Tag: leadership

Rest Assured, Austan: It’s Just a Game

Michele Bachman (R, MN): at this point I am not in favor of raising the debt ceiling
Mike Kelly (freshman R, PA): [Raising the debt ceiling would be] absolutely irresponsible.
Lindsey Graham (R, SC): [Failing to raise the debt ceiling] would be very bad for the position of the United States in the world at large, [but I’ll gladly hold it hostage] until a plan is in place [for the nation’s long-term debt that satisfies whatever GOP hobbyhorses are in play on the day in question.]
Austan Goolsbee: This is not a game. The debt ceiling is not something to toy with. […] If we get to the point where you’ve damaged the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity…. There would be no reason for us to default, other than that would be some kind of game. […] We shouldn’t even be discussing [default]. People will get the wrong idea. The United States is not in danger of default…. We do not have problems such as that. This would be lumping us in with a series of countries through history that I don’t think we would want to be lumped in with.
Lemkin: Which of these do you suppose will hold the media and popular opinion in its sway? This is probably the purest expression of GOP nihilism there is. They will destroy the country’s economic footing, irrevocably, and turn us into a land of gentle skin and pelt traders clustered down by the river if they have their way. At least that model eliminates any potential for minor to moderate increases in Social Security taxes on the wealthiest 2% of all future skin and pelt traders clustered down by the river; plus trade at those stands will likely be entirely conducted through valuable metal transfer. And that’s another big big win for their side. And winning the day is what it’s all about.

Right on, Kevin Drum. Implicit here is what nobody ever seems to say: if your taxable income is $250,001, you will see tax increase only on that last one dollar. You still get the tax break on the first $250K, just like every single other American. Compare that to the GOP plan (red portion of bars). Utter and indefensible lunacy.

And yet The Democrat is absolutely getting his clock cleaned on this.

I don’t see any possible repercussions to this fecklessness and timidity in the face of a fight on which you hold the economic, moral, and public-opinion high grounds once we get to the real fight early next year on the debt ceiling.

What Digby Said

Paul Begala: Yes but I do think his point about capitulating [and just offering up a freeze on federal pay] rather than negotiating is a valid one with this president. The pay freeze is probably a good idea but should have come out of negotiation. What do the Republicans give, when the president gives…
Gloria Borger: Why not give something first though? People don’t like government and this is an easy gimme for the president.
Begala: What are the Republicans proposing? Then you get it on the Republicans turf. Why don’t you say I’ll freeze federal pay and cut this in return for this and that program but you guys need to come with taxes on the rich at least say people who make over a million bucks don’t get a tax cut. My Lord …
Borger: Well maybe there’s something else he can negotiate.
Digby: I’m sure there is. Why not throw in debtor’s prisons? It wouldn’t be enough to totally appease [the Republicans], but it would go a long way toward proving they are “responsible.”

File under: Things We’re Not Allowed to Discuss.
Much easier to talk about big bad China bogeyman than the simple fact that the car-centric, energy hungry American lifestyle of the late 20th century on is the thing driving our trade deficits, driving our foreign policy decisions, driving our economy into the ditch. Is it any wonder? The economic inducements drive most people to live 50 miles from work and, as a result, drive for hours each and every day, and drive everywhere else you may want to go as well. Insanity. And, far from calling out said insanity, our society seems to look down upon and make life unnecessarily difficult for those who are even able to choose to withdraw from this cycle.
That it is a solvable problem if and when met with sustained will to change it gives me no optimism whatsoever. That the process of solving it would greatly assist our own recovery will never be discussed. Cars today! Cars Tomorrow! Cars über alles!

As NAME ISSUE HERE has come to light, the Obama administration has resisted calls for a more forceful response, worried that added pressure might spook the banks and hobble the broader economy.

Stimulus, bank rescue, China, foreclosure; it applies all along. At each point there were arguments for not acting; but the cumulative effect has been drift, and a looming catastrophe in the midterms.
Or to put it another way, the administration has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And soon there won’t be any more opportunities to miss.

Paul Krugman, extending what we were talking about in the previous post.

