Month: February 2009

Bipartisan Coalition On Screwing The Unemployed

by dday

The public has internalized the concept of bipartisanship as practiced by George Bush – he meant it as “Everyone agrees with me,” and the public wants to see bipartisanship defined as everyone agree with Obama. This won’t make it into many high Broderist discussions, but people seemingly want the agenda that they actually voted for. What a concept.

However, there are some issues where Democrats and Republicans are able to get together and agree. Especially when the “Democrat” in the scenario is a corporate whore who wants to punish the unemployed.

Tennessee and Georgia may turn down some of the economic stimulus money if the restrictions outlined in the package cause budgetary hardship in the future, the governors said Monday.

After meeting with President Barack Obama, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen said some provisions in the package for unemployment benefits would force states to expand their programs permanently, even though the stimulus funding only lasts for two years.

“We are evaluating this piece of money, whether it makes sense for us to take it,” he said. “We may well be one of the states that say we can’t take on that portion of it.”

In short, these Governors don’t want to take money now to qualify more people for unemployment, fearing that increased eligibility would remain in 2-4 years when the federal dollars run out, costing employers in their state money. The concerns always seem calibrated to industry and the Chamber of Commerce, oddly enough. Never mind that extending unemployment benefits is one of the most effective stimulus programs there can be and the increase in consumer spending as a result will outweigh any projected and purely conjectural costs years down the road (don’t take my word for it, take the word of noted liberal hippie Ben Bernanke).

Chuck Schumer is out with a letter arguing that the stimulus isn’t an a la carte menu and that Southern Governor grandstanding aside, picking and choosing is not an option:

As you know, Section 1607(a) of the economic recovery legislation provides that the Governor of each state must certify a request for stimulus funds before any money can flow. No language in this provision, however, permits the governor to selectively adopt some components of the bill while rejecting others. To allow such picking and choosing would, in effect, empower the governors with a line-item veto authority that President Obama himself did not possess at the time he signed the legislation. It would also undermine the overall success of the bill, as the components most singled out for criticism by these governors are among the most productive measures in terms of stimulating the economy.

For instance, at least two governors have proposed rejecting a program to expand unemployment insurance for laid-off workers. Economists consistently rank unemployment insurance among the most efficient and cost-effective fiscal stimulus measures; by one frequently cited estimate, it provides an economic return of as high as $1.73 for every dollar invested. Thus, by denying this provision for their residents, these governors are not just depriving some of the neediest Americans of relief in a dire economy; they are undermining the overall stimulative impact of the package.

Big thanks to Phil Bredesen for giving this rank political grandstanding a patina of bipartisanship. Really helps the country.

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Let Us Pray

by digby

From Think Progress:

On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning, Sanford received a call from a Charleston resident who said he lost his job because he has been taking care of mother and sister, both of whom have serious illnesses. The caller told Sanford he is “wrong” to decline the money. “A lot of people in South Carolina are hurting. And if this money can come and help us out we need it.” In response, Sanford could offer him only his prayers:

CALLER: I hope you all are not playing politics with this. People in South Carolina are hurting. You know how unemployment rates are high right now and going up higher. We are running out of money in the unemployment bank — we need money for that, the people that need help. And I’m one of them, I can’t get no help. […] SANFORD: Well I’d say hello to Charleston because its home and I’d say hello to this fellow this morning and say that my prayers are going to be with him and his family because it sounds like he is in an awfully tough spot.

Sanford offered no other alternative solution for his constituent and instead argued that the state could not accept money to extend unemployment benefits because “increasing the tax on unemployment insurance” would negatively “impact the caller’s family” (although he didn’t say how).

Oh, that’s what Sanford meant a couple of weeks ago when he said “we are moving toward a savior-based economy.”

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Twits

by dday

The Politico, seeking to prove its commitment to substantive journalism, had an article today about the 10 most influential DC Twitterers. Enough said on their claims to substance. But they do hit on a mini-phenomenon; unlike blogs, which the Beltway media was slow to accept and embrace, Twitter has become something of a hit. Which makes perfect sense. After all, if you knew nothing about a topic except the barest outlines of the “who’s winning/who’s losing” dynamic, you’d want to limit yourself to 140 characters, too.

