Here's what you'll be hearing ad nauseum tomorrow from the Just Say No Party. Frank Luntz Pens Memo To Kill Financial Regulatory Reform
Frank Luntz's WORDS TO USE
ACCOUNTABILITY
TRANSPARENCY & OVERSIGHT
LOBBYIST LOOPHOLES
ENFORCEMENT OF CURRENT LAWS
BUREAUCRATS
WASTEFUL WASHINGTON SPENDING
NEVER AGAIN
GOVERNMENT FAILURES AND INCOMPETENCE
LET'S HELP SMALL BUSINESS
BIG BANK BAILOUT BILL
BLOATED BUREAUCRACY
FINE PRINT
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
SPECIAL INTERESTS
HARD WORKING TAXPAYERS
ANOTHER WASHINGTON AGENCY
UNLIMITED REGULATORY POWERS
DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
RED TAPE
Background from Sam Stein at HuffPo:
Nine months after he penned a memo laying out the arguments for health care legislation's destruction, Republican message guru Frank Luntz has put together a playbook to help derail financial regulatory reform.
In a 17-page memo titled, "The Language of Financial Reform," Luntz urged opponents of reform to frame the final product as filled with bank bailouts, lobbyist loopholes, and additional layers of complicated government bureaucracy.
"If there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that the bad decisions and harmful policies by Washington bureaucrats that in many ways led to the economic crash must never be repeated," Luntz wrote. "This is your critical advantage. Washington's incompetence is the common ground on which you can build support."
Luntz continued: "Ordinarily, calling for a new government program 'to protect consumers' would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying 'no.' They are saying 'hell no' to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests."
In Republican circles Luntz's words, which have helped the party score win the message wars over health care and other legislative battles, are often treated as gospel. Already, some of the advice he's offered on regulatory reform has found its way into the political discourse -- with a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency seemingly on life support under Republican objections.
At what point do the Tea Baggers wake up and understand they're being played? Key words dictated by a pollster, repeated by Republicans endlessly and irrelevantly in opposition to every fact-based argument for sane policies? We need a new drinking game - every time you hear the ridiculously alliterative phrase "Bloated Bureaucracy" uttered by a member of the Party of No, take a slug of that ginger ale or whatever it is that's resting next to your remote. When you hear the even more tortured phrase, "Big Bank Bailout Bill", take two. If we could get the Tea Baggers to do the same, maybe they'd gain a little clarity on how they're being played for fools to oppose policies that are in their own best interests.
When a Consumer Protection Agency becomes a Bloated Bureaucracy full of Red Tape where the Devil is in the Details, when that language is dictated by Luntz and repeated endlessly by RW pols until it's adopted by the hapless Tea Baggers as common wisdom, they're screwn, and they have nobody but themselves to blame.
Here's Elizabeth Warren on the proposed Consumer Protection Agency:
"The CFPA is the heart of what makes regulatory reform work," Warren said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "The consumer credit market is where the biggest abuses were. It is where families will be most directly affected and it is where the American people will see change. CFPA is how to make clear that regulatory reform is for them, and that it isn't a game among insiders.
"We just can't pass a regulatory reform bill that acquiesces to the industry on every front and where everything is so watered down that nobody has to take a hard vote," she said.
"It's not ok to weaken the agency so much that, while everyone can vote yes and pretend to support consumers' right to a fair deal, nothing really changes. I want a strong agency, and if there's not going to be a strong agency, then I at least want to see an up-or-down vote on it. Let's see a vote."
And if it fails?
"Shame on them," Warren declared.
Shame on Luntz, shame on the Republican Party of Dictated Talking Points, and shame on the Tea Baggers who buy it hook, line and sinker. Here's a Word to Use for the Republican base: GULLIBLE.
EDIT More. There are not just WORDS, but PHRASES to USE:
WORDS THAT WORK
If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that the bad decisions and harmful policies by Washington bureaucrats that in many ways led to the economic crash must never be repeated.
WORDS THAT WORK
Taxpayer-funded bailouts reward bad behavior. Taxpayers should not be held responsible for the failure of big business any longer. If a business is going to fail, not (sic) matter how big, let it fail.
WORDS THAT WORK
The financial crisis hurt all of us. Homes were lost. Jobs were destroyed. Businesses closed. There is enough blame to go around. We need a solution to the problem, not more of the same. Creating another costly government bureuacracy on top of existing bureaucracy isn't a solution - it helped create the problem. This time, let's get it right.
WORDS THAT WORK
We don't need more laws. We need better enforcement of current laws. We don't need more bureaucrats. We need the people in charge to do their jobs as they were meant to be done. We don't need more layers and layers of additional federal bureaucracy. What we need is to instill accountability, responsiblility and effective oversight to what is being done already.
WORDS THAT WORK
Bailouts for Wall Street. Government takeovers of insurance companies. Trillions of dollars to bailout (sic) CEOs and their risky investment schemes. And now Congress is preparing to enact legislation to pass a law with $4 trillioin more for bailouts. Should people who write the financial reform laws be the same ones who helped cause the crisis? Should taxpayers be punished and the big banks and credit card companies be rewarded? The time has come to take a stand. Oppose the big bank bailout bill.
WORDS THAT WORK
We must require greater transparency and more easily understood contract language so that consumers have all the information they need.
WORDS THAT WORK
Owning a small business is part of the American Dream and Congress should make it easier to be an entrepreneur. But the Financial Reform bill and the creation of the CFPA makes it harder to be a small business owner because it will choke off credit options to small business owners. That will make it harder to start a small company and harder to expand an existing one.
There's more at the link - including charts, graphs and stock photos.