Saturday Open Thread and Budget Discussion

 

"Sex Machine" - James Brown

In which James Brown concisely describes the Republican's governing philosophy:

The way I like it, is the way it is,
I got mine, don't worry 'bout his

So quite a bit about the budget deal seems to remain shrouded in mystery.  I'm not quite sure what to think.  I know that l-t c and a couple of our friends here have expressed disgust with the Democrats.  However, I am not sure if the deal they got isn't about as good as could be expected given the correlation of forces here.

Yes, the Republicans only hold one house of Congress -- but they do so solidly.  The House is an easy place to work with a majority and when you've got one that is full on wingnut as is the case here, it gives you an unusual amount of leverage.  Because basically they were going to get cuts or they were going to shut the government down -- they may not have been comfortable shutting it down over Planned Parenthood or abortion rights -- things that the American public writ large would have found absurd.  But let's say Obama had stuck to an insistence on level funding -- in such an instance, who wins the PR battle over a shutdown?  I'm uncertain.

The Senate Democrats, as we all know, are not what you would call the gutsiest group in the universe.  With 23 seats in play in 2012, many of them in red or marginal states, I don't know how much fortitude one could realistically respect.  People like McCaskill and Tester have to be nervous about their prospects at this point.  I am uncertain how they would do the calculus on this issue.

From the White House's perspective, I think Obama has two things to consider -- first, that a shutdown would be a terrible thing for the economy right now, especially were it to become prolonged.  The fragile recovery seems to be getting a toehold, with job growth heading towards a respectable if inadequate rate and the markets displaying some level of confidence.  This is the single most important factor for the 2012 election, so you can't blame either the President or the Dems generally for viewing a shutdown with potential alarm.  (Again, this is asymmetrical warfare -- the Republicans don't care if the economy slides further -- they figure, probably rightly that they won't take the blame -  see e.g. election of 2010.)  The second thing, of course, for Obama is his own image with the public writ large.  He obviously sees great value in being viewed as the reasonable man, the guy willing to compromise and do what's good for the country.  This is frustrating to activists, but based on Clinton's experience in 195-96, I don't think we can reasonably suggest that he is wrong to think this way.

Where the Republicans tried to overreach was not so much in money -- they will do that in 2012 for sure -- but in terms of trying to leverage a host of their pet issues -- Planned Parenthood defunding, handcuffing the EPA, etc. -- that do not command majority support and which would be seen pretty clearly by the public as unreated to any alleged budget crisis.  This allowed Obama and Harry Reid to stand firm on the riders, where they didn't on the money.  (I think Reid also felt a debt of gratitude toward Planned Parenthood, which stood resolutely and actively by him in his recent and difficult re-election bid, and was willing to fight tooth and nail for them -- he is that kind of guy.  Evidently Biden was pretty stand up on this fight as well.)

Don't get me wrong -- the cuts are a mistake as a matter of policy.  If anyting, the government should be spending more and it certainly shouldn't be cutting back on aid to the poor in this environment.  But I'm not confident I know what the optimal number was in terms of the politics of the moment.  The cuts agreed to should also be kept in some perspective -- although $38 billion is a whole lot of money, it constitutes a little bit more than 1% of the overall budget.

I am curious to hear what people think could have been done better here -- what number could have been an effective stopping point or what different tactics might have yielded a better result?  One approach might have been for the President to say he wasn't going to accept any cuts, but I am skeptical that this would have worked.  Any other thoughts? 

It's an open thread as well.  Anything besides shutdown fever got your attention?   

   

Comments

[Davis X. Machina]

I'm depressed -- not by the compromise, the Republic's seen worse, and will survive -- but by people -- ostensibly Democrats -- who can write, albeit on the internet, where it doesn't really matter, that Obama should have refused to compromise, triggered the shutdown, then use the opportunity to declare a national emergency and rule by decree.

Not a lot, but enough to get discouraged.

[Sir Charles]

DXM,

Well that's part of why I put up the post here -- I genuinely want to understand the alternative path that people see here.

Too often, in other contexts, particularly with respect to the filibuster, the view seemed to be that with enough "will" Obama could have overcome the Conservadems. I kept coming back to the fact that a president can only rattle his saber in such instances where he has meaningful leverage -- the fact that Obama was considerably less popular than say Ben Nelson with the people of Nebraska or Blanche Lincoln with the people of Arkansas effectively meant that he had no leverage other than the prestige of his office -- which only goes so far.

