Month: August 2011

Where at least I know I’m free
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

The trial of Hosni Mubarak has begun:

Cairo, Egypt (CNN) — Deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak arrived in Cairo on Wednesday for his trial on corruption and murder charges — the first Arab leader to face a judge since the uprisings started in the region this year.

Mubarak made the short trip to the Cairo police academy — the venue of the trial — in a helicopter after taking a military plane equipped with medical equipment from Sinai to Cairo.

A convoy that included an ambulance had taken Mubarak to the Sinai airport from a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The crowd went wild as the helicopter hovered over the police academy, with some running in its direction and clapping.

Hundreds of protesters gathered, with some waving flags and photos of the embattled leader. Gunfire erupted as clashes broke out between his supporters and anti-Mubarak demonstrators. The two sides chased each other, hurling rocks and bottles.

It’s a good thing we live in America where rule of law reigns supreme, as opposed to some nation in Africa or something where corruption is rampant and powerful criminals go free. America would never let former head-of-state war criminals go free just because bringing them to justice might be bad politics or lead to clashes of violence. That kind of political corruption is for banana republics, not exceptional nations with a long and rich history like ours.

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Hostage Inspiration

by digby

Dday has a little blast from past, reminding us that Boehner and the TPs were inspired not so much by Patrick Henry or James Madison, but by a couple of Centrist Democrats named Conrad and Bayh:

That happened at the end of 2009, when Evan Bayh, Kent Conrad, Dianne Feinstein, Mark Warner and Joe Lieberman threatened to not increase the debt limit if they didn’t get in place a fiscal commission that would recommend spending and entitlement cuts. That’s right, Democrats started the hijacking of the debt limit. Barely anybody remembers this, but it set the stage for the deal being voted on today…

Kent Conrad went so far as to say, “You rarely do have the leverage to make a fundamental change.”

He’s got the whole story if you don’t remember it. They didn’t manage it (they are Democrats) but it resulted in President Obama creating the Catfood Commission and ultimately in the events of the last few weeks.

Who says there’s no bipartisan comity in Washington?

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Whipping the confidence fairy to death

by digby

I have seen some fatuous spin in my day, but this drivel from Tim Geithner is enough to make me gag:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So it looks like this deal is going to pass– and that turns the bigger question of the underlying economy and what it means for the underlying economy. And what do you say the argument of a lot of economists who say that cutting spending, deficit reduction like this, right now, is going to make a weak economy weaker?

TIM GEITHNER: Well, let’s start with what this deal does. The most important thing is it creates more room for the private sector to grow because although it locks in some very substantial long term savings, the near term cuts are very modest. So that– that was the really critical thing in making sure that this economy continue to grow and recover. Now, it locks in a very big down payment and it sets in motion what we think is going to be a very effective process for forcing congress to come together—

Ok, let’s just stop right there. Is he really trying to sell the absurd idea that the private sector has had no room to grow because of government spending? Really? Companies are rolling in profits, sitting on piles of cash. The problem is they don’t have customers.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: But don’t you think that any deficit reduction now will — will hurt the attempts of the economy to recover?

TIM GEITHNER: You know, I think the — basic reality we live with and, you know, part of governing is recognize we live with — we don’t have unlimited resources, and we inherited and are left with unsustainable deficits long term. And the president understands that for the sake of the economy long- term it’s very important we demonstrate to the American people, to people around the world that we can get our arms around this and start go back to living’ within our means.

Now, we want to do that very carefully so we create room for the economy to grow and we have the resources necessary to invest in things that are going to be very important to the future like education, like infrastructure, like incentives for private investment. And to do that, it is absolutely essential to lock in these long term savings. Now — the president was very strong on this and made sure that we were not going to accept spending cuts that would damage the prospects for near term recovery. Now, with this behind us, and we get this —

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So this won’t cost us jobs?

TIM GEITHNER: No, it will not. Now … if we put this behind us then we can turn back to the important challenge of trying to find ways to make sure that we do everything we can to get more people back to work, strengthen our growth. And we’ll have more ability to do that now with people more confident and we can start to get our arms around the long-term problems.

