Month: December 2012

Norquist knows a good deal when he sees one. Does Obama know a bad deal when he does?

by David Atkins

Grover Norquist likes Boehner’s “Plan B”:

Grover Norquist, the keeper of anti-tax conservatism, gave his blessing Wednesday to House Speaker John A. Boehner’s plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $1 million a year.

Norquist’s change of heart is a substantial shift for the president of Americans for Tax Reform, who for more than 25 years has been the enforcer of no-new-taxes purity in the Republican Party.

“Republicans supporting this bill are this week affirming to their constituents in writing that this bill — the sole purpose of which is to prevent tax increases — is consistent with the pledge they made to them,” Norquist’s organization said in a statement. “In ATR’s analysis, it is extremely difficult — if not impossible — to fault these Republicans’ assertion.”

“ATR will not consider a vote for this measure a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” the group wrote.

It’s such a good deal for Republicans that even Norquist is on board. That should be a big flashing warning sign for Democrats that it’s not a good deal for the American people. No deal with the Republicans who were resoundingly rejected in the election should be made in any case. But if a deal is to be made, it shouldn’t be acceptable unless the far right is howling mad.

If Norquist is on board, no Democrat should be. Tying Social Security to chained CPI and pushing the threshold for tax increases on the wealthy to north of every dollar above $400,000 is already a bad, no good horrible deal that should be resoundingly rejected by the White House and, if the White House is foolish enough to agree, Democrats in Congress.

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Argumentum ad verecundiam

by digby

Paul Waldman makes an excellent point today that goes far beyond the current argument over gun rights:

We’re about to start the portion of this debate where we begin discussing specific actions the government might take to address gun violence. And as we do, particularly when it comes to those measures that concern the guns themselves (as opposed to measures focused on the people who can get them or the conditions of their purchase), it’s likely that gun advocates will start complaining that there’s a problem with all these effete urban northeastern liberals making laws governing guns they know nothing about. This isn’t new; for instance, gun advocates have long hated the term “assault weapon,” since it doesn’t mean anything in particular (after all, every gun is a weapon designed for assault).

We should be very wary of the argument that people who have a lot of experience with guns have some kind of greater moral claim to a voice in this debate (and we should also be wary, as Elsbeth Reeve writes, of coastal urbanite conservatives claiming to speak for “real America” about guns). Yes, having everyone get their facts straight is important. But every one of us is potentially affected by guns, whether we ever bother to pick one up or not. That’s kind of the whole point. You don’t have to know how to disassemble and clean a Glock to want your kid not to be shot by one.

Far too often in political debates, even among followers of one’s own ideology, one side or the other stops the dialog in its tracks by asserting their own experience and knowledge to intimidate others into backing down or shutting up. This is not to say that those with expertise should not be respectfully listened to, but the idea that one must have expertise in order to advance an opinion on the issues of the day is to make a mockery of democracy. After all, nobody can be an expert in all things — and even experts disagree. But we all have a responsibility to figure out how our values and principles inform our positions.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned during the five years I blogged pseudonymously was how to argue without resorting to authority to make my point. Not being able to use your own experience to illustrate every argument disciplines your thinking. You find that constantly pointing to your personal expertise (or to others’ lack of it) isn’t particularly persuasive and, most often, a pretty lazy form of argumentation.(This is not to say that personal stories can’t be a very vivid way to make a point or, again, that experts should be disregarded.)

Anyway, as Waldman points out: just because someone knows all the technical details of various weapons does not mean that someone who doesn’t isn’t entitled to have an opinion on the subject of gun ownership. Or just because one hasn’t been to war or had an abortion or owns stocks or is a crime victim, doesn’t mean that you can’t take a position on all those things. In fact, as a thinking person who can employ reason to all kinds of problems, it’s your responsibility to do it. And you do not have to defer to the so-called experts if you disagree. It’s called citizenship.

