Gingrich: CBO a "Reactionary Socialist institution"

[Wonkish1]

This is the kind of over the top rhetoric that is classic Newt which is why he is unfit for office, and unelectable. Period. "Reactionary socialist" is a term I would think would be more typical of a confused teenager on this site actually, who is just enthralled by all of these exciting new ideological terms that have recently come into his life. Newt, calling people names like that is infra dig, you hear me! Listen!

Come on, buddy, Newt is more stupid than nearly any teenager on this site - which is why he has a good chance of winning your party's nomination.  And why should that make him unelectable?  Virtually no one in the electorate has any idea what the worlds socialist or reactionary mean.

this... I mean look at what the Republican voters chose to lead their party last year.


This woman is the reason why Harry Reid is still in the Senate. Reid at the time was the most hated man in the state. Had they nominated Lowden or Tark and Schumer would be majority leader today. But nope they not conservative nor rhetorical enough to talk about second amendment remedies.

Despite Castle having a 15 point lead on Chris Coons, the same voters in Delaware went with Christine O'Donnell. Why? Because Castle was a liberal RINO. Of course we saw what happened next.

Despite racist e-mails and lack of integrity Paladino won the Republican primary. Not only his angry rhetoric did not hurt him it HELPED him.

Why would it be different today? The base loves the red meat.

Comparing Newt to those 3 D-Bags(who folks like myself knew were crazy as soon as details emerged about them) shows you have no clue!

[Wonkish1]

Lets also point out that Rubio set Florida election history with huge win in 2010 and he was the much more conservative pick relative.

There are a lot similarities between someone like Newt and Rubio. Both of them were idea Speaker's of their respective houses that dropped idea's out of their heads like machines. Also they both have a very, very good sense of their own political strategy. And in both cases they developed that strategy out of their own experience and thought and not out any traditional campaign consultancy.

The fact that the left on here hates Newt a ton is meaningless.

[Bacon King]

This is the kind of over the top rhetoric that is classic Newt which is why he is unfit for office, and unelectable. Period. "Reactionary socialist" is a term I would think would be more typical of a confused teenager on this site actually, who is just enthralled by all of these exciting new ideological terms that have recently come into his life. Newt, calling people names like that is infra dig, you hear me! Listen!

You should listen to conservative talk radio every now and then, Torie; it'd help you keep a finger on the pulse of your party's base. I'll generally listen to Hannity and O'Reilly for maybe a couple of hours each week, whenever I happen to be driving around while their programs are on the air. I'm pretty sure I've heard them describe Obama policies as "reactionary socialism" before. Or maybe they were calling him a "socialist reactionary," something like that, I don't remember the context exactly. Of course the term doesn't actually make sense, but it doesn't matter- the intended audience knows socialism is evil, and when they hear that word with a big and scary-sounding adjective in front of it, that just means it's extra evil. The Republican base loves this sort of stuff.

I also agree with Wonkish's analysis regarding Newt's intentions here. This is exactly the sort of stuff Newt needs to be doing right now if he wants to win the nomination.

 

You don't get it! Newt has said that the key to winning to elections and winning votes is to find issues that you either already have a large majority on your side or you think you can easily create a large majority on your side. You then stand with them and smile and your opponents are either forced to join your side and stand in your shadow or take the minority side of the position.

Or, if your opponent is Bill Clinton, be forced to stand in his shadow as he co-opts all of your popular proposals, acts like they were his idea all along, and gets easily reelected because of it.

Excellent analysis in this post, btw. Newt definitely knows what he's doing here.

[Wonkish1]

I also agree with Wonkish's analysis regarding Newt's intentions here. This is exactly the sort of stuff Newt needs to be doing right now if he wants to win the nomination.

 

You don't get it! Newt has said that the key to winning to elections and winning votes is to find issues that you either already have a large majority on your side or you think you can easily create a large majority on your side. You then stand with them and smile and your opponents are either forced to join your side and stand in your shadow or take the minority side of the position.

Or, if your opponent is Bill Clinton, be forced to stand in his shadow as he co-opts all of your popular proposals, acts like they were his idea all along, and gets easily reelected because of it.

Excellent analysis in this post, btw. Newt definitely knows what he's doing here.

Well what he is doing right now is trying to force a bunch of little issues up. If something isn't seen as a problem or isn't a "controversial" issue then it doesn't get into the campaign. So Newt is trying to make non-controversial issues "controversial" so that he can force them into this years campaign.

Take for example "English should be the official language of government" by phrasing it that way he thinks he can get some liberals to bite and balk at that. Well its actually code for English immersion replacing bilingual education. An issue that is over 80% among Hispanics and a 90% issue among the general public. As soon as he can get the Dems to bite he switches gears with a nice little transition I've seen him make a couple dozen times and all of sudden they are left holding a 10% position against him and a position that would likely annoy Hispanics because they want to learn English and they want their kids to learn English.

[Gustaf]

I don't really find reactionary socialist to be that odd a term. Wikipedia calls reactionary: "The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state (the status quo ante) in a society."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary

There is nothing inherently contradictory or silly with socialism wanting to do that. In reality both sides use reactionary as a slur, to imply the other side is not modern. That's done all the time.