I know they have to put some lipstick on this pig, but smearing it with manure isn’t exactly the same thing. “Creating room” for education, infrastructure and “incentives for private investment” is gibberish. The appeasement we just saw ensures that will not happen in the near term or the long term. And they know it.

But don’t burst Geithner’s bubble. He’s very happy in there:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, the president had to give up in … this deal– his call to extend the payroll tax cuts through next year.

TIM GEITHNER: Well I — George, I’m very confident that’s going to happen. You know, again, I’ve been part of all these discussions. I’ve listened—

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How can you be so sure?

TIM GEITHNER: Well, because I think it’s going to be very hard for Republicans to — to prevent that from happening. I think it’s very hard for them to stand up and say that they’re going to try to block the extension of that tax cut that’s worth about $1,000 a year for the average American family. Untenable for them to block that. I think we’re going to have to extend employment – unemployment benefits further, we need to get these trade agreements passed, there’s other things we’re going to have to try to do to start to lay the foundation for stronger growth. But a condition –precondition for doing that, ’cause again we’re a country — we don’t have unlimited resources and part of governing is recognizing that, is to lock in these long term savings so we have room to do that.

Say hello to my ‘lil friend, Mitch:

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

I do think they might have some success with bad trade deals — if the Tea Party gets on board, and there’s no guarantee. (They don’t like trade deals either.) But it should be fun watching the centrist Dems stick it to the unions who help elect them again. That’s always entertaining.

Dealing with Terrorists
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

A slight glimmer of good news today is that an increasing number of commentators and high-level Democrats are unafraid to use the word “terrorism” to describe Republican tactics on the debt ceiling. For instance, here’s Joe Nocera today in the New York Times:

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people. Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took…

As has been explained ad nauseam, the threat of defense cuts is supposed to give the Republicans an incentive to play fair with the Democrats in the negotiations. But with our soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan, which side is going to blink if the proposed cuts threaten to damage national security? Just as they did with the much-loathed bank bailout, which most Republicans spurned even though financial calamity loomed, the Democrats will do the responsible thing. Apparently, that’s their problem.

For now, the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough. After all, they’ve gotten so much encouragement.

And Joe Biden, courtesy of Politico:

Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit, according to several sources in the room.

The “terrorism” rhetoric from Democrats is a day late and a dollar short, of course. Results are all that matter, and cynical observers might be inclined to see this sort of language as part of the kabuki act, an attempt to appease liberal voters after giving away half of the entire discretionary spending budget.

Still, the recent willingness to call a spade a spade is a good sign, a flicker of hope in an ocean of darkness. But better still would be action to take away the terrorists’ tools. Joan McCarter aptly highlighted the conservative intent, clearly outlined by both Mitch McConnell and Grover Norquist, that the Republicans intend to use the debt ceiling as a tool to hold the nation hostage to their extremist will:

MCCONNELL: It set the template for the future. In the future, Neil, no president—in the near future, maybe in the distant future—is going to be able to get the debt ceiling increased without a re-ignition of the same discussion of how do we cut spending and get America headed in the right direction. I expect the next president, whoever that is, is going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again in 2013, so we’ll be doing it all over.

The longest-lasting impact of this whole farce has been to create yet another structural impediment to progressive change in Washington. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe this sort of thing in their tremendous new book Winner-Take-All Politics as a “ratchet effect”: hidden, arcane structural effects whose result is to create nearly unstoppable advantages for big business, and insurmountable obstacles economic justice for the American People. Other ratchets include the filibuster, unequal vote apportionment in the Senate, “phased out” tax cuts that never really phase out, changes to the way unemployment is calculated, etc.

Now the debt ceiling can be added to that list as perhaps one of the biggest, most important such ratchets of all time.

These ratchets are the tools of the GOP terrorist trade. If Democrats are actually serious about countering this sort of terrorist activity instead of just talking about it, they will move to eliminate as many of these structural hurdles as possible. That should already have happened with the broken filibuster rule, but Senate Democrats didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger on it.