I’m not saying that Twitter is useless: it’s a good publishing tool for quick news bytes and reporting from spaces where a computer is impractical. The best information from the California budget standoff came from the few reporters and advocates left in Sacramento updating their Twitter feeds (of course, that says more about California’s political media than it does about the medium). However, reading the blurb for Ana Marie Cox’ designation on the list, it appears that to them, Twitter has just become Village IM:

The former Wonkette makes the cut for two reasons: productivity and popularity. At 54,000 followers and climbing, Cox’s tweets (sometimes as many as 100 a day) are among the most followed in Washington. With attitude and humor, Cox documents just about everything: White House briefings, her cats, her former employers, her ongoing debate about whether to wear pants around the house — and political sound bites on TV that could pass for bad pickup lines at a bar (“My filibuster lasts all night long”).

Usually DC gets these things 4-6 years after the fact, like my grandparents’ rural small-town radio station (“Coming up, music from a hot new band called The Who!”), but Twitter allows the chattering class the double pleasure of maxing out on their Blackberry usage, along with being forcibly constrained by time and space to definitively not talk about anything of import whatsoever. “John Edwards’ haircut ZOMG LOLZ” fits the format; an analysis of proposed USDA country-of-origin labeling policy doesn’t. And the structure of having “followers” surely appeals to Village types. All in all, it’s better than passing notes in junior high! Actually, kind of the same thing!

This is the by-product of a media utterly consumed with self-regard and groupthink, who cannot conceive of talking about politics without sports analogies and scorecards. And the head Twit of them all, Tweety, has been unwittingly exposed by Chuck Todd:

NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd has a theory on why MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews begged off from running for the Pennsylvania Senate seat held by Republican Arlen Specter. “Because [Chris] had a really good friend of his say to him, ‘What are you going to do when you get there?’ and he couldn’t answer the question and he realized that, and that’s why he didn’t run,” says Todd. “It was a childhood dream to be a senator, but he didn’t know what he was going to do if he got there.”

Eric Boehlert is quite rightly astounded.

Matthews, who has been inside the Beltway for going on, what, four decades, who once worked on the Hill and has been commenting, non-stop, about politics for countless years, had no idea what he’d do if he were a senator.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again here: The Beltway press doesn’t do public policy. It doesn’t get it, and it has even less interest in it. So no, we’re not surprised Matthews couldn’t figure out why he’d do, y’know for other people, if he ever got elected.

Twitter’s like a weighty public policy document to this crew.

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Grand Bargaining Moves To Process

by digby

Here’s David Walker of the Peterson Foundation at the Fiscal Summit today:

WALKER: You touched on the remarks on the balance sheet. As a former controller, we are $11 trillion in the hole on the balance sheet and the problem’s not the balance sheet. It is off balance sheet. $45 trillion in unfunded obligations. You mentioned in January about the need to achieve a Grand Bargain involving budget process, social security, taxes, health care reform. You’re 110% right to do that. Question is, how do we do it?

Candidly, I think it takes an extraordinary process that engages the American people, provides for fast track consideration and with your leadership that can happen. But that’s what it’s going to take.

OBAMA: Okay. Well, I appreciate that. Again, when we distribute the notes coming out of the task forces, I want to make sure that people are responding both in terms of substance and in terms of process. Because we’re going need both in order to make some progress on this.

Just so you know, whatever it is the administration desires, it’s quite clear from that short Village Townhall today, that many of the players in this didn’t get the “entitlement reform” means “health care reform” memo yet — or the one that says there will not be some kind of process that will “fast track” the Grand Bargain. It wasn’t just Walker, it was Kent Conrad and others who were pushing that.

As a reminder, here’s what Obama said last January, which I wrote about at the time here:

“Our challenge is going to be identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don’t work, and making things that we have more efficient. But I’m not suggesting, George, I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,” Obama told me in his first interview since arriving back in Washington, DC as president-elect.

I asked the president-elect, “At the end of the day, are you really talking about over the course of your presidency some kind of grand bargain? That you have tax reform, healthcare reform, entitlement reform including Social Security and Medicare, where everybody in the country is going to have to sacrifice something, accept change for the greater good?”

“Yes,” Obama said.

“And when will that get done?” I asked.

“Well, right now, I’m focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you described is exactly what we’re going to have to do. What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?”

“And eventually sacrifice from everyone?” I asked.

“Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game,” Obama said.

Here’s what EJ Dionne wrote at the time, after the liberal columnist meeting with Obama:

Obama’s anti-ideological talk is not just a vehicle for progressive inclinations but the real deal. Obama regularly offers three telltale notions that will define his presidency — if events allow him to define it himself: “sacrifice,” “grand bargain” and “sustainability.”

