Month: June 2011

How You Negotiate

In reference to this and this, I think I’ve been less clear than I could have been about how I think Obama and his team should proceed.

For the sake of discussion, let’s take as written the Ezra Klein 83:17 cuts:revenue breakdown. The GOP wanted 85:15 in March, got offered 83:17 (plus a lot of exactly-what type details) in June and walked out. This is their choice. But there has to be a price for that choice.

Since there’s no deal, we’re going to take the GOP’s advice and just pay the interest on the debt. Seems like our only choice, thanks to the GOP’s intransigence re: corporate jet tax breaks and such. So we start by telling seniors to be ready not to receive their Social Security checks in August; if this troubles them, they should call their Congressional representatives. Medicare providers will not be compensated for the foreseeable future; they will receive IOUs in lieu of payment as of August 1. Is this going to be a problem for you? Call the Congress. We tell Wall Street they’d best to do like Cantor and get out of Treasuries.
And, we make clear that the deal, as of right now and for a limited time only is going to be 80:20. Take it or leave it. But if you do leave it, on July 1 it becomes 70:30. July 15th it is 50:50. Want to see where we go on August 1?

Once the GOP actually starts losing things when they pull the old football away, they will stop using the tactic. And until they do start paying a price for it, they’d be foolish not to use the tactic. So far it’s gotten them everything they want and hung blame on the Democrat. That needs to stop. So: you make your case, you state the stakes in clear and unmistakeable language, and then you set the timeline for agreement. Take it or leave it.

So when the GOP’s economic policy team sat down to make the strongest case they could for growth-inducing deficit reduction, they recommended a mix an 85:15 mix, not a 100:0 mix. And then, when the Obama administration agreed to an 83:17 mix, the Republican leadership walked out of the room and demanded that taxes be excluded from the deal altogether. How do you negotiate with that?

Ezra Klein asks the right questions.
Source: Washington Post

At least the tile is cool

And so it’s (finally) come to this. Democratic Senators and various other denizens of Washington DC have recalled that, hey, that Constitution of ours specifically has something to say about the national debt:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law […] shall not be questioned

Though a post-Civil War shim, it seems pretty applicable to this non-Constitutional-scholar. As the linked article states:

This is an issue that’s been raised in some private debate between senators as to whether in fact we can default, or whether that provision of the Constitution can be held up as preventing default,“ Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), an attorney, told The Huffington Post Tuesday. "I don’t think, as of a couple weeks ago, when this was first raised, it was seen as a pressing option. But I’ll tell you that it’s going to get a pretty strong second look as a way of saying, ‘Is there some way to save us from ourselves?’”

By declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional, the White House could continue to meet its financial obligations, leaving Tea Party-backed Republicans in the difficult position of arguing against the plain wording of the Constitution. Bipartisan negotiators are debating the size of the cuts, now in the trillions, that will come along with raising the debt ceiling.

Is it really left to me to fill in how this path ends? I think the debt ceiling is as stupid as the next guy, and the hostage-taking debate over “whether or not” we raise it: even dumber and, frankly, dangerous to the economy. Obviously we are going to raise it. Every plan, from Ryan on down includes raising it. There is literally no other way forward regardless of your non-zero target for future federal budgets. The GOP and their media enablers act like this isn’t so, but it is. Sorry if I was the first one to let you in on that.
But: if you just blow through the entirely arbitrary ceiling and continue on as if nothing happened, mayhem will ensue. You’ll have to fight it out in court, where party-line rulings will be the norm, much as is happening with the far less divisive ACA or the Wisconsin brouhaha (and that’s saying something; WI included a Supreme Court Chambers strangling). The media, never one for issues with much complexity greater than, say, “Sam and Dianne: will they or won’t they?”, will simply report the horse race (that’s six rulings for a debt ceiling, seven against! Reactions at the top of the hour! But first, somebody’s cooch was briefly visible!!!). Ultimately, after a few years of this living hell for anyone that ever comes into contact with so much as a single federal dollar, the issue reaches the Supreme Court…and, well, then it basically comes down to who’s out sick that day and the particular details of Scalia’s ever-tortured logic. And he’s never out sick.
The Congress, meanwhile, will be irrevocably embroiled in endless impeachment proceedings or attendant “investigations” and simply gridlocked when not. You think anyone in the GOP is going to vote to release one cent after the debt ceiling hobby horse is simply taken away forever? Unless 2012 suddenly delivers Democratic super-majorities in both chambers, you’re shit out of luck. Then, substantive control of the government and its many critical functions basically boils down to Obama, individual departments, or the military essentially seizing control from and simply ignoring a Congress and broader government that has demonstrably ceased to operate and is endangering both itself and the lives of its citizens. I’m sure the markets will take this development with all the sober assessment that any Master of the Universe could muster. This outcome would please the Tumblr anarchy division, but few others. Frankly I’m just not quite ready to live out my remaining years trading pelts down by the nearest navigable river.

