Addendum: Enjoy Rachel while you can, because this lawyer says that her career is over!
No really!
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July 31, 2011 at 6:59 am
Mitch
She’s really good. He’s really good.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter… it’s 21st century Merica. Thought, logic, compassion and facts are all now viewed as liberal tricks. Big Brother’s victory appears complete.
July 31, 2011 at 7:00 am
Steve
In this regard I get especially frustrated with NPR, which gets a cut of my KHSU annual member donations. NPR is fully guilty of framing every political and policy discussion as between Obama and the right. As the Republicans move more and more to the right, and Obama preemptively concedes ground to them, the “center” shifts rightward. Cokie Roberts and Mara Liasson are the masters of this type of reporting. We are now at a point where Obama is probably to the right of most of the American people on how to deal with the debt limit.
July 31, 2011 at 7:18 am
Mitch
Steve,
My own take on NPR will remain forever linked to Cokie Roberts talking about New Orleans after Katrina by saying how it made her sad to see what had happened to some friends’ yachts, adding that of course, there’s far greater tragedies as well.
The Onion could not have presented 21st Century NPR in a more accurate and devastating light.
July 31, 2011 at 8:31 am
Eric Kirk
Still, NPR remains the best, or least worst, of domestic broadcast news. Yes, even better than the Pacifica offerings, which do cover politics to the left of Obama, but doesn’t offer much original insight. And NPR can surprise you every once in a while.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/30/1000666/-NPR-Airs-Truth-About-Budget-Fiasco?via=search
July 31, 2011 at 8:33 am
Eric Kirk
Meanwhile, Congress is apparently near a deal – mostly on Republican terms.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/dems-gop-float-eye-popping-debt-limit-compromise.php?ref=fpa
July 31, 2011 at 8:53 am
Bruce Ross
Interesting to hear Maddow’s comment on the lack of a “progressive” idea-marketing machine. What’d she say? The closest her show had come to being lobbied to cover the “People’s Budget” was a couple of tweets? Paul Ryan’s got a bit more momentum behind him.
Beyond that, of course, the Washington press corps will focus its energy the arguments among the people in power, which in this case means Obama, Harry Reid and the Republicans in the House. Narrow and unimaginative and unenlightening? Yep. But unsurprising.
July 31, 2011 at 9:16 am
Eric Kirk
The Tea Party Caucus, in terms of membership, is about the same size as the Progressive Caucus. But they have more influence. Maybe because of the media coverage? Seems like a Catch 22 for progressives.
July 31, 2011 at 10:17 am
Bruce Ross
They have more influence because they won a big election in November and swung the house majority to the Republicans.
July 31, 2011 at 10:52 am
Eric Kirk
Sure, but the Progressive Caucus never had any kind of influence after the 2008 election. Obama started “punching the hippie” almost as soon as he was sworn in.
July 31, 2011 at 11:42 am
moviedad
Crooks and criminals all. So what are we going to do about it?
July 31, 2011 at 11:43 am
Bruce Ross
I hate to argue with a bruised hippie, but so far all of the presidents of my adult life have disappointed their respective parties’ most ideologically zealous supporters. It’s sort of that nature of the job.
July 31, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Eric Kirk
Yeah, but even Clinton threw us a bone here and there. Obama’s just completely blown us off, every step of the way.
July 31, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Eric Kirk
Speaking of which, progressives are at the point where they are questioning their 2008 primary votes. Would Hillary C. have done better by us? Who knows?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/07/buyers_remorse.php?ref=fpblg
“This deal trades peoples’ livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) said in an fiery statement, “and I will not support it.”
July 31, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Joe Blow
Eat your heart out, sucker. It’s called BETRAYAL:
Democratic politics in a nutshell
July 31, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Bruce Ross
The nice thing about being Bill Clinton was that the economy grew robustly almost through his entire presidency. That gives a president more opportunities to make people happy.
Obama has not been so fortunate.
July 31, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Plain Jane
Why would “conservatives” spend so much money to buy the media and only one of the two main parties? And now in 2012 the Democrats won’t be able to beat up on the Republicans over the economy because they’re all guilty. When you want to shaft the poor and working classes and can get Democrats to pass it, who do you blame?
July 31, 2011 at 7:12 pm
moviedad
I repeat: what are we going to do about it?
