Month: June 2011

Look at what they’ve already agreed to

by digby

Ezra reported this morning on the latest gossip about the debt ceiling negotiations:

Both sides, as they often said, were shooting for about $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. They’d already agreed on around $1 trillion in spending cuts and were making good progress on the rest of it. But Democrats insisted that $400 billion — so, 17 percent — of the package be tax increases. And that’s when Republicans walked.

Gosh, I sure do hope that the President can hold tough and get that whole 17% in tax increases or it will make the Democrats look like they really got screwed in this deal.

See what’s happening here? They aren’t having any trouble agreeing to trillions of dollars in spending cuts, are they? The talks aren’t breaking down over that. It’s the measly little tax increases on some luxury goods for millionaires that they are now pretending to haggle over. The rst of the “deal” is just fine with both parties.

Believe me these Republicans are not going to crash the global economy over some tax loopholes for jet travel. Maybe they genuinely don’t want to give Obama this band-aid and maybe Obama will hold out for it and get it. Or not. But who cares? I think it’s pretty clear that the debt ceiling is going to be raised as a result of a deal that cuts trillions of dollars worth of spending from the federal government at a time of 9.1% unemployment and an economy that is slowing. The “win” they are building up here (and alleged capitulation by the Republicans) is a joke.

It didn’t have to happen this way.

.

Cutting to prosperity

by digby

The latest polling shows a deeply insecure and pessimistic public on the issue of the economy. But in my view, there’s an even worse problem, one that is likely to persist long after this crisis is past:

But another result from the Bloomberg poll suggests a fair amount of of public confusion about how to turn things around. Fifty-five percent of respondents said cuts in government spending and taxes would be more effective at creating jobs than maintaining or increasing government spending.The question is confusingly formulated, because economists usually think of tax cuts and spending increases as part of the same stimulus-based approach, not as opposing approaches. But at root, the results appear to indicate that most Americans think cutting spending, not increasing it, is more likely to create jobs.But that’s almost the opposite of what most experts–on both sides of the political divide–believe. “That wouldn’t square with the way we normally think about economic activity in a depressed economy,” Andrew Samwick, a former chief economist on President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, told The Lookout. When the economy suffers from a lack of demand, as it does now, Samwick explained, most economists think increasing spending is the more effective way to generate that demand and get things moving again.Why has the opposite view begun to take hold? In part, Samwick argued, it’s thanks to the efforts of congressional Republicans, who want budget cuts and lately have hammered home the view that government spending has stymied growth. “You have the Speaker of the House talking about job-killing government spending,” said Samwick, now a professor of economics at Dartmouth College. “But they have not been tasked with making clear exactly how the government is killing jobs.”

It’s true that Republicans have hammered this misinformation home. But has anyone really countered it? I hear the Democrats all fetishizing the deficit as well and in the context of people’s angst about the economy and jobs, they hear they same logic from them.

I knew this was how it was going to end up if the Democrats didn’t find a way to explain why the Republicans were all wet about the deficit being the most important thing in the world at a time of low demand and high unemployment. My personal preference was that they come out swinging saying that this level of joblessness was completely unacceptable in the United States of America and that if the private sector won’t hire people the government has to step up and do it for them. I think people might understand that. Instead we got “Americans have to tighten their belts and so does the government” — and here we are.

I think we’re probably too far down the deficit rabbit hole now and I honestly don’t know what it would take to turn this around. The liberal economic argument doesn’t even exist these days except to the extent that you should cut taxes in a recession. Unfortunately everyone also agrees that deficit reduction is the first priority, meaning we must slash government — which offsets any stimulus the tax cuts might provide. It’s daft, and yet we’re doing it.

Maybe after a full blown depression or a long and painful lost decade people will ask whether any of this makes sense. Right now, there’s just nothing to do but fasten your seatbelt and hope you make it out of the train wreck alive.

Update: Via Susie, I see that we have some current information on the subject. Too bad the Democrats are jumping on the “slash spending” bandwagon too or they might be able to make something of it. On the other hand, maybe people hate these Republicans so much that people won’t realize that many of the Democrats have basically acquiesced to their ideas.

.

Out of the mouth of Buchanan

by digby

You can always count on him to articulate what the bigots are really thinking:

We have within our country 12- to 20-million illegal aliens, with Mexico the primary source, and millions of others who may be U.S. citizens but are not truly Americans. As one fan told Plaschke, “I was born in Mexico, and that is where my heart will always be.”

Perhaps he should go back there, and let someone take his place who wants to become an American.

By 2050, according to Census figures, thanks to illegals crossing over and legalized mass immigration, the number of Hispanics in the U.S.A. will rise from today’s 50 million to 135 million.