To listen to Obama and his budget director Peter Orszag is to hear a tale of long-term fiscal woe. The government may have to spend and cut taxes in a big way now, but in the long run, the federal budget is unsustainable.

That’s where sacrifice kicks in. There will be signs of it in Obama’s first budget, in his efforts to contain health-care costs and, down the road, in his call for entitlement reform and limits on carbon emissions. His camp is selling the idea that if he wants authority for new initiatives and new spending, Obama will have to prove his willingness to cut some programs and reform others.

The “grand bargain” they are talking about is a mix and match of boldness and prudence. It involves expansive government where necessary, balanced by tough management, unpopular cuts — and, yes, eventually some tax increases. Everyone, they say, will have to give up something.

(Here’s what I wrote about that at the time.)

Obviously, things have changed since he said that back on January 10th. This economy is cratering with no end in sight. I find it hard to fathom that they would believe “sacrifice” of retirement income is still the best way to frame this — at least if they care about getting the economy back on track any time soon and maintaining their political coalition. (And obviously, one hopes they now know that they are dealing with an insane opposition that has no intention of playing.)

Unfortunately, nobody has told David Walker this Grand Bargain is no longer operative and from what I’ve heard all of them say just today, I don’t think they told Huckleberry Graham and I don’t think they told Steny Hoyer and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Kent Conrad either.

I have always believed that one of their very clever plans was to make “entitlement reform” all about health care. You could see that coming pretty clearly. The problem is that, like “bipartisanship” it takes two to tango. It’s really neat that they are all saying that entitlement reform is really about health care reform, but David walker and the Blue Dogs and everybody else to the right of Maxine Waters thinks “entitlement” reform, where everybody’s got to have some skin in the game, includes social security.

I hope they can finesse it. But I’m not going to shut up and assume they can because it’s quite clear (and I have heard this from several sources,despite Robert Gibbs’ evasions earlier) that unless some lefties had made some noise, they would have had the Pete Peterson Show at the White House today to showcase their fiscal responsibility bonfides — and they would have announced a Social Security Summit.

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Being Right Is No Excuse For Being Right

by dday

Many have already said what needed to be said about Ryan Lizza’s fawning profile of Rahm Emanuel, which I think was actually written by someone named “Rahm Emanuel,” such is the uncritical glory. Glenn Greenwald offers the best and most thorough takedown of Lizza’s article and the clear flattery-for-access exchange not unlike a People Magazine celebrity piece, although I would add Spencer Ackerman’s personal Lizza experience as some context for the kind of person we’re dealing with:

Remember that obnoxious intern in Shattered Glass who constantly pokes his nose into other people’s business because he’s desperate to be put on? That’s based on Ryan. His specialty was always in schmoozing — meeting powerful people, ingratiating himself to powerful people, trying to get something out of powerful people. He was the first person I ever met who showed off his BlackBerry. But I never had a problem with Ryan […]

So one day I was commiserating with Ryan […] In a moment of blowing off steam, I said to Ryan that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if I got fired for TNR for being too left-wing. There were probably some editors who’d come to my aid if that happened, since people in The Game know what TNR is really like.

I thought nothing of it. Again, that kind of venting isn’t unusual for TNR, and I heard other writers say much worse things about the place over the years. But a couple weeks later Frank asked me to have lunch with him. Great! I thought. Finally an audience with my friend-turned-editor, who seems not to have time for me anymore. We went to the sushi place on New York Avenue and 11th.

“Listen,” Frank said, “I know you’ve been telling people that you welcome getting fired. I want to tell you how unprofessional and immature that is.”

Stunning. Lizza had run to our boss and told him something I had said as a way of calming myself down. Now, here it was, ripped from context, and made into a problem between me and my editor. It was the first salvo of much fake outrage from Frank over the coming months. When I grumbled that I knew who snitched on me, Frank — realizing he had fucked up — urged me to let it go […]

What I learned from this is something every journalist, every editor, every potential source and every reader should know: Ryan Lizza is not to be trusted. He will betray you, and betray you casually. Whatever helps Lizza get what he want, Lizza will do. It doesn’t matter if you and he have a warm relationship. He only — only — cares about himself. So congratulations, Ryan! You got what you wanted. You’re the New Yorker’s Washington correspondent. I hope it’s worth it to you to have that job, since the path that you took to get it was to become a sniveling, obsequious, deceitful coward. Or maybe that’s what you’ve always been, and always will be.