July 31, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Just another anonymous guy
On the emerging debt limit deal:
With a cuts-only deal, federal austerity (including fewer dollars flowing to states) is not going to stimulate jobs before the 2012 election. This deal is a clear strategic victory for Republicans in several ways.
The first and most obvious Republican benefit is a reduction in government spending, an ideological win that also benefits a key constituency (the rich) at the expense of the poor, the disabled, children, the medically fragile.
A second Republican benefit is that this tough austerity budget will help assure recession-level unemployment in the US into the 2012 election season. Benefits to Republicans include more working-class in-fighting over union benefits.
But most importantly, I expect that a key Republican campaign point in 2012 will be Obama’s failure to create jobs in his first term — fanning the flames of our discontent and reinforcing the idea that government cannot stimulate the economy and create jobs. Cynical, yes, as the Republicans helped prolong high unemployment, but that is probably too complicated for Americans to follow. I forecast it first.
July 31, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Plain Jane
Just change the names and dates and see how similar our current situation is to the Great Depression. Do you think Obama and his advisers, as well as a large number of congressmen don’t know this history better than we do?
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/connections_n2/great_depression.html
How did candidate Obama, who demonstrated an in depth understanding of what had gone wrong in our country and a clear statement of what he was going to do about it turn into President Obama who spouts right wing talking points and trickle down economic theory? Was he lying then or is he lying now? Has anyone seen his kids lately?
July 31, 2011 at 8:14 pm
tra
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows.
- Leonard Cohen
July 31, 2011 at 8:42 pm
Plain Jane
You must be new around here to think you are the first one to forecast that, Just Another Anonymous Guy. You are mostly right, but lots of Democrats are willing players in the charade, including Obama unless they are holding his kids hostage. And I don’t think Hilary Clinton, or any Democrat who got the nomination, would have done much differently. The Howard Dean and Kucinich types are deliberately destroyed by the corporate owned media so our only choices are conservative, nuts or “throwing our vote away” on third parties. Like Greenwald said in Salon, for which Joe Blow so kindly posted a link, “it makes no difference to us how much we stomp on liberals’ beliefs or how much they squawk, because we’ll just wave around enough pictures of Michele Bachmann and scare them into unconditional submission. That’s the Democratic Party’s core calculation: from “hope” in 2008 to a rank fear-mongering campaign in 2012. Will it work? The ones who will determine if it will are the intended victims of that tactic: angry, impotent liberals whom the White House expects will snap dutifully into line no matter what else happens (even, as seems likely, massive Social Security and Medicare cuts) between now and next November.” You should read it if you haven’t.
Democrats can sell out to the highest bidder and it doesn’t matter so long as the alternative is an old man with a bimbo running mate or a nutcase.
July 31, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Eric Kirk
It’s a question of what can be accomplished. Last fall, voters made one of the biggest changes in Congressional makeup for a single election in history. We can blame Citizens United, and television ads, and lobbyists – but ultimately it took a large number of people to submit ballots which generated a House of Congress which will not vote for the ceiling debt ceiling increase except on their terms. Ultimately it’s the fault of voters and progressives who didn’t vote because they’re so discouraged and all.
Basically, progressives have not sold our politics to enough people to make that difference. Either we are wrong and they are right, or we simply have not been persuasive. Or there are too many voters who vote their fears. I am very good friends with a former political activist who gave up any hope of comprehensive political change, concluding that the vast majority of people at this point in history have succumbed to “the three S’s.” They are “scared, stupid, and selfish.”
I’m not quite that cynical, but unlike many of my fellow progressives I do fault voters. Yes, the media is driven by corporate agenda and all that, but really, the information is available.
July 31, 2011 at 9:55 pm
tra
From what I’ve read, the 2010 election came out the way it did not really because a lot of dedicated progressives stayed home, but mostly because a lot of “swing voters” / “middle-of-the-roaders” who had voted for Dems in Congress in 2006 and 2008 and for Obama in 2008 either stayed home or swithced to voting for Republicans for Congress in 2010.
I’m sure Citizens United had an important effect in terms of advertising money, and the Tea Partiers rallied the Republican base, but probably the most significant factor was simply that unemployment was (and still is) high, the economy was (and still is) weak, and the Democrats, as the party which was in control of the House and the Presidency, and ostensibly the Senate, too, paid the price in the form of the oversimplistic “throw the bums out” attitude of many of those low-information swing voters.