The debt ceiling ratchet is an existential crisis for progressives and for the nation. If the GOP is allowed to continue to use this ratchet, the nation will never be able to make the infrastructure investments it needs. That means actually following through on the 14th Amendment solution Joe Biden originally threatened, even at the expense of expanded Executive power. The debt ceiling has always been somewhat preposterous: how is it Constitutional to have to approve debt for spending that has already been approved? Isn’t that pretty much the definition of calling into question the “full faith and credit of the United States?”

If Democrats are actually serious about their recent rhetoric, they will need to nip the terrorists in the bud by removing this latest ratchet from their arsenal.

Update: Or maybe not. Always count on Democrats backing off once they start to gain rhetorical momentum:

As we covered yesterday, meeting with anxious House Democrats yesterday, the Vice President heard from Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Penn., who said “the Tea Party acted like terrorists in threatening to blow up the economy.”

Doyle used the term several times. What happened next is in dispute. Several sources told Politico that the Vice President responded by saying, “they have acted like terrorists.”

Other sources told ABC News that the vice president said something along the lines of “if they have acted like terrorists, we’re taking the nuclear weapon away from them.”

The Vice President told CBS News’ Scott Pelley, “I did not use the terrorism word…What happened was there were some people who said they felt like they were being held hostage by terrorists. I never said that they were terrorists or weren’t terrorists, I just let them vent. I said, ‘Even if that were the case, what’s been happening when you now have taken and paid the debt and move that down so we can now discuss, the nuclear weapon’s been taken out of anyone’s hands.’”

One reporter today asked White House press secretary Jay Carney about reports that the Veep had used the term, wondering if “the president thinks that’s appropriate discourse?”

“No, he doesn’t, and neither does the vice president,” Carney said. “And I think the vice president spoke to this and made clear that he didn’t say those words, and I think the congressman in question has said that he regrets using them.”

I have no doubt that Biden actually said it, because it’s truth, and because Joe Biden is known to speak his mind.

But the Village pearl clutchers would tut tut at the use of such (accurate) incendiary language. We can’t be having that, of course.

I wish there were more stories like this one by Andy Kroll in Mother Jones called The United States of Austerity. It explains why, beyond the usual tribal loyalty and team spirit, the activist liberal base is nearly apoplectic about the disaster capitalist agenda of America’s ruling class. We hate the debt deal in the abstract of course. On a macro level it’s terrible for growth and employment. And we hate it on a political level because it’s further empowered a bunch of right wing lunatics and smug centrist millionaires to create even more chaos and destruction. But the ultimate reason we are so agitated is because of this:

The Obama-GOP plan cuts $917 billion in government spending over the next decade. Nearly $570 billion of that would come from what’s called “non-defense discretionary spending.” That’s budget-speak for the pile of money the government invests in the nation’s safety and future—education and job training, air traffic control, health research, border security, physical infrastructure, environmental and consumer protection, child care, nutrition, law enforcement, and more.

The White House’s plan would slash this type of spending nearly in half, from about 3.3 percent of America’s GDP to as low as 1.7 percent, the lowest in nearly half a century, says Ethan Pollack, a senior policy analyst at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. Pollack’s calculations suggest the cuts in Obama’s plan are almost as deep as those in Rep. Paul Ryan’s slash-and-burn budget, which shrunk non-defense discretionary spending down to just 1.5 percent of GDP. The president has claimed that the debt deal will allow America to continue making “job-creating investments in things like education and research.” But on crucial public investment, Obama’s and Ryan’s plans are next-door neighbors. “There’s no way to square this plan with the president’s ‘Winning the Future’ agenda,” Pollack says. “That agenda ends.”

This isn’t just an abstract set of numbers. These are devastating cuts to vital government programs for real human beings. And it’s going to go on and on and on because nobody in our political system will even make the argument that such government programs are necessary to a thriving first world nation.

I know that many right wingers take immense pride in the fact that they have never set foot in another country. Dick Armey used to boast about not having a passport. But it would be useful for them to travel to some banana republics and see whether or not that’s what they really want as their legacy because for all their caterwauling about “the children and the grandkids” that’s exactly what they’re leaving behind them.