Again, I would like to see the Administration be more rhetorically and ideologically aggressive for the sake of longer term politics. But I don't know that this would translate into any additional leverage on these issues -- I tend to doubt it.

[beckya57]

I basically agree with you, Sir C, as usual. Obviously I'm happy for my own selfish reasons that there won't be a shutdown (I almost typed "sh*tdown! ;-)). The fundamental problem here is that the Dems want to govern the country and maybe even improve it a little, while the Rethugs want to flush it down the drain to make their rich masters happy. The GOP would have benefited from the damage a shutdown would have done to the economy, and everyone knew it. That reality tied the Dems' hands. My big fear now is that we're going to see a replay in a few months over the debt ceiling, which will give the thugs even more leverage because the consequences of default would be so disastrous. I'm frankly terrified of what they'll do with that leverage. I suspect Medicaid will end up taking a huge hit.

[Paula B]

>>the Dems want to govern the country and maybe even improve it a little, while the Rethugs want to flush it down the drain to make their rich masters happy

Exactly! I guess it's the frustration of NOT observing governance that has so many liberals ready to bail on Obama. But, they've been doing that almost since Day One of this administration. I find it very odd. I mean, where have all the uber liberals been hiding all these years and why haven't they flexed their muscles at the polls?

[redscott]

All the rhetoric aside, the GOP started the negotiations a couple of months ago with 1 number (33 billion in cuts), and after the "bargaining" they wound up with 38. That should tell anyone all they need to know about which side cared more about the end result and worked harder to get it. Hand waving aside, moreover, all this speculation from you saying you're "uncertain" or "skeptical" that a firmer stand would have worked is superfluous because Obama hasn't taken firm stands, didn't even try to take one here, and will not in the future. More post hoc rationalization of What Our President Has Done may make us feel better(?) but doesn't change that reality.

[Sir Charles]

becky and Paula,

I think it's the frustration of having felt like we really won one -- in 2008 -- and that genuinely liberal governance would not only follow, it would triumph. And count me among those who felt that way.

And the incredulity at the amazing degree of success the right wing had in stopping us when they should have been licking their wounds. Aided in no small part by the "moderate dems in the Senate, the unprecedented abuse of the filibuster, the objectively horrible state of the economy, and the misjudgment by Obama's economic team about how bad the economy truly was.

Liberals have a hard time relating to what the Republicans did here -- we would have been engaged in massive self-criticisms and institutional introspection. The Republicans just doubled down on what they did before and brazened it out in a way that takes the breath away. And the've succeeded -- at least temporarily -- in a wholly improbable fashion, aided by the above circumstances, a curiously passive White House, and a left that retains its historic self-destructive tendencies, and continues to imagine itself far bigger than it is.

Impotence generates rage.

As does losing to people who are stupid and evil -- but possess enough animal cunning and immorality to make them formidable.

[Sir Charles]

redscott,

So what do you suggest? Are you itching to primary him?

[beckya57]

I don't agree, redscott, and I don't like the outcome any more than you do. I think it was Yglesias who said something to the effect that when a hostage taker is willing to kill the hostage that gives him a lot of power. That's why the thugs were able to get so much out of this: they see trashing the economy as a feature, not a bug. That said, I'm not at all happy with the austerity talk coming from Obama and Reid. It may play well politically, and I understand that Obama needs to win re-election--and I desperately want him to--but I share Ezra Klein's and Greg Sargent's concerns about how the debate is getting framed in ways that play to the thugs. Increasing spending to decrease unemployment has been taken off the table, and that's bad. Of course, the US is not the only country that's refusing to learn the lessons of the Depression: over in Europe the UK is gutting its budget, and the ECB thinks raising interest rates is a rational response to having several members teetering on the edge of default. Lots of very dumb decisions being made these days, all in the service of very narrow and well-off constituencies.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

Well said.

I really believe Obama should give a couple of half hour talks on television devoted to the budget, the deficit, and the economy and explain what we spend our money on, why we have a deficit, etc. I think raising the level of knowledge out there would be helpful to our cause. Much more so than indulging in bullshit austerity talk.

[beckya57]

One thing that's become clear to me is how the thugs are able to take advantage of our odd governmental structures to block progressive change. The endless use of the filibuster and holds are the obvious examples, but there's others. Again, these maneuvers benefit nihilist elements, who want to keep things from getting down, far more than people who want to accomplish something. My understanding is that presidential democracies don't survive the development of polarized political parties, because it becomes too electorally beneficial for the non-presidential party to reflexively oppose anything the presidential party does, so nothing gets done. And another lesson of history is that vast wealth inequalities inevitably lead to polarized parties. I think that's what we're seeing here, and this is far, far bigger than the abilities or lack thereof of Obama or any other Dem politician. I think the historical record shows that eventually collapse is inevitable under these circumstances. Sorry to sound so apocalyptic, but I really think this is where this is going: the US is becoming more and more ungovernable, largely because our distribution of wealth has become so lopsided.