This puts Lizza’s upcoming book about the Obama Administration and the presumed softballing-for-access in its proper context.

But I want to actually focus on something inside the profile, when Emanuel attempts to rebut his critics on the left:

“They have never worked the legislative process,” Emanuel said of critics like the Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama’s concessions to Senate Republicans—in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to stimulate the economy—produced a package that wasn’t large enough to respond to the magnitude of the recession. “How many bills has he passed?” […]

Now, my view is that Krugman as an economist is not wrong. But in the art of the possible, of the deal, he is wrong. He couldn’t get his legislation.”

The stimulus bill was essentially held hostage to the whims of Collins, Snowe, and Specter, but if Al Franken, the apparent winner of the disputed Minnesota Senate race, had been seated in Washington, and if Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, had been regularly available to vote, the White House would have needed only one Republican to pass the measure. “No disrespect to Paul Krugman,” Emanuel went on, “but has he figured out how to seat the Minnesota senator?” (Franken’s victory is the subject of an ongoing court challenge by his opponent, Norm Coleman, which the national Republican Party has been happy to help finance.) “Write a fucking column on how to seat the son of a bitch. I would be fascinated with that column. O.K.?” Emanuel stood up theatrically and gestured toward his seat with open palms. “Anytime they want, they can have it,” he said of those who are critical of his legislative strategies. “I give them my chair.”

Given the limits of making the Senate filibuster and Republican obstructionism generally, Emanuel may be right on the Franken point (though there’s obviously a rhetorical role the White House can play in highlighting the absurdity, one they aren’t playing at all). But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this kind of criticism here in California from people within the Democratic Party, that us librul ranters don’t know what it means to craft policy or how to execute the art of the deal. It’s the default position for those in power, to trade of their experience – and actually, the secrecy of the process – to dismiss their critics.

But Emanuel gives up a powerful point in the middle of that. As I boldfaced, he actually admits that the stimulus package wasn’t big enough. That’s a pretty massive point, considering that the fate of economic recovery in no small part depends on fiscal spending that meets the task. While Emanuel claims that the Administration got 90% of what they wanted, they also didn’t get a package that will fit the bill. That’s what Paul Krugman is getting at in his response:

Eh. The question is why Obama didn’t ask for what the economy needed, then bargain from there. My view is that Collins et al would have demanded $100 billion in cuts from whatever they started from; and that’s not the case he answers.

Now, all of this is conjecture, and it’s entirely possible that Collins and Nelson would have driven down the cost to essentially the $800 billion where it ended. But the pre-compromised position of the bill ENSURED that it would not be enough.

And this is not the first time that Emanuel has intimated that the stimulus was insufficient. Last week he said “We clearly thought that economic activity needed more, but it was more important to get it done than argue about just that.”

Ultimately it may be positive that Emanuel knows what he has done isn’t sufficient; maybe it will allow him to return for more if that comes to pass. But it’s a pretty interesting move to admit inadequacy and then blame the very people who were saying all along that the bill was inadequate for “not being realistic.” That’s some up-is-downism right there. And if the ones who are so uninformed about the political process are also admittedly the ones who were RIGHT, would it kill those august dealmakers to, I don’t know, learn something from that, and maybe not negotiate with themselves anymore?

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Special Process

by digby

It’s clear to me that as even if the Obama administration now realizes that social security is a mine field at the moment (and thus canceled their plans for a social security summit) and have decided to frame the issue as “entitlement reform is health care reform,” Steny and his Blue Dogs are going to give him trouble.

Kent Conrad says he’s going to look at social security too as part of the budget process. They need a “special fast track process” to solve all these looming problems.

Funny, nobody’s talking about defense spending.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve taken quite a bit of shit from people for talking about this social security stuff. (“You’re being hysterical, just calm down” and “just trust Obama” being among the nicer criticisms.) And yet, I read in that TPM post linked above, that “the left” raising some hell was the impetus for them canceling the social security summit. I’m certainly not taking personal credit for that — I mostly scream into the void. But the fact that some members of the left (but not all, by any means)raised some alarms about this Peterson business may have helped stave off something that the administration was rolling with without thinking too much about.