Look at this picture from Mother Jones that illustrates perfectly what America’s future is going to be if we stay on this track:

The Detroit Public Schools book depository, built in the 1930s and designed by famed architect Albert Kahn, now stands abandoned, its floor covered in rotting textbooks. Thomas Hawk/Flickr

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The new CNN poll shows that the public thinks everyone is Washington acts like spoiled children and that they don’t think default would have amounted to much. They are pretty much evenly divided as to whether or not this was a good deal. (Most people approve of the big cuts but quite a few also think that there should have been some revenues.) Overall, most people think the deal was a good one and only 15% think the cuts were too big.

Tax reform follies

by digby

In case you were wondering about the chances of any future tax increases, Wolf Blitzer helpfully spelled it out for us this morning when Gloria Borger seemed to be confused as to why Paul Ryan voted against the Simpson-Bowles plan because it raised taxes while still purporting to be in favor of tax reform:

Wolf Blitzer: As far as the tax increase is concerned, what the purists who have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge, what they say is that there can be tax reform. You can eliminate certain deductions, certain subsidies, certain loopholes and you can lower the overall tax rates. What they can’t do as part of a package is they can’t see an increase in tax revenue.

In other words, if you’re going to eliminate loopholes, you’ve got to make sure that when all is said and done, there’s no increase in the amount of money the government is getting in taxes. Otherwise they would view that as a violation of that pledge, “no new taxes.” In other words there can’t be an increase in the amount of tax money coming in from a change in the tax revenue.

There can be an increase in the amount of tax coming in from an improved economy. In other words, if there’s greater prosperity and more people are working so as a result are paying taxes there will be enhanced revenue from taxes. But they don’t want to do that as a result of any changes in what’s called tax reform.

Wolf didn’t seem to think it odd at all that Norquist’s troopers have unilaterally decided that the government will never be allowed to raise taxes and seemed to think it was quite a concession that they would allow the government to collect more revenue if more people were working.

But as I assumed, the “tax reform” that will be allowed will have to be revenue neutral, which is the only thing that really makes sense. Even the administration says they want to cut rates as part of the reform, which would be nonsensical if they truly trying to raise money to fix the deficit. We’ll still be counting on the confidence fairy to bring in more money.

And the good news, apparently, is that Grover Norquist and the Tea Party haven’t yet decided that all new revenue must be balanced by corresponding tax cuts. Never say they refuse to compromise.

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Results Matter
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

Matt Taibbi, trenchant as usual:

The general consensus is that for the second time in three years, a gang of financial terrorists has successfully extorted the congress and the White House, threatening to blow up the planet if they didn’t get what they wanted…

But that isn’t what happened. What did happen? The popular take is that Obama is a weak leader of a weak party who was pushed around by canny right-wing extremists. Observers like pollster Sydney Greenberg portray Obama and the Democrats as a group of politically tone-deaf bureaucrats who fail because the public associates them with a corrupt government that benefits the rich and connected.

The Democrats, Greenberg argues, could change their situation by showing the public that they genuinely represent the interests of ordinary working people…

The Democrats aren’t failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there’s political hay to be made moving to the right. They’re doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I’ve said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.

For evidence, all you have to do is look at this latest fiasco.

The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs, biting and scratching and using blades and rocks and shards of glass and every weapon they could reach.

The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn’t fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time — as fixed fights go, you don’t see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did — but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive…

It strains the imagination to think that the country’s smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by “surrendering” at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

Harsh, but 100% accurate.

Ironically, Taibbi isn’t saying anything here that isn’t also being whispered in the corridors of Democratic Party politics. I just returned from a long weekend at the California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting in Anaheim, with about 150 decision-makers from around the state. As the outlines of the “deal” started to become clear on Saturday night, speculations similar to those made by Taibbi were not uncommon–if only mentioned in private and with much grumbling. The mood was more than grim. It was angry, and many board members sought answers: why was this happening? Was it weakness? Corruption? A simple consequence of hostage-taking on the Right?

These discussions were eerily parallel to those playing themselves out within the online community. It’s an argument about President Obama’s motivations. Does Obama truly want to implement conservative policies, or is he being forced to adopt them by a combination of an intransigent Republican Party and his own overaccommodating negotiating style?

