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Rolling out his plan to cut the national debt last week, Mitt Romney promised to "align federal employee compensation with the public sector." If so, the roughly 2.8 million federal workers whose pay has been frozen by President Obama can expect a big raise from President Romney. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, federal employees are now underpaid by 26.3 percent compared with similar non-federal jobs, a two percent increase over the previous year. And as it turns out, as a percentage of the total U.S. population, the federal workforce Romney wants to cut by 10 percent is already at its smallest since the 1950's.

For months, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has been at the forefront of the Republican crusade to demonize government workers as "freeloaders" and a "new privileged class in America." Regurgitating talking points from the right-wing Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, Romney declared that "average government workers are now making $30,000 a year more than the average private-sector worker." And in the plan to cut federal spending he unveiled last week, Romney took aim at Uncle Sam's workforce (see the video above, starting at the 5:50 mark):

Align Federal Employee Compensation With The Private Sector -- Savings: $47 Billion. Federal compensation exceeds private sector levels by as much as 30 to 40 percent when benefits are taken into account. This must be corrected.

As it turns out, not so much.

As the Washington Post reported Friday, the large and growing pay gap runs the other way:

The federal government reported Friday that on average its employees are underpaid by 26.3 percent when compared with similar non-federal jobs, a "pay gap" that increased by about 2 percentage points over the last year while federal salary rates were frozen.

As in the previous assessments of the numbers presented to the Federal Salary Council, federal workers are paid less than their counterparts in the30-plus metropolitan area surveyed, as well as the catch-all "rest of the US" (RUS):

The pay gap in the Washington-Baltimore area was calculated at 36.9 percent, slightly below the 38.1 percent reported last year...The gap in the locality with the largest number of federal employees, the catchall locality, was pegged at 19 percent, up from 14.7 percent. The overall average gap was calculated at 24.1 percent last year.

That persistent and growing gap hasn't prevented Republican mythmakers from claiming exactly the opposite. Consider, for example, the "2 to 1" claim now dominating the U.S media:

"The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year." (Rand Paul)

"It's gotten to a point where the average federal worker makes twice as much as the average private sector worker." (John Boehner)

"Federal employees receive an average of $123,049 annually in pay and benefits, twice the average of the private sector." (Tim Pawlenty)

But as with state and local governments, this line of attack is an apples-to-oranges comparison at best and an outright deception at worst. As FactCheck pointed out:

The analysis is based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and crudely done by dividing total compensation (salary and benefits) by the number of current federal civilian employees. Comparing such averages is quite misleading, for two reasons:

First, BEA says the figure is inflated by including compensation that is actually paid to benefit retirees, not just for current workers. The figure is at least several thousand dollars too high, by our calculations.

Second, the average federal civilian worker is better educated, more experienced and more likely to have management or professional responsibilities than the average private worker.

Over 44% of federal employees have a college degree, compared to about 19% of private sector workers. More importantly, an assessment of salaries (excluding benefits) by the Office of Personnel Management found that on average comparable federal civilian workers are paid 22 percent less than private workers. The disparities, even including incentive pay, are even greater in some metropolitan areas:

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When Rand Paul makes Marco Rubio sound sane, you know it's bad. Candy Crowley's theme of the day was the American Dream, and Rand's idea of it is, well...Randian. Actually, it's pretty dystopian.

Here's the transcript, via CNN:

CROWLEY: We leave you with a last set of thoughts on the fundamentals of the American dream. Capitol Hill, we found out, remains full of dreamers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: For me the American dream is the ability of people, no matter what their ethnicity, their religion, their background, their sexual orientation, to live up to their full potential.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: The American dream is more than just about people that made millions of dollars or own a jet airplane or yacht. It's about the hard-working people that service our lunch at restaurants or clean our offices at night who are working hard so that one day their kids can do all the things they themselves could not.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: We can't guarantee everyone in America that they're going to be successful, but we sure as heck ought to be able to guarantee that everybody gets a fair shot.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: It's not that we will have equal outcome. In fact, the American dream is that those who work harder and those who merit it will have unequal outcomes, that they will gain more of whatever the American dream is.

SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: The American dream means to me that a young girl who grew up going to public schools in a very modest household and who worked her way through college and law school someday has the incredible opportunity to be a United States senator.