I don’t think this is over. The SS destroyers see this crisis as an opportunity and they aren’t going to give up. But it’s also clear that if liberals make some noise they can have some impact too. It’s what we’re supposed to do.

Update: Speaking of pressure:

Dana Bash: We certainly have seen a lot of stories about Republican pressure from President Obama to rein in spending, but the truth is that a lot of his agenda depends on his keeping conservative Democrats happy.

On the wall of her Washington office, congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin displays pictures from her youth in South Dakota, a constant reminder that she’s a Democrat with conservative roots, especially when it comes to spending taxpayer money

Herseth Sandlin: Government can’t solve everybody’s problems. And if government can’t afford to do it, then it’s not good for anyone especially the next generation who may have to foot the bill.

Bash: That’s the mantra of the Democratic blue dog coalition

Herseth Sandlin: Yes, I inherited the blue dog ..

Bash: which Herselh sandlin leads, it weilds a lot of power with its 50 members, many newly elected Democrats who come from conservative districts. before voting for the president’s 780 billion dollar stimulus package, Herseth Sandlin and other Blue Dog democrats met privately with White House officials and made a demand.

Herseth Sandlin: … we ned a seat at the tableandwe will support traditional Democratic priorities so long as they’re paid for

Bash: We rode along with her to the White House, with the president’s fiscal responsibility summit. Driving down pennsylvania Avenue, she insisted his event and his new promise to reduce the deficit were the direct result of pressure from conservative Democrats in congress to keep his promises.

Bash: Do you feel like that was a result of the lobbying that you and your fellow Blue Dogs have done?

Herseth Sandlin: Yes I do. Based on the meetings we’ve had, on the conversations we’ve had on the meeting we had a week and a half ago…

Bash: She realizes that cutting spending to cut the deficit won’t be easy, but warns Democrats will pay politically if they don’t do it.

Herseth Sandlin: I don’t think it’s going to happen in a month or a year, but perhaps over the course on one presidential term we’ll start to see the change.

Bash: That may be the hope, but Wolf, House Democrats just released a four hundred and ten billion dollar spending package left over from last year that has an increase in spending and also a hefty amount of ear marks, pet projects, from Democrats and Republicans.

Herseth Sandlin says she wants to support traditional Democratic priorities as long as they’re paid for. Yet tax hikes (and defense cuts) are never discussed as part of that equation.

Liberals would be foolish to ignore the Blue Dog agenda and assume that the administration is on our side. These people have a powerful card to play — “bipartisanship” — and they are going to want to play it down the road. Liberals should never make it easy for the administration to take what they are offering. The Republicans are weak and there’s no good political or policy rationale for allowing them to form a coalition with these conservative Blue Dogs and reposition themselves as the middle. (Luckily, we have the future Republican presidential club vying for most suicidal at the moment, so that gives the liberals some breathing room.)

Update II: Jesus H. Christ. Did the word go forth from Chuck Todd that every MSNBC anchor had to have several segments on how the stock market crash is Obama’s fault? (Or it’s the surest sign that he’s failing?)

It’s either that or one can only conclude that their own portfolios have started to worry them and so they have a personal stake in all this. Hence, fulminating about how Obama had better turn the stock market around right quick.

Chris Matthews is getting out the pitchforks as we speak while Howard Fineman opines that we really need to cut back on the spending so the markets can feel confident.

Oy.

Update III: Jane has the excerpts of he social security questions in today’s press conference with Gibbs.

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Scold Summit

by digby

The “fiscal responsibility” summit has officially kicked off. Jane Hamsher has a rundown of the state of play today. She thinks administration officials are triangulating between us dirty hippies and the Fiscal Scolds to present the Diamond Orszag plan as the “responsible” alternative —- and as a bargaining chip in the health care negotiations. I really hope that’s not true, but it certainly looks possible. The conservatives (and disaster capitalists) will happily take that deal because their mission is to destroy the generational compact on social security once and for all. It’s the wedge of wedges that will spell the end of the program.

I continue to suspect (hope?) that this fiscal responsibility summit is a relic of an earlier age — before the full extent of the meltdown was known and when Obama was still wedded to the idea that good intentions on bipartisan process somehow automatically resulted in Republican good faith. Hopefully they’ve realized that there can be no Grand Bargains that result in Americans being even more insecure about their futures than they already are. It’s truly a dumb idea.

The NY Times reports today that the left is agitated by talk of cutting social security. At least the administration knows that now, rather than being under the illusion that the left will support them, as the Politico reported a couple of weeks ago. That’s a step in the right direction. But SS has to be off the bargaining table.