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What Markos Said: Obama’s Negotiating Style Sucks

by David Atkins

Markos at Daily Kos makes an excellent point, looking the President’s poll numbers and rightly concluding that his overly conciliatory negotiating style has cost him and Democrats dearly:

President Barack Obama entered the debt ceiling negotiations with a net-negative approval rating. As House Speaker John Boehner became more belligerent and confrontational, Obama soared. The people were firmly behind him! But then he began offering concession after concession, hoping to seem “reasonable” and look like the “adult in the room”, and his numbers simply tanked. That’s a mathematical fact, not opinion.

He didn’t return to net-positive approvals until the Democratic convention this September. People didn’t reward Obama’s conciliatory approach to the negotiations. Rather, they saw it (rightly) as weakness, and reacted accordingly. No one likes a weak president.

So some Obama apologists claim that the elections proved that people approved of Obama’s leadership style. Well, the data says way otherwise.

Markos then looks at exit polls showing that Romney won handily on being a strong leader and sharing voters’ values, and correctly concludes:

For those who based their choice on leadership, Obama got killed 61-38. And the president lost the “vision” and “values” questions handily as well. So how did he win? He cleaned up 81-18 with people who voted on which candidate cared about them the most. In other words, voters thought Mitt Romney was an aloof dick and trusted Obama most to look out for them. So maybe he should validate that trust.

Obama isn’t doing himself any favors by drawing lines in the sand then inevitably capitulating. Republicans have learned that there isn’t a negotiating stance that Obama won’t compromise. That doesn’t lend itself to smart negotiations. Rather, it creates unbalanced ones, as Republicans simply wait for Obama to cave on his demands. They’ve learned that for Obama, making a deal is more importnat than what’s in the deal.

It doesn’t matter to the White House now, just like it didn’t matter in June 2011, that the voters are with Obama. And it doesn’t matter to Republicans now, just like it didn’t matter in June 2011, that the voters are against them. In the end, everyone assumes Obama will capitulate, so why should Republicans deal in good faith?

Little more to add to that. Lots of people, ourselves at Hullabaloo included, have said that one of the damaging aspects of Democrats winning the Presidency in 2012 would be the seeming validation in D.C. circles of President Obama’s negotiating style and budget priorities. But it’s not as if there was a choice in the matter. A Romney presidency would have been much, much worse.

So all we can do is fight to make them see the error of their ways as much as possible, and to steel the firmer progressives against these wrongheaded and foolish “Grand Bargain” negotiations.

by tristero

Everyone with a toe in consensual reality knows the Westboro Baptist Church are completely insane:

 Tweets from the Phelps family suggest they believe the horrors in Connecticut are a punishment from God for gay marriage.

So let’s not forget that this man was considered a serious contender for the Republican nomination for president:

Then, over the weekend, on his own show, [Michael Huckabee] … said he wasn’t merely talking about school prayer – oh, no, haters! “It’s the fact that people sue a city so we aren’t confronted with a manger scene or Christmas carol … Churches and Christian-owned businesses are told to surrender their values under the edict of government orders to provide tax-funded abortion pills.” On his Web page, he posted a version of his Fox monologue, in which he wrote, “We dismiss the notion of natural law and the notion that there are moral absolutes and seemed amazed when some kids make it their own morality to kill innocent children. We diminish and even hold in contempt the natural family of a father and mother creating and then responsibly raising the next generation and then express dismay that kids feel no real connection to their families or even the concept of a family.” 

All Hail The Comfort Dogs

by digby

This story made my day:

A pack of sympathetic groups bearing supportive canines spent much of Monday with bereaved Connecticut residents affected by last week’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, providing children and adults alike with the cuddly comfort that only a four-legged friend can give.

The “comfort dogs,” or “therapy dogs” as they are sometimes called, were brought in by at least three groups late Sunday to help kids and adults alike cope with last week’s horrific shooting in Newtown that left 20 first graders and six school officials dead.

Among the groups was the Hudson Valley Golden Retrievers Club, whose members spent the afternoon at a makeshift memorial near the town center, where both kids and adults in need of compassion stopped to pet and cuddle the dogs.

Mourning or otherwise devastated children and parents said that petting the dogs gave them relief from their sadness.