[scoopa]

Yeah, I don't really see the problem with the "reactionary socialist" expression. I have myself used the term "reactionary left" many times, usually as a rhetoric attack on the European left that defends the "European social model" which in my view is a thing of the past. It suits the American left too, considering how often we have democrats pining for the glorious days of the pre-Reagan past,  Great Society, 90% marginal tax rates and stuff like that.  In fact, I'd say that in most of the Western world, the left may very well be more reactionary - in the sense of protecting the status quo against reformist change - than the right.

The CBO has a long tradition of consistently underestimating the costs of government initiatives - from wars to welfare programs. It's to be expected, considering the CBO is itself a government bureaucracy. Douglas Holtz-Eakin was the CBO director when the Medicare part D extension was enacted, wasn't he? It could be interesting to compare the CBO projections with the real costs.

[NVGonzalez]

This is the kind of over the top rhetoric that is classic Newt which is why he is unfit for office, and unelectable. Period. "Reactionary socialist" is a term I would think would be more typical of a confused teenager on this site actually, who is just enthralled by all of these exciting new ideological terms that have recently come into his life. Newt, calling people names like that is infra dig, you hear me! Listen!

Come on, buddy, Newt is more stupid than nearly any teenager on this site - which is why he has a good chance of winning your party's nomination.  And why should that make him unelectable?  Virtually no one in the electorate has any idea what the worlds socialist or reactionary mean.

this... I mean look at what the Republican voters chose to lead their party last year.


This woman is the reason why Harry Reid is still in the Senate. Reid at the time was the most hated man in the state. Had they nominated Lowden or Tark and Schumer would be majority leader today. But nope they not conservative nor rhetorical enough to talk about second amendment remedies.

Despite Castle having a 15 point lead on Chris Coons, the same voters in Delaware went with Christine O'Donnell. Why? Because Castle was a liberal RINO. Of course we saw what happened next.

Despite racist e-mails and lack of integrity Paladino won the Republican primary. Not only his angry rhetoric did not hurt him it HELPED him.

Why would it be different today? The base loves the red meat.

Comparing Newt to those 3 D-Bags(who folks like myself knew were crazy as soon as details emerged about them) shows you have no clue!

Comparing a man who has 300 pounds of baggage (no pun intended) and spews such rhetoric to these 3 is fair game. Especially when there is someone who actually has a shot at winning the White House yet is being snubbed.

[Wonkish1]

This is the kind of over the top rhetoric that is classic Newt which is why he is unfit for office, and unelectable. Period. "Reactionary socialist" is a term I would think would be more typical of a confused teenager on this site actually, who is just enthralled by all of these exciting new ideological terms that have recently come into his life. Newt, calling people names like that is infra dig, you hear me! Listen!

Come on, buddy, Newt is more stupid than nearly any teenager on this site - which is why he has a good chance of winning your party's nomination.  And why should that make him unelectable?  Virtually no one in the electorate has any idea what the worlds socialist or reactionary mean.

this... I mean look at what the Republican voters chose to lead their party last year.


This woman is the reason why Harry Reid is still in the Senate. Reid at the time was the most hated man in the state. Had they nominated Lowden or Tark and Schumer would be majority leader today. But nope they not conservative nor rhetorical enough to talk about second amendment remedies.

Despite Castle having a 15 point lead on Chris Coons, the same voters in Delaware went with Christine O'Donnell. Why? Because Castle was a liberal RINO. Of course we saw what happened next.

Despite racist e-mails and lack of integrity Paladino won the Republican primary. Not only his angry rhetoric did not hurt him it HELPED him.

Why would it be different today? The base loves the red meat.

Comparing Newt to those 3 D-Bags(who folks like myself knew were crazy as soon as details emerged about them) shows you have no clue!

Comparing a man who has 300 pounds of baggage (no pun intended) and spews such rhetoric to these 3 is fair game. Especially when there is someone who actually has a shot at winning the White House yet is being snubbed.

No it just shows you don't have a clue! You aren't making a serious statement at all!

[Wonkish1]

Fine I'll point out the obvious to everyone. I thought this was simple enough that someone would stumble on it.

In this case, Reactionary = an entity who's outlooks are based on the last couple years of information and doesn't take into account any information that might be a more accurate prognostication of what lies ahead. Its like an investor who predicts the future based on the last couple years; he would likely be one of the worst performers out there.

So the reactionary and socialist are two parts. Reactionary is how it prognosticates variables and socialist is how its models are designed.

God, this isn't rocket science.

[BigSkyBob]

Does Newt know what the word 'reactionary' means? It doesn't seem so.

To the first part, um, the man was a professor. "Reactionary" isn't that obscure of a word.

To the second part, um, yes he does. The economic models used by the CBO will "score" certain policy proscriptions better than they are apt to actually perform,  and other policy proscriptions worse than they are apt to actually perform. The latter is the epitome of being "reactionary" since it was the political class that created, funded, and staffed the CBO.

[BigSkyBob]

Isn't 'reactionary socialism' an oxymoron (in 99% of contexts)?

So, he is talking about the other 1% of contexts. For example, for a Marxist-dominated economics department to deny tenure to a professor simple because he believes in capitalism would be an example of "reactionary socialism."

[Filuwaúrdjan]

For example, for a Marxist-dominated economics department

Do such things exist?