[Sir Charles]

Well certainly a presidential system in which the kind of anti-majoritarian methods like holds and filibusters is going to be one where effective governance is very difficult.

But I also think the rise of a completely ideological party is a big part of the problem. Historically American political parties have been diverse and pragmatic. Their success turned in part on delivering to constituencies. Now the Rppublicans do deliver for the wealthy, but, contrary to waht many think, I don't believe that that is the driving force of the party at this point. I think it is the closed feedback loop of ideology, religion, and general mean-spiritedness that are the driving force behind the Party at this point.

For instance, how much does corporate America care about abortion or gay rights or abstinence only programs or funding religious schools, etc. I would aregue that most well to do corporate types couldn't give a shit about such issues or would actually come down on the more socially liberal side of those questions. And yet, the Republicans almost torpedoed this deal over Planned Parenthood -- and they went our of their way to kill the ability of DC to sue its own funds to pay for abortions.

Unlike Tom Frank, of whom I am a great admirer, I actually believe the social issues are now the predominant concern of the GOP. They pay off the rich too -- and they buy their Galtian nonsense -- but they really like the hate issues. It's what motivates them and their base.

[kathy a.]

good comments, becky.

i'm so far behind, but someone suggested that obama now needs to do some tutorials on how we got here, and where we need to go. and the reasons we go here, i think oddjob suggested them in another thread -- the long push for tax cuts to the wealthy, several unfunded big-deal wars, financial deregulation allowing the meltdown.

the near-shutdown was never about how much planned parenthood costs; it was about hating on people who want family planning and other reproductive health services. scrapping medicare won't solve our financial problems; it will put grandma [or us] in the street to make the fine ethical point that people oughta be born rich and stay that way, or else. and etc.

the austerity talk is just what we are stuck with right now. i notice not a lot of people are talking about cutting the influence of very wealthy people who are trying to control ever so many issues with their dollars -- but that has been and remains a huge problem. talking about you, koch brothers. talking about you, meg & friends.

[kathy a.]

for the open thread -- can anyone tell me anything that you know from personal experience about trying to use wordperfect on a mac?

my main computer died; need another; the mac lovers are all lobbying. so, i have heard about setting up parallel programs that let PC programs run on mac. but i really want to know specifically about running wordperfect on a mac. please bear in mind that i'm my own IT person, and i'm not good at it, and that i really need my WP.

[beckya57]

I think I see this a little more like Frank, Sir C. I think the GOP is driven primarily by the interests of the rich. You're quite right that the rich (as a group) don't give a damn about the social issues, but I think they use these to rile up the base and distract the base from the myriad ways their agenda screws the non-wealthy. The oligarchs in the South have done this for centuries: encourage poor whites to hate poor blacks, so that they don't make common cause against the power structures. It's a time-honored elite divide-and-conquer technique, and then they laugh behind their hands at their rube supporters, all the way to the bank. With massive wealth inequality, the rich have enormous resources to fund the right-wing media to keep the hate party going and keep themselves protected.

[beckya57]

P.S. I'd like to see Obama give those talks too. We'd all welcome some pushback against the corporate agenda.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

I think historically this was true -- but I think now the shoe is on the other foot. I think the crazies really run the party -- thus you see people like Romney and Pawlenty who are, I think, temperamentally pragmatic people, and they are in a race to see who can be the more extreme.

In the Reagan era, you tossed red meat to these people, but you didn't really let them control the legislative agenda. That is not the case now.

What is happening now is that you have an agenda that both panders to the ultra rich and the religious right. But if you look at what is going on out in the states, the social issues seem ascendant, despite the bad economic times.

[Gene O'Grady]

I think one of the Obama administration's fundamental mistakes was not going after the criminals, whether the torture criminals, the forging evidence for a war criminals, or the FIRE criminals, and letting people know that there are some things you can't get away with. Unfortunately, I think the last liberal or democrat not to make this mistake was LBJ, or maybe even if FDR. But Carter and the post-Watergate post-VietNam democrats made the mistake, Clinton made the mistake, and Obama has made it again. Should murderers like Elliott Abrams or thieves like the Gold-Sachs biggies really be free to do it again?