In the overall spectrum of remarks clipped in this segment, Rand Paul's stand out like a big black thumbprint on an otherwise gradient landscape. "Those who work harder and those who merit it..." What exactly does that mean? Is there some formula for preordination for some in this country to 'merit it'? Is it a dogwhistle or just simple-minded meanness? What I heard in this segment was a United States Senator arguing for inequality, which squares exactly with his political philosophy of returning us to pre-Civil War era times.

As for Marco Rubio, what did he say, exactly? Not a whole lot, but most of it contradicts his actions. He voted for the Ryan plan, won't vote to raise the debt limit, and supports draconian cuts to services and assistance that would help those hard workers out there who want life to be better for their kids. So thanks Marco for the platitudes but next time back up your pretty words with some action, okay?

I'm a little late to this. You know I'm no fan of Rand Paul, but his thoughts on free speech and racial profiling with Hannity are just loony tunes.

Alex Seitz-Wald:

Libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) made headlines last week for single-handedly obstructing the renewal of the Patriot Act, calling the law an unconstitutional infringement on civil liberties. His demand to insert a series of amendments to weaken the law nearly allowed it to lapse and put the country at “risk,” but Paul said it was worth it to prevent the government from continuing to “blatantly ignor[e] the Constitution.” But when Paul went on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show Friday to discuss his opposition to the national security law, he suggested implementing a far more serious infringement on civil liberties. While discussing profiling at airports, Paul called for the criminalization of speech:

PAUL: I’m not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they’ve been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they’ve been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn’t be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.

Listen here:

Paul’s suggestion that people be imprisoned or deported for merely attending a political speech would be a fairly egregious violation on the First Amendment, not to mention due process. What if someone attended a radical speech as a curious bystander? Should they too be thrown in prison? And who defines what is considered so “radical” that it is worth imprisonment?

I believe Paul has said he's not as rigid as his father on certain Libertarian ideas, but Paul Krugman puts it this way:

He’s not unusual. There are genuine libertarians out there. But political figures who talk a lot about liberty and freedom invariably turn out to mean the freedom to not pay taxes and discriminate based on race; freedom to hold different ideas and express them, not so much

Digby describes him thusly:

How shall I put this delicately? The man isn't playing with a full deck. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed. He's a few tacos short of a fiesta platter. His jogging trail doesn't go all the way round the lake...He's an idiot. The fact that we have to count on him to be the guardian of the constitution in the US Senate says everything you need to know about the state of civil liberties in this country.

GGreenwald writes:

Indeed, the First Amendment not only protects the mere "attending" of a speech "promoting the violent overthrow of our government," but also the giving of such a speech. The government is absolutely barred by the Free Speech clause from punishing people even for advocating violence. That has been true since the Supreme Court's unanimous 1969 decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader who had threatened violence against political officials in a speech.

Liberals and Libertarians agree on civil liberty issues all the time, but it's the rest of their belief system that turns out the Rand Pauls and poses a danger to the health of our Democracy. Rachel Maddow exposed him pretty easily. Sean Hannity does have a way of extracting cuckoo for cocoa puffs rants from those that actually try to hide them to look more reasonable.

(h/t blue aardvark)

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Credit: CBPP

Bolstered by new polls and fresh off their vote to bar an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, House Republicans swaggered into the White House Wednesday for the latest negotiation to end their economic hostage taking. One, Rep. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, refused to attend and be "lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt."

Sadly for Rep. Landry, the nation's mounting debt is largely attributable to wars, a recession and tax policies President Obama inherited from his predecessor. Worse still, the Ryan 2012 budget proposal backed by almost every Republican in both houses of Congress would not only drain another $4 trillion in tax revenue from the Treasury, but fail all of the spending and balanced budget targets they themselves propose. Nevertheless, Republicans who voted seven times to double the debt ceiling under George W. Bush would risk the national economic suicide they admit would come to pass if their demands are not met.

Here, then, are 10 Inconvenient Truths About the Debt Ceiling:

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a "Financial Disaster"
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Pay for Themselves or Spur "Job Creators"
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling - Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid

(Click a link to jump to the data and details for each.)

