Tag: governing

Five Easy Tweets(es)

Looking at how Ruth Marcus addresses Boehner’s nonsensical output in her column this morning, dare I say that I see signs of actual progress. Perhaps even the Villagers are growing tired (and maybe even a little afraid) of the GOP’s shtick?

There are times when I flirt with the notion that the country would be better off with divided government.

She starts, ominously and predictably enough, with some Serious Person boilerplate: the compromise position on anything is always superior, even when one side’s position is empirically better relative to some definable long-term metric. But, for once, she quickly rights the ship, and this opener proves to be simply Reese’s Pieces for the many Broderians reading her piece on their homeworld:

The man who would be speaker outlined his agenda Tuesday in a speech to the City Club of Cleveland – economic policy reduced to, literally, five easy tweets. The Ohio Republican offered up a depressing blend of tired ideas, tired-er one-liners (“We’ve tried 19 months of government-as-community-organizer”) and cheap attacks. The cheapest: calling for the firing of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Larry Summers.

[…]

[Boehner says “job-killing” twelve] times, actually. As in “job-killing tax hikes,” “job-killing bills,” “job-killing agenda,” “job-killing federal regulations.” This is bumper-sticker politics, not a real economic plan. I’ve been skeptical that Democrats would get much political traction with their argument that the Republican agenda is just George W. Bush recycled, but speeches like Boehner’s make me rethink.

Even those two paragraphs appearing on the WaPo Op/Ed page would be cause enough for a minor celebration. But, being a professional, she saves her best for last:

The argument for immediate spending cuts is hard to square with the argument against tax increases. If the latter is harmful – a disaster, in Boehner’s words – then surely the former is as well. “When Congress returns, we should force Washington to cut non-defense discretionary spending to 2008 levels – before the ‘stimulus’ was put into place,” Boehner says. This would be more convincing if he were willing to identify specific cuts. It is, even more, an enormous dodge. Stimulus spending is a sliver of the long-term fiscal problem.

Democrats – and the country – would benefit from a responsible opposition party. I’m still looking for evidence of one.

So am I. But there are two important points in here, both of which being concepts that almost never see the light of day in the MSM:

  1. That you can’t say that massive non-military spending cuts are critical, but that any and all tax increases are unthinkable.
  2. That tax-hikes would be a disaster, but that we need not ever worry about the fiscal impact of said non-tax-hikes at all, and that we may furthermore consider them “free” is nonsensical on its face.

Getting those two simple concepts into wide and repeated circulation: a big deal. Now, of course, when Obama returns from vacation to fire his cabinet, well, that’s something else.

Pundits blame the victims on Obama Muslim myth

southpol:

[…] Dave Weigel came the closest, writing that “At some point it became acceptable to question Obama’s American-ness, which naturally begged the question of whether he was a secret Muslim… and the WorldNetDailys, tabloids, and Drudge Reports of the world were ready to keep begging that question.”

This is the Overton Window in action. Republicans have a host of beyond-far-right outlets to scream and holler relentlessly about whatever their preferred issue of the day is and Democrats never, ever employ a similar tactic with the left. A year-long, sustained chorus about single payer, for instance, simply didn’t materialize. The left wing is either too pragmatic or too cynical with regard to their chances on these issues. That and the Democratic leadership repeatedly lets the GOP determine the talking points; e.g. Boehner is reportedly going to call for the firing of all Obama economic advisers. When The Democrat engages him on that ground, his ground, and they will, the ultimate outcome will then be that some of the advisers have to go or, at best, take a severe public dressing down. All good outcomes for the GOP in an election year.
Whether or not they should go is quite beside the point. You are allowing your opponent to set the agenda and define the margins that contain what will be viewed by the David Broders of the world as the “sensible and serious” solution. Again and again.
This is precisely why Rep. Alan Grayson is such a valuable and yet underutilized asset. With a dozen people like him talking about Cheney’s blood-drenched teeth (or what have you) and a few media outlets doing likewise, suddenly the true moderate position, or even one (gasp!) marginally to the left of center, looks awfully sensible. Instead of using Grayson in this way, the modern Democrat runs and hides from him and others, going so far as to extract the occasional tearful apology when some genuinely affecting truth leaks out. This is the primary failure of leadership in the Democratic party, and nothing will change until this does.
The facts do not matter; presentation and framing is everything. You, the Democrat, are fighting an organized party, its dedicated propaganda outlet that happens to be a wildly popular source of “news,” and a distributed right-wing noise machine on web and talk radio that reliably sets the discourse for the rest of the MSM. You’d better bring your A-game and act like you’re in a 24/7 campaign for your political life. And they never do.

