Emma Roller — Does the state have a place in nature?

Burning Man relies on a "giving economy" where attendees are encouraged to give goods and services free of charge—a system that Harvey has called "old-fashioned capitalism." And this is hardly the first instance of capitalists like Norquist being drawn to Burning Man. In recent years, Silicon Valley's elite, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, have flocked to the event.

Norquist says the festival is a good example of the theory of spontaneous order. The theory, which was promoted by Austrian economists like Friedrich Hayek, holds that a natural structure will emerge out of a seemingly chaotic environment without need for outside intervention.

"There's no government that organizes this," Norquist said. "That's what happens when nobody tells you what to do. You just figure it out. So Burning Man is a refutation of the argument that the state has a place in nature."

"This is a fun, exciting, cheerful collection of people being free of state control and doing stuff they want to do," he continued. "If somebody wants to sit in a corner and read Hayek, I think that that's allowed. If people want to run around with not as much clothes as they normally do, I think that's allowed as well."

Once he gets to Black Rock, he doesn't have an objective. "I'm going to chat with people who have done it before and who are there, and go with the flow," he said.

Grover Norquist flouts his anarchism.

National Journal
Does the state have a place in nature?
Emma Roller

All the spin is wrong: The GOP shutdown was about more than tactics

The GOP's desperate to spin their shutdown in order to camouflage very real divisions. They do have one way out

Salon
All the spin is wrong: The GOP shutdown was about more than tactics

Brian Beutler

I would put it somewhat differently. The GOP's aim is to preserve Norquistism and get the Democrates to agree to cut Social Security. First, Norquistism is an iron clad rule since Poppy Bush broke his "Read my lips. No new taxes pledge." 

Secondly, the primary aim of the GOP is to end the welfare state created by New Deal, which means ultimately privatizing Social Security. They know that Social Security is very popular, especially with their older base. They cannot cut Social Security or Medicare alone, and they need Democratic leadership to do it.

Many Democrats realize that this is a trap and than if they agree to cut Social Security, especially if they propose the cuts as part of a Grand Bargain, then they will be beat over the head with it in coming elections.

The problem is that the Democratic Establishment is also aligned with the forces lobbying for entitlement cuts, that is, the wealthy donor who see the welfare state as increasing their taxes.

In addition, first Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama regards it as a matter of establishing presidential legacy as a Very Serious Person who dared to confront difficult political problems.

This may look like a Republican problem but it is a much more serious Democratic problem that could refashion the party in the future away from the Democratic Establishment. Which would be a good thing, but not at the expense of cutting Social Security and Medicare and "fixing the debt." 

The economic fallout would be horrendous if the government contribution is pared substantially. The GOP Establishment knows that and would try to increase military spending to offset the cuts in social programs, were this to happen.

Grover Norquist— Ted Cruz’s strategy failed Republicans, but GOP still has leverage in the sequester

Grover Norquist throws Ted Cruz under the bus and proposes Plan B to save the GOP. when Grover throws in the towel, you know things are going down the tubes for the GOP.

The Raw Story
Ted Cruz’s strategy failed Republicans, but GOP still has leverage in the sequester
Grover Norquist, The Guardian

Howard Fineman — Behold The New GOP, Defender Of Social Programs

Witness the new Republican Party, champion of feeding programs for the poor and federally funded medical research.

Conservatives are cheering the House Republicans’ new strategy of passing “mini” bills to reopen popular programs, while White House officials and their allies dismiss the tactic as a doomed GOP effort to escape blame for the ongoing government shutdown.

The GOP’s aim is to get House Democrats on record in votes “opposing” the restoration of spending for federal initiatives such as national parks, cancer research, veterans and National Guard programs,.... 

The mini-bill strategy is also not one the GOP employed the last time there was a major shutdown, in the winter of 1995-96, involving a Democratic president (Bill Clinton) and a Republican speaker (Newt Gingrich). But then again, social media didn't exist in the winter of 1995-96....

“This is just what Republicans need to be doing now,” said Grover Norquist, a key conservative strategist and head of Americans for Tax Reform. “You want to pile up these votes and put Democrats on record as opposing both the specific programs and the idea of compromise."

“The Democrats will have to defend those votes next year,” he added. “You can make a lot of effective advertising spots out of that stuff.”

The Huffington Post
Behold The New GOP, Defender Of Social Programs
Howard Fineman

GOP govs could “turn their states into Texas or Hong Kong” - so RESIDENTS could be the illegal immigrants!

Commentary by Roger Erickson

Words fail me. What'd Lily Tomlin and PT Barnum say? Bill Black is right. You just can't compete with the breathtaking advances in self-parody.

Grover Norquist proclaimed that with SPN’s support, Republican governors might “turn their states into Texas or Hong Kong”—laboratories of the free market. “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” he added.

What static asset is lining YOUR audience?

ps: maybe we should display the REAL Balanced Budget in an MMT display? :)  Or maybe the Cardoof Giant Lie?

ps: ps: Or, recruit the "100 year old nurse to Grover Norquisling?"