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a "Financial Disaster"
Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and White House hopeful Tim Pawlenty are among the GOP luminaries who have joined the ranks of what Dana Milbank called the "default deniers." But you don't have to take Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's word for it "that if Congress doesn't agree to an increase in the debt limit by August 2, the United States will be forced to default on its debt, potentially spreading panic and collapse across the globe." As it turns out, Republican leaders (and their big business backers) have said the same thing.

In their few moments of candor, Republican leaders expressed agreement with Tim Geithner's assessment that default by the U.S. "would have a catastrophic economic impact that would be felt by every American." The specter of a global financial cataclysm has been described as resulting in "severe harm" (McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi), "financial collapse and calamity throughout the world" (Senator Lindsey Graham) and "you can't not raise the debt ceiling" (House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan). In January, even Speaker John Boehner acknowledged as much:

"That would be a financial disaster, not only for our country but for the worldwide economy. Remember, the American people on election day said, 'we want to cut spending and we want to create jobs.' And you can't create jobs if you default on the federal debt."

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From Barefoot and Progressive, more words of wisdom from wunderkind Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Rand Paul then decided to play some Tea Party History. You know Tea Party History, right? How the Founding Fathers ended slavery, Sputnik brought down the Soviet Union, Reagan never raised taxes, so on and so on. Rand Paul's been known to play this before with Hitler-flation, and played with Henry Clay in his opening speech on the Senate floor. And here's what he had to say about the Iraq/Iran War in the 80's:

"During the Iran/Iraq war from 1980-88, there were F-14's on both sides, you know, we're bombing each other with planes that we paid for on both sides because we got them for the Shah, and then we were supporting Sadam Hussein at the time."

That would be a great point, if it actually had any basis in reality. The United States didn't sell or give any aircraft to Iraq. Iraq never had F-14's. I get the "point" he's making here, but this once more shows either an incredible lack of understanding of history, or a willingness to make stuff up in order score political points.

Reality in the Republican World does have a different bend. It helps them make serious decisions about taxes and budgets and such. But even with these words of wisdom, I'll bet he and other Repubs don't think there's anything wrong with arming both Egypt and Israel, past enemies, with US military weapon systems. It's all good business for them, and they have no illusions about retaining the military-industrial complex.

But it is kind of weird to see M1 Abrams tanks facing off from the Egyptian protestors, isn't it? And F16s flying over Cairo? (Hat tip to Prof Farley)

UPDATE: Ron/Rand/Ryan typo corrected. Apologies.

A new video today catches Rand Paul repeatedly supporting a $2,000 Medicare deductible on Kentucky seniors – despite his claims just last week that such a statement was a “lie.”

This video shows Paul's history with wanting to make sure the elderly and poor suffer as much as possible so his free market masters can rake in boatloads of cash. Are the people of Kentucky paying attention to his policies?

Apparently not, and that's why Paul has stayed off of TV as much as possible. Here's his latest outrageous policy idea.

Digby writes:

Just what in the hell does Rand Paul have against disabled people? First he said that he wouldn't have voted for the Americans with Disabilities Act because it inconveniences business, then he said that old and sick people should be forced to be more responsible by paying a huge 2,000 deductible and now he wants to balance the budget on the backs of impoverished sick and disabled people on Medicaid.

I sure feel sorry for his patients. He has all the compassion of a rabid jackal.
--
And here I thought you couldn't balance the budget by "cutting off the welfare queens." But, Medicaid is "intergenerational welfare," presumably because it creates a sense of dependency among the sick an disabled children who should be begging in the streets to pay for their medical care. (Or just dying --- that would be the most responsible of all.)
--

Keep in mind that if Rand Paul wanted to live his libertarian principles, he'd stop taking Medicare and Medicaid patients. But he believes he "deserves to make a comfortable living" and takes in hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funded medical care each year. It's "other people" who have to sacrifice.

So true, so true.

Tea Partiers in KY and elsewhere have been for the most part, full of crap, because as Matt Taibbi observed in his lengthy article called Tea and Crackers, they sucking on the government teat, using Medicare and Medicaid and whatever else they can grab, while they trash it along the way.

But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them. At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about — and nowhere do we see that dynamic as clearly as here in Kentucky, where Rand Paul is barreling toward the Senate with the aid of conservative icons like Palin...read on

If these Teabirchers do get into office because of the power of Republican propaganda and the hatred of anything that is progressive from their sycophants, then all these conservative pawns who voted for them will suffer tremendously by their own hands.