Pundits blame the victims on Obama Muslim myth

At Mr. Ryan’s request, [the CBO] produced an estimate of the budget effects of his proposed spending cuts — period. It didn’t address the revenue losses from his tax cuts.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has, however, stepped into the breach. Its numbers indicate that the Ryan plan would reduce revenue by almost $4 trillion over the next decade. If you add these revenue losses to the numbers The Post cites, you get a much larger deficit in 2020, roughly $1.3 trillion.

And that’s about the same as the budget office’s estimate of the 2020 deficit under the Obama administration’s plans. That is, Mr. Ryan may speak about the deficit in apocalyptic terms, but even if you believe that his proposed spending cuts are feasible — which you shouldn’t — the Roadmap wouldn’t reduce the deficit. All it would do is cut benefits for the middle class while slashing taxes on the rich.

And I do mean slash. The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.

[…]

So why have so many in Washington, especially in the news media, been taken in by this flimflam? It’s not just inability to do the math, although that’s part of it. There’s also the unwillingness of self-styled centrists to face up to the realities of the modern Republican Party; they want to pretend, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, that there are still people in the G.O.P. making sense.

Paul Krugman grinding the aforementioned Paul Ryan into a fine powder-like substance.

The main criticisms of the piece have come from Republicans, and their argument (for example, David Frum’s—still doing the hard work of keeping both sides honest) is that what looks to the left like obstruction is really only the minority party reflecting the public’s reservations about Obama’s agenda, and, beyond that, fulfilling the Senate’s constitutional mandate. (Mitch McConnell offered a rebuttal in this Post article today.) I would answer that, on health care, for example, where the public was truly divided and, by some polls, increasingly skeptical, the Senate Republicans should have tried to negotiate a less sweeping bill. Instead (as Frum himself famously pointed out), they shut down negotiations altogether, leaving Olympia Snowe as the lone party holdout, and not for long. They weren’t trying to legislate better; they were trying to prevent any legislation at all. The same with the stimulus bill and financial reform.
…
And the daily toll of legislative blockage is also staggering. The filibuster has become the everyday norm in this Senate—which has nothing to do with the constitution, moderation, the saucer that cools the coffee, or anything else written and said two hundred twenty years ago.

George Packer, defending against criticisms for his article here (via jonathan-cunningham)

This is exactly right. And, not just on health insurance reform. There is no example available in which the Democratic majority pushed legislation for which the GOP presented “Our Conservative Plan” for comparison and/or consideration. At most, they’ve run out what amount to platform planks: broad, non-actionable concepts and mission statements as opposed to actual legislation for debate.
The notable exception here is Paul Ryan. I think it speaks volumes that the rest of the GOP summarily runs and hides (or blathers about not needing to “pay” for tax cuts) whenever his three trillion dollars (or more) in painful (but specific) cuts are trotted out. If we, as a country, can ever get to actually discussing issues and engaging the general public in such a “The Ryan proposal is (A): these are the cuts and changes in it, the Obama proposal (B) saves such and so programs, but cuts this and does this other thing with tax rates” debate we will have made substantial and potentially Republic-saving progress. I am not optimistic. The GOP and the media at large will continue yelling about non-issues until the whole thing collapses around us. And then blame the Democrats as the last inch of railing disappears below the surf.

I think we should retain the same [filibuster] policies that we have instead of lowering it…. I think it has been working.

Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii)
Better Democrats™ please.

What, me worry?

In which Krugman and I disagree:

Republicans, by the way, seem less susceptible to this delusion. Since Mr. Obama took office, they have engaged in relentless obstruction, obviously unworried about how their actions would look or be reported. And it’s working: by blocking Democratic efforts to alleviate the economy’s woes, the G.O.P. is helping its chances of a big victory in November.

I think Krugman is being too kind by half. The GOP is unworried because they know their actions will not be reported; they therefore needn’t worry about appearances at all. There is, outside the blogoshpere, precisely zero coverage of across-the-board GOP obstruction. And, why should there be? The Democrat won’t mention it either. Obama is, even still, apparently heralding in a wonderful new day in which everyone works together.

