47 House Dems side with ISIS and Nazi-like bigotry from the GOP

A total of 47 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted for anti-Syrian refugee legislation straight out of a Nazi Germany mindset. Here are the House Democrats who voted for the legislation:

Pete Aguilar	California 31st
Brad Ashford	Nebraska 2nd
Ami Bera	California 7th
Sanford Bishop, Jr.	Georgia 2nd
Julia Brownley	California 26th
Cheri Bustos	Illinois 17th
John Carney	Delaware At-large
Gerry Connolly	Virginia 11th
Jim Cooper	Tennessee 5th
Jim Costa	California 16th
Joe Courtney	Connecticut 2nd
Henry Cuellar	Texas 28th
John Delaney	Maryland 6th
Lloyd Doggett	Texas 35th
Tulsi Gabbard	Hawaii 2nd
John Garamendi	California 3rd
Gwen Graham	Florida 2nd
Gene Green	Texas 29th
Janice Hahn	California 44th
Jim Himes	Connecticut 4th
Steve Israel	New York 3rd
Marcy Kaptur	Ohio 9th
Bill Keating	Massachusetts 9th
Ron Kind	Wisconsin 3rd
Ann McLane Kuster	New Hampshire 2nd
Jim Langevin	Rhode Island 2nd
Dan Lipinski	Illinois 3rd
Dave Loebsack	Iowa 2nd
Stephen Lynch	Massachusetts 8th
Sean Patrick Maloney	New York 18th
Patrick Murphy	Florida 18th
Rick Nolan	Minnesota 8th
Donald Norcross	New Jersey 1st
Scott Peters	California 52nd
Collin Peterson	Minnesota 7th
Jared Polis	Colorado 2nd
Kathleen Rice	New York 4th
Raul Ruiz	California 36th
Tim Ryan	Ohio 13th
Kurt Schrader	Oregon 5th
David Scott	Georgia 13th
Terri Sewell	Alabama 7th
Kyrsten Sinema	Arizona 9th
Louise Slaughter	New York 25th
Marc Veasey	Texas 33rd
Filemon Vela	Texas 34th
Tim Walz	Minnesota 1st

When I say that these 47 Democratic traitors sided with ISIS, I mean that they are effectively fueling ISIS propaganda by refusing to take in the very people who have been oppressed by ISIS and the Syrian dictatorship of Bashir al-Assad. When I say that this legislation is straight out of a Nazi Germany mindset, I’m referring to public opposition here in the U.S. to accepting Jewish refugees who were fleeing the Holocaust and the Nazi Germany regime of Adolf Hitler in the late 1930’s.

It’s not just moderate and conservative “Democrats” who are effectively siding with ISIS and repeating the history of the Nazis by opposing Syrian refugees. Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ben Carson have used racist, Nazi-like language to stir up fear of Syrian refugees among white racist Americans.

Here’s what Trump recently said, courtesy of Yahoo! News:

“We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule,” Trump said. “And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”

Yahoo News asked Trump whether this level of tracking might require registering Muslims in a database or giving them a form of special identification that noted their religion. He wouldn’t rule it out.

“We’re going to have to — we’re going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” Trump said when presented with the idea. “We’re going to have to look at the mosques. We’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”

Here’s what Carson recently said, courtesy of NBC News:

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Thursday suggested that concerns about Syrian refugees in the United States are akin to a parent’s concerns about “mad dogs.”

“If there’s a rabid dog running around in your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog, and you’re probably going to put your children out of the way,” he said during remarks in Mobile, Alabama. “[It] doesn’t mean that you hate all dogs, by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re putting your intellect into motion and you’re thinking ‘How do I protect my children? At the same time, I love dogs and I’m gonna call the humane society and hopefully they can come take this dog away and create a safe environment once again.'”