It will be interesting to see what unfolds in this summit. But I wouldn’t expect this topic to be put to bed today. The fiscal scolds are on the march and they see a big opportunity. If the Republicans believe, through Blue Dog cooperation, that they can hold social security hostage in a “bipartisan” way, they will keep it on the menu. After all, we are seeing Republican governors even turn down unemployment extensions for their own workers. It’s not like the hard core types care about elderly ladies having to eat catfood if it means a reversal of their political fortunes. (And the disaster capitalists are never happier than when old ladies are eating cat food. It’s what they call “opportunity.”)

Update: Robert Gibbs was just asked whether the administration had previously had plans for a social security “reform” commission and had just recently shelved it. He didn’t answer it. Chuck Todd followed up and he still wouldn’t answer it saying he had to look at the article.

Helen Thomas asked why we are dealing with Social Security right now, considering the huge problems we face immediately, when it’s solvent until 2040. Gibbs pretty much gave the Republican line about how we have to deal with it now in order to be “responsible.”

He was asked if he thinks it’s possible to do social security reform when all these other things are on the table. He said it’s contained in all the economic challenges this country daces. “The president knows he wasn’t elected to preside over easy choices to get the country where it can be.” “Some of those decisions will be hard” and he knows he can’t shy away from them.

He was asked if his major Democratic allies had the stomach to tackle major social security reform. Gibbs replied that it is going to be hard to tackle our challenges without dealing with all of them at the same time.

Update II: BTD at Talk Left deftly illustrates the Goldilocks Know Nothingism, inherent in the idea expressed by Andrew Sullivan today, that all fiscal “problems” will be solved when Republicans agree to raise taxes and Democrats agree to cut benefits.

I guess it depends upon what you think is a problem. If it means “cutting” health benefits from where they are today, the “problem” is sicker people dying sooner. Perhaps that’s not a problem for Sullivan, but it sure is one for the sick people who are going to be affected. (And anyway, nobody is talking about doing that.)

The cuts in benefits that are on the table are cuts in retirement benefits. Again, if you think that cutting retirement benefits, which is what Sullivan suggests, is part of the solution to the “problem,” then elderly ladies living on cat food is a price that will have to be paid. Republicans, on the other hand, will have to make the supreme sacrifice of forcing the wealthy to pay some negligible amount more in taxes in order that the deficit be eliminated.

See, everybody’s got skin in the fiscal responsibility game. Old ladies eat cat food and wealthy people have to give their maids a pay cut. It’s hell for everyone.

Obama just announced that there is a “healthy consensus” between Boehner, Hoyer, Graham and Durbin that this is a moment to work in a bipartisan fashion on “retirement security.” (Huckleberry nodded vigorously.) Who knows what that means?

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Giving Away The Tax Argument

by dday

One result of the budget mess being resolved here in California was a variety of tax increases (which were mostly flat or regressive and not all that good). The spending cuts were actually larger. However, in two of the weekend editions of the Los Angeles Times, right on page A1 above the fold, there was a graphic of a “tax calculator,” which projected the additional taxes an individual would pay based on certain factors like income, number of dependents and values of vehicles. They have a corresponding tax calculator on their website where users can type in the data and get the precise tax hit coming to them. The Sacramento Bee has the same thing. Talk radio was having a field day with these calculators over the past few days, getting people to call in and disclose their statistics and telling them how much money they will owe. I heard a lady making $126,000 a year ranting about an $800 tax increase, and nobody seemed to find that absurd.

In my life, I have never seen a “spending cut calculator,” where someone could plug in, say, how many school-age children they have, or how many roads they take to work, or how many police officers and firefighters serve their community, or what social services they or their families rely on, and discover how much they stand to lose in THAT equation. Tax calculators show bias toward the gated community screamers on the right who see their money being “taken away” for nothing. A spending cut calculator would actually show the impact to a much larger cross-section of society, putting far more people at risk than a below 1% hit to their bottom line.

But of course, people who are perceived to depend on state services probably don’t log on to the LA Times and the Sacramento Bee websites very often to calculate their tax burden. In reality, we all depend on the state for roads and law enforcement and libraries and schools and county hospitals and on and on. And in Los Angeles County, one in five residents – almost 2.2 million people – receive some form of public aid. So wouldn’t it make sense to portray the real cost of spending cuts in the same way that tax increases are portrayed?