So, yes, I blame the voters, too — especially those who were just too lazy to take the time to learn which parties / candidates more closely reflected their own concerns, and insead just went with the easy, feels-good approach of just blaming the party that was in power (even though most of the problems were caused under the previous administration).
July 31, 2011 at 9:57 pm
Plain Jane
“Throw the bums out” favored the GOP in swing regions because there were more Democratic bums in office than there were Republican bums in office.
July 31, 2011 at 10:21 pm
tra
Throw the bums out” favored the GOP in swing regions because there were more Democratic bums in office than there were Republican bums in office.
Well, and also because the Dems were in the majority in both houses of Congress, and well as having the presidency — and the “throw the bums out” crowd is usually most concerned with the “bums” who are currently “in charge.”
In a way, that’s understandable. If “our” team is “in charge “and the country is sliding downhill fast, then peope who don’t know much about politics (or for that matter economics) are trying, in their limited way, to “hold elected officials accountable,” so they vote for the other “team.”
Unfortunately, without understanding how long it takes to turn an economic downturn around (and the limited power politicians actually have over that, even in the best case scenario), and without understanding the nuances of how the Senate (dis)functions and the reality of how much influence and ability to engage in obstructionism the Republicans retained despite their minority status (and the Republicans obviously got plenty of help from Lieberman, Nelson, other ConservaDems in the Senate and in the House, too) these low-info voters’ attempts to “hold elected officials accountable” was doomed to failure, because they blamed the wrong “bums” for the continued economic stagnation and political gridlock, and they put into power many of the same old Republican bums who helped sink us in this economic and fiscal mess in the first place — plus a whole new crop of batshit-crazy Tea Party bums who are even more destructive than the “old” GOP was.
However, there’s a whole new election less than two years away, and being that it’s a Presidential year, turnout will probably be quite a bit higher, which is usually (though not always) better for Dems. The question is, if the economy continues to lag (which this all-spending-cuts debt ceiling bill will contribute to), will the low-info swing voters decide that they’d better “throw the bum out” of the oval office? Or will Obama survive, and Dems pick up seats in one or both Houses?
August 1, 2011 at 4:46 am
Plain Jane
Dr. Krugman is, of course, not at all happy with the debt deal
“Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.
It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.
In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LI_MST_FB
August 1, 2011 at 6:12 am
Just another anonymous guy
PJ: Not very new at all, at all. What I claim to forecast first on this site (for whatever that’s worth) is that the Republicans will run a jobs campaign in 2012 blaming the Democrats for their failure to lower the unemployment rate. The fact that Republican-led spending cuts helped create persistently high unemployment will be lost on the majority. That’s all.
Our single district plurality voting system results in two dominant political parties. Thus dissatisfaction can only be expressed by not voting, or voting for the opposition. Citizens United allows for the manufacture and channeling of dissatisfaction — a la the 2010 election. More of the same is essentially guaranteed until the right over-reaches, which will temporarily create an opening for another center-right leader like Obama.
August 1, 2011 at 6:23 am
Plain Jane
Your claim is erroneous since we’ve discussed that inevitability repeatedly. You must have been sick those days.
August 1, 2011 at 8:18 am
Anonymous
Eric, you and yours voted Obama in! You thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread and beer. Now you’re complaining he won’t even throw you (and yours) a bone. Remember, you voted for him, you championed him, you own him (so to speak).
The one poster asked, “was he lying then or is he lying now”. With Obama it’s like the age old question; “how can you tell when he is lying”? answer; his lips are moving. and that’s pretty much been the case. Just about everything he says is some kind of BS, spin, excuse, or flat out lie. It’s not hard to see why he has pissed off the far left, the far right, and just about everyone in between.
Hope and Change?! Change you can beleive in?! Harldy Just another Chicago politician taking care of his buddies adn supporters.
August 1, 2011 at 8:20 am
Anonymous
You guys ought to start watching Fox News, or listen to Glenn Beck and pay attention to what he says.