Corey Robin posted an interesting Facebook roundtable with the likes of Rick Perlstein, Katha Pollitt, Josh Cohen and others where this same argument played out back and forth in a more respectful and edifying way than is usually typical of the subject. But still no mutually agreeable answers.

Certainly, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the President, like President Clinton before him, actively wants to bring about policies that span from neoliberal to downright conservative. There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that the modern GOP is a uniquely destructive force in the history of modern American politics, forcing Presidents Obama and Clinton both to make a series of Hobson’s choices. While the latter theory increasingly strains credibility in the face of mounting evidence for the former, both theories are probably correct to at least a certain degree.

But ultimately this argument that consumes so much energy and passion within progressive circles both online and offline is irrelevant. Because in the end it matters little if conservative policies are brought about under Democratic administrations through weakness or ill intent. The end result is the same, as are the difficult decisions faced by progressives: attempt to change the Democratic Party both from within and without, or attempt to destroy it and subvert the two-party system.

Regardless, attempting to peer into the President’s soul is a fairly fruitless exercise either way. The only real question from here is: “So now what?” It’s a loaded question, and there are no easy answers.

98%

by digby

Boehner takes a bow

Boehner: We’ve got divided government in Washington. We’ve got big issues confronting us. We have a very open process and society. And as a result, we have healthy debates about how to move forward. This has certainly been a long, healthy debate.

Pelley: Give us a little bit of insight. How did the grand bargain fail? What was the breaking point? How did you tell the president you were walking away?

Boehner: It really boiled down to two issues. President was insisting on more taxes. President never got serious about the kind of spending cuts that were necessary in order to get America back on a sound fiscal footing.

Pelley: You don’t think he negotiated in good faith?

Boehner: No, I do believe the president was negotiating in good faith. We had a lot of productive conversations, a lot of tense conversations. But it became pretty clear to me that I wasn’t going to be for higher taxes, and the president wasn’t going to cut spending as he should.

Pelley: What did you say to each other?

Boehner: I told the president I’m not going there. I can’t do that.

Pelley: If this super committee that you talk about recommends raising revenue, can you support that?

Boehner: We’ll see what it does. But I’m confident their focus will be on reducing expenditures coming out of Washington.

Pelley: Can you image Republicans backing increased taxes?

Boehner: I think that would be a stretch. It doesn’t seem likely to me that that would be recommended, much less supported, but I’ve been surprised before.

Pelley: You were unable to get your own caucus behind your bill a few days ago. Do you intend to remain Speaker of the House?

Boehner: I do. When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the white House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy.

Pelley: Folks at home have been watching the acrimony, name calling, finger pointing. And I wonder whether the Congress has lost something, an ability to talk to each other, to settle down and make agreements?

Boehner: Well, there’s the public noise and then there’s the private discussion. Some of the most liberal members of Congress are great friends of mind. But the American people don’t see the cooperation that exists off camera that really are the glue that holds this place together.

Pelley: Are you saying it’s not as bad as it looks?

Boehner: It’s not as bad as it looks.

Sadly, I think the President only got 90% of what he wanted. He must feel disappointed.

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The House Vote

by digby

Wow. This is a great way to make this vote for The Deal a nearly sacred act:

@Rep_Giffords Gabrielle has returned to Washington to support a bipartisan bill to prevent economic crisis. Turn on C-SPAN now

Giffords being there adds a poignancy to the whole thing that will take the sting out of the horror. I don’t know whose idea it was, but it’s very clever.

The good/bad news is that the bill is so bad that Republicans wanted to take credit for it so they didn’t make the Dems do their dirty work for them and pass the bill so at least the whole caucus isn’t on the hook. That was the final ignominy that I’d been predicting and I’m glad, for their sake, to be wrong. A few Democrats were allowed to maintain some shred of their integrity so that’s good. On the other hand, if they’d all said no, we’d be looking at a different picture right now…

And they could have — Biden told them earlier that the president would be willing to use the 14th amendment if they couldn’t get it done.(Of course Representative Giffords returning for the purpose of supporting the bill would have made them look churlish…) Too bad. It would have been quite the fireworks.

On the other hand, Giffords looks well and everyone seemed genuinely happy to see her and have something positive to cap off this hideous process. You can’t blame them.

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