Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush hoped to use his Republican National Convention appearance to rehabilitate his brother's shattered reputation. After claiming on Sunday that it was "unbecoming" for Barack Obama to continue to "blame others" for the economic calamity he inherited from George W. Bush, on Thursday Jeb suggested the President should be "spanked" for pointing the finger at Dubya.

Now, there are only a few problems with this approach, not the least of which is that most Americans agree with Obama. In 2004, then Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney defended President Bush from John Kerry by protesting that "The people of America recognize that the slowdown in jobs that occurred during the early years of the Bush administration were the result of a perfect storm." Worse still, even now Team Mitt whines that "Governor Romney inherited an economy that was losing jobs each month" back in the Bay State. As it turns out, President George W. Bush and his acolytes have never stopped blaming Bill Clinton for the GOP's lost decade.

Jeb's brother made that point during his final press conference on January 12, 2009. During a month in which Americans would only later learn that the U.S. economy shed a staggering 820,000 jobs, President Bush passed the buck forwards--and backwards:

"In terms of the economy, look, I inherited a recession, I am ending on a recession. In the meantime there were 52 months of uninterrupted job growth. And I defended tax cuts when I campaigned, I helped implement tax cuts when I was President, and I will defend them after my presidency as the right course of action. And there's a fundamental philosophical debate about tax cuts. Who best can spend your money, the government or you? And I have always sided with the people on that issue."

But while that fundamental philosophical question is still the subject of heated debate, the facts should not be.

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For Mitt Romney, the love that dare not speak its name is "vouchers." Two weeks after he delivered a major address on education policy in which he never mentioned the V word, the New York Times detailed Romney's proposal to divert $25 billion in taxpayer dollars to religious, private and for-profit schools. But voters don't have to imagine what that plan, an old GOP twofer designed to subsidize Christian institutions while bludgeoning Democratic-friendly teachers unions, will do to American public education. As the frightening results in states like Louisiana, Indiana, Georgia and Arizona show, the Republican voucher dream is fast becoming America's nightmare present.

Governor Romney has been an advocate of so-called "school choice" since his first run for the White House. In 2007, Romney suggested American parents should not only be encouraged to abandon the public schools; they should be rewarded for it with a tax break for home schooling their kids:

"I also believe parents who are teaching their kids at home, homeschoolers, deserve a break, and I've asked for a tax credit to help parents in their homes with the cost of being an at-home teacher."

Now, as the Republican nominee outlined in a recent speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Romney wants to redirect $25 billion from two federal programs into a new voucher scheme. As the New York Times explained:

As president, Mr. Romney would seek to overhaul the federal government's largest programs for kindergarten through 12th grade into a voucherlike system. Students would be free to use $25 billion in federal money to attend any school they choose -- public, charter, online or private -- a system, he said, that would introduce marketplace dynamics into education to drive academic gains.

But as the experience in Indiana and Louisiana suggests, that system would instead introduce large quantities of public cash into the coffers of religious schools and academies whose educational credentials may be suspect at best.

In "Vouchers Breathe New Life into Shrinking Catholic Schools," the Wall Street Journal last week revealed that Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' voucher program is proving a major boon to the bishops supposedly concerned about government mandates. "Driven by expanding voucher programs, outreach to Hispanic Catholics and donations by business leaders," WSJ reported, "Catholic schools in several major cities are swinging back from closures and declining enrollment." For example:

Thanks to vouchers, St. Stanislaus, which was $140,000 in debt to the Catholic Diocese of Gary at the end of 2010, picked up 72 new students, boosting enrollment by 38%.

"God has been good to us," says Ms. [Principal Kathleen] Lowry. "Growth is a good problem to have."

Mark Gray of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University explained why.

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Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) repeatedly misled viewers about right-to-work (for less) laws and his own record on Fox News Sunday morning.

WALLACE: Finally, you just signed this month a law making Indiana the 23rd state, right-to-work state in the country, which means that people don't have to join the union to get a specific job. Question: What's wrong with unions?

DANIELS: Nothing is wrong with unions. And if that measure affected any way the right to bargain, the right to organize collectively, I wouldn't have been for it. That's completely untouched. All it says is the worker can decide whether or not it's worth the dues, whether they'd rather have that money themselves.

WALLACE: But doesn't that necessarily in a practical sense over the long run weaken unions? Certainly, the unions think so.

