It's Finger-Pointing Season. Again.

The decision by Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the US government’s credit rating from AAA to AA+ has, unsurprisingly, led to a veritable feeding frenzy of finger-pointing, blame-assigning, and outright silliness.

This is serious business—the government’s credit-worthiness wasn’t thus questioned even during the Great Depression—but the prognostications of doom and gloom are no doubt exaggerated. For example, Edmund L. Andrews of the National Journal, hardly a bastion of liberalism, argues that:

Credit ratings, though hugely important, are only one of many factors affecting the cost of borrowing. The more important factors are broad forces of supply and demand for Treasuries, and the outlook for inflation and growth. That’s why Japan has been downgraded three different times in the past decade (it’s currently AA-) yet its long-term rates are lower than those on U.S. Treasuries.

And let’s face it, it’s pragmatic concerns like the cost of borrowing, not the symbolism of an official rating, that really matters. Moreover, as Andrews also notes

It’s also true that S&P is hardly some kind of Delphic Oracle. It and the other rating agencies were almost criminally negligent about the risks of subprime mortgages during the housing bubble. And it’s not as if S&P told investors anything about U.S. fiscal problems on Friday that they didn’t already know.

In announcing their move, S&P proclaimed “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.” Moreover, the rationale also criticizes the recent debt-ceiling agreement for “[envisioning] only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.”

That said, the analysis by Judd Legum at ThinkProgress seems fairly accurate: “In explaining their decision Standard & Poor’s cites both the decision by Republicans in Congress to turn the debt ceiling into a political football and the [Republicans’] intransigence on tax increases.” He cites a series of quotations from S&P’s explanatory document to bolster his point:

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.

[...]It appears that for now, new revenues have dropped down on the menu of policy options.

[...]The act contains no measures to raise taxes or otherwise enhance revenues, though the committee could recommend them.

[...]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.

Most notably, Legum points to the “revised upside scenario,” which

incorporates $950 billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating. In this scenario, we project that the net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 77% in 2015 and to 78% by 2021 [vs. 79% in 2015 and 85% in 2021, as predicted if the Bush tax cuts are not allowed to expire].

Andrews concurs:

The big new element on Friday was an official outside recognition that U.S. creditworthiness is being undermined by a new factor: political insanity. S&P didn’t base its downgrade on a change in the U.S. fiscal and economic outlook. It based it on the political game of chicken over the debt ceiling, a game that Republicans initiated and pushed to the limit, and on a growing gloom about the partisan deadlock. Part of S&P’s gloom, moreover, stemmed explicitly from what a new assessment of the GOP’s ability to block any and all tax increases.

In other words, the GOP’s willingness to play political games with something as serious as extending the debt ceiling—up to and including allowing the Donald Trumps, Pat Toomeys, and Michele Bachmanns to say remarkably stupid things without repudiation—is the real cause of the downgrade. Congressional Republicans’ puerile and petulant insistence on no new sources of revenue introduced a new element into the mix: the idea that government might be unable to meet its obligations because it chooses not to. No one serious believes the budget can be stabilized, much less balanced, without revenue enhancement: call it a tax increase, call it eliminating loopholes, call it asparagus for all I care, but more money needs to be brought into government coffers, and it needs to come mostly (not exclusively) from the people who have benefited most from tax breaks, subsidies, and loopholes: the rich.

When even S&P recognizes that, when 4000 millionaires pay no federal income tax at all, when the Balanced Budget Amendment that Rand Paul and his libertarian goon-squad wanted as a pre-condition to raising the debt ceiling is described by even Bill Kristol as “a pointless and embarrassing gimmick,” when Congress sets new records for disapproval, the GOP has a problem. The rank and file understands it. It’s the politicians themselves who can’t bring themselves to acknowledge reality.

They babble about how “the American people demand…” whatever they choose to ascribe to John Q. Public. Witness John Boehner’s proclamation that “Republicans have listened to the voices of the American people and worked to bring the spending binge to a halt.” All of which would be convincing indeed if that is in fact what the American public wanted (even if they were wrong). Except, of course, for that whole “not being true” thing that seems to haunt the GOP leadership.

Nate Silver’s analysis a couple of weeks ago is trenchant: even GOP voters favored a roughly 3:1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue enhancement as their ideal debt ceiling deal. Independents were at about 2:1, Democrats essentially 1:1. There was, as Silver points out, “a larger ideological gap between House Republicans and Republican voters than there is between Republican voters and Democratic ones” [emphasis his]. President Obama offered a mix of 83% cuts and 17% revenue—a position well to the right not only of the American people, but of Republican voters, and the GOP rejected it out of hand. Sooner or later, the public is going to recognize the adolescent posturing for what it is, especially since the Tea Party—whose political fortunes have been in decline since the population began to figure out just how crazy they really are—is now at just 18% in the latest New York Times poll, the lowest figure since the question started being asked.