Any Democrat who voted for the anti-Syrian refugee legislation has effectively sided with right-wing racists like Donald Trump and Ben Carson, who are using Nazi Germany-like language in opposition to allowing Syrian refugees to enter the United States. Supporting requiring that Muslims have special identification is eerily reminiscent of the Nazis forcibly tattooing identification numbers onto Jewish people in concentration camps, and comparing Syrian refugees fleeing war and terrorism to mad dogs is eerily reminiscent of Nazi propaganda comparing Jewish people to rats (in fact, at least one British newspaper, the Daily Mail, actually compared Syrian refugees to rats). Normally, I’m not a fan of Nazi comparisons, but, if there’s actual historical context behind a Nazi comparison, then I’m all for it.

One last thing, I find it ironic that the number of House Democrats who voted for the anti-Syrian refugee bill (47) equals the number of Senate Republicans who signed a letter to Iranian leaders in an attempt to undermine diplomacy in efforts to stop a nuclear deal designed to keep Iran from producing nuclear weapons (47), as well as the percentage of Americans that 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney claimed were dependent on the government (47).

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ENDORSEMENT: Kati Walsh for U.S. House Speaker

With Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner exiting stage right, I’m pleased to announce that I’m going to make a very special endorsement. I proudly endorse Kati Walsh for Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Since I’m guessing that very few, if any, readers of this blog know who Kati Walsh is, I’ll talk a little bit about her. She’s a resident of Madison, Wisconsin and an elementary school art teacher in the local public school system in Madison. She’s also a very strong advocate for public education.

Now, many of you are probably thinking that Ms. Walsh is not a Member of Congress. Of course she’s not a Member of Congress. However, there’s no legal requirement in the U.S. Constitution that the speaker be a sitting member of the House, so anyone could legally be elected speaker by the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In fact, the U.S. Constitution could be interpreted as allowing for someone who doesn’t meet the constitutional requirements to be eligible to be elected a U.S. House member (at least 25 years of age, U.S. citizen for at least seven years, resident of the state in which he/she seeks to represent) to be elected speaker. Heck, there’s nothing prohibiting me from receiving votes for speaker, even though I’m not a Member of Congress, and I have zero interest in being speaker.

Do I think that Ms. Walsh will get a single vote in the upcoming election for speaker? Of course not. The vast majority of the Republicans will vote for one of their own House members, probably Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), with a few hard-line conservative Republicans voting for Tea Party-types in protest. On the other hand, nearly all Democrats will vote for Nancy Pelosi, with the exception of a handful of centrist/conservative Democrats who will vote for either a Republican or a different House Democrat.

However, I’ve always thought of the idea of a citizen speaker (i.e., a U.S. House speaker who is not a House member) would be interesting, as a citizen speaker would have the power to preside over the House, but not be able to vote on legislation before the House, effectively making the speaker’s post non-partisan and technocratic in nature. If Kati Walsh can teach a class of elementary school children, then she’ll have no problem presiding over the U.S. House of Representatives and its 435 adult members.

Ending workplace discrimination against LGBT people should be the next fight in the LGBT rights movement

Thanks to a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision issued earlier today, same-sex couples across the entire United States of America can now enjoy the same legal right to marry that heterosexual couples have long enjoyed. To put it mildly, this is a huge victory for love and equality in America.

However, in 32 states, some, if not all, LGBT workers, can legally be fired simply because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity:

• In 21 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming), all workers can be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
• In 3 states (Arizona, Missouri, and Montana), state employees cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation, but state employees can be fired on the basis of gender identity, and private-sector workers can be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
• In 5 states (Idaho, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio), state employees cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, but private-sector workers can be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
• In 2 states (New Hampshire and Wisconsin), all workers cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation, but all workers can be fired on the basis of gender identity.
• In 1 state (New York), state employees cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and private-sector workers cannot be fired on the basis of sexual orientation, but private-sector workers can be fired on the basis of gender identity.

If the source I linked to above has inaccurate and/or outdated information, please leave a comment on this blog post with accurate information for a particular state.