“I just love dogs, so whenever I’m around them, they make me feel better,” said 12-year-old Ryan Williams. “When they come over and you pet them you kind of forget about what’s happening for a little bit.”

I feel the same way just looking at the pictures. Lovely.

There’s video at the link.

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Fiscal cliff notes 12/18

by digby

Watch Peter DeFazio explain the chained CPI:

Matt Yglesias (who, by the way, is writing really excellent stuff on this issue) points this out as well:

In addition to the substantive objections that members of Congress may have to any kind of fiscal deal, you should never forget about the politics part of politics. Cutting Social Security benefits slightly is wildly popular with Pete Peterson, Pete Peterson’s son, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and a broad array of groups funded in whole or in part by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. But as today’s Washington Post poll shows, it’s broadly unpopular with the American people  since as a pure cash transfer it’s essentially a waste-free program and since retirement programs—unlike targeted programs from the poor—gain public support from white ethnocentrism rather than losing support.

It’s hard to know what’s going on with all this at this moment. We know Pelosi signed off and Reuters is saying that Cantor’s got the votes for something:

FLASH: U.S. House majority leader Cantor says he expects to have Republican votes to pass fiscal cliff bill
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 18, 2012

(I’d have to guess that he’s talking about Boehner’s “plan B” to raise taxes on millionaires and adjourn until the New Year. but I don’t know.)

The problem in all this is, once again, the president has shown his hand and given up what he’s willing to deal.    Or, as Ezra puts it:

The question inside the White House now is what’s behind Boehner’s “Plan B”? Is he trying to show nervous conservatives that he’s playing hardball? Or is Boehner signaling that he can’t go any further and is now preparing to bolt the talks if the White House doesn’t make further concessions?

There are also some who think that Boehner — and, more to the point, Boehner’s House members — increasingly see weakness in the White House’s negotiating position.
A few weeks ago, the Obama administration was firm that they wouldn’t budge on tax rates for income above $250,000 and that they wouldn’t budge on the debt ceiling. They’ve since budged on both. Republicans increasingly think the White House will concede more now, and that if they don’t concede more now they’ll definitely give Republicans a better deal if threatened with debt default. Whether or not that’s true, it pulls Republicans — and Boehner — to the right, as it makes it harder for Boehner to argue for a compromise now

Meanwhile, the White House has problems within their coalition, too. Their allies are disappointed to see an old dynamic reasserting itself: The president makes concessions, thinking he’s close to a deal, and then the Republicans pocket those concessions, offering nothing but renewed threats to blow up the talks in return.

“This fight is not going to be won by the president taking a step towards Boehner, Boehner taking a step toward the president, the president taking a step toward Boehner, Boehner taking a step toward the president and so forth until they meet in the middle,” says Damon SIlvers, policy director at the AFL-CIO. “That hasn’t worked before. Boehner doesn’t take the steps. It will be won by the president clearly siding with the American people on tax fairness and preserving the safety net from benefit cuts.”

They also feel that the White House is weakening their hand if the negotiations fall apart and the president needs to win a battle for public support. “They ought to be in a position where they say to Boehner, ‘You’re the guy demanding benefit cuts and you’re using them to fund tax cuts on the rich,’” Silvers says. Cutting Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment by chaining CPI, he says, “muddies that position. It shouldn’t be muddied. It should be clear.”

Worse, the pushback from congressional Democrats over chained CPI is stronger than the administration expected — note the outspoken opposition from Sen. Dick Durbin, an Obama ally who’s often considered a barometer for pragmatic liberals.

Well played …

*The holiday fundraiser is happening now if you’d care to put a little something in the old Christmas stocking

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Only murderers need high-capacity magazines

by David Atkins

One of the many problems with talking about “gun control” is that every person means something different when they say it, and there are few agreements even among supporters about where one should draw the line on a ban. Banning all guns is pretty much a non-starter politically as well as practically. Without an all-encompassing ban, figuring out where to draw the line can be difficult. The Brady Bill was a good one, and shame should dwell eternally on every single individual, Republican and Democrat, responsible for allowing it to expire without renewal. But even the Brady Bill had some illogical inconsistencies in terms of what was allowed and what was not in terms of firearms.