Indeed, when we put that NYT poll (taken August 2-3) alongside the one from CNN (taken August 1), we get some pretty interesting numbers. In the chart below, I list the approval vs. disapproval ratings for a variety of political figures and groups. A + indicates an overall positive rating, a – means an overall negative rating. So, for example, a approval of 50% and a disapproval rating of 40% would result in a +10.

President Obama: +1 (NYT), -7 (CNN); specifically on debt ceiling negotiations: -1 (NYT), -7 (CNN)
Congress: -68 (NYT), -70 (CNN)
John Boehner: -27 (NYT)
Specifically on the debt ceiling deal: Congressional Republicans/ Republican leaders: -51 (NYT), -38 (CNN).
Specifically on the debt ceiling deal: Congressional Democrats/ Democratic leaders: -38 (NYT), -28 (CNN).
Debt deal should have included revenues: +6 (NYT), +20 (CNN).

Also, how about these figures from the New York Times poll: “Who do you think is mostly to blame for the federal budget deficit?” The Bush administration outpolled the Obama administration, Congress, and “someone else” combined, by 44-40%. Obama was blamed by only 15%, with “all of the above” and “combination” (neither of which was one of the prompted responses) chosen by 12%. A huge majority regarded the negotiations over the debt ceiling as an attempt to gain political advantage (82%) rather than doing what was best for the country (14%). Republicans in Congress were blamed for the difficulties in reaching an agreement by 47%, Obama and the Democrats by 29%, both (again, a volunteered response) by 20%.

The negotiations made 66% of those surveyed more pessimistic about Congress’s ability to “deal with future issues,” vs. only 12% more optimistic. Allowing the Bush tax breaks for the $250K+ crowd to expire: favored by 29 points. Impression of the Tea Party: negative by 20 points, with a huge (39 points) collection of variations on the theme of undecided. [Really?] The Tea Party has too much influence? 43%. Too little? 17%.

So… yeah… which brings us to the Republican response to all this, which is predictable in the extreme. Ultimately, I needn’t spell out all the variations on the same theme, which is basically that although Republican intransigence caused the problem, it’s all Obama’s fault, anyway. TARP was Obama’s fault. The Iraq War was Obama’s fault. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby was Obama’s fault. The sacking of Constantinople was Obama’s fault. John the Baptist’s halitosis was Obama’s fault.

I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t provide at least one specific example of a GOP Presidential candidate’s take—the MSNBC article on the subject (linked above for the Boehner quotation) has this: “Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor, said the downgrade is ‘a reflection of the failed leadership of President Obama. He really is inept when it comes to the economy. He's had over three years of being president. Barack Obama has had his chance and it's not working.’” Given the fact that President Obama has been in office about 31 months, which is not, in fact, “over three years” in my universe, perhaps we ought to leave the accusations of ineptness to those who can handle 3rd-grade arithmetic, eh, Tim?

On the (In)Offensiveness of Doug Lamborn

If you’re like me, you’d never heard of Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn until he took to the airwaves recently and proclaimed the following:

Even if some people say, “Well the Republicans should have done this or they should have done that,” they will hold the President responsible. Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him. It’s like touching a tar baby and you get it, you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away. I don’t want that to happen to us, but if it does or not, he’ll still get, properly so, the blame because his policies for four years will have failed the American people.

He was referring, of course, to the process of negotiating the recent debt ceiling agreement with President Obama.

But the “tar baby” reference raised more than a few hackles. The knee-jerk left immediately went apoplectic, accusing Rep. Lamborn of employing a racial slur about the President of the United States. Equally predictably, the right also went ballistic, taking umbrage at the umbrage-takers. The term, they note, derives from the Uncle Remus stories of Joel Chandler Harris. The tar baby is a ruse constructed by Brer Fox to catch Brer Rabbit: the more the latter struggled to get away, the more he was ensnared. The term has come to be associated with that kind of sticky situation. But it has also been used as a racial slur, derived in part, no doubt, from the color association, and in part from the fact that Harris gives his eponymous character a dialect that would make Stepin Fetchit cringe.

It is clear that Rep. Lamborn didn’t pay sufficient attention when Mitt Romney, Tony Snow, Virginia Foxx, and John McCain all got in trouble for using the phrase. In all of these instances the term was apparently intended to be devoid of racial overtones: only Foxx’s comments—“the Democrats have a tar baby on their hands and they simply can't get away from it”—could even arguably have been construed as a willful slur on an African-American.