Government in this country, in any democracy, is ultimately about mutual consent. The minority has to consent to being governed by the majority. That is the only way that elections mean things, and because there are fewer of Major Party X as a result of said election(s), the minority party gets to contribute to but not control the legislative agenda and its terms. Since Obama’s election, an electoral landslide and the first non-plurality win in ~20 years, we’ve been operating without the consent of the GOP. It’s as though he stole the thing. Yes, the GOP has occasionally given consent, in fits and starts, when forced to (most often this came as a result of simply being overidden by then-large Democratic majorities). They’ve grudgingly agreed to a few votes that had to happen, but nothing else. By and large, though, the GOP has been allowed to operate in pure obstructionist fashion with no reprisal. Generally speaking, if you don’t take part in the act of governing in Congress, your ideas simply aren’t included. That simply hasn’t happened here. They’ve obstructed in numerous ostentatious ways and but also always gotten what they were demanding in the end even though they withdrew from the “governing majority” at some point in the process each time. It’s what Duncan Black refers to as the “Lucy and the football” system: extract compromises and painful alterations on the given bit of legislation, withdraw support, blame Democrat for problems caused by compromises and painful alterations. If possible: actually reverse position on issue such that you now oppose the very thing you demanded in the kabuki “serious adults talking” phase of the legislative sausage making.

Sooner or later, that’s the problem we have to fix. The majority, be it Democratic, Republican, Tea Klan, Quantum Presbyterian, or whatever has to be able to govern. Period. Uniform obstruction of all the business of government is unsustainable. It’s frankly incredible that we’ve stumbled along for this amount of time already. Only the public can force the change, though, whether through elections or sheer popular pressure (e.g. standing on the steps of the Capitol with pitchforks and torches). With a MSM showing no interest in educating the public as to the stakes, the debate, or even the vaguest terms of the issues at hand, it may just take the Social Security and military pay checks (and everything else) not showing up one morning to make the needed awakening happen. And the sooner we go through a convulsive spasm to clear the systemic poisons that currently have us writhing on the bathroom floor of democracy, the better off we’ll be.

At least the tile is cool

On Complexity

Dave Weigel (via two Tweets):

Anyone else bored with these campaign launch weeks that focus on tiny gaffes? […] You get more heat for flubbing a founder’s name than for saying tax cuts always up revenue.

Jay Rosen replies:

Of course you do. Why? The sweet spot is a mistake that allows the press to prosecute the error without sounding too political.

I think it’s a bit more than that. While I agree that the political calculation enters into it, there’s also a strong bias towards the simplest construction possible. John Wayne != John Wayne Gacy. Haw ha.
This is much easier to write than an explanation of exactly why it is that a certain package of cuts is more likely to impact poor and elderly than another, or to explain, with facts, figures, and charts just why it is extraordinarily likely that revenues will not increase subsequent to a tax cut in these United States using any current/future circumstance you wish to model. You’re just not going to fit that into a tweet, or even a 90 second NPR focus piece. The several sentences that emerge from the four paragraphs you wrote will, inevitably, come off as political shorthand. And the angry letters will pour in. Better just to do he-said, she-said and be done with it. Conservative message discipline in commercial media: achieved.

This is the fundamental GOP advantage. Death tax, death panel, tax and spend, short form birth certificate, taxed enough already! It’s hard to think of any conservative sloganeering in the past 20 years that a) is longer than 140 characters –and– b) actually holds up to intellectual scrutiny. Yet neither of these facts matters. In fact, it’s this emphasis on message simplicity that has ultimately captured the willingly compliant, stenographic impulses of the modern media. Who wants to do a bunch of research, after all? Stephanopoulos knew he was going to be asking about John Quincy Adams. Why not be ready to follow up? He receives a salary that is likely in the millions of dollars per year and has a staff, but (apparently) can’t be bothered to call up Wikipedia? Bob Schieffer, likewise quite well paid, also can’t be bothered to pick one issue on which Bachmann has notably lied and really hold her feet to the fire about it, not allowing a “well, we should really be talking about Obama…” dodge? Instead, we’ll just note the pattern of systematic lying on the website somewheres. Journalism!

This is precisely how George W. Bush ended up with the Oval Office. How’d that work out for everyone? Then why are we as a nation so desperate to repeat the experience?

Bachmann on GMA

Stephanopoulos: In your announcement you said ‘my voice is part of a movement to take back our country.’ From whom?
Bachmann: Well, from the people all across the nation. […]
Stephanopoulos: […] the Pulitzer Prize winning website, Politifact, has found that you have the worst record of making false statements of any of the leading contenders. And I wondered if you wanted to take a chance to clear up some of your past statements. For example earlier this year you said that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery. Now with respect Congresswoman, that’s just not true. Many of them including Jefferson and Washington were actually slave holders and slavery didn’t end until the Civil War.
Bachmann: Well you know what’s marvelous is that in this country and under our constitution, we have the ability when we recognize that something is wrong to change it. And that’s what we did in our country. We changed it. We no longer have slavery. That’s a good thing. And what our Constitution has done for our nation is to give us the basis of freedom unparalleled in the rest of the world.
Stephanopoulos: I agree with that…
Bachmann: That’s what people want…they realize our government is taking away our freedom.
Stephanopoulos: But that’s not what you said. You said that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery.
Bachmann: Well if you look at one of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, that’s absolutely true. He was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father’s secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did in fact one day eradicate slavery….
Stephanopoulos: He wasn’t one of the Founding Fathers – he was a president, he was a Secretary of State, he was a member of Congress, you’re right he did work to end slavery decades later. But so you are standing by this comment that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?
Bachmann: Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved.
Stephanopoulos: Well let me move on […]
Lemkin: You cannot “move on.” Media Pro Tip: when faced with statements like these, just consider the rest of your planned interview over. Relentlessly dig on this point. JQA was nine years old at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Actively involved? Founding Father? You’ve got to hammer these points, George. Same goes for Bob Schieffer; if she’s actively not answering your questions, don’t just note it in passing at the end of the show, stop asking new questions until the one on the table is addressed. You have all the time in the world for video online. Start using it.