And we’re seeing this on the national level as well. During the Presidential race the Obama campaign kept putting out “tax calculators” and emphasizing their tax cut plans for 95% of Americans. Now the DCCC, the Democratic campaign arm in the House, is specifically targeting House Republicans for opposing the stimulus package, foregrounding that they voted against “the largest tax cut in American history”. Here’s a sample robocall they are putting into these districts:

Hello, I’m calling on behalf of House Democrats with an important message about the economy.

Did you know Congressman Thad McCotter voted against President Obama’s economic recovery plan, endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? McCotter’s empty rhetoric can’t hide that he voted to raise the AMT tax on 22 million middle class Americans and against the largest tax cut in history.

Call McCotter at 734-632-0314 to ask why he voted to raise taxes on middle class families.

Check out www.recoveryforamerica.org to learn more.

Paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 202-741-1350, not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

It’s great that they’re engaging in some off-cycle organizing and campaigning. But the message is stupid, short-sighted and reinforcing to conservative frames. First of all, 65% of the stimulus consisted of spending and investment, much of which is wildly popular, and also the only way it will work, through fiscal spending filling in the gaps for decreased private investment and consumer spending and creating more jobs and more demand. Tax cuts aren’t only a minor part of the bill, they have less stimulative value. If this works, it won’t be because of tax cuts, it will be in spite of them. And, as Brian Beutler notes:

We’ll all be better off if as many Americans as possible swap out their tax cut mania for a sense that government can, in fact, meliorate the country’s biggest problems. I, personally, would like to keep the number of people who think tax cuts saved the economy to a minimum. The fewer the better–both for progressives and progressivism.

The government’s eventually going to have to raise taxes to pay for all this, after all. Democrats will almost certainly be the ones to do this and there’s no reason they should be sabotaging public support for those increases years in advance.

The media already highlights the tax side of the equation over spending, dramatically portraying tax increases while relegating spending cuts to paragraph 27. It feeds the tax revolt and distorts the debate. And it’s completely irresponsible. And the DCCC is simply enabling this.

Taxes are the price we pay for a functioning society, and America is worth paying for. Joe Biden tried to run with this message once during the campaign and got his head cut off, so now Democrats are turning back. They are trying to take tax cuts “off the table” with rhetoric that accepts the right’s frame. When both parties are running on who will cut your taxes the most, it cheapens the value of federal investment in providing for the future, and the ability for government to prove its value as a guarantor of those most basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as well as promoting the general welfare.

If we’re embarking on a new effort to convince the public that government can work, you don’t start by bragging about starving it of resources. You can’t win a fight with Republicans about cutting taxes. It’s a race to the bottom and the losers are the least of society.

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Faux Filibuster

by digby

Like many others over the past two years, I’ve ranted from time to time that Harry Reid should force the Republicans to do an actual filibuster. But we were wrong. It’s an archaic practice which has been amended in such ways that there is no longer any practical way to make them do it.

And on a similar note, I’ve been meaning to pass this on as well. It would seem that when it comes to any bill that would raise the deficit except the regular budget, which cannot be filibustered, they don’t even need to filibuster (although it amounts to the same thing in practical terms.) I suppose what this means is that even if they abolish the filibuster (something that both parties have threatened to do over the years) they would also have to void these laws which makes it difficult for the government to spend necessary money — political dynamite as long as the Republican propaganda about government spending remains operative. Basically, the conservatives of both the fiscal scold variety and the judicial hysteric variety have made it nearly impossible to do anything they don’t like. It’s kind of like California without the cyborgs.

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No Bottom

by digby

Ok, now I’m officially freaked out. Jesus.

Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.

[George Soros listens to economists speaking at the “Emerging from the Financial Crisis” annual conference at Columbia University, February 20, 2009. (Reuters/Chip East)]George Soros listens to economists speaking at the “Emerging from the Financial Crisis” annual conference at Columbia University, February 20, 2009. (Reuters/Chip East)
Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.

He said the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September marked a turning point in the functioning of the market system.

“We witnessed the collapse of the financial system,” Soros said at a Columbia University dinner. “It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.”

His comments echoed those made earlier at the same conference by Paul Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman who is now a top adviser to President Barack Obama.

Volcker said industrial production around the world was declining even more rapidly than in the United States, which is itself under severe strain.

“I don’t remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world,” Volcker said.

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