Senator Scott Explains Why Some Groups' "Scorecards" for Members of Congress are Stupid

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who became the first black U.S. Senator from South Carolina last year after Gov. Nikki Haley (R) appointed him to replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R), who resigned to take over the Heritage Foundation, and became the first black U.S. Senator elected from the South since Reconstruction and the first African-American in U.S. history to be elected to both the House and the Senate by winning a special election on Tuesday to fill the remainder of DeMint's term, appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe last week. In response to a question about his "agenda" from fellow guest Joe Klien, Scott said that he was "very interested in creating a foundation of education for . . . kids living in poverty, kids like myself who perhaps live in the wrong ZIP code, going to underperforming schools." Thomas Roberts, one of the more muted left-wing ideologues on the network, took issue with that. He challenged the Senator:

Sir, you said . . . you are concerned about kids that are growing up in the wrong zip code and like yourself that had a tough start on the way out, but if we look at agencies that are following some of your voting records, [then] they have concern, and the NAACP has given you an "F" on their annual scorecard. They also say you voted against the ACA; you voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress; you oppose the Congressional Black Caucus' budget, delayed funding on a settlement between the U.S. and black farmers who say that they were prejudiced against because of their race. So how do you respond to that, if your true concern is about lower income families and kids?

Scott's response is priceless:

Note the apparent (and erroneous) assumption underlying Roberts's question: that these "agencies that are following some of [the Senator's] voting records" also "have concern" about what Senator Scott said he is "concerned about". I am sure that there are groups that track the voting records of members of Congress and are genuinely concerned about children living in poverty who are deprived of the opportunities other children have because of where they're growing up, but the example Roberts cited was the NAACP. As I mentioned in a post over two years ago, the NAACP has become a partisan entity, but a number of voters (including, it would seem, Thomas Roberts) still see it as a trustworthy, independent source of information. If the NAACP is truly concerned about kids that are growing up in the wrong ZIP code and have "a tough start on the way out," as Roberts suggested, then why is the organization officially opposed to school voucher plans and state takeovers of poorly performing school districts, especially in light of its National Education Program's professed objective "to ensure that all students have access to an equal and high-quality public education by eliminating education-related racial and ethnic disparities in our public schools"? Not only does the NAACP adamantly oppose school choice, but it has actively joined legal efforts in Florida and North Carolina challenging the constitutionality of those states' voucher programs.

Notice also the list of votes Roberts ticked off that evidently earned Scott his failing grade on the NAACP's scorecard. What exactly does voting against Obamacare, voting to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt, opposing the Congressional Black Caucus' budget, or delaying funding on a settlement between the U.S. and black farmers have to do with being concerned about kids who are growing up in the wrong ZIP code and going to underperforming schools? Roberts did not say, and I can't fathom a connection. The Senator appropriately brought up something he had voted on that was related to the issue. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, he pointed out, "has produced [a] higher percentage of kids going to college:" "91% of the kids graduating from high school versus 56% for those who are simply in everyday schools in D.C." (Scott misspoke; he was referring to the graduation rate among students in the program versus public school students in D.C., not what percentage of high school graduates the program has produced, but his numbers check out. 91% of students who used a voucher to attend private school graduated high school, while the DCPS (District of Columbia Public Schools) graduation rate last year was 56%.) Curiously absent from the votes Roberts listed was the House of Representatives 2011 vote on H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, which restored the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and increased the scholarship amounts for the 2011-2012 school year. In addition to voting for the SOAR Act, Scott was a cosponsor of the legislation. Shortly before the vote, the NAACP stated in an "urgent action alert" that they were "vigorously opposed to this legislation . . . due to the fact that the 5 year pilot program in D.C. was, by all accounts, a failure; neither the majority of D.C. residents nor their democratically elected representatives want the program; and due to our underlying opposition to school vouchers."

Without delving into the obvious biases and inaccuracies in the NAACP's stated reasons for opposing the restoration of a program that an independent, federally-mandated evaluation determined was "a success," I can see why Roberts wouldn't call attention to Scott's support for, or the NAACP's opposition to, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. This brief exchange between the two men provides an example of how loosely tethered some of these "scorecards" for elected officials are to the purported missions of the groups doing the scoring.

Something to Think About on Taxes

After I started this post, I read Stephen F. Hayward's piece in the December 3 issue of National Review, in which he offered House Republicans an idea on how to deal with Taxmageddon: 

The House GOP should call the Obama-Krugman bluff--of letting us go over the fiscal cliff on January 1--by passing a sweeping, pro-growth tax reform package right now, and sending it to the Senate, coupled with an announcement that it is not going along with tax increases for anyone unless taxes increase for everyone. The House GOP could even just pass Simpson-Bowles, and rightly say they are passing the plan President Obama's own commission recommended.

I was about to suggest much the same thing, albeit in my customarily garrulous style. Since taxes still seem to be the focal point of the negotiations between President Obama and Speaker Boehner, the House Republican Conference might as well accept that they're not going to convince the president and enough Senate Democrats to agree to a reasonable substitute for what will happen under current law before year's end and pass something like the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Unless they already have something drafted, however, that might not be feasible, so they could just use the Simpson-Bowles plan, but tax filers who itemize should still be allowed to take the full deduction for charitable contributions.