You Had Me At “Sump”

Rising flood waters at doorstep of Nebraska nuclear plant:

“And if the water gets in here, what would be the result?” Mr. Jaczko asked.

“We’ve got a sump pump over here,” said Dan Goodman, the assistant operations manager

Well, then. That settles it. Nothing to see here. I can’t think of one instance of high water causing troubles for a nuclear plant anyway…

You Had Me At “Sump”

Liberal Media: GvS Edition

WI Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley: The facts are that I was demanding that [fellow WI SC Justice David Prosser] get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold
Greta Van Sustern: And while I have no idea who is off the wall (Justice Prosser or Justice Walsh or both), I do know one thing, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson sure is not doing her job to lead the court and to give confidence to the people of Wisconsin. She needs to step aside and let someone else attempt to run that zoo.
Lemkin: Indeed, anyone dumb enough to put his/her neck into Prosser’s clearly strangulation-configured hands is just not going to be a terribly effective jurist.

“We’ve known from the beginning that bombing the moon would be a poison pill to any debt-reduction proposal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor. See? Or: “President Obama needs to decide between his goal of bombing the moon, or a bipartisan plan to address our deficit,” said McConnell and Sen. on Kyl in a joint statement. Or: “First of all, bombing the moon is going to destroy jobs,“ said Speaker John Boehner. "Second, bombing the moon cannot pass the US House of Representatives — it’s not just a bad idea, it doesn’t have the votes and it can’t happen. And third, the American people don’t want us to bomb the moon.”

Ezra Klein replaces mention of taxes with “bombing the moon” and ends up with a more cogent set of statements.
Also: strangely, he wasn’t going for a Mr. Show reference.
Source: Washington Post

Making it Up

Across several posts, Dean Baker lays into the dread Liberal Media for just plain making it up when it comes to pushing their preferred, center-right “cut deficits now” agenda.

On the Washington Post:

“The national debt will exceed the size of the entire U.S. economy by 2021 — and balloon to nearly 200 percent of GDP within 25 years — without dramatic cuts to federal health and retirement programs or steep tax increases, congressional budget analysts said Wednesday.”

Actually, this is not what the projections showed. The CBO projections showed that if Congress simply followed current law, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, not fixing the alternative minimum tax, and most importantly, allowing the spending caps in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to remain in place, then the debt to GDP ratio will soon stabilize and head downwards.

On the New York Times:

“The national debt is on pace to equal the annual size of the economy within a decade, levels that could provoke a European-style crisis unless policymakers take action on the federal deficit, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office.”

This is not true. The CBO report did not warn of “a European-style crisis.” The reason it did not is that a European style crisis does not make sense in the context of the United States. The United States can never be like Greece or Ireland for the simply reason that we print out own currency.

In the event that we actually ran up against serious constraints in credit markets the United States would have the option to have the Fed buy up its debt. Greece and Ireland do not have this option. This could create a risk of inflation, but there is not the risk of insolvency that euro zone governments face.

On NPR:

In the top of the hour news segment on Morning Edition, NPR told listeners that the Congressional Budget Office warned that the national debt will soon equal the annual size of the economy and this could lead to a European-style crisis [see: New York Times above].

This is critically important stuff. Deep cuts right now will strangle the economy and deeply hurt Obama’s chance at reelection to boot. This, coupled with the knowledge that as conditions improve, the ability (in the form of public desire) to make huge cuts to the social safety net will diminish precipitously is precisely why the GOP is for deep cuts now. They know that doing nothing and simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire will do more for improved deficits than almost any of the “plans” on the table. The CBO has said so again and again. These “plans” are not and never will be about the deficit. They are about pushing a preferred social agenda. Period. We just can’t get anyone in the media to break free from their “view from nowhere, compromise must always be the preferable, serious person postion” lens for long enough to get them to even report the simple facts of the case at hand.

tl;dr: We’re doomed. There will be a default. Maybe not this time, but soon. Once you’ve set up the terms of debate such that they always include wrangling over lifting the debt ceiling and treating it essentially as a hostage situation, then you’ve created a system that, sooner or later, someone will push too far for their own purely political purposes. And when that happens it will be the end of America as we’ve known it. And I suspect that will be happening pretty damned soon.

Making it Up