The House Budget Committee has released a “report” called The War on Poverty: Fifty Years Later. The report tries to argue that people are poor because of social welfare programs and proposes to “help” them by gutting the programs. Paul Ryan was behind this, of course.

It didn’t take long for scholars whose work was cited in the report to weigh in.

… several economists and social scientists contacted on Monday had reactions ranging from bemusement to anger at Ryan’s report, claiming that he either misunderstood or misrepresented their research.

In short, Ryan consistently edited out data that didn’t support his conclusions and sometimes just plain misstated what the scholars he cited had concluded.

Ryan wants us to believe he’s “helping” the poor by shredding the safety net so that they don’t become dependent or complacent. Paul Krugman reveals what a crock that is.

OK, do you notice the assumption here? It is that reduced incentives to work mean reduced social mobility. Is there any reason to believe this as a general proposition?

Now, as it happens the best available research suggests that the programs Ryan most wants to slash — Medicaid and food stamps — don’t even have large negative effects on work effort. . . .

. . .In fact, the evidence suggests that welfare-state programs enhance social mobility, thanks to little things like children of the poor having adequate nutrition and medical care. And conversely,of course, when such programs are absent or inadequate, the poor find themselves in a trap they often can’t escape, not because they lack the incentive, but because they lack the resources.

I mean, think about it: Do you really believe that making conditions harsh enough that poor women must work while pregnant or while they still have young children actually makes it more likely that those children will succeed in life?

Of course, the point is not to help the poor but to punish them. Obviously, if people are poor, it must be because they deserve it.

Do you remember the “Texas Miracle” that helped (s)elect George W. Bush as president back in 2000? He argued that his education policies as governor had caused a radical turn-around in Texas schools, with higher test scores and lower dropout rates.

And it turned out there was no miracle. The numbers looked good because school districts were falsifying test scores and misreporting dropout rates.

Well, for a while ow the Right has been touting the Texas economic miracle, with Gov. Rick “oops” Perry claiming that job growth in Texas proves his low-tax, low-regulation policies are good for the economy. Turns out that claim falls apart under close scrutiny, also.

The New York Times is reporting that Russia has seized Crimea, and the usual armchair warriors are thumping their chests and declaring that this must not stand. Exactly what the United States is supposed to do about it, short of declaring war on Russia, is not entirely clear.

Mr. Obama is under bipartisan pressure to take action to stop Mr. Putin. A dozen senators from both parties wrote him a letter Friday arguing that “the U.S. should make use of the tools at its disposal,” including targeted sanctions and asset seizure.

“Now is the time for U.S. leadership,” said one of those senators, Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. “The U.S. and the European Union should take meaningful measures to demonstrate to the Russian government that military action against Ukraine is intolerable and will carry significant consequences for Moscow.”

None of the senators, however, outlined ideas not already on the table in the Situation Room. And besides, Mr. Obama needs Russian support in the midst of critical talks over Syria’s civil war and Iran’s nuclear program.

“What can we do?” asked Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar who was the government’s top intelligence officer on Russia during the Georgia war when Mr. Putin deflected Western agitation. “We’ll talk about sanctions. We’ll talk about red lines. We’ll basically drive ourselves into a frenzy. And he’ll stand back and just watch it. He just knows that none of the rest of us want a war.”

Yeah, pretty much. But from now until the 2016 elections, and beyond, Republicans will be giving themselves bruises with all the chest thumping. It’s so cheap and easy to strike strong and resolute poses and make declarations about “leadership” when you actually can’t do anything.

Oh, wait, Congress actually does have the power to declare war, doesn’t it? So if they’re so keen to go to war, just tell them to write up a freakin’ war resolution and put it up for a vote. Take a stand, why dontcha?

On the other end of the scale, there are a few whackjobs out there who seriously believe President Obama somehow enticed Russia to attack Ukraine so he can start a thermonuclear war. See also this guy, but be warned there’s an automatic video that will play whether you want it to or not.

Linking to this without further comment, except to say it made me laugh.

Yesterday Republicans came out with a tax reform plan that Jonathan Chait says isn’t that bad, or at least, isn’t stupid. Chait may just be astonished that a Republican can so much as tie his shoes. He admits the plan isn’t likely to raise revenue (why bother?).

The New York Times and Sahil Kapur at Talking Points Memo point to an interesting feature of the Republican plan — in effect, it raises taxes in blue states. Red states, not so much.