At the risk of sounding like a Cold War hardliner, weaknesses really does encourage bullies.

[Davis X. Machina]

If Carter didn't do it, and Clinton didn't do it, and Obama has not done it as well, then there's at least an argument to be made that the 'it' shouldn't be done.

What is the thing Auric Goldfinger says? "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action"?

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times may have something to do with the office, and the state in which the office exists and is held.

[beckya57]

I'm with DXM on that one, even though my heart is definitely with you Gene. Dem presidents have to be able to work with the national security apparatus, loathsome though it often is. I'm pretty sure that if Obama had publicly taken them on repealing DADT wouldn't be happening.

[Davis X. Machina]

Shit like this is the kind of thing I was talking about in my first post at top.

[beckya57]

Those are good points, Sir C. I think an argument can be made that the elites (who are definitely in the corporate pockets) in the GOP don't have as firm control as they once did. Certainly the immigration issue hasn't gone the way they've wanted it to: the big-money oriented guys like Bush and Rove wanted to use the social issues to get Latinos into their tent, recognizing that they are a growing share of their electorate, and look at how that's turned out. Boehner, who's part of that same elite apparatus, did seem at times to be having trouble controlling his caucus, though of course the social issues folks got sold out at the end for the money folks, as has happened so often in the GOP for the last 20-30 years (I'm referring to letting PP survive in order to get more budget cuts). Throwing red meat to the base over and over is a strategy with some risks over time; the crazies can get out of control.

[beckya57]

I'll take a bit of issue with "social issues seem ascendant DESPITE the bad economic times." It's quite common throughout history for people to turn on unpopular minority groups and to get rigid about hierarchies, gender roles, etc. during bad economic times. Again, our South provides plenty of examples, as do the periodic pogroms in Russian history, and of course Nazi Germany is the ultimate example. And elites often encourage these trends. None of this is new. What's actually a little surprising in some ways is that there's been so much movement towards gay acceptance in this context. Though as you pointed out in an earlier thread, that doesn't really cost anyone anything. Having lost the gay fight, the GOP seems determined to double-down on women- and brown people-hating, however.

[Joe S]

@Sir C, I think the budget deal is the best the Dems could do (within five-ten billion dollars). Bargaining isn't an exact science, and the Repubs have less to lose from a government shutdown.

As for acting while we were in power, and why liberals are upset, I think that, as usual, you're acting as an apologist for the Congressional Democratic Party-- and liberals (and moderates- which I consider myself) had every right to be infuriated with the behavior of the Congressional Democratic Party (and to a lesser extent the Administration).

The thing is that the items in the Obama agenda that liberals cared about were: (1) health insurance reform with a public option; (2) financial services reform; (3) cap and trade for carbon emissions; (4) labor law reform; (5) getting out of the Muslim world as quickly as possible; and (6) immigration reform.

All of Obama's solutions to the above stated problems were entirely conservadem platform ideas. A public option was an alternative to the private sector and preservation of the health insurance system (Private and public solutions in competition, customer preference being the decision maker). And again, although I know you like to minimize this fact, most of the Obama program (and all of the program that passed) were Republican ideas for healthcare reform-- proposed by the fucking Heritage FOundation and lifted almost verbatim from Romneycare.

A pro business immigration policy is and has been a DLC standard from the getgo.

Cap & Trade is a market based solution to cure a market failure (the externality of carbon pollution).

Labor Law Reform was designed to even the playing field between Organized labor and Business senator (which is what the DLC claimed it always stood for). Every Dem Senator had previously voted for or sponsored the EFCA before 2008 (including Arlen Specter).

Of course, the Administration doubled down in Afghanistan, is still in Iraq, and decided that we just need another war in the Middle East.

In viewing 2008-2010 as a disappointment, liberals haven't been infuriated at the failure to enact a left-liberal agenda. Liberals and moderates were infuriated with the failure to enact a conservadem agenda (advertized through conservadem organs like the New Republic and DLC and Conservadem politicians for years).

The Democratic base had a right to believe the rhetoric of the conservadems- and the base was justifiably upset and/or disenchanted when the conservadems turned out to be little more than a collection of corporate whores.

THe lack of will wasn't just with the Administration (although in foreign policy and failure to use recess appointments, the Administration has acted in a problematic manner). The lack of will was with the Democratic Party as a whole-- who almost unanimously ran on a conservadem agenda which it then failed to carry out.