The DSCC have a new ad based on Paul's latest insanity.

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Sometimes Rand Paul's anti-regulatory mouth gets him into trouble. Earlier this election season, he got into hot water with miners for suggesting the federal government shouldn't be involved in mine safety. He then later said he still "thinks miners, mine operators and mine regulators in Kentucky know what works best to keep Kentucky miners safe."

The problem is that state by state regulations, or lack thereof, create lax loopholes in the law big enough to drive a truck through. I don't doubt Rand "I'm not for the Civil Rights Act" believes that racist state legislators and officials knew what worked best when it came to voting laws, too.

So Blue America friend AmericansForAmericaPAC is going up on the Kentucky airwaves about it:

This ad is running on WXCC "Coal Country Radio" in the eastern Kentucky and in Madisonville, not far from the tragic disaster in the spring that killed 2 miners – which inspired Paul to say "Accidents Happen". According to the AP, there are 18,000 miners in Kentucky- plus their families and friends. AmericansForAmericaPAC is raising on ActBlue for it here.

This plays in Kentucky. Yesterday, the Lexington Herald-Leader just endorsed Jack Conway for Senate. Note the third paragraph:

Since riding the Tea Party wave to victory in the Republican primary as a relatively unvetted candidate, Paul has spent the summer and early fall revealing himself to be quite the ideologue who's long on simplistic slogans but short on understanding the drastic consequences of adhering to those slogans.

What came across as refreshingly candid in the spring proved to be distressingly extremist when Paul was pressed on issues ranging from civil rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

As a senator, his mission would be a chain-saw massacre of federal government that lays waste to farm subsidies, education spending, mine-safety regulations, federal aid in fighting the scourge of drugs and numerous other programs of significant benefit to Kentuckians.

Not only is mine safety a critical issue, but Paul's chain-saw approach to all regulations is winning support for Conway. Radio ads being among of the cheapest forms of political communication, $10 or $20 goes a long way. Blue America's partners at AmericansforAmericaPAC are taking every dollar and putting it into production and the buy- believe it or not, the admaker, a longtime colleague of mine, is actually working on the buy down the hall from me as I'm typing this. You can chip in here to keep reaching Kentucky miners.

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A sure-fire way to tell when someone is lying: A lot of noisy outrage while never denying the charge outright. That's what happened yesterday over and over again during the debate between Jack Conway and Rand Paul. While there were many memorable moments, the one above was one of the best, because it set the tone for the entire debate.

Jack Conway is one of the most unflappable debaters I've ever seen. He started out by very calmly pointing out in his opening statement that this is an election about values as much as it is about crime and the economy, and as such, Rand Paul should be held to account for his actions earlier in his life. Conway asked the question about why Paul thought it was all right to join a group condemned by the Baylor dean for holding views, and when it would be all right to tie a woman up and force her to pray to the Aqua Buddha.

Suffice it to say, that just rattled Rand Paul right out of the gate. There were two ways he could have handled this that would have been better. If it happened, he could simply have said "yes, it was stupid, I was in college, and college students don't always make good judgments', or if it didn't happen, he could simply have denied it outright, saying it never happened.

Instead, what we get is Rand Paul accusing Jack Conway of lying, of being outrageous, accusing the victim of lying while acknowledging that there is indeed a victim. It's quite a study in how to lie badly. Anyone who has raised a teenager sees right through Paul's response. Faux outrage; martyred victimhood.

It's the Republican way.

(Please support Jack Conway's candidacy by giving to Blue America on his behalf if you can. Rand Paul is receiving donations from all over the country and flooding Kentucky with negative ads -- Conway can use all the help we can give him.)

Bonus: Jack Conway's Aqua Buddha ad, which will send an interesting ripple across moral conservatives in Kentucky

Jonathan Chait got the ball rolling from the left wing elitists when he attacked Jack Conway's Aqua Buddha ad against Rand Paul when he wrote that he had sympathy for Paul. Many of us objected to this for many reasons, but how does Chait answer the criticisms? He makes shit up. Here's his defense of Paul:

Is Rand Paul misleading the electorate about his religion? Sure. But he's not running on a religious platform. It's Conway who's making religion an issue. I think an atheist, which is what I'm petty sure Paul is, ought to be able to run for office without having his belief system publicly interrogated.

