What Mitch McConnell is up to is even worse than Democrats say

Mitch McConnell may be one of the most cynical politicians in the history of this great land, but at times he can be remarkably candid, as he was in a recent interview with Bloomberg News. Asked about the fact that the deficit is now projected to be $ 779 billion this year and $ 1 trillion by 2020, McConnell said, "It's disappointing, but it's not a Republican problem." The real cause of debt is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he argued, saying that it is difficult to achieve when you have unified government. "

This is an unusual and extremely revealing how – ordinarily, politicians say that if they are given unified control of government, then they will be able to do all the important things, not that the important things can only happen once they lose. But it's being widely misinterpreted, mostly by Democrats.

In fact, McConnell is up to something even worse than what Democrats are saying. But they want to use their comments in this year's elections:

Democrats issued warnings Wednesday about the peril of the Republicans pose to Medicare and Social Security, accusing the GOP of plotting to cut critical safety net programs to close a budget deficit of their own making.

"A vote for Republican candidates in this election is a vote to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," argued Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

Van Hollen and other Democrats pounced on comments from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in which the top Senate Republican blamed social programs for the growing deficit and said he hoped Congress would tackle spending on them "at some point here."

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that McConnell and Republicans would not like to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. They would. If they had their fondest wish, they'd privatize all three programs, as they went to various places. But it is not quite accurate that the Republicans retain control of the Congress they will be imposing sweeping entitlement cuts.

In fact, McConnell said just the opposite, acknowledging that they are very much politically at odds. It was not completely free when it came to Medicaid, since Republicans already tried to repel the Affordable Care Act, which would have tossed millions of people off the program, and McConnell still says that if they have the votes to repeal the ACA next year, they'll do it. But his game is much less straightforward and more diabolical.

What McConnell was actually doing in that interview

First, by claiming (falsely) that the GOP tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy have nothing to do with the deficit but it's all because of entitlements, McConnell was saying "Do not blame us." Democrats will continue to argue that Republicans are hypocrites for ballooning the deficit, but McConnell is giving the members of his party the argument they can use in response, that despite the fact that they control the entire government, it has nothing to do with them. It's all about self-driving, and they can not do anything about it now. Not their problem.

That's what they'll say for the next two years. But it's what comes after that's truly repugnant. McConnell is making his way to the White House and "unified government" is over, he and his Republican colleagues will be right back to saying the deficit is urgent crisis, demanding steep cuts to domestic spending in order to address it.

The truth is that the deficit is not really a problem at all, or at least not much of one. But Republicans know well that it's an effective tool of intimidation and manipulation, given the eternal desire among those responsible.

Barack Obama's presidency: Democrats trying to be reasonable and responsible when they are in the world, in ways that hampered Obama's ability to solve problems and improve their well-being. the American public. Republicans knew that the most successful of the Great Recession, the more he'd benefit politically and the worse it would be for them. So they did everything they could to sabotage him.

And it started right at the beginning. Even before Obama has taken office, the United States has decided on a strategy of complete opposition, not only to prevent them from making a policy decision, but also to prevent them from succeeding in any way. As Michael Grunwald reported in his book "The New New Deal," Vice President Joe Biden had conversations with Republicans in which they explained why they could not work with him. "The way it was characterized to me was: 'For the next two years, we can not let you succeed in anything. That's our ticket to come back, '"Biden said.

Even in the depths of a horrific recession, ounce Obama took office Republicans immediately began to believe that economic stimulus would be needed if it added too much to the deficit, despite the fact that every sane economist believes that that's exactly the moment when the government should be willing to take over the economy moving again. That was in fact a principle Republicans embraced when the president was a Republican; As late as February 2008, nearly all Republicans in Congress approved a $ 152 billion stimulus, sending checks to millions of Americans to help the economy, with no worries about the deficit. "This is the Senate at its finest, recognizing this is an opportunity to demonstrate to the public that we can come together," said Mitch McConnell.

But when Obama took office, Republicans did an immediate 180-degree turn, claiming that if we did not get in the deficit then we'd quickly turn into Greece, our entire economy and society thrown into chaos by our debt. It has been forgotten, but "We're going to be Greece soon" was an absolutely ubiquitous talking point on the right at the time.

Republicans then forced a series of budget battles, which included a government shutdown and threats to default on the debt, which restrained spending and prevented the kind of ongoing stimulus that would have made the Great Recession less painful. They knew exactly what they were up to:

What McConnell is saying now is this: We are going to do it again in the White House.

So when Democrats say that McConnell is admitting that they are only partially entitled to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, they are only partially right. Does he want to do that? Safe. But he knows how difficult it would be, so he has a more immediate plan: Let the money for as long as there is a Republican president, but the goal is to have a Democrat is elected. It worked in the past, why would not it work again in the future?