It does this in two ways. One, it would o longer allow people to subtract what they pay for state and local taxes from their tax bills. Who pays state income taxes? Who pays substantial local taxes? Blue state dwellers and city folks, that’s who.

Families making $450,000 and above would pay 35 percent instead of the current 39.6 percent, which is a tax cut, like they needed another one. But the mortage interest deduction would be limited, to make up for it. The NY Times says,

One big break that would be affected is the mortgage-interest deduction. By limiting it to $500,000, the plan would hurt many middle-class families that must borrow more than that to afford a house in expensive markets like New York. Even worse, it would repeal the deduction for state and local taxes, a deliberate attempt to make it more difficult for “blue” states to provide the services and safety-net protections that they have decided are necessary.

Mr. Camp’s plan is open about this intention: “This deduction redistributes wealth to big-government, high-tax states from small-government, low-tax states.”

Huh? It doesn’t redistribute anything. The low tax-states are getting more federal benefits than they pay in taxes, courtesy of the high-tax states. You’d think they’d be thankful.

With a hat tip to Moonbat, please see this Los Angeles Times article by Michael Hiltzik about yesterday’s “Obamacare is killing my mother” story.

Hiltzik analysis reveals, as I suspected, that Stephen Blackwood’s mother isn’t having a problem with “Obamacare”; she’s having a problem with the private insurance industry. We still don’t know why Blue Cross dumped Mother’s policy, but the most likely reason is that Blue Cross chose to dump her and gave Obamacare as the excuse. Her issues with her difficulties in navigating the insurance market are in large part because Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell deliberately made it that way. The issue about Humana not covering the cancer meds has nothing whatsoever to do with Obamacare. That’s an issue with Humana and Humana’s deceptive sales reps.

Another interesting tidbit, from a commenter — the author Stephen Blackwood, is the “president of Ralston College,” but Ralston College doesn’t actually exist. Blackwood is in the process of raising money to build it. That doesn’t make Blackwood a bad person, of course. But we really don’t know anything about Blackwood.

Hiltzik’s conclusion:

That does point to a problem with Obamacare, just not the one Stephen Blackwood and the Wall Street Journal think it does. The problem is that the Affordable Care Act not only left commercial insurers at the center of our healthcare system, but strengthened their grip on coverage. Many of the problems that have cropped up with the ACA are reflections of the private industry’s role, including its lousy customer service.

There’s no question that confusion and complexity still govern America’s healthcare system. But for millions of Americans, there’s less of that, and more fairness, than there was before the ACA. Judging from her son’s op-ed, Catherine Blackwood is still getting her cancer treatment, with the exception of a decision about medication that Humana should be ashamed about.

Blackwood wrote that “it is precisely because health care for 300 million people is so complicated that it cannot be centrally managed.” But the ACA is the exact opposite of “centrally managed” healthcare. In fact, as advocates of a single-payer system argue, if it were centrally managed, it might work better.

The Wall Street Journal is running a sob story about how “Obamacare is killing my mother,” and I’m calling bullshit.

The story in brief: Mother has cancer. Needs specific medicines. Old Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy was expensive, but it was paying for the medicines. It was a “terrific plan.” In November, Blue Cross cancelled policy, blamed Obamacare. Mother finds the exchange in her state (Virginia) was not working. Got on the phone to private insurance companies, got jerked around, just found out new policy doesn’t cover the meds. Blame Obama.

Articles of Bullshit:

1. Why was the Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy “illegal” under the ACA if it was that great? The only policies actually canceled by the ACA were those with gaps in what they covered. Was Blue Cross dumping Mother as a patient and blaming Obamacare, when in fact it was Blue Cross’s decision?

2. Viginia doesn’t have its own state exchange. The federal site was working by December. Why didn’t they use it?

3. The rest of the article amounts to how Mother was jerked around by private insurance companies she contacted directly, not “Obamacare.” Humana told her things were covered that turned out not to be covered, she said. I’ve had the same thing happen to me dealing with insurance companies, but this was back during the Clinton Administration. Obamacare traveling back in time?

Why does the new policy not cover her cancer meds, when the old “illegal” one did? That’s highly suspicious. Is it that the policy has substandard pharmaceutical coverage, or is there a deductible to be met, or what? And they’ve still got time, so why not get on the exchange now and see if they could do better?

Of course they won’t, because whining is so much more fun. See also Krugman.