The other part of Hayward's/my idea--that the House GOP should announce that it is not going along with tax increases for anyone unless taxes increase for everyone--may sound like a move wrought with peril. At first blush, it sounds like it would play into the Democratic meme that Republicans are holding middle-class tax cuts "hostage" to protect "the rich," but the GOP has a ready retort, courtesy of the same Democrats who are levelling that charge: "shared sacrifice".

The argument is simple: If President Obama and congressional Democrats are serious about everyone needing to "share" in the "sacrifices" that must be made to get our fiscal house in order, then any deal we reach to reduce the deficit ought to send the message that "we're in this together," and therefore it's only fair that either all wage earners pay higher income taxes, or nobody pays higher income taxes.

Clever Democrats (yes, there are a few) might counter that the "sacrifices" that middle- and lower-income households will have to make should not come in the form of taxes but rather in cuts to entitlements and social welfare programs, but if they made that argument, then Republicans could simply challenge them to name specific programs and services they're willing to cut and at least offer an estimate of how much less they're willing to spend. (I have long believed that Senate Democrats will not be able to provide enough votes for the kind of spending cuts and entitlement reforms that would entice a sufficient number of Republicans to agree to the kind of massive tax hike for which the White House is calling.) 

In this vein, Republicans can also usurp the "fairness" issue, which Democrats always seem eager to inject into any debate over tax policy. Obama has demanded that the top individual income tax rates go from 33% and 35% to 36% and 39.6%, respectively, and that all other tax rates should stay the same. Prior to EGTRRA (the first Bush tax cut), the top rate was 39.6% and the lowest income tax rate was 15%. That's an 8:3 ratio between the highest and lowest income tax rates. Since 2003, individual income has been subject to a six-bracket (one more than under Clinton) schedule with a top rate of 35% and a bottom rate of 10%, a 7:2 (or 3.5 to 1) ratio. In other words, the current federal income tax is actually more progressive than it was under Clinton. Obama wants a six-bracket schedule with a top rate of 39.6% and a bottom rate of 10%, the most sharply graduated rate schedule in a generation. Not only should this be troubling to anyone who understands bracket creep, ubt I think most middle- and lower-income Americans would agree that it's not "fair" to lump a household making $300,000 or $400,000 a year into the same tax bracket as Donald Trump and Bill Gates (unless it's a flat tax, which Democrats have long eschewed). 

There's another dynamic at work here: The debate over the best way to effect a tax increase--whether to do it by raising tax rates or by limiting/eliminating tax credits and deductions--is fueled in part by the prospective impact of any such change in current tax law on future efforts to reform the tax code. Arch-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) recently said that he "would rather see the rates go up than do it the other way because it gives us a greater chance to reform the tax code and broaden the base in the future."

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform who I think has some pledge or something maybe I don't know, had previously explained why he didn't like the concept of "raising revenues" through "closing loopholes," as House Republicans offered to do in their initial proposal to avert the "fiscal cliff". As he told Neil Cavuto:  

"They’re not talking about a few deductions and credits. They’re talking about a trillion dollars’ worth of deductions and credits; that’s what -- that's what the other team wants. If you do that [then] you’ve just killed tax reform for a generation. Why? How do you ever get the rates down if you don’t have the deductions and credits? What Obama’s hoping to do is raise taxes, spend the money, kill tax reform for individuals dead all at the same time."

It's something every Republican--in fact, every member of Congress who cares about the future of this country--ought to consider before voting, or even pledging to vote, for any bill designed to raise taxes, whatever the method. "Tax reform," as I and I think most other fiscally-astute Americans think of it, means cleaning up the tax code by lowering income tax rates and reducing and/or eliminating credits and deductions. If there aren't enough credits or deductions to reduce/eliminate, then this endeavor simply becomes a tax cut.

With this in mind, Taxmageddon is starting to look like an awfully appealing option. If they haven't already, then congressional Republicans ought to start hammering out an income tax reform bill along the lines of what Messrs. Simpson and Bowles called for. Post-Taxmaggedon, they'll be able to sell it as a middle-class tax cut that extracts more revenue from wealthy Americans. If the Democrats don't have a comparable counter-offer ready, then they'll be boxed in: oppose the GOP bill and keep taxes high on middle- and lower-income Americans, or sign on to it and effectively concede defeat on the tax policy argument.

What a great way to start Obama's second term.

Fiscal Fracas: “Morning Joe” Panel Confused About Debt, Deficits, History

Usually, “Morning Joe” is too boring to draw my attention. Then, last month, Mark Halperin said something interesting (and, in my opinion, spot on) about President Obama, and I decided to pay the show a little more mind.

