? Here's my analysis from October:

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