[Mandos]

So as for what people want the Dems to do, well, the point that the Rs have a hostage is a good one. What you should want the Dems to do depends on what you think the state of the hostage is:

1. Do you think that the hostage is going to be shot anyway? People who say yes include myself, Ian, a lot of FDL, and so on.

2. If yes to 1, what is the relative cost of letting the hostage be shot sooner rather than later? I believe that it is better to defer it as long as possible, but some people think that it will be worse later.

If you don't think that the hostage is necessarily going to be shot, I suggest the burden of proof is now on you. Why do you think that the hostage is not going to be shot, or this time the (R) has overstepped its bounds?

[big bad wolf]

i think the hostage will be shot later, but i prefer that, as i think people mostly usually do, although later ain't the same as mercy

even if he only believes in conservative democratic things, obama needs to stop being a mediator and start being a leader.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

When I say social issues ascendant despite the economic problems I probably skipped several steps -- what I was talking about was despite the putative "tea party" obsession with smaller government -- as declaimed by the media -- versus social issues, what has been the actual experience? Social issues have been at the top of legisaltive initiatives versus actual attempts to create jobs, etc.

Joe,

It's just not accurate to characterize labor law reform as a conservadem item. And what happened there was typical of other labor reform efforts -- whenever the conservadems in the Senate are actually pressed to vote for labor law reform they flee -- it's Dale Bumpers in 1978 or Blanche Lincoln in 2009, it's always the same thing.

You should also remember that the driving force behind what you derisively label Romneycare was Ted Kennedy. He was the one who got Romney to sign off on the idea. I don't think it is deserving of quite the contemptuous dismissal you clearly intend. You might at least acknowledge that Massachusetts has by far the lowest rates of uninsured people in the country and that no other state is even close.

I don't think many people would agree with you that cap and trade or financial reform were conservadem ideas. (The Administration did succeed in getting financial reform through, even if it wasn't everything we might have wanted, so I think you need to at least acknowledge that.)

I don't know why you think I'm an apologist for the congressional Dems -- by which you really mean the Senate Dems -- I think I've expressed pretty consistent exasperation with them. I've tried to explain why the Administration has not been able to get things through the filibuster -- not that I have been in any way sympathetic to the filibusters themselves.

The filibuster pretty much stymied our agenda in 2009-10, from immigration reform (which I would have made a top priortiy) to the public option to the inability to get cap and trade through. In my mind it also caused us to lose the House.

For better or worse, Obama explicitly ran on a platform of escalating in Afghanistan. The suggestion that this was a betrayal is simply a failure by people to pay attention. (I am in favor of quick and orderly withdrawal by the way.) (Although I was not in favor of intervening in Libya,I don't think it is comaprable to Iraq.)

I think you are pretending that the country and the democratic base are a whole lot more to the left than they are -- if you think the agenda you sketched out was the conservadem agenda, you are acquainted with a different class of conservadems than I've been observing.

Mandos,

Ian and the FDL folks are engaging in a juvenile "heighten the contradictions" theme. As someone who actually lived through the 1960s I can tell you how that story ends. And as someone who has forgotten more about American history and politics than Ian or Jane Hamsher will ever know, I find the notion that we will deliver the progressive millennium by helping turn things to shit as quickly as possible preposterous.

Sadly, we have to go about the long hard job of winning elections and persuading people and moving the terms of the debate -- all things that may take the rest of my lifetime or may never happen at all.

But pretending that there is some magical short cut to liberal-left governance is an illusion.

In the meantime we need to help as many people as we can in the ways that we can.

[Sir Charles]

DXM,

Yeah, "every man's a king but no one wears a crown." That's the ticket.

Gene,

For reasons I've discussed here on multiple occassions, I think that had the administration tried to prosecute Bush and Cheney, it would have 1) failed at that; and 2) been rendered incapable of doing anything else at that point.

[Davis X. Machina]

The thing is that the items in the Obama agenda that liberals cared about were: (1) health insurance reform with a public option...

The public option became a shibboleth and a touchstone only in the internecine wars that followed Obama's nomination. It's absent from Dean's highly touted 2004 health care program, for example. It didn't exist until late 2007. If it wasn't the public option, it would have been something else.

Medicare for all was a policy hill worth dying on -- that would at least have been principled. The public option uproar was a case of needing a stick and using whatever was handy.

[beckya57]

Couldn't agree with you more, Sir C. We just have to keep trying, discouraging though things often are.

[low-tech cyclist]

I am curious to hear what people think could have been done better here -- what number could have been an effective stopping point or what different tactics might have yielded a better result? One approach might have been for the President to say he wasn't going to accept any cuts, but I am skeptical that this would have worked. Any other thoughts?