But where firearm control lacks clarity and consistency, ammunition and magazine control does not. Little beyond a total ban on gun sales will prevent an individual from murdering a handful of people in psychotic rage with a standard handheld firearm. But wounding and murdering dozens at a time requires a weapon with decent aim (unlike a handgun) and more importantly the ability to shoot dozens of rounds without the need to stop and reload, which takes considerable time and puts the attacker at risk. The first part of that equation would be covered by traditional firearm control, which is somewhat messy. But the second part is accomplished with a simple ban on high-capacity magazines, as a bill introduced by Frank Lautenberg would do. The Assault Weapons Ban included such a proscription, and it is virtually guaranteed that the massacres in Newtown and Aurora would have been far less devastating, if undertaken at all, without these instruments of death.

Let’s be clear what is meant by a “high-capacity magazine” for those unfamiliar with guns: it means a bullet container (colloquially and wrongly called a “clip”) that can hold a lot of bullets. How many bullets? At least 60 to 100 at a single time. When paired with a semi-automatic rifle (a gun that can fire one bullet per trigger pull without reloading until the magazine runs out, as opposed to the mostly already illegal fully automatic “Rambo-style” gun that can fire an entire magazine with a single long trigger pull), that means a person can fire 60 to 100 shots without even stopping to reload. Standard capacity magazines, by contrast, range anywhere from 5 to 30 rounds, usually on the lower end. Several states including California already have regulations of varying strength against high-capacity magazines.

Let’s be clear: the only reason any civilian needs more than 10 rounds in a semi-automatic rifle is to murder large numbers of people. There is simply no other reason.

One can make a good argument that there is no other reason to own an assault rifle as it is. But even granting the specious Wyatt Earp argument that one needs a gun for self-defense that is as potent as the potential assailant’s, there is simply no need to be able to fire more than 10 rounds without reloading. Not even in a Wild West scenario.

There are only two non-military scenarios requiring such a device: 1) becoming a mass murderer assailant at a school, movie theater or similar location; or 2) preparing to massacre the post-apocalyptic heathen hordes attacking one’s home.

That second scenario, unfortunately, is what is mostly going through the minds of hundreds of thousands of self-styled John Galt gun enthusiasts just waiting for the chance to mow down scores of “moochers” and “looters” once society starts coming apart at the seams. It is, as I have said before, a form of (usually racist) mass murder fantasy role play.

If morally disturbed, prejudiced people wish to hold those views and perspectives on the future, that is their right. But there is no need for federal weapons policy to cater to their delusional whims by allowing the sale of tools of mass murder.

The very least we can and must do is ban high-capacity magazines. It’s simple, it’s easy, and the only people it would disturb (beyond the bottom lines of firearms manufacturers) are those already actively planning to engage in mass murder.

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“I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security”

by digby

Those were the days, my friends:

Vice President Joe Biden told cafe patrons in Virginia on Tuesday that he could “guarantee” he and President Obama would allow no changes to Social Security.

As a debate over reforming entitlements — particularly Medicare — takes center stage in the 2012 presidential campaign, Biden seemed to promise not to allow changes to the program.

“Hey, by the way, let’s talk about Social Security,” Biden said after a diner at The Coffee Break Cafe in Stuart, VA expressed his relief that the Obama campaign wasn’t talking about changing the popular entitlement program.

“Number one, I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security,” Biden said, per a pool report. “I flat guarantee you.”
The pool report noted that most of the patrons at the cafe toward whom Biden was directing his remarks were over the age of 60.

The vice president’s language almost hearkens back to some 2011 tough talk by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who vowed not to take up changes to Social Security for another two decades, by which time he might not even be a senator anymore.

“Two decades from now, I’m willing to take a look at it, but I’m not willing to take a look at it right now,” Reid said at the time in an interview on MSNBC. “It is not in crisis at this stage. Leave Social Security alone. We have a lot of other places we can look that is in crisis. But Social Security is not.”

Their consolation will be that the Villagers will all consider it a great act of heroism for both of them to go back on their word on this.