On Friday, one of the shows guests was Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of the House Republican Conference. Now, Jeb is not my congressman, but he does represent an area I'm very familar with—namely, the northeastern suburbs of Dallas. (It's a very nice place to live.) Anyway, you can watch the full segment here:

I was very glad to hear Hensarling make a point that more Republicans really ought to be driving home to the spectators in this debt debate—to wit: that President Obama expects Republicans to agree to tax hikes in order to pay for spending that they opposed. How can any Democrat justify making Americans pay more in taxes to pay for spending that many taxpayers didn’t want and knew wouldn't work? (If any of you have an abnser to that, then PLEASE let me know.) Anyway, before, after and during the congressman's appearance on the show, I caught several curious comments by the panel that gave me pause. I'd like to address three of them now.

When Hensarling chided President Obama for not offerring a budget plan since his last proposal was rejected by the Senate in a humiliating 97-0 vote, Mika Brzezinski seemed to think she had something relevant to say and chimed in. If Republicans aren’t willing to “give on everything,” she asked, then “why should the president lay out a plan?”

I think that question is absurd enough on its face, so I didn’t bother to transcribe Hensarling’s response, but I also want to call attention to Mika’s apparent surprise when her co-host noted that, in his budget plan, Paul Ryan got rid of a lot of costly loopholes in the tax code. Evidently, she didn't know that Republcians were willing to close up those "tax loopholes" our president keeps talking about. How about that? Months before Obama started talking about "tax loopholes," Republicans had already laid out a tax reform plan that included eliminating a bunch of these deductions and credits that allow corporations to avoid paying their fair share.

I'd advise Mika to make sure that she knows what she's talking about before she asks a serious person like Jeb Hensarling a question about such an important topic from now on, but since she seems to think that listening to everything Obama says is tantamount to being well-informed, I don't think my words would have any positive effect on her. Also, she doesn't read my blog.

On to something that Joe Scarborough said. Frankly, I was surprised to hear this from Joe, who served as a Republican member of the House from 1995 to 2001:

"George W. Bush and Republicans took a $155 billion surplus, turned it into a $1.4 trillion debt, took a $5.7 trillion national debt, turned that into an [$11.5-trillion-dollar debt]."

The Morning Joe Staff actually excerpted that statement, along with the question by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R - TX) that preceded it, and posted it on the show's blog. Here’s the problem: I’m not sure what Joe Scarborough is talking about (Also, when Hensarling stated that he thought Republicans were “rank amateurs compared to the president and the previous democratic Congress,” Joe said “That’s not true ... as a matter of math, that is not accurate.”)

So, what do the numbers say? Well, since he said “George W. Bush and Republicans,” we can start with the numbers for FY2001, when the federal budget ran a $128.2 billion (not $155 billion) surplus, even though I think Joe Scarborough did Republicans (many of them his former colleaguse) and his viewers a disservice by not acknowledging that Republicans first took us from a $164 billion deficit to that $128.2 billion surplus. Well, assuming Joe meant to say “a $1.4 trillion deficit” and not “$1.4 trillion debt” (a charitable assumption, to be sure, but I think the context warrants it), that’s not even close to true. In fact, there are no objectively true facts to support such a claim. True, during George W. Bush’s first term, the surplus turned into a deficit that peaked at $412.7 billion in FY2004. Then it came down. By the time Democrats took over Congress and control of the federal budget, the deficit was down to $160.7 billion. So, it’s fair to say that George W. Bush and Republicans took a $128.2 billion surplus and turned it into a $160.7 billion deficit. But, where on earth did Joe get the $1.4 trillion number from? Even while George W. Bush was still in charge, the deficit went up to $458.6 billion for FY2008, but by that time, Republicans & Democrats were @ least equally culpable for the mess. When Bush left office, the deficit for FY2009 was somewhere between $500 and 600 billion. (It’s difficult to calculate because the federal government only gives us month-to-month numbers; also, no one can say for sure what would have happened before the fiscal year ended had Bush still been president.) As for the debt, Joe’s numbers are pretty much accurate.

Then, towards the end of the segment, I heard John Heilemann say this:

"What Republicans are saying is that they will not accept any net increase in revenues, and the truth is, as we know, over the long haul, the only way to address ... the deficit and the debt is to have a net increase in revenues ... ."

Before I dissect his remarks, I just want to express my dismay that Heilemann had to shout over the other talkers on the panel to get his thoughts out. I know what it's like to be in the company of people who claim they want to hear your opinion and then don't let you get a word in edgewise, but anyway, like John Heilemann, I don't know what Congressional Republicans are thinking, but he's not claiming to know what the GOP wants; he's interpreting what he's seen and heard them say. I have no doubt that congressional Republicans want to see an increase in revenues. throughout this debate, Many of them have repeated the conservative mantra on how to increase revenues: we don't need more taxes; we need more taxpayers. And, while I can't speak for anybody in Congress, I can tell you that some republicans, including me, would like to see people who are gainfully employed but currently have no federal income tax liability start paying their fair share. Everything I've heard from congressional Republicans throughout this debate leads me to believe that most of them would like to see the government collect more in tax revenue; the question is how best to achieve that. Bottom line: the totality of the circumstances should lead a reasonable person to believe that GOP members of Congress would agree to changes in the Tax Code that would result in more money being collected by the federal government.