Is he this naive about our current political system? When hasn't a Democrat's religion been question? John Kennedy's Catholicism was a big issue in 1960. The question of his electability because of his religious beliefs was a central question in that election. And since Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed injected religion into our mainstream political discourse beginning in the 1980s, it's only gotten much, much worse.

Chait admits that Rand Paul is probably lying about his belief in religion -- which I might agree with, but then he insists that even an atheist should be allowed to run for office. I agree with that completely -- except for one thing: Republicans don't believe in that assessment. Rand Paul doesn't believe that assessment. Republicans throw religion into every part of their party and into every debate we have, but for some reason others are forbidden to bring up the issue of religious values. Either Chait hasn't been following Baby Paul's campaign or is ignorant about what Rand has publicly stated about his views on religion. Paul did make religion part of the debate after he trumpeted his Christian faith -- evidently in contrast with Conway -- back in May, via Sarah Posner:

Appearing on The Brody File, Rand Paul, who believes that portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act need "further discussion" and may violate private business owners' First Amendment rights, said that we wouldn't really need laws in this country if everyone were a good Christian:

I'm a Christian. We go to the Presbyterian Church. My wife’s a Deacon there and we’ve gone there ever since we came to town. I see that Christianity and values is the basis of our society. . . . 98% of us won’t murder people, won’t steal, won’t break the law and it helps a society to have that religious underpinning. You still need to have the laws but I think it helps to have a people who believe in law and order and who have a moral compass or a moral basis for their day to day life.

Although Paul attends a mainline Protestant church, in his comments one might hear an echo of Christian Reconstructionism. RD contributor Julie Ingersoll, an expert on Christian Reconstructionism, once described it to me this way: "Reconstructionists claim to have an entirely integrated, logically defensible Christian worldview. Reconstructionism addresses everything you have to think about." In other words, as a society we should follow (preferable) biblical law, and dispense with all but a small handful of civil laws.

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As Ronald Reagan's budget chief almost thirty years ago, a frustrated David Stockman famously lamented that when it comes to spending discipline, "there are no real conservatives in Congress." Now, three decades after he concluded "the supply-siders have gone too far," Stockman called the Republican demand for another $700 billion tax cut windfall for the wealthy, "unconscionable." As well he should. With the new GOP majority's financial toxic brew of gargantuan tax giveaways and still unnamed spending cuts, the Free Lunch Party has returned.

In truth, it never really left. As Stockman experienced first-hand, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan. The Gipper's M.C. Escher-like pledge to slash taxes, raise defense spending and balance the budget produced a torrent of red in that exceeded that of the previous 200 plus years of American history combined.

But conservative propagandists soon forgot Stockman's "magic asterisk" and Reagan's subsequent tax increases, neither of which could stop the record budget deficits he produced. After the Clinton balanced budget hiatus in the 1990's, George W. Bush doubled the national debt yet again. As explained in "The Bush Tax Cuts in Pictures," President Bush's Free Lunch dream predictably turned into a budgetary nightmare:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities demolished the mythology promoted by President Bush ("You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase") and the usual suspects on the right. CBPP found that Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure.

And as another recent CBPP analysis revealed, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts if made permanent will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession put together.

(Worse still, the Bush tax cuts also coincided with an increase in poverty and a decline in Americans' average household income.)

And now, at a time of record budget deficits and record income inequality, Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell want to make the expiring Bush tax cuts permanent. The leading lights of the GOP still insist that draining $4 trillion from the U.S. Treasury over the next 10 years (including that $700 billion payday for the richest 2%) doesn't cost a cent.

For his part, this summer John Boehner wrongly claimed, "It's not the marginal tax rates ... that's not what led to the budget deficit." In July, Jon Kyl (R-AZ) the second ranking Senate Republican made the same point another way, telling Chris Wallace of Fox News, "You should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." Aborted Obama Commerce nominee Judd Gregg (R-NH) soon chimed in, declaring "I tend to think that tax cuts should not have to be offset." For his part, Oklahoma's Tom Coburn argued his math will work in the future if you ignore the past, "Continuing the [Bush] tax cuts isn't a cost, if you added new taxes, new tax cuts, I would agree that's a cost." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained how tax cuts magically turn red ink black:

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