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The Dems say they’ll protect the “most vulnerable” seniors.  Who are the most vulnerable?


by digby

So, this happened:

It’s just a “technical” fix, you see and they’ll make sure to “protect” the most vulnerable seniors. I’m so relieved. Ezra Klein takes this little bit of sneaky obfuscation apart, here.

And this happened too:

Nancy Pelosi supports latest White House deal

This is significant: Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic minority leader in the House, tells MSNBC that she could back the latest White House deal.

That’s important because Pelosi wields influence over the congressional party’s liberal wing, in case of a backlash against the chained CPI indexing of benefits.

This seems to be a united front to get all of us liberals to unwad our panties poste haste and get on with the program.

Here’s the thing. I don’t know how they are defining the “most vulnerable”, but a vast number of the elderly are barely getting by already.

Social Security Is the Principal Source of Family Income for Nearly Half of Older Americans.Twenty-four percent of those aged 65  and over live in families that depend on Social Security benefits for 90 percent or more of their income. Another 26 percent receive at least half but less than 90 percent of their family income from Social Security.

Social Security benefits are particularly important for women, because, on average, women live longer and earn less than men. Fifty-two percent of all women aged 65 and older depend on Social Security benefits for 50 percent or more of their family income, compared to 45 percent of men.

Additionally, reliance on Social Security as a source of guaranteed income increases with age Eighty-eight percent of individuals aged 65 and over include Social Security benefits as a source of family income, which is double the number of individuals receiving income from pensions and retirement savings. Social Security retirement benefits are guaranteed for life and are adjusted to keep pace with inflation. In contrast, pensions and retirement savings accounts are rarely indexed to inflation, and retirees may outlive those assets. 

As the only guarantee of income in retirement, Social Security has performed admirably over the years in keeping older Americans out of poverty. In 2010, Social Security income kept roughly 35 percent of older Americans out of poverty. 

BTW:

75% of unmarried women older than 65 get half or more of their income from Social Security.

So, I don’t know how much “protection” they are offering to the “most vulnerable” but unless it covers all of those people and everyone else who stands to outlive their pensions and asset losses, I’m not really seeing the point.

I love this though:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney rejected Speaker John Boehner’s “Plan B” for the “fiscal cliff,” and said it would be “shocking” if Republicans did not agree to President Obama’s latest proposal, which raises the threshold for tax increases to those making more than $400,000 per year.

Yeah, I’d be shocked too. It’s a helluva deal for the Republicans. let’s hope they’re still as crazy as everything thinks they are.

Also too, this from Matt Yglesias:

Once upon a time there was an idea that a healthy part of a middle class individual’s retirement should be secured via a defined-benefit pension program that would be provided by his employer and that his employer would be encouraged to provide thanks to implicit subsidies in the tax code. That paradigm was very similar to the paradigm of employer-provided health insurance, and over time it’s tended to unravel for similar reasons. Except the pension case is even worse than the health care case, because we’ve been able to make employer-provided health care semi-viable through “continuity of coverage” rules and COBRA to let people transition from one employer-provided plan to another.

So defined benefit pensions are dying off. One natural substitute is tax-preferred individual savings vehicles like the IRA and the 401(k). Those have some conceptual virtues, but also considerable practical drawbacks since they’ve created a vast rent-seeking market in extracting management fees from careless middle class savers. They also have a lot of undesirable instability. I retire comfortably in March of 1999, you retired wiped out in March of 2001.

The natural supplement to the problems with individual retirement savings and substitute for the problems with defined-benefit corporate pensions is a large public sector program. Every working person gets a bit less take home pay than they would have otherwise had, but in exchange gets a guaranteed annuity when they’re retired. And fortunately for us we have a program that’s already more or less structured like that. It’s called Social Security. And as the defined benefit pension paradigm fades away, the natural and proper thing would be to rely more on Social Security as a vehicle for ensuring adequate living standards for senior citizens. The fact that this is happening more or less simultaneously with a demographic transition in which the elderly will be a larger share of the population is interesting, but doesn’t fundamentally defeat the analysis.