The question is, what do you mean, 'worked'?

This is at least a three-round game: the 2011 budget, the debt limit, and the 2012 budget.

Sure, if this round alone existed, it would better to take $38B in cuts, and keep the government running.

I think the subsequent rounds will be even worse for us, particularly the debt limit round. I think in the end we either lose maybe $150 billion from programs, which would be like a chainsaw massacre on the 'nondefense discretionary' portion of the budget where most of it will still fall, or we have to swallow some of those riders that are anathema to us: defunding PP or the EPA or the PPACA. And see a world where Simpson-Bowles becomes the left-of-center stance, our lifeline to say 'see, we really are as serious as Paul Ryan.'

Plus, we've shown them here that Boehner's brilliant brinkmanship is a winning strategy. It's worked three times already; if there comes a time when Dems draw a line in the sand, they're not going to believe it's real until the government's already been shut down for a month.

No, if you're Obama, the only winning strategy was 'Zero. Does 'zero' work for you?' as Pelosi might've said. Admit to the existence of inefficiencies in government and a willingness to consider cutting programs where those can be demonstrated - and insist that every dollar saved through the elimination of those inefficiencies get plowed back in to repairing aging water and sewer systems, highway bridges, and the like.

Several things can happen next.

One is that they never pass anything better than the initial House budget. In this case, you can make them own the shutdown, because you damned sure couldn't have signed that budget, and besides, it didn't get through the Senate anyway.

Or they could pass something a little better, like the $32B in cuts Boehner initially proposed. Assuming it squeaks through the Senate, you paint it as outrageous (and go into detail about why, enumerating particular cuts and how they'll affect real lives), and veto it. My bet is that if you can back up your case in an Oval Office address to the American people, you win and they lose if there's a shutdown because they don't come back with something better.

Or they could pass something a LOT better, like a modest $15 billion in cuts. You criticize the hell out of it, but grudgingly accept it. And meanwhile the rift between the establishment right of Boehner and Mitch McConnell on the one hand, and the crazies on the other, opens wide because the establishment's strategy didn't get much.

And once they shut the government down (in those cases), and it starts actually hitting the teabagger base in the pocketbook (because it will), they'll lose some of their fire for confrontations in rounds 2 and 3.

And that's the REAL reason we needed to go to the mats on this one. We needed a shutdown to bloody the teabagger base's noses, and make them rethink how great an idea a shutdown was. So that we'd be in a much more advantageous position going into the debt limit negotiations, and the 2012 budget after that.

I think we could have gotten away with that initial $4 billion for the first short-term CR, but once we gave them the next $6B in the second short-term CR, I knew the game was over. It was going to be just too hard to prove to them that this strategy wasn't working, after it had worked twice. The time to fight was back in March; April was really too late.

[Joe S]

Sir C, with the exception of our various wars, I'm not denigrating the policies-- I'm denigrating the fact that the conservadems generally wouldn't enact the policies they claimed they believed in.

Cap & Trade was a policy introduced by the GHW Bush Administration to deal with acid rain and pollution from hydrogen sulfide. It is and has always been the conservative, market oriented answer to environmental regulation (other than to deny that a problem exists).

The ACA, whether it's a good idea or a bad one, was the conservative approach to health care reform. That's why Romney championed it, why people like Bennett, Hatch, and Dole supported something close to it, and why the Heritage Foundation set forth a plan much like the current ACA.

As for labor law reform- all the conservadems claimed they supported it. All the conservadems claimed they'd vote for it. Many of them did vote for it when they knew the Repubs would filibuster (including Pryor, Lincoln, Nelson, and Specter).

Finally, as for foreign policy, while Obama never said he'd get out of Afghanistan toute suite, certainly the tenor of the primary campaign and the general election was that we were going to have fewer military entanglements in the Mid East. Instead, we're engaged in more military activities in the Middle East than in the Bush years (if you count Pakistan, Yemen, Libya). I'll admit that conservadems love wars against people of color-- and I've never been for that.

Also, although it did pass, financial reform was very much in line with what people like Geithner, Rubin and Summers (all conservadems) wanted. Do you have any evidence that anything in financial reform that the Geithner-Summers axis didn't want made it into financial reform ? My understanding is that Treasury mostly wrote the law.