While it is a huge victory for the LGBT movement to secure marriage equality in all 50 states, the fight for full equality for gays, lesbians, bisexual people, and transgender people is far from over. The next big fight in the LGBT rights movement should be to push for laws prohibiting public and private employers from firing people based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Wisconsin Democratic chairperson candidate Jason Rae employed by firm founded by individual that provided money to Koch-funded organizations

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I have made edits to the blog post and title to accurately reflect Nation Consulting founder Thad Nation’s use of a 501(c)(4) organization to give money to right-wing organizations and Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairperson candidate Jason Rae’s employment by Nation Consulting.

I’ve found information that proves that Thad Nation, Wisconsin Democratic chairperson candidate Jason Rae’s boss at Nation Consulting, has provided money to at least seven right-wing organizations, including at least four that are funded either directly or indirectly by the Koch Brothers. Nation himself was listed in a 2012 IRS 990 filing as the principal officer of Coalition for the New Economy (CftNE), a 501(c)4 organization that opposes government-run broadband internet services in areas where private-sector firms currently provide broadband internet service. CftNE has also given money to at least several right-wing political groups that have actively opposed Democratic and liberal political candidates, have actively supported Republican and conservative political candidates, and/or have advocated for far-right policies that would have a negative impact on America. Here’s the organizations that CftNE has given money to, according to page 17 of the 2012 IRS filing by that organization:

• $15,000 for “general support” to the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), a right-wing anti-tax organization that has, among other things, effectively supported allowing the U.S. federal government to default on the national debt. NTU has received a total of $32,500 from the Koch Family Foundations from 1998 to 2008, including $5,000 from Charles Koch’s own foundation in 2008.
• $5,000 for “general support” to the Center for Individual Freedom (CIF), a right-wing organization that spent $1.9 million in television advertising in an attempt to help Republicans win U.S. House races that were seriously contested by both major parties in the 2012 elections. CIF spent a slightly larger amount of money on a similar effort in the 2010 elections.
• $5,000 for “general support” to Americans for Prosperity (AfP), a far-right political organization founded by the Koch Brothers themselves. In Wisconsin, AfP spent $866,000 in ads designed to help Scott Walker win the 2014 Wisconsin gubernatorial race and approximately $2.9 million in ads in opposition to the 2012 recall effort against Walker that was strongly supported by Wisconsin progressives.
• $10,000 for “general support” to FreedomWorks, a far-right organization that has, among other things, ran several anti-union campaigns in states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and supported far-right extremist Chris McDaniel, who, among other things, blamed rap music for many of our country’s problems, in his unsuccessful 2014 Republican primary challenge to U.S. Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi.
• $5,000 for “general support” to Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), a right-wing organization that was founded by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) and, among other things, opposes taxation and supports privatizing Social Security. IPI has received $35,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, which is identified by the Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch as one of the four Koch Family Foundations. IPI is the only one of the organizations listed in the CftNE filing that is a 501(c)(3) organization; all of the others are listed as 501(c)(4) organizations.
• $15,000 for “general support” to the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), a right-wing organization that has, among other things, attacked the federal government over the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two of the largest cable television providers in the country.
• $14,740 for “general support” to the 60 Plus Association (60 Plus), a right-wing organization funded by Koch Brothers-funded organizations like Freedom Parners and American Encore as part of a complex web of Koch Brothers-funded organizations. In Wisconsin, 60 Plus ran this advertisement attacking now-Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin for supporting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), federal legislation that provided millions of Americans with health insurance.

That’s a total of $69,740 that Thad Nation has, through CftNE, provided to right-wing organizations that have supported Republicans like Scott Walker, ran smear campaigns against Democrats like Tammy Baldwin, and have supported far-right policies that would make America a much worse place to live. Thad Nation is also the same person who employs Jason Rae as a senior associate at Nation Consulting, and Rae is running for Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. If Rae is elected DPW Chair, it would be at least an apparent conflict of interest for someone like Rae to be the head of a state-level Democratic organization if he were to remain employed at Nation Consulting, because the founder of that organization was the head of a 501(c)(4) organization that gave money to groups that support Republicans and their destructive far-right agenda.