Say goodbye to Los Angeles. Say goodbye to California.

He doesn’t even see the irony of saying all that about a city and state with Spanish names.

I guess Buchanan never heard any Irish immigrant songs. Someone should play them for him some time:

I’m bidding you a long farewell My Mary, kind and true
But I’ll not forget you, darling
In the land I’m going to
They say there’s bread and work for all
And the sun shines always there
But I’ll not forget old Ireland
Were it fifty times as fair.

.

Fixing History

by digby

For all their hatred of communism, these Tea Partiers sure do like the way they did business:

Bachmann is doubling down on her false statement [that the founders “worked tirelessly to end slavery”] and refusing to admit she was wrong — and not only that, now she’s claiming that John Quincy Adams was one of the founding fathers.

John Quincy Adams was eight years old when the Declaration of Independence was written.

UPDATE at 6/28/11 10:58:15 am
And now, someone has tried to edit the Wikipedia page for John Quincy Adams, to make him a founding father: John Quincy Adams – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Airbrushing history was a hallmark of the old Soviet Union. They tended to take out inconvenient people rather than put preferred people in, but the idea is the same: if you don’t like what happened, just alter the history to reflect what you want it to reflect.

It’s always so interesting to see the similarities in totalitarians of all ideological stripes. What they don’t like, they change by force. All of ’em.

.

Mad(man) Money

by digby

Why isn’t this illegal?

Now, it’s my opinion that Cantor is playing the designated “madman” role in the negotiations and that he will “come around” at the last minute after they’ve squeezed every cut they can. But what he is doing could very well roil the markets, even if they don’t recklessly default in the end. No way should he be allowed to benefit from that.

I just can’t believe these people aren’t forced to put their holding in blind trusts. Why should any lawmaker be in this position?

.

Blue America Chat: Welcome back Norman Solomon

by digby

It was with gladness in our hearts that all of us at Blue America celebrated the state of New York legalizing gay marriage this past week-end. What a welcome reminder that even in this era of Tea Parties and economic malaise, human progress cannot be stopped. Imagine if we had a national government with enough fighters for working families to make progress on all fronts, from civil rights to economic justice to ending our useless expensive wars. Imagine if we had more leaders like Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison and Donna Edwards to press for that agenda.

Yesterday, longtime progressive congresswoman Lynn Woolsey announced her retirement from the Congress after a long and illustrious career. And Blue America endorsee and longtime political activist and author Norman Solomon stands ready and able to carry on the progressive tradition of that district and join that list of leaders.

“We’re gaining the kind of traction that a grassroots campaign needs in order to win,” Solomon says, “the groundswell of support is very encouraging. 

Indeed it is. We need congressional representatives who understand that we are no longer able to afford open ended military adventures and corrupt political boondoggles and Norman has been fighting to end them his entire life.These issues are no longer matters of abstract ideology– they are necessary and pragmatic approaches to the problems of our time. We need people like Norman Solomon in congress to lead the way.



And please help Norman with a donation if you can.

The good news is that it looks as though we aren’t the only progressives who are enthusiastic about him– the campaign has managed to collect $100,000 already from small donors. But he is not a corporate funded Democrat and will need our help to compete. 

Howie writes today (all the way from Asia!):

Yesterday Norman penned a guest Op-Ed for the Marin Independent Journal that presents a lot of insight into what kind of congressman he’d be– and into why Blue America is so committed to his candidacy. I bet this is what you wish YOUR congressmember and senator– not to mention our president– was saying about the dangers of nuclear energy… and what to do about it. But they’re not. It’s why it’s so crucial that we need real leaders like Norman Solomon, not just someone who will probably vote well in the House.

Several decades ago, three expert nuclear engineers told a congressional panel why they decided to quit: “We could no longer justify devoting our life energies to the continued development and expansion of nuclear fission power– a system we believe to be so dangerous that it now threatens the very existence of life on this planet.”The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy heard that testimony in 1977, when the conventional wisdom was still hailing “the peaceful atom” as a flawless marvel. During the same year, solid information convinced me to move from concern to action against nuclear power.By the time the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant came close to rendering much of central Pennsylvania uninhabitable, I was nearly two years into full-time anti-nuclear work that included public education, civic activism and nonviolent direct action. Given what was at stake, I didn’t mind spending a month in jail for civil disobedience.More than 30 years later, the ongoing disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant underscores the grim realities of nuclear power, ranging from catastrophic reactor accidents to highly radioactive waste that will remain deadly for many thousands of years.
[…]
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Energy Department have been avidly promoting nuclear power for decades. Periodic calls for more “studies” have kicked the radioactive can down the road.I reject the notion that we should wait for such nuclear-enthralled agencies to tell us whether nuclear power is an acceptable risk for Californians.As the director of the National Citizens Hearings for Radiation Victims in 1980, I learned a lot about patterns of official enabling of the nuclear industry– with awful results for human health and the environment.Similar patterns persist in this country.In contrast, the government of Germany has seen the light. At the end of last month, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a reversal of policy– moving to shut down nuclear power instead of trying to expand it.The decision to immediately close eight German nuclear power plants and shut the rest by 2022 came in a country that had been getting 23 percent of its electricity from nukes.Here in California, we’re less reliant on this Faustian technology, getting just 15 percent of our electricity from nuclear power. The state has a lot of excess generating capacity from other sources, but far better choices for the environment are within our grasp.