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Bumping up to premium catfood

by digby

Greg Sargent is reporting tha the White House says they will make sure that the Chained CPI sell-out won’t hurt the most vulnerable seniors. I don’t know if they are basing this on the Simpson-Bowles formula, but if they are, it’s bullshit:

As part of deficit-reduction negotiations, some policy makers have proposed switching to the chained consumer price index (CPI) to calculate the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security and other programs. The chained CPI would lower the annual COLA, reducing the value of Social Security benefits more and more over time. It is not a more accurate measure of inflation for the elderly – and it would be especially harmful to women, because on average they live longer than men, rely more on income from Social Security, and are already more likely to be poor. 

Recognizing that the chained CPI targets the oldest, poorest Americans, some deficit-reduction plans propose an increase in Social Security benefits for long-term beneficiaries in an attempt to mitigate the cuts from the chained CPI. This analysis examines how effective the “20-year benefit bump-up” proposed in the Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Commission report would be in protecting the typical single elderly woman – a woman with an initial benefit of $1,100 per month, the median benefit for single women 65 and older – and other vulnerable beneficiaries from the impact of the  chained CPI.

• The cut from the chained CPI would
reduce her monthly benefits by an
amount equal to the cost of one week’s
worth of food each month at age 80.
She would still have two years to wait
before receiving any help from the
bump-up. 

• The Bowles-Simpson bump-up would
restore her monthly benefits to current law levels for only two years – and then
benefits would fall behind again. 

• By age 95, the cut in her benefits would
equal the cost of three days’ worth of
food each month. 

Take a look at those dollar amounts.  Is there any good reason we are even thinking about cutting benefits instead of raising them? On what planet does anyone think that people who have that kind of money don’t need every last cent just to keep a meager meal on the table.

Here’s a little contrast for you:

 Durbin is out there saying this is too heavy a lift for the Democrats.  Pray he’s right.  Or better yet, call your Senator of either party and tell him or her that you are adamantly opposed to cutting Social Security benefits.  It’s shocking that you should have to do it, but considering the language of the last campaign it shouldn’t be surprising:

EHRER: All right? All right. This is segment three, the economy. Entitlements. First — first answer goes to you, two minutes, Mr. President. Do you see a major difference between the two of you on Social Security?

OBAMA: You know, I suspect that, on Social Security, we’ve got a somewhat similar position. Social Security is structurally sound. It’s going to have to be tweaked the way it was by Ronald Reagan and Speaker — Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neill. But it is — the basic structure is sound.

Here’s what I wrote about that the day after that debate:

Now they are talking about “tweaking” the way benefits are calculated, which will probably hit the baby boomers, mostly women, who manage to live the longest, the hardest. Of course, if they don’t fix that once they see the misery they’ve caused among the oldest and most vulnerable part of the population, the oldest Americans of the next generation will suffer just as much.  

These “tweaks” always look unexceptional on paper. But if you are one of the millions of people who are looking at a very meager income in your elder years, barely enough to survive really, a “tweak” becomes a life-threatening blow.  

The problem with this entire conversation is that Social Security is already inadequate. It’s barely enough to keep the elderly out of grinding poverty and compared to other industrialized nations it’s a joke. Benefits need to be raised not cut. But the grand success of the relentless fear mongering from deficit fetishists like Alan Greenspan and Pete Peterson over the years is that the entire conversation revolves around the idea that the system is so unstable that the only possible “compromise” is to agree to “tweak” benefits and pare them back over time — until the system loses its essential value to the American people and they can finally turn it into an investment vehicle. 

The president says he’s ready to “tweak.” And we know that Mitt Romney can hardly wait to take a meat ax to it. If he were to win, I’m guessing the conservative Democrats in congress would rush to jump on his bandwagon. (They certainly always have before.) So, it would appear that your best chance is to vote for progressives who will stand up to either Romney or Obama when it comes to Social Security.  

And we got some in. Unfortunately, they aren’t in the congress yet. On the other hand, you can still call your congressional Rep and Senator of either party and tell them that you do not want cuts to Social Security. There may be enough fear of the rickety third rail left out there to stop this.