Let me finish this post by saying two things about Rae and his supporters. One, Rae’s supporters are some of the most vile people I’ve ever interacted with online. Two, Rae completely lacks the temperament to be in a Democratic Party leadership position of any kind.

John Kasich is nothing like Elizabeth Warren

John Kasich, the virulently anti-middle class Republican who happens to also be the Governor of Ohio and a possible presidential candidate, went on CNN’s State of the Union political talk show and did two things that set me off. First, he bragged about being a part of the late 2000’s financial meltdown that destroyed this country’s economy (Kasich was the managing director of the Columbus, Ohio office of the Lehman Brothers investment bank until Lehman Brothers went bust). Second, he claimed that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a staunch supporter of protecting consumers and a staunch opponent of “too big to fail” financial institutions, is like him.

You can watch Kasich’s remarks here.

While Warren has zero interest in running for president, there is a night-and-day difference between John Kasich and Elizabeth Warren.

John Kasich has a decades-long track record of opposing labor unions, workers, the middle class, economic strength, and common sense. As a U.S. Representative, Kasich built a very conservative voting record, including demonizing welfare recipients and helping to enact Bill Clinton’s plan to gut the social safety net in this country. As a businessman, Kasich ran the Lehman Brothers office in Ohio’s largest city until Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and the American economy began to collapse. As Governor of Ohio, Kasich tried to bust Ohio’s public employee unions, but Ohioans firmly rejected his anti-worker and anti-middle class policies at the ballot.

Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, is a champion of the middle class, economic strength, and common sense. Warren, who is the Paul Wellstone of our generation, has fought for more regulations on our nation’s financial institutions in an attempt to prevent another economic collapse like the Great Recession. Warren understands how income inequality, in which the wealthiest few percent of people in this country have the vast majority of the country’s wealth, is hurting our economy and destroying what little of our country’s middle class remains. Warren has also stood up to members of both major parties in this country in opposition to free-trade deals that undermine our nation’s sovereignty, such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

John Kasich is nothing like Elizabeth Warren, and he should quit trying to take credit for Warren’s work to make America a better place to live.

My thoughts about the 47 Republican Senators who signed the traitorous letter in an attempt to undermine U.S. diplomacy with Iran

I find it highly outrageous that 47 members of the United States Senate, all Republicans, signed a letter in a blatant attempt to undermine attempts at negotiating a deal with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons, apparently violating the federal Logan Act in signing the letter.

The 47 Senators who signed the Cotton Letter are as follows:

• Richard Shelby of Alabama
• Jeff Sessions of Alabama
• Dan Sullivan of Alaska
• John McCain of Arizona
• John Boozman of Arkansas
• Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the ringleader of the effort to undermine diplomacy with Iran
• Cory Gardner of Colorado
• Marco Rubio of Florida
• Johnny Isakson of Georgia
• David Perdue of Georgia
• Mike Crapo of Idaho
• Jim Risch of Idaho
• Mark Kirk of Illinois
• Chuck Grassley of Iowa
• Joni Ernst of Iowa
• Pat Roberts of Kansas
• Jerry Moran of Kansas
• Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Majority Leader
• Rand Paul of Kentucky
• David Vitter of Louisiana
• Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
• Roger Wicker of Mississippi
• Roy Blunt of Missouri
• Steve Daines of Montana
• Deb Fischer of Nebraska
• Ben Sasse of Nebraska
• Dean Heller of Nevada
• Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire
• Richard Burr of North Carolina
• Thom Tillis of North Carolina
• John Hoeven of North Dakota
• Rob Portman of Ohio
• Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma
• James Lankford of Oklahoma
• Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
• Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
• Tim Scott of South Carolina
• John Thune of South Dakota
• Mike Rounds of South Dakota
• John Cornyn of Texas
• Ted Cruz of Texas
• Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Senate President Pro Tempore
• Mike Lee of Utah
• Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia
• Ron Johnson of Wisconsin
• Mike Enzi of Wyoming
• John Barrasso of Wyoming