Don’t you think that’s a point of view that deserves to have representation in the congress? Is it too much to ask that we have at least a few liberal voices willing to speak out on issues like nuclear power and endless wars in the US Congress? We don’t think so.Please consider helping Norman bring this kind of thinking to Washington by contribution to his campaign through ActBlue.Norman summed his platform up in one powerful sentence today saying is he’s elected to Congress, he “will insist that we need to bring our troops and tax dollars home– that we need healthcare not warfare– that we must resist corporate power– that caving in to Wall Street and polluters and enemies of civil liberties is unacceptable.”Please join us over at Crooks and Liars at 11AM to welcome Norman Solomon back to Blue America. .

And the award for best actor in the role of sniveling baby goes to … Wall Street!

by digby

Well, yes.

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that Wall Street has turned its back on Mr. Obama out of frustration with his so-called antibusiness rhetoric and “fat cat” comments about bankers.

But Wall Street’s absence may be more about optics — the way things appear— than reality. Behind the scenes, it seems that many bankers are not running away from the president as quickly as some might suspect.

While many of the biggest name financiers feel that they can’t publicly support Mr. Obama through campaign contributions the way they did in 2008 — “it would be bad for business,” one brand-name chief executive of a major bank acknowledged — some still plan to vote for him. And some begrudgingly acknowledged that they don’t yet see a viable alternative to Mr. Obama among the Republican field.

It also turns out that Wall Street is not the only one concerned about optics. The president’s re-election campaign has not been actively courting Wall Street’s biggest C.E.O.’s to appear at such fund-raisers out of fear that their support could offend his most liberal backers, two people involved in planning his fund-raiser at Daniel said.

“A picture of Lloyd and Obama together probably isn’t helpful,” one of these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting his role in the campaign. (It is unknown whom Mr. Blankfein plans to vote for.)

Yeah, it probably isn’t…

Of course most of this Wall Street whining was playing the refs. And it worked beautifully to keep any policy options narrow and geared toward everyone’s personal interest. Since campaigns are now costing in the billions, any candidate is going to have to give them a certain deference. After all, they have most of the money. (Recall that Wall Street was Obama’s single biggest contributor in 2008.)

I think what still astonishes me, however, is the degree to which these Masters of the Universe were willing to play the role of sniveling little babies, insisting that they deserved to looooved not hated. It was mostly for show, but it just proves once once again that there is no depth to which they will not sink in order to grab a buck. They have no pride and no dignity.

.

“Cheese-moving-value creators”

by digby

The NY Times featured a huge expose of the natural gas industry on Sunday singling out several companies for corruption on a number of levels.The CEO of one of the companies sent out an email to employees explaining that the NY Times was all wet and that they are actually following the law and accounting rules to the letter etc, etc.

Get a load of this unbelievably fatuous post-script:

The US natural gas industry has created more than 500,000 jobs in the past 7 years of the gas shale revolution and created tens of billions of $ in economic value at the same time, plus reduced the amount of coal and oil burned in the US – I ask you, what value has the NYT or environmental activists created during these same past seven years? You either create value in this world or you consume/destroy it – we are value creators, please never forget that and know that you are on the right side of history, they are not, so always stand tall and proud for CHK and our industry.

I’d say that somebody’s been skimming the Atlas Shrugged Cliff notes again, but it seems he has quite a library of such nonsense:

Sure, it’s become a little noisier in the media since we started moving some folks’ cheese, but we will remain committed to state of the industry performance in all that we do and we will now re-double our efforts to educate as many people as possible so that they may know the truth from us rather than distortions and dishonesty from others.

Fergawdsakes.

Over the course of the past few years I’ve become convinced that the problem isn’t just that CEOs and Masters of the Universe are tremendously overpaid. That’s undoubtedly true. I think the bigger problem is that so many of them are vacuous airheads.

.