August 1, 2011 at 10:40 am
Eric Kirk
Not every progressive sees this as a loss. From a poster at TPM:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/08/another_take_5.php?ref=fpblg
Let me get this straight. The President kept revenues on the table, did not touch the sunset provisions in the Bush tax cuts, ensured that military cuts keep the GOP honest, protected Medicare by adding in only provider cuts in the trigger, made the reduction apparently enough to stave off a debt downgrade, got the debt ceiling raised, wounded Boehner by demonstrating to the world that he is controlled by the Tea Party caucus, took out the requirement that a BBA be passed and sent to the states and got the extension through 2012? What exactly is wrong with this deal?
Well, from my perspective what’s wrong with it is that the deficit is of a minor concern compared to jobs, and so these cuts without revenues is going to depress the economy further, which ironically may actually increase the deficit due to the loss of revenue. Where Obama and the Democrats went wrong was to fail to counteattack on the jobs issue and promote more aggressive Keynesian policies two years ago.
I’m also not convinced that the defense cuts will deter the Republicans. That they refused to include new revenues in the “trigger” tells me that letting the trigger happen is not an unacceptable scenario to them whereas it would be cataclysmic for Democrats. So once again, there will be an imbalance in bargaining power and revenues will come off the table.
And I was never really afraid that the BBA would happen. It’s a stupid proposal, and Republicans can only buck Wall Street so far.
August 1, 2011 at 11:21 am
Eric Kirk
But Kos delivers the disappointing scenario on Bush Tax Cut expiration.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001712/-Getting-rid-of-Bush-tax-cuts–wonthappen?detail=hide&via=blog_1
August 1, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, according to this report, all 74 members of the Progressive Caucus are going to vote “no!” That may be a first.
And Steny Hoyer says he can guarantee only 66 House Democratic votes, which may not even include Nancy Pelosi who is reportedly doing nothing to whip Democrats. When asked if the House has enough votes to pass the deal, Pelosi shrugged and said “You’ll have to ask the Speaker.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001805/-Pelosi-Not-Whipping-Votes;-Update:-All-74-in-Prog-Caucus-Will-Vote-No!-?via=siderec
Maybe Obama ignored his base one too many times.
August 1, 2011 at 12:58 pm
Plain Jane
Progressive Change is asking people to call their representatives and tell them to oppose it.
http://act.boldprogressives.org/call/call_house_nonsigners_rejectdeal/?source=fbs-auto&referring_akid=a7421002.898291.sYazux
August 1, 2011 at 5:03 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, it passed the House. But never fear. The Republicans will show more responsibility – next time for sure!
August 1, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Eric Kirk
How they voted.
Mike Thompson (ours) voted “yes.” I don’t know if the CPC stuck to its guns unanimously, but all of the CPC names I know are on the no list.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/01/1001970/-Final-tally-on-debt-ceiling-vote:-269%C2%A0aye,%C2%A0161-nay?showAll=yes&via=blog_1
August 1, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Plain Jane
This is just more chipping away at the New Deal. The next ransom will be paid to prevent the slashing of Medicare when the bipartisan commission can’t reach an agreement, and you know they won’t. Conservatives have already shown that they would cut military spending to save tax cuts and the Democrats have shown they will give up anything to save Medicare. A better consequence for failure to reach an agreement would have been cuts to Medicare and increased taxes rather than military spending cuts. It makes it more of an even loss / loss for both sides.
August 2, 2011 at 12:55 am
Mitch
Sad. It’s clear the political system won’t solve the nation’s problems.
August 2, 2011 at 8:42 am
Plain Jane
It’s an old adage, but sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. Maybe people need a serious depression every so often or they forget the economic tragedies that wreck people’s lives through no fault of their own. Today, just like back in the Guilded Age, flamboyant consumption and bubble inflation (stock market that time) by those at the top funded by extremely low taxes and reduced wages for the working class caused economic crises. Our leaders fumbled their way into making it worse (giving them the benefit of the doubt) just as they are doing now by cutting spending while refusing to increase taxes. I’ve heard talk of lowering the minimum wage to “create more jobs” as well. Either we have a bunch of idiots on both sides of the aisle who don’t know the history of the GD, don’t know what caused it, caused it to last so long or cured it – or they are deliberately wrecking the economy.