All 47 of those individuals who I named are traitors to this country who are more interested in starting World War III by undermining the sitting President of the United States and allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons that they could use to bomb the United States and our allies than doing anything that would actually be productive, such as fixing crumbling roads and bridges, making it easier for Americans to go to college, helping the private sector create more good-paying jobs, and so on.

Also, regarding the so-called “pro-Israel” lobby’s support for the Cotton Letter, the Cotton Letter puts Israel, as well as other U.S. allies and the U.S. itself, of even greater danger of an attack by Iranian forces, since the Cotton Letter is designed to undermine efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons that could be used by Iran in an attack on the United States and its allies.

I’m calling for the U.S. Justice Department to bring up all 47 of the senators who signed the Cotton Letter on federal criminal charges for violating the Logan Act, which legally prohibits U.S. citizens who are not authorized diplomats from negotiating with a foreign government.

Lexi Daniels, 15-year-old Ohio teenager with only one arm, is an absolutely amazing dancer

Lexi Daniels, a 15-year-old teenager from Columbus, Ohio who was born with only one full arm, performed this incredible hip hop dance in a dance class with WilldaBeast Adams, a dance choreographer who has choreographed with the likes of Madonna and Usher, at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania dance convention:

You can read more about Daniels’s incredible dance at The Huffington Post.

If one asked me to do the same dance that Lexi Daniels did, I, with both of my arms, couldn’t pull it off half as well as Daniels did with only one full arm. While I’m not a big fan of hip-hop music, It’s absolutely amazing to me that many “disabled” people can do far more incredible things than most people who have no physical disabilities like me.

FOX News defends President Obama and slams Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Netanyahu using Congress as a campaign prop

Two weeks before the Israeli Knesset (Israel’s unicameral national legislature) elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives after being invited to do so by House Speaker John Boehner.

Netanyahu using the U.S. House as a prop for his party (Likud) in its re-election efforts is viewed so unfavorably here in the United States, even FOX News, a right-wing propaganda cable channel that masquerades as a cable news channel, is defending President Barack Obama, who is usually hated by on-air and off-air figures at FOX News, and slamming Netanyahu, who is usually well-liked by on-air and off-air figures at FOX News. Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace, who both host shows that are either aired on FOX News or produced by FOX News for the over-the-air FOX Network, blasted Netanyahu for using our country’s Congress as a political prop, with Smith quoting former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk:

You can read more about the growing backlash against the scheduled Netanyahu congressional speech from unexpected places here and here.

Over his long political career, Benjamin Netanyahu has shown zero respect for American sovereignty and institutions. We are not going to be a puppet state for Netanyahu’s Israel, we are not going to let Netanyahu run roughshod over the American people, and, most importantly, I am calling for Democratic U.S. House members to turn their backs to Netanyahu if and when he speaks before the House, even if it means getting expelled from the House.

P.G. Sittenfeld rails against destructive free trade policies in announcement of U.S. Senate candidacy in Ohio

P.G. Sittenfeld, a 30-year-old member of the Cincinnati City Council, has announced in a telephone interview that he intends to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Ohio that is currently held by Republican incumbent Rob Portman in next year’s elections:

P.G. Sittenfeld, a Democratic city councilman from Cincinnati, is the first high-profile entrant in the race against GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio.

Sittenfeld, 30, said in a phone interview that he plans to contrast his youth with Portman’s long tenure in Washington and urge Ohioans to support a “new generation of leadership.” His age, he notes, is “roughly the time that Rob Portman has become a creature of Washington.”