But I stand by my point-- whether I think conservadem policies are good ones or not (and on balance, I think most of the ideas are/were pretty good even though I think most conservadems personally are pretty bad)-- the conservadems generally failed to enact the policies they claimed to support because business interest groups said-- Boo !. I don't really know how that can be excused. In a very real way, the conservadems sold out their principles and their base (nearly all Democrats, however you define the base, are opposed to the massive income inequality and rent seeking of the business lobbies).

And I'm saying that as a person who was sympathetic to the DLC in the 1990's (really all the way up to the Iraq War).

[low-tech cyclist]

Oh, and what Ezra said.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

Its late, I am tired, I am already into my fourth or fifth whiskey.

The only thing that I see that matters here is that no one is talking sanity. Back in December the republicans extorted the concession of extending tax cuts for the rich for another two years... what did that amount to? If my memory serves me it would be about $160 billion ($800 billion over 10 years I think was the call from the CBO).

What have the oil companies done in response to the rise in the price of their feed stocks? Have they absorbed the costs in order to keep their customers happy? Have they any competitors selling gasoline at lower prices? No and No. They raise the price hours after a move on the feed stocks even though the change will not propagate through the system for weeks. To any republican that's good business.

Republicans regularly claim government should be run like a business, lean and mean. Well, then why doesn't the government raise its prices (tax) and start cutting out some dead wood, namely the numerous appointed ideologs from previous administrations?

Tax the rich. Tax them heavily. Take the money and build roads, high speed rail, wind farms, solar farms, nuclear power plants, affordable housing, schools, libraries, provide oversight and regulation to assure that the public and the nation do not have to absorb the costs of corporate neglect and malfeasence.

[Mandos]

Yeah, the debt ceiling issue really brings the "hostage taking" matter home. Y'all are going to have to shoot some hostages whether you like it or not at that point.

[Mandos]

Ian and the FDL folks are engaging in a juvenile "heighten the contradictions" theme. As someone who actually lived through the 1960s I can tell you how that story ends.

I don't think it can really quite be written off as the whole "heightening the contradictions" genre of argument. They aren't arguing that you should deliberately accelerate calamity. They are simply suggesting that propping up an abusive dynamic is not going to end any better than letting it go.

[low-tech cyclist]

But pretending that there is some magical short cut to liberal-left governance is an illusion.

Well, there was, a couple years back. It's called "abolishing the filibuster," and the Dems could have used the crisis they were confronted with as a reason to do so.

Sure, the Villagers would have raised a stink, but in November 2010, the main thing that mattered would have been whether things were getting better or not. Since a 'second stimulus' or even a better first one, becomes a lot more feasible if only 50 Senate votes are needed, it certainly would have helped; the only question is one of degree.

Unfortunately, we missed the moment. But the first takeaway here is that procedural rules are the political equivalent of magic. For the GOP, they transformed a 59-41 minority into a level playing field, and even a 60-40 minority into one that was only slightly tilted against them, thanks to the presence of some Business Dogs in the Senate Democratic caucus.

And the second takeaway is that most voters aren't going to even be aware of what's going on with procedural battles, no matter how much the Broderists scream. They mostly care about whether the party in power is making their lives better. So it's important to actually be in power when it looks to all the world like we're in power - and use that power to improve the lives of "people who work hard and play by the rules," as Clinton used to say.

The final takeaway is that we're never going to hold onto power very long until the Dems are a party that's clearly fighting for "people who work hard and play by the rules."

So SC, when you say, "we have to go about the long hard job of winning elections and persuading people and moving the terms of the debate -- all things that may take the rest of my lifetime or may never happen at all," my problem is that I need to see a route forward that doesn't waste my time and energy. As long as the Dems are what they are, I believe we're perpetually doomed to a cycle where we simply get nowhere.

The question is, how do we turn the Dems into that party that sticks up for those who work hard and play by the rules, and demands that the hurt caused by the banksters doesn't all fall on them?

I've proposed an answer (my party-within-a-party approach) but I don't see a route to making it happen: it's just another idea that will never gain a wide enough audience to be meaningfully debated. And it's not like there's anything else being suggested: I don't see that, say, the crew over at Daily Kos has come up with some answers that are any different from starting over like it was 2005, and running the same script that got us back here.

I don't mind running a marathon, but I don't want to run in circles.

[JMG]

Actually, one tactic that hasn't been tried by the Dems but might work is to demand dollar for dollar tax increases on top individual bracket and corporations for each spending cut. It would mean they would be in a position to concede something Republicans actually hate and fear.
Of course, there aren't 10 votes in our Senate of the wealthy for that policy. But

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

The complacency about the filibuster was a disaster. It alone has been the obstacle to so much prgressive legislating.