The same could not always be said, however: in 2002, the head of the Redstone Area Minority Employees Association—associated with the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama—issued a press release declaring that a US Army GS-14 manager had described an African-American woman, an Information Assurance officer with a PhD in Systems Engineering, as a “tar baby.” An article posted on the PoliceOne.com site suggests that “Tar-baby seems to be the slur of choice at Redstone Arsenal,” although two of the three incidents described involve using the term in its metaphoric, non-racial sense: a “sticky situation” from which it is increasingly difficult to extricate oneself rather than as a demeaning term for a member of a racial minority. Still, Oxford American Dictionary editor-in-chief Erin McKean told Time in 2006 that “What's really important is not etymologically what it means, but the effect it has”; she said that the next edition of her dictionary would note that the term can have derogatory connotations. By contrast, there is no such indication at Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.com site.

Representative Lamborn has been described as the most conservative member of Congress, a distinction in which he apparently takes particular pride, telling the Colorado Springs Gazette that “to be called the most conservative member of Congress is a distinct honor.” But to be conservative is by no means inherently to be racist, although there is, of course, some overlap.

Moreover, the fact that “tar baby” can be a racial slur doesn’t mean that it always is: witness words like “coon” or “spade,” which are offensive in some contexts but not in others. Representative Lamborn should have known better than to use potentially inflammatory language which would distract from his message. But I am willing to take him at his word that he intended no disrespect by the phrase. He apologized in a personal letter to the President, and posted this notice on his website:

Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05) today sent a personal letter to President Barack Obama apologizing for using a term some find insensitive. Lamborn was attempting to tell a radio audience last week that the President's policies have created an economic quagmire for the nation and are responsible for the dismal economic conditions our country faces. He regrets that he chose the phrase “tar baby,” rather than the word “quagmire.” The Congressman is confident that the President will accept his heartfelt apology.

John McWhorton, a contributing editor to The New Republic and an expert at both race relations and linguistics, told the Denver Post that Lamborn was “clumsy” in using the term, but that calling it racist was an “overstatement”: “It's not the most graceful statement in the world, but to fashion it into just shy of calling the president something worse is feeding into drama.” That reading comports with my own. Indeed, I am completely satisfied that Lamborn intended no racial disparagement. Apology accepted; time to move on, right?

Not so fast.

I’m perfectly willing to grant Rep. Lamborn a pass on “tar baby,” but let’s look at what he actually said and apparently actually intended. “Now, I don’t even want to have to be associated with him.” This is what a member of Congress says about the President of the United States? More to the point, Lamborn’s apparent intention with the “tar baby” line is more or less explained in his subsequent narrative: “you’re stuck, and you’re a part of the problem now and you can’t get away.” Whoa, wait a minute. We’re not talking about the negotiations anymore. We’re talking about assigning blame for the inevitable disaster sown by this awful deal.

And it’s not me saying the so-called compromise in which Obama gave away a couple trillion dollars in federal spending and nearly two million jobs in exchange for a box of sporks and a 6th-round draft choice is a turkey: there’s simply no other explanation for Lamborn’s commentary. He’s part of the problem. Of course, I’d argue that people like Lamborn have been part of the problem for a long time, and that hasn’t changed. He was, after all, one of those who eviscerated the stimulus package, making it smaller than it needed to be, and loading it down with tax cuts, which no economist who doesn’t work for a conservative think tank believes are a good source of economic catalyst.

No, Rep. Lamborn’s role hasn’t changed. But our perception has. He has power now; he’s a member of Congress, and his party is in power in his chamber. He bears responsibility. But he doesn’t want that. It would be conjecture to wonder why, but it’s pretty clear that the answer is tied up in politics rather than policy.

Maybe he’s a loyal American and wants things to get better, but realizes that should that happen, much of the credit will redound to President Obama, perhaps ensuring his re-election, which, in his mind, would be a bad thing. He’d still rejoice in the strengthened economy, even if someone else got the approbation. You know, like a grown-up would. More likely, given his party’s utter intransigence on anything touching on revenue, all the while crowing about fiscal responsibility and bemoaning the deficit, Rep. Lamborn is willing to sacrifice the national economy in order to get his party back into the White House—this is the strategy suggested implicitly by Mitch McConnell and pretty much explicitly by Donald Trump.

Lamborn’s dilemma is that now people have seen him in a position of some authority. He now owns something of the success of strategies that work, but, importantly, something of the failure of those that don’t. And the debt deal is a catastrophe, as even the financial markets recognized: the stock market faltered when there was no deal, then dropped like a rock when there was one (the Dow Jones Industrial Average—Big Business in its purest form—plummeted over 265 points Tuesday). That’s the “tar baby”: partial ownership in both a sluggish economy and a broken political system, both made worse by a bad “compromise” and by the puerile posturing that got us there. That stuff gets all over your hands. And Congress’s spiffy new 14% approval rating is going to be hard to wash off.

Mr. Lamborn wants power without responsibility. He’s a Creon when we need an Oedipus. That’s a fair assessment of today’s GOP in general, and of the Tea Party in particular. And it’s a lot more problematic—and ultimately more offensive— than a clumsy locution.