The Princeton grad, who emphasized his work to improve local public schools in his announcement, ticked off a list of policies he said would land Portman in hot water with his constituents — from his opposition to raising the minimum wage to his advocacy for trade deals he said put residents out of work.

“Rob Portman is Mr. Trade,” he said.

For decades, Rob Portman has supported so-called “free trade” policies that have destroyed the American economy (especially the manufacturing sector) and have left the American economy at the mercy of China and other foreign countries. Ohioans are tired of the Obama-Portman Global Trading Regime taking away their jobs and shipping them to China and other foreign countries. I’m glad to see a Democrat publicly call out one of the biggest free trade supporters in the Republican Party for supporting destructive free trade policies that have put millions of Americans out of work.

How Republicans are going to turn the Congressional Budget Office into a right-wing propaganda outfit

Anytime Congress needs to obtain a cost estimate, an economic impact analysis, and/or other types of budget and/or economic information, Congress is legally required to turn to its own internal think tank on economic issues, the officially non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

However, the Republicans that won control of both houses of Congress in last November’s elections are about to turn the CBO into a part of their far-right propaganda machine that will probably be one of the most hyperpartisan government agencies in the entire country.

The director of the CBO is currently Douglas Elmendorf, who has run the CBO quite well for the past several years, having originally been appointed by a Congress controlled completely by Democrats in 2009 and then continuing on as CBO director even after Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 midterm elections. However, with Republicans now in control of both the House and the Senate, the House Speaker (more than likely to be John Boehner) and the Senate President Pro Tempore (which will be Orrin Hatch), who are jointly responsible for appointing the CBO director, will almost certainly get rid of Elmendorf and replace him with a new CBO director that will likely be very conservative and use the CBO to spew right-wing lies about the economy and the country’s finances.

What the Republicans want to do is appoint a new CBO director who will turn the officially non-partisan agency into a right-wing, non-partisan in name only agency and use dynamic scoring, a disproven economic theory that is based on the falsehood that cutting taxes for the wealthy results in more revenue to the federal government:

AS Republicans take control of Congress this month, at the top of their to-do list is changing how the government measures the impact of tax cuts on federal revenue: namely, to switch from so-called static scoring to “dynamic” scoring. While seemingly arcane, the change could have significant, negative consequences for enacting sustainable, long-term fiscal policies.

[…]

Such proponents (of dynamic scoring) argue that conventional projections are skewed against tax cuts, because they do not consider that cutting taxes could lead to higher economic output, which would make up at least some of the lost revenues. They maintain that dynamic scoring will, therefore, be both more neutral and more accurate than current methodologies.

In reality, the whole concept of dynamic scoring is built on a mountain of lies and false assumptions about how the economy and taxation work:

But the bigger problems lie deeper. Federal deficits are on an unsustainable path (as it happens, because of undertaxation, not excessive spending). Simply cutting taxes against the headwind of structural deficits leads to lower growth, as government borrowing soaks up an ever-increasing share of savings.

The most optimistic dynamic models get around this by assuming that the world today is in fiscal equilibrium, where the deficit does not grow continuously as a percentage of gross domestic product. But that’s not true. If you add the reality of spiraling deficits into those models, they don’t work.

To make these models work, scorekeepers must arbitrarily assume either that we tax more and spend less today than is really the case…or assume that a tax cut today will be followed by a spending cut or tax increase tomorrow. Economists describe such a move as “making counterfactual assumptions”; the rest of us call it “making stuff up.”

In reality, dynamic scoring encourages absurd economic policies that would decrease the amount of revenue the federal government receives, drive up the federal budget deficit and national debt, hurt economic growth, and wreck our country’s economy. The fact that Republicans want to turn the officially non-partisan Congressional Budget Office into a part of the hyperpartisan right-wing propaganda machine in order to lie to the American people about how legislation effects the economy and our country’s finances absolutely scares me, and Democrats need to start attacking the CBO at every opportunity if they do start acting like a right-wing organization.