But then you get back to the weird institutional culture of the Senate, the fact that it is a body made up of wealthy self-important popinjays, and that the holds and filibuster magnify the power of each Senator -- well it's just a fucking mess.

The very structure of our government -- especially the disproportionate power of the conservative rural (welfare seeking) states.

We also get back to the problem of the waning power of organized labor and the increasing influence of corporate money on the Democratic side of the aisle -- it all makes our task very difficult.

Although I don't agree that all of these failures can be laid at the feet of Obama, I should be clear that I think he could and should be leading more resolutely and decisively.

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

I totally agree with Ezra's column as well.

Embracing the politics of austerity is nuts.

And Obama referring to himself as a "referee" or "mediator" is a total mistake. Jesus.

[MR Bill]

From Revelations:
"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. "

I guess our beef with the President is that we wanted a leader, a truth teller, "someone to lead us, someone to follow" (as quite another prophet said..). We got...a referee??
Weak tea. Lukewarm water. Maybe that's what we need. Maybe it's judo, and he's using the strength and misapplication of power of our political enemies, the uber wealthy, their lapdogs, and the obsessed and frightened, to cause them to fall of their own instability.
But the contrast between the actual man and his actions, and the scary Moslem socialist alien Kenyan Alanskyite of the Right Wing bubble could not be more pronounced.

It's like NPR: we want an independent realistic voice, a clear eye, an unfettered tongue.
We get Cokie Roberts and Mara Liiason.

[Sir Charles]

MR Bill,

Absolutely.

I find myself wishing he were a secret Kenyan socialist with a sinister plan to fuck the rich.

I think the problem is in part all of these Dems were so scarred by the 80s and 90s that they can't quite believe that they have a mandate to rule. So 2010 brought back the worst of these tendencies -- it confirmed to them that the natural order of things was being restored because they had been too bold. Argh.

[janinsanfran]

Just possibly, might it be that Democrats have not been able to envision policies that would actually work for ordinary working people since sometime in the 1970s when they got hit with oil shocks and stagflation, followed by a much more aggressive business offensive, followed by globalization, followed by the Great Recession?

Absent a labor movement with any power and any other source of progressive force on the horizon, centrist capitalists literally have no vision of how to govern. So we get this "passive" President?

I've been reading Judith Stein (Pivotal Decade) and Jefferson Cowie (Stayin' Alive) and recommend both. They are downers though.

[oddjob]

There hasn't been a loud, intellectually consistent collective liberal voice message in the national media's political dialogue since the early 1970's. There were token voices (most especially Ted Kennedy's), but they were only tokens trotted out for the usual "On one hand, but on the other hand........" pointless media circus that is the every day chatter of the punditry and the Sunday morning news-talk shows.

(None of which is to diminish Ted Kennedy's effectiveness in the Senate, only to point out that those news media shows routinely have a raft of prominent, well known right wing voices to draw from, but on the left that is not so. There is no corresponding loud collective voice on the left in the national dialogue, only a disjointed collection of lesser voices.)

[MR Bill]

I am a lesser voice.

[Sir Charles]

Well this kind of circles back to the tings that really spurred the advent of the lefty blgosphere in the first place -- the lack of establishment voices pusing anything like real liberal-left polices -- a world in which Joe Klein, Eleanor Clift, and Morton Kondracke were what passed on the TV for liberals.

And this leads back again to part of Obama's mission -- and one with which he shows the least comfort -- the ideological work of promoting not just competence or common sense, but something that has bit more heft and coherence in terms of an overarching philospohy of governance.

I am actually a big fan of pragmatism, but pragmatism has its limits. (I was amused recently by the observation that the problem with pragamtism is that it doesn't work.)

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

First of all, Obama is just one man, in a position of power to be sure, but we, the great unwashed, cannot appreciate or understand the manner in which that power is constrained. Suffice it to say that the opposition to Obama ia a few orders of magnitude greater than anything Bush had to face.

In the comments heretofore there are many good ideas expressed but they do not address the simplest aspect of the whole conundrum of why government is so dysfunctional. It is simply because people do not vote.

Yes, the senate is a joke in terms of how a minority can derail any initiative. But you also have to acknowledge that the minority has some weak but significant support from those so called blue dogs. While the republicans march in lock step the democrats mill about like sheep in a sorting pen.

There is one more side to this complex question that should be clearly understood. Republicans act solely and faithfully in terms of their simplistic ideology, they have one goal and they are united in seeking that goal. That goal is to consolidate as much wealth as possible at the expense of everyone else.