Legacy shrinkage

by digby

So, I was thinking back to the health care debates the other day and reminded about what a terrible squeeze the whole thing put on the progressive faction of the Democratic Party over the Medicaid expansion. You remember that, right? That was the big liberal kahuna, the one outright progressive policy that was going to bring necessary health care to millions of working poor Americans and their families who could not afford even the allegedly affordable health care policies that would become available in the exchanges.

That provision was always vulnerable in the long term but I think everyone assumed that the president himself would protect all aspects of his health care reforms above all — it’s his “signature issue” etc, etc. as I’ve written here many times. That seems to be seriously in question. Joan McCarter writes:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a review of one of the Medicaid proposals the White House has forwarded in budget negotiations, warning that the cost shift it includes would mean a cut in services…

Under current law, the federal government pays a fixed percentage of each state’s Medicaid costs, from 50 to 75% of costs depending on the state with an average of 57% nationally. It pays 70%, nationally, of the children’s health program, SCHIP. The Affordable Care Act would increase that commitment to 100% for the population that is made newly eligible for Medicaid under the law, and for the first three years (2014-16) with a reduced commitment until 2019, when it’s down to 90%. States that expanded Medicaid to cover patients who aren’t traditionally covered (childless adults) could qualify for a higher matching rate from the federal government.

That’s all if the ACA is implemented as written, in addition to current law. This new, blended-rate proposal, however, “would replace this mix of matching rates with a single matching rate for each state, which would apparently apply to all of a state’s Medicaid and CHIP expenditures, outside of administrative costs.” And that would mean more burden on the states and, likely, curtailed ability on the part of the states to pay providers (meaning fewer doctors taking Medicaid patients) and to cover people who would otherwise qualify…

The fact that it would undercut the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA—the most significant part of the law for actually expanding health care—should send White House negotiators back to the drawing board on what to do with Medicaid in these budget negotiations

Indeed, they should. But since they are the one’s proposing it, I doubt that’s what going to happen.

A lot of us have been trying to read the tea leaves about how the Democrats were going to end up handling “entitlements” during this time of irrational deficit fever and there’s been a ton of speculation about Medicaid in recent days. For all the talk about them, Medicare and SS are third rails for a reason — they have a large and distinct constituency that will vote on those issues regardless of their political ideology. It’s a heavy lift to fight back the endless assaults, but if enough people put their weight behind it, they have shown that it can be done.

But Medicaid is vulnerable and always has been. It’s why the progressives with conscience were torn apart at the idea of walking away from the one chance they saw to expand this program in this era of extreme selfish indifference (if not outright hostility) to the plight of those at the lowest income strata. When would this again be possible — and under the protection of the president and party which implemented it for at least a few years to come?

I don’t think anyone expected the Democratic leadership and the president to walk away from their own hard fought health care reforms before they even had a chance to be implemented. And I didn’t think this because I believed the Democrats and the president were good hearted folk who just want to help the poor. I have no idea what’s in their hearts. But I did think they would have wanted to give their legacy issue a chance to be implemented in full at the beginning, so they could continue to brag about bringing health care to 30 million uninsured Americans if nothing else. I suppose they’ll continue to say it, but if they approve these changes it won’t be true.

But as the president says, in these tough times the government has to tighten its belt just like all American families. I guess he must realize that one of the things American families have had to cut out is their health insurance. So much for that legacy.

Oh, and by the way — the only way this gambit saves any money is if they cut people off. Medicaid is the least expensive health care in the country.

.

Perlstein Rant:

Andrew Breitbart, the Right’s Frenetic Blogger Provocateur

Andrew Breitbart uses his network of Web sites and their legions of followers to bring conservative media red meat.

I honestly don’t know how many more glowing profiles of the bad boy blogger the country needs, but there seems to be a tremendous appetite for them in the mainstream media.

And what Perlstein says about this is absolutely true: the guy is not normal, he is not the Right’s answer to Hunter S Thompson or even Abbie Hoffman. He’s a con-man and a truly malevolent liar who is just the latest wingnut creature to be feted by the media as an interesting “celebrity” phenomenon rather than the political operative he is. Media Matters unpacks this NY Times atrocity in detail, pointing out not only the cavalier avoidance of discussing his real purpose, but also the massive errors of fact involved in all of his so-called scoops, none of which are mentioned in the paper of record.

But it’s a mistake to only focus on Breitbart. As Perlstein writes, this journalistic convention is one of the things that’s killing us. They are legitimizing anti-social political behavior to the point where the depraved Ann Coulter — featured in a cover story in TIME magazine just a few years back — is still considered an acceptable guest on a staid political round table hosted by Fareed Zakaria. Indeed, there’s an entire generation of these hideous right wing destroyers of any and all rules of engagement who are treated as perfectly normal political players by the mainstream press.