And don’t for a second entertain the thought that, should the GOP capture the House in November, things will change because (why) they’ll have to start taking positions on policy. They certainly will take positions, but it will all be:

  1. The Tax elimination act of 2011
  2. The forced birth bill of 2011
  3. The immigration cessation bill of 2011
  4. The drill everywhere bill of 2011
  5. The Social Security “Personalization” and Welfare Elimination Act of 2011

And etc… That, of course, is ignoring (for now) all the weekly impeachment proceedings. Each of these will, of course, die a quick death in the do-nothing Senate. Well, except for that last one. Democrats will likely take it up in hopes of creating the appearance of bipartisanship. That and, we’ll see a high-minded compromise on #1; there we’ll raise taxes on the bottom 15% in exchange for deep cuts in social programs and an across the board tax decrease on the top 10% as well as elimination of capital gains and estate taxes. It’s win/win!

How do you stop it? Well, you know about it. You thus start talking about it. Now. Repeatedly. Every time a microphone is switched on and several times when one isn’t yet.

That, however, would be shrill.

Mr. Black

Today’s edition of What Atrios Says [numerology mine]:

I get that the realities of Congress blah blah blah means that maybe not everything passes, but would it be so hard to:

  1. Spend a couple of weeks making the case for a crucial piece of legislation.
  2. Publicize major votes on that issue.
  3. Have votes.
  4. If votes fail, continue to make noise about the vote.

Answer: Apparently so.

The Plan

Ezra Klein notes the outcome of some polling on what the average American thinks should be done:

1. Raise the limit on taxable earnings so it covers 90% of total earnings.
2. Reduce spending on health care and non-defense discretionary spending by at least 5%.
3. Raise tax rates on corporate income and those earning more than $1 million.
4. Raise the age for receiving full Social Security benefits to 69.
5. Reduce defense spending by 10% – 15%.
6. Create a carbon and securities-transaction tax.

I don’t see any of these that are antithetical to the broad strokes of Democratic policy, at least as it has played out under Obama. Plus, these are the popular ideas. So steal them. This should be the Aims for a Renewed America (or whatever). You run on it across the board. Individual candidates may feel free to leaven in some Wall St. Fatcat mentions such that they can play down #4.

You’ve already allowed the Republicans to devestate whatever recovery there was…you’d damned well better have a platform that, in a stroke, both recognizes that we have a serious problem and outlines real, substantive, measurable ways to address it. Starting our First Day back in the Congress.

You got a better idea, Reid? Didn’t think so.

Haw…haw?

The GOP is using taxpayer money to get idears on a totally new platform they’re promising. It will be of interest to us all. Wonder how that’s working out for them?

They set up a website to solicit ideas, only to see liberals flood it with distinctly un-Republican suggestions. When Republicans invited the public to rank proposals online, critics lampooned the effort for small-bore notions such as ending a federal program for “historic whaling partners.”

[…]

Last week, the top five entries in the “Liberty and Freedom” category were: ban handguns, “drop the idea that we’re a ‘Christian’ country,” declare abortion “none of the government’s business,” allow gays to serve openly in the military and legalize marijuana.

Great ideas all. So, I’m sure the GOP is dutifully crafting reasoned, actionable legislative agendas for each of these exciting new priorities and running off about a million little seemingly hand-made and gramaticully inorrect signs for people to wave around? Not so much:

Brendan Buck, spokesman for “America Speaking Out,” said Republicans “are plucking out ideas” worthy of consideration and consistent with GOP principles. “It’s not a ‘top vote gets in’” deal, he said.

Ah, so you’re wasting taxpayer money so that you can just keep exactly what you had before. It’s a good thing we can count on The Democrat not to make a point of any of this. That would be shrill.

On the one hand, Republicans have had a major role in shaping [the healthcare reform, financial regulation, and climate change bills]. On the other hand, they haven’t had to vote for these bills, and so they could cleanly campaign against legislation that a member of their party helped write. And as an added bonus, Democrats are stuck trying to defend a bill that their base doesn’t like very much and that’s thick with compromises that annoy political elites.

Ezra Klein on the Lone Republican strategy, which has put Snowe, Corker, and now Lindsey “Huckleberry” Graham alone in the room full of Democrats, at least until it mattered. Bill successfully shaped to GOP specifications, compromise time is over, Democrats pass unpopular, weakened bill (seemingly forgetting to dump the compromise portions every single time) and the GOP gets to campaign against it all, with emphasis on “back room deals” and “sweetheart provisions,” many or even most of which were made at their behest.
And, worst of all, The Democrat is shocked every single time.