DANIELS: No, not necessarily. There are higher rates of unionization in some right-to-work states than there are in Indiana today. It really a matter of whether people think they're getting their money's worth. And we just knew it would bring more jobs to our state and that was my principal motive for doing it. And already, the phone is ringing and we are about to strike some agreement I think to put more Hoosiers to work.

WALLACE: All right. Back in 2006, you said that you opposed right-to-work as, in your words, too divisive. Now, the unions say, as a result of this decision to sign and make it a right-to-work state, that wages will go down and work places will become more dangerous.

DANIELS: Well, first of all, that's all bunk. Facts be could not be more clear that safety is unaffected, wages and job growth are much faster in the 22 right to work states than in the 28 that didn't provide this protection to workers.

Now for several years that really true I said -- I never said I was opposed to right to work, I said we can succeed under the labor laws we have. Ultimately, particularly in this terrible national economy I reluctantly came to the conclusion that we need to take this step if we were going to have the kind of opportunity state I wanted Indiana to be.

WALLACE: Governor Daniels, I want to thank you so much for coming in. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, sir. Please come back.

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One of the richest men in the country, ranking in the 0.006 percent of Americans, likes to accuse the President of creating an “entitlement society.” Mitt Romney, the heir apparent, next in line GOP nominee … is against entitlement.

When I hear “entitlement society” I think, “country club.” But When Mitt uses that phrase he doesn’t mean rich guys like him, given all the advantages of wealth, who are now enjoying its comforts – he means the rest of us. Yes, Mitt is against an “entitlement society” because that involves too many people and not just him and his ilk. It’s not the “entitlement” he contests – it’s the entire “society” part.

At the Monday Florida debate last week Mitt noted that under Gingrich’s tax plan Mitt would pay no taxes at all. Gingrich responded with, “Well, if that -- and if you created enough jobs doing that -- it was Alan Greenspan who first said the best rate, if you want to create jobs for capital gains, is zero.”

So rich people whose money makes their money (it’s literally capital gaining) are so fortunate they get to hire other people to pay taxes for them? Rich people with their alleged mythical power to create jobs even get to outsource their tax obligations to poor saps working for a living?

This is the prosperity gospel as a Super PAC-funded marketing blitz. Money is next to godliness and poverty is the fault of the poor for not being better people.

It’s as if Jesus were a CEO and the Romans job-killing communists.

“Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business,” former George W. Bush budget director Gov. Mitch Daniels said in his State of the Union response last week, “It's one of the noblest of human pursuits.” This is one of those phrases you (usually) will only hear in business school (funnier if it was one of those rip-off for-profit colleges). Business is one of the noblest of human pursuits? Noble as in aristocratic? That phrase, “noble pursuits,” is usually applied to an avocation not paying much but rewarding in other ways: teachers; firefighters; nurses; foster parents; soldiers; community leaders; social workers; mentors; rescue workers; care givers; farmers. Or to anyone who’s honest, shows up every day and works hard. That’s a noble pursuit.

Are the wealthy really so sensitive they need Mitch Daniels to make them feel better about themselves in a spiritual sense? What they’re doing not only pays off with privilege and cash – it also has to be venerable from a moral perspective? How much reward does one group need? They own everything and they also need to be thanked?!

The rich are not just over-paid – they’re over valued. And generous welfare recipients.

As Senator Tom Coburn points out in his damning Nov. 2011 report, “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous,” we are a wealthfare state. It reads, “This reverse Robin Hood style of wealth redistribution is an intentional effort to get all Americans bought into a system where everyone appears to benefit.” In other words: We subsidize the rich by telling the poor to pay their fair share.

It’s been a strange three years under the Obama administration. First the GOP was against empathy. Yes, the party had to vehemently opposed seeing the plight of your fellow human beings because Obama was for it. Now their new hot button word? Fairness. Obama used the word fairness in his third State of the Union. And now the GOP has decided to be against fairness and celebrate inequality as being the thing that makes America great.

It’s as if Jesus were a CEO and the three wise men were shareholders.

The prosperity gospel is not America. It’s not democratic. It’s not even Christian. It’s greed warped into being a virtue by the greedy.

The rich aren’t better, they’re just richer.

Daniels before he flip-flopped on right-to-work for less laws

Despite strong public opposition, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and House Speaker Brian Bosma are pushing through so-called right-to-work legislation that would strip working families of their rights. The bill passed the state House by a 55 to 41 vote on Wednesday and will now head to the state Senate, which previously passed a different version of the bill.

Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma and Gov. Daniels have been ramming the so-called right to work bill through even after the voters have made clear that they want a public referendum on the controversial anti-worker measure. Only one-third of Indiana voters favor passing the RTW for less law and a whopping 69 percent of Hoosier voters say that the Indiana General Assembly should slow down the process to allow more debate. An overwhelming 71 percent of respondents want to give voters—not the legislature—the final say on this controversial legislation.

The bill was passed while 10,000 protesters stood outside in opposition to the bill and in the wake of 20,000 signed postcards opposing it as well.

Republicans across the country are pushing strong for state and national right-to-work laws and the presidential candidates all favor them in some form or another. Oklahoma passed a right-to-work for less law last year and found that it didn't perform as advertised. Laura Clawson at Daily Kos has a great rundown with the flaws in these laws.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the AFL-CIO say that the GOP's choice of Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels to deliver the official Republican response to the State of the Union should be scary and that it is a sign that Republicans are going all-in on so-called 'right-to-work' laws in 2012. AFSCME released a video Tuesday highlighting the reasons people should be scared of Daniels, including:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and his allies in the state legislature are pushing so-called 'right-to-work' legislation in Indiana that they claim will create jobs when, in reality, the legislation is a thinly-veiled assault on Indiana workers. Two bills before the legislature, HB 1001 and SB 269, would establish Indiana as a 'right-to-work' state. The bills are based on model legislation from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and are a top priority for Republicans. An ad campaign in favor of the bills is being funded by a mysterious group known as the Indiana Opportunity Fund that refuses to divulge its donors.

Backers of the bills argue they are necessary to improve the economy of the state, but the real motives are something else:

So-called right-to-work laws, which are in effect in 22 states, make it harder for workers to organize, join, and maintain unions. “Right-to-work laws are about bankrupting unions in Indiana and across the country,” said Richard Knipp Teamster Local 142 secretary-treasurer in Gary. “The argument that such legislation attracts more corporate business is a complete fabrication. Right-to-work-for-less is designed to diminish union treasuries, weaken our political power, and kick our members out of the middle class.”

...

“Hoosiers (Indiana residents) want the General Assembly to focus on fixing the economy and creating good paying jobs rather than these tired old partisan attacks on collective bargaining rights, and we hope these commercials serve as a reminder of that,” said Nancy Guyott, Indiana AFL-CIO president.

Daniels also attempted to close off the statehouse to the public while the bills were being discussed in the legislature. Democrats are pushing for public hearings to allow the public to debate the bill, but Republicans have so far refused.

Conservative claims about 'right-to-work' fall flat:

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Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) is dishonestly pushing a so-called 'right-to-work' law for Indiana that failed in 2011, but will likely return in 2012. For the first time, an Indiana Republican is challenging the governor's anti-union agenda. State Sen. Jim Tomes broke ranks with his party and penned a letter to the Evansville Courier & Press telling the truth about the law and the Republican agenda.

Like Republicans in other states, Daniels and his allies are lying about unions and what the law currently allows. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 already prohibits all the abuses that 'right-to-work' proponents claim to be fighting against. The reality of such laws is that they are assaults on unions and worker rights.

The letter Tomes wrote:

It is unfortunate that the upcoming Indiana legislative session is concentrating on targeting the working class, in particular those in the unionized sector.

I would have preferred to direct our efforts to accomplish goals of advancing all working families as well as small businesses and corporations.

It's my opinion that such an endeavor as that would be more beneficial for Indiana rather than seeking to single out one group at the expense of another.

There are already a great deal of statistics and data being presented in support of making Indiana a right to work state.

Some of the reports being used to support the argument for right to work were generated by the very groups pursuing this measure.

In my search, I found an unbiased report that used several models showing that right to work states have about a 6.5 percent lower wage. It also noted that the proximity of right to work states to non-right to work states enjoy somewhat of a higher wage than other right to work states.

Those workers who are members of a union are recipients of the services provided by their organizations, much like members of a country club, fraternal organization, or countless other local, state and national clubs and organizations.

Should we excuse anyone who receives services rendered from paying for that service? Should it be that if the plumber or auto mechanic that performs a duty as requested and expected be subjected to the notion that a person should opt to pay what they feel like paying or whether to pay at all?

That is the core of the right to work conflict -- to establish that a person under a union agreement can opt to pay dues or not.

For the building trades, those dues are used to maintain training centers. In those facilities, workers learn their trade; they achieve their apprenticeship, journeyman and master level in their field. It's that intense training that provides them the opportunity to excel, just like a college education provides students the opportunity to succeed.