Wonkblog — Wonk of the year: Grover Norquist

The Washington Post | Wonkblog
Wonk of the year: Grover Norquist
Ezra Klein and team

The ironic thing this that Grover Norquist is right — taxes are higher than they need to be, as evidenced by the long unemployment lines.

But he is correct for the wrong reason.

The debate is framed as if taxes were needed to fund government. Which is not the case for a currency sovereign like the US.

The dual purpose of taxation is 1) to withdraw down consolidated nongovernment aggregate net financial assets in order to control inflation at full employment, when effective demand threatens to exceed the capacity of the economy to meet it, and 2) to discourage socially undesirable behaviors.

The issue then become deciding the size of the government relative to the economy based on public purpose. This is a political decision based on balancing personal responsibility and social welfare.

The issue is providing the appropriate amount of funding to generate effective demand resulting in optimal use of national resources, taking externalities into account.

"Starve the Beast"

Since the 1970s, the Republican Party has fallen increasingly under the influence of radical ideologues, whose goal is nothing less than the elimination of the welfare state — that is, the whole legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. From the beginning, however, these ideologues have had a big problem: The programs they want to kill are very popular. Americans may nod their heads when you attack big government in the abstract, but they strongly support Social Security, Medicare, and even Medicaid. So what’s a radical to do?

The answer, for a long time, has involved two strategies. One is “starve the beast,” the idea of using tax cuts to reduce government revenue, then using the resulting lack of funds to force cuts in popular social programs. Whenever you see some Republican politician piously denouncing federal red ink, always remember that, for decades, the G.O.P. has seen budget deficits as a feature, not a bug.

The New York Times | Opinion
The G.O.P.’s Existential Crisis
Paul Krugman | Professor of Economics, Princeton University

David Stockman admitted this back in 1985, as reported by Tom Wicker in "Stockman leaks 'real' reasons for budget deficit."

...it now appears that the deficit was created by Reagan to do away with Democratic social programs dating back to the New Deal.

Who says so? David Stockman, the departing budget director, at second hand, and Friedrich von Hayek directly....

(h/t JK via email)

Lorraine Devon Wilke — Buddhist Scholar Robert Thurman Says Norquist Pledge Is Treason, Video Goes Viral

...Professor Thurman thinks the Grover Norquist pledge is a “seditious oath, a treasonous oath,” and he wants to “start a meme” that stirs up the people of this country to give serious thought to what that means....

Thurman’s main thesis is that a person cannot hold allegiance to two masters, particularly conflicting masters, and properly serve either. He makes the point by, first, reiterating the oath of office that all Senators and Congressman and women take:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

A noble, historical oath; one that comes, surely, with the expectation of loyalty and a willingness to do what comes with the job. Instead, Thurman points out:

“95% of the congressmen and Republican senators have sworn a written oath to someone called Grover Norquist and an organization called American For Tax Reform; that they will under no circumstances, and for no reason, raise taxes of any kind on anyone. And therefore they have taken an oath to an outside organization which is not supported by the U.S. Constitution – which gives Congress the right to levy taxes, to do the work of the people through the government –but this is a non governmental organization, not elected by anybody and supported by big money people who are making money by not having to pay taxes.

“And these people have signed a sworn oath that contradicts their oath of office. And therefore, in fact, they do have mental reservations, and they do have purpose of evasion and they are not sincerely taking their oath of office. And if they persist in that, and if they are held to that by this outside person who is not a member of the government, then they are, in fact, breaking their oath of office and they are not serving what they swore to serve the American people.”

Most would find this a compelling enough argument against the Pledge, but also consider the mission statement of Americans for Tax Reform, who, like many conservatives, see their mission as “starving the beast,” in reference to the government.

Norquist himself has stated:

“I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Thurman takes issue with that verbiage, the implication of destroying the government. He suggests that people expressing fealty to Norquist are, in essence, agreeing to a kind of “anarchist” proposition; agreeing, by virtue of loyalty to Norquist, that the government is essentially useless and should be starved, destroyed. And that, he believes, is where the line is crossed:

"It’s actually a kind of seditious oath, a treasonous oath. People who take that oath cannot actually serve in the government with good conscience, because their real role is to act as a mole to destroy the government; they are 'starving the beast.'"

Addicting Info
Buddhist Scholar Says Norquist Pledge Is Treason, Goes Viral (VIDEO)
Lorraine Devon Wilke
(h/t Naked Capitalism)

Steve Benen — Eric Cantor on tax hikes on those who don't make enough to pay federal income tax

Remember, millions of Americans may be exempt from income taxes, but they still pay sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and in many instances, property taxes. It's not as if these folks are getting away with something -- the existing tax structure leaves them out of the income tax system because they don't make enough money to qualify. Indeed, many are retirees who can't earn an income because they're no longer in the workforce 

But for Cantor, this isn't "fair" -- if wealthier people are paying federal income taxes, then everyone should pay federal income taxes.

Read it at MaddowBlog (with video)
Cantor considers tax hikes on the poor
by Steve Benen

I thought that all these guys had signed a "no new taxes" pledge to Grover Norquist. Silly me, I didn't realize that there were exceptions made for the poor.

The silver lining in the dark cloud: Cantor is talking here about "fairness." Progressives are more that willing to have a discussion on that basis.

Twisted minds.