In their darkest moments, White House aides wonder aloud whether it is even possible for a modern president to succeed, no matter how many bills he signs. Everything seems to conspire against the idea: an implacable opposition with little if any real interest in collaboration, a news media saturated with triviality and conflict, a culture that demands solutions yesterday, a societal cynicism that holds leadership in low regard. Some White House aides who were ready to carve a new spot on Mount Rushmore for their boss two years ago privately concede now that he cannot be another Abraham Lincoln after all. In this environment, they have increasingly concluded, it may be that every modern president is going to be, at best, average.

The Education of President Obama – NYTimes.com (via brooklynmutt)
Well, then, might I suggest all of you that feel this way: go do something else. Seriously, and right now. Because you’ve got at least two more years of a term to do something with up there, and it’s not going to get any easier. If you thought the GOP was going to greet you with a big palm parade upon your arrival to DC, you haven’t been watching. If you think a GOP-led House or (may the Gods forbid) a GOP Congress is suddenly going to get interested in policy, let alone serious policy of any kind, then you haven’t been watching. Maybe a life in politics isn’t for you after all, you self pitying, ever defeated children.
tl;dr: Better Democrats, please.
Source: The New York Times

Squashed: Don’t worry about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote

squashed:

Today the Republican’s defeated a Democratic effort to bring a defense authorization bill to the floor that included a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Now both sides can use it as an election issue.

This did not remove the repeal from the defense authorization bill. […]
[It] is a critical bit of legislation. It will make it to the floor before the end of the year. Somebody will introduce an amendment to get the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell out of the bill. The amendment will fail. The bill will pass. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will be repealed.

It’s not so much about whether the package will squeak through (with DADT and DREAM intact), it’s about deflating the effect of said (inevitable) passage. Now it will pass post-midterms, and nobody but nobody will even know it happened.
This was never about the policy, it was about denying The Democrat a win, no matter how incremental, that might give the base even the least bit of wind in its sails. And, once again, rather than fight or force the GOP to eat a massive shit sandwich while winning the day (see: Troops, why does John McCain want them to die?), the GOP is handed this victory entirely without cost, while the democratic base sees yet more fecklessness and one more reason not to bother come November.

It is better to be strong and wrong than weak and right. This is why they fail.

Squashed: Don’t worry about the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote

Why Does John McCain Want To Kill Soldiers?

Why does Susan Collins hate the military so much that she wants them to starve to death while those brave men and women are out there fighting and dying in harms way? How dare she endanger funding for even a second over procedural concerns.

These and other simple frames are things you will never hear from the mouth of The Democrat. They, after all, have the facts on their side. Why, this amendment doesn’t actually even end DADT at all, it simply creates a mechanism by which [blah de blah de blah blah blah]. Why, those little devils actually used the same mechanism to pass DADT when [blah de blah de blah blah].

Repeat after Lemkin: The Facts Do Not Matter.

John McCain hates soldiers. Period. There is no other possible explanation.
When asked to apologize, up the ante (not only does John McCain hate soldiers, I’m fairly sure he is committing an act of treason by blocking this legislation).

It’s this ceaseless inability to identify whatever policy the Democrat prefers and fight for it, whatever may come, that really poisons the electorate. As The Big Dog himself once said:

When people are insecure, they’d rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right

“Weak and right” so perfectly sums the modern Democrat that it really should have made the exciting new website redesign and bumper-sticker that we’re all so pumped up by.
And nothing, nothing depicts the modern Tea Klan GOP’s limbic politics more perfectly than “strong and wrong.”

Here’s an idea: MAKE THEM VOTE

…the best way for Dems to nationalize the elections right now is for Congress to hold a vote on whether to extend the middle class tax cuts. If Dems did this, it would reinforce the national strategy that Dems already have in place: Making the case that a vote for the GOP is a vote to return to the Bush policies that ran the economy into the ground.

Indeed, we’re finally seeing polling evidence that voters are beginning to buy the core Dem message that the GOP wants nothing more than a rapid restoration of Bush’s policies. Is it an accident that this is happening right when the debate over the Bush tax cuts is dominating the news? Doubtful. And holding a vote on whether to extend the middle class tax cuts would dramatize the contrast between the national parties even more cleanly, forcing lawmakers to go on record choosing between Obama tax policy and Bush tax policy. Put simply, there is no better way of driving home the Dems’ core message than to hold this vote.

Here’s an idea: MAKE THEM VOTE