Whether it's a labor or trade union, the individuals working in those jobs are people who want to carve out a good standard of living for themselves and their families, just like workers in all sectors of society.

Let's not seek to bring anyone down, but instead aim to move everyone up.

Jim Tomes is a Republican Indiana state senator from Wadesville.

As the GOP field of candidates crumbles,The Politico revs up the spin machine for Mitch Daniels with a typical fawning profile: GOP elite see Mitch Daniels as 2012 savior

Top Republicans are increasingly convinced that President Barack Obama will be easily reelected if stronger GOP contenders do not emerge, and some are virtually begging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to add some excitement to the slow-starting nomination race.

It’s a sign of the GOP’s straits that the party is depending on the bland, wonkish Daniels for an adrenaline boost. But interviews this week with longtime party activists and strategists made clear that many in the Republican establishment are unnerved by a field led by Mitt Romney, who could have trouble confronting Obama on health reform; Tim Pawlenty, who has yet to ignite excitement; Jon Huntsman, who may be too moderate to get the nomination; and Newt Gingrich, weighed down by personal baggage and a sense that he is a polarizing figure from the 1990s.

Despairing Republican lobbyists say their colleagues don’t ask, “Who do you like?” but instead, “Who do we back?”

“It’s not that they’re up in arms,” said a central player in the GOP money machine. “It’s just that they’re depressed.”

It's a very weird article because it's not about how great Daniels is and how fired up the Republicans elite are over his possible candidacy, but rather how weak the rest of the GOP field is. There really isn't much about Daniels at all in the article that's supposedly about him. The headline doesn't match the substance of the piece itself, but I guess they want links from bloggers like me.

The MSM began lining up behind Mitch Daniels in May because he's a conservative governor, as Ed Kilgore explains in TNR: "The conservative establishment’s hopeless infatuation with Mitch Daniels"

Later he expanded on this here: Mitch Daniels and the Gravitas Lobby

Which leads Digby to write: The Villagers' New Heartthrob

Daniels also has some baggage I don't think the Villagers realize is poison among just about everyone --- he was a member of George W. Bush's economic team. Now, Republicans don't really care about that but they have gone to a great deal of trouble to distance themselves from Bush's epic failure by robotically claiming that they didn't support Bush's spending either. Daniels is going to have a bit of trouble making that argument and you can bet his primary rivals will hang Bush's effigy around his neck and set it afire.

The mere idea that a Bush economic advisor has "gravitas" would be astonishing if we weren't living in bizarroworld.

So out came stories about his Daniels' wife. As Doug J at Balloon Juice writes: Oh Cheri, all alone

I think Daniels is a weak primary candidate for a variety of reasons, but there’s no doubt Daniels will be establishment media’s favored candidate in both the primary and, if he gets there, the general. He’s the new John McCain. So his personal life will not be explored. Funny how this never happens with Democratic candidates.

What was the top news story of last week? Obviously Bin Laden's demise. CNN's Reliable Sources TV show focuses on how the media covers the most important stories that drive the news for the past week. After Bin Laden was killed, the right wing then tried to shift the debate to justify torture so it became a two pronged lead in a sense. What story did Reliable Sources begin their show with? The wives of GOP candidates running for President in 2012. And one of those wives who was featured was Cheri Daniels.

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Former OMB Director and current Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels would appreciate it very much if you didn't remind him of the things he said regarding budgets and the deficit back when he was part of the infrastructure that put us in this mess and listen to him now, thankyouverymuch.

Back then, Daniels cajoled Congress into avoiding making the debt ceiling a political game. Nowadays, he's just too busy union-busting to pay attention, doncha know...but then later in the conversation says that he hopes that the Republicans use the leverage they have now (holding the threat of a government shutdown over the Democrats) to effect *real* change. Funny, that, how he changes his tune.

Daniels (ever enabled by the ineffectual Chuck Todd, who never met a conservative meme he didn't snuggle up to) loves to make the distinction between the puny, miniscule little deficit he had to deal with under Bush and the huge monstrosity that the Obama administration is responsible for, ignoring the fact that the reason that Obama's is so much larger is that his budget office much more honestly added the costs for the ongoing actions in the Middle East that were completely off the books during Daniels' tenure. Nor was there any attempt to pay for the tax cuts for the very wealthy. It's stupid and disingenuous for Republicans to pretend that the economic uncertainty only mattered after 1/20/09 and it's pathetic and evil for the media to continue to let them do so.

Transcripts (courtesy of MSNBC) below the fold

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