August 2, 2011 at 8:47 am
Plain Jane
This is an old article about the revisionist history that conservatives have been selling:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2009/01/02/sirota_fdr_depression
August 2, 2011 at 8:56 am
Eric Kirk
It’s almost official (unless President Obama vetoes). 26 “no” votes in the Senate. I know that Bernie Sanders was one of them.
August 2, 2011 at 8:59 am
Eric Kirk
TPM has a wrap-up.
Democrats lost this fight for many reasons, but chief among them is the fact that the consequences of default are as unfathomable as they are unnecessary. That’s why, in the past, raising the debt limit has been a matter of routine, or at worst an occasion for harmless partisan preening. If borrowing authority ever lapses, the country would initially face a major problem, and, soon thereafter, a deadly one.
…
Months ago, as was widely predicted by close observers of U.S. politics, the GOP turned a simple recipe for avoiding this calamity — clean legislation to raise the debt limit — into a time bomb. The code to defuse the time bomb was an arbitrary, but highly ideological, policy formula: First, massive cuts to federal spending — one dollar of budget cuts for every dollar of new borrowing authority. Second, a guarantee that some of those cuts come from Medicare — a cynical gambit to force Democrats to take co-ownership of the GOP’s entitlement onslaught, which backfired on them when they passed a budget that called for the dismantling of that program. Third, caps on discretionary spending — the one part of the budget that hasn’t ballooned in the last decade, and provides most direct services to regular people. Fourth, no new tax revenues.
The Democrats’ first error was not taking this threat seriously. Late last year, President Obama famously claimed to believe incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) would not put the country at risk to satisfy his rigid, angry base. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said he wanted Republicans to have “buy in” on the debt limit.
The party’s second error was its collective decision to buy into the basic ideological theme underlying the debt limit demands: That deficits are an immediate threat that needs to be dealt with now, largely, if not entirely by cutting spending; that improving the country’s fiscal outlook would by some alchemy instill “confidence” in markets, and thus inspire businesses owners to hire people to serve clients who don’t exist because they’re also out of work.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/the-new-default-a-sad-history-of-the-debt-limit-fight.php?ref=fpblg
August 2, 2011 at 10:03 am
Eric Kirk
Estimate – spending cuts to cost us 1.8 million jobs by 2012.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/02/285599/report-debt-ceiling-deal-will-cost-1-8-million-jobs-in-2012/
August 2, 2011 at 10:51 am
tra
Well, it’s done. Obama signed the Debt Limit Bill a couple of hours ago.
It’s ugly, and it will substantially hurt the chances for an economic recovery. Whether it will actually throw us deep into a “double-dip” recession is not yet clear.
But if an actual default had occured, that would probably have been even worse economically. So in that sense even this crappy deal is probably better than no deal.
It’s not surprising that the Republicans got most of their core demands (all cuts, dollar-for-dollar, no new revenues). This is what happens when one side in a negotiation (in this case the Republicans) is willing to risk no deal, and the other side can’t take that risk, and everyone knows the can’t. The side that needs a deal more ends up having to compromise more.
August 2, 2011 at 11:01 am
Plain Jane
Just like what happened back in 1937 when FDR was persuaded to cut spending. Are they ignorant of history or deliberately repeating it? How could they be so closely following the blueprint that led to the Great Depression without realizing it? First they cut taxes and regulations. Then they repealed Glass-Steagall, cut taxes again and went on a spending rampage with wars and Medicare additions. The concentration of wealth at the top has now exceeded even the gilded age, but they won’t hear of raising taxes on the richest. Wages first stagnated and are now falling, job shortage is in the millions, they want to lower the minimum wage and deregulation the work place, cut the programs that keep the poor alive, and cut government spending which will cost almost another 2 million jobs. Imagine what they would do if they really wanted to hurt this country!
August 2, 2011 at 11:05 am
Plain Jane
It seems obvious to me, paranoid as I am about politician’s motives, that they are trying to more equalize living standards with the developing world before peak oil makes shipment of junk around the world too expensive. These are not loyal Americans but global capitalists who are manipulating our lives for their profit.
August 2, 2011 at 11:05 am
tra
Meanwhile, Obama vows to fight on for a “balanced approach” in the next round. As far as the current deal, he seems to be taking his cue from the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
“Alll right, we’ll call it a draw.”
August 2, 2011 at 11:08 am
tra
Credit to Steve LaBonne, a commenter over at TPM, for the Monty Python reference…
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/despite-debt-deal-antics-obama-not-giving-up-on-his-agenda.php?ref=fpb
August 2, 2011 at 11:23 am
Eric Kirk
I was listening to NPR yesterday afternoon as they were discussing who would be on the special commission. Steny Hoyer said that he was going to put people on with “open minds” while his Republican counterpart said that he was going to put on people who would not vote to increase taxes.
There’s already an imbalance in negotiating, before we’ve even started.
August 2, 2011 at 11:40 am
tra
The Economic Policy Institute is estimating that the discretionary spending cuts in this deal will cause a loss of about 325,000 jobs by 2012.
They also say that if Congress fails to renew the payroll tax holiday and fails to extend unemployment benefits, the total job loss by 2012 would amount to an esttimated 1.8 million lost jobs.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/02/285599/report-debt-ceiling-deal-will-cost-1-8-million-jobs-in-2012/
Which will leave Obama and the Dems in the same position as they were last year. The Bush tax cuts “automatically” expire, but the Republicans care much more about those than they do about the payroll tax holiday, and of course the Republicans actively oppose extending unemployment benefits.
So as the next round of negotiation gets underway, I expect that the Republicans will hold the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits hostage, demanding that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are extended again.
If Obama and the Democrats agree to extend all the Bush tax cuts, then they’ll have to make even more cuts to discretionary spending and/or entitlements, which will result in more job losses.
But if they “stand strong” and allow all the Bush tax cuts to expire (including those that apply to the middle class), and as a result the Republicans won’t allow the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits to be extended, then, according to EPI, millions of additional jobs will be lost. Meanwhile, the Republicans will have a field day accusing Obama and the Dems as “raising taxes on the middle class in the midst of a recession.”
Either way, not a pretty picture.
August 2, 2011 at 11:57 am
tra
There’s already an imbalance in negotiating, before we’ve even started.
There was a lot of wishful thinking from progressives in the weeks leading up to this deal, along the lines of “Obama is on the verge of a huge victory in a game of eleventh-dimensional chess that the Republicans don’t even know they’re playing.”
But in the end, here in the three-dimensional world we live in (four if you want to count time), the Republicans appear to have won big, both on politics, and in political terms.
Not only did they get an all-cuts and no-new-revenue deal, they drove Obama’s favorability rating down and virtually guaranteed that unelmployment will remain very high through the 2012 election, which will come in very handy when their Presidential nominee asks voters the question “are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?”
If there’s any eleventh-dimensional chess win for the President, it seems to be just as invisible and inconsequential to everyday people as anything else that exists only in the eleventh dimension.
From here in the real world, it looks a lot more like a game of tic-tac-toe, but one where the Republicans get to start with the center square every time.
August 2, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, it’s not exactly as black as that TRA. There is evidence that this was the tea party hey day, and if you go to Redstate and a number of right wing blogs, they see this as a capitulation on the Republicans’ part on several levels. The defense cuts are sticking in their craw, as well as the amount of the debt ceiling increase and the fact that it won’t come up again until after the 2012 election.
There actually is room for strategy, and the with the deficit-obsession now over, the Republicans do have to some up with a policy for jobs, or explain why they aren’t.
The bottom line is that they won because they are willing to sink the economy to get their way and the Democrats are not. The question is whether the voters have picked up on that. There is indication that they have, and the TP may be in trouble next year.
Again, the problem isn’t sellout politicians. The problem is that progressives have never really sold our policy ideas with the American public. We are essentially demanding approaches which are not firmly supported by the majority of voters.
So right now, the Democrats will hopefully hit hard on a tax decrease – payroll taxes. The Republicans have blocked it recently, but if the Democrats keep hammering on it they could get enough Republicans, maybe even some TP pols who would have to explain to their voters why they opposed a tax decrease. That is really the only stimulative tool the Democrats have right now except to shut down the wars and bring that spending home.
You know, we’re in this mess because so many progressives take the “the system is evil” approach and opt out of voting or other involvement in the political processes. Right wingers don’t do that. They vote like clockwork, because they regard it as a civil duty, not whether it will “do any good.”
Anyway, I’m not as depressed about this as I was yesterday. It would have been cataclysmic had the deal not been signed, and the defense cuts aren’t nothing.
August 2, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Eric Kirk
At least we’re getting some tude from Pelosi. Yesterday she did nothing to whip votes even as she cast her own reluctant yes vote. Today she’s pledging that her three members will not vote for any cuts to entitlements.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/pelosi-my-deficit-committee-members-will-oppose-all-entitlement-benefit-cuts.php?ref=fpblg
I think I heard the NPR story wrong. The “open minds” will come from Reid, not Hoyer.
August 2, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Eric Kirk
Well, fresh on the heels of one cave-in, the Democrats are about to serve up another.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/reid-could-accept-gop-terms-on-faa-shutdown.php?ref=fpblg
August 2, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Plain Jane
“The impasse centers on disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over a program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports. But behind the scenes, a larger fight has been taking place over federal rules on labor elections in the airline industry.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/us/03faa.html?_r=1&emc=na
The Republicans want to go back to the old rule for unionization that counts an abstention as a no vote instead of just counting the actual yes and no votes. I read a few days ago that the taxes collected in an hour would more than pay for the subsidies they receive in a year, and that isn’t counting the thousands of people out of work across the country because of it, not paying taxes and collecting unemployment. Another example of their zeal to destroy unions and use bogus economic claims as the excuse.
August 2, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Eric Kirk
I do have to say that Reid’s tone changed since yesterday. He was on NPR tonight saying that if the Republicans don’t accept new revenues then we might as well go right to the trigger.
And that would lead to the first major cuts in military spending since post-World War Two.
August 2, 2011 at 5:33 pm
tra
There actually is room for strategy with the deficit-obsession now over, the Republicans do have to some up with a policy for jobs, or explain why they aren’t.
I doubt the deficit-obsession is now over. As far as the Republicans and Teap Partiers are concerned, slashing social spending and continuing tax cuts for the rich (or as they call them, the “jobs creators”) IS their policy for jobs. Of course that doesn’t work, but that’s the beauty of their strategy: continued high unemployment is exactly what they want to see, going into the 2012 elections.
The question is whether the voters have picked up on that. There is indication that they have, and the TP may be in trouble next year.
I hope that’s true.
Again, the problem isn’t sellout politicians.
Well, sellout politicians are only part of the problem, but they are not entirely blameless. As you noted only an hour and a half later: “Well, fresh on the heels of one cave-in, the Democrats are about to serve up another.” No ticking timebomb debt ceiling scenario necessitates this new cave-in (on the FAA issue), yet here we go again.
The problem is that progressives have never really sold our policy ideas with the American public. We are essentially demanding approaches which are not firmly supported by the majority of voters.
In some cases I’d say that’s true, but in many cases, that’s not really true at all. In this recent debt ceiling fiasco, poll after poll showed that most Americans preferred an approach that would have included new revenues, not just spending cuts. So the problem is not that progressives failed to make their case to the American people, or that the majority of the American people don’t support the more progressive approach — the problem is that many of those folks either failed to show up on election day 2010, or showed up and voted for politicians who don’t support the more progressive approach. Whether those lessons will be remembered and acted on in 2012 remains to be seen.
August 2, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Plain Jane
About half the voters don’t vote and at least half of those who do vote don’t put any effort into being informed about the issues and platforms before they vote.
August 2, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Eric Kirk
TRA – my post on the FAA may have been premature.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/08/short_update.php?ref=fpblg
I was listening to NPR tonight. Reid definitely has a new tone in his voice. The FAA will remain closed during recess.
And give Obama a little credit. He was threatening to veto.
August 2, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Eric Kirk
According to this study, Tea Partiers were more diligent than progressives.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/study-tea-partiers-outworked-democrats-in-debt-fight.php?ref=fpa
Meanwhile Mitch McConnel promised that the whole process will repeat itself again in 2013, and that the “clean” debt ceiling increase is over. I hope the Democrats use that in ads in the next election cycle.
August 2, 2011 at 9:36 pm
tra
Here’s an economist telling the Financial Times exactly what Plain Jane has been warning about here — right down to the Great Depression comparison:
“Unless we are missing something the US is one false move away from a recession,” says Jim Reid, strategist at Deutsche Bank, who has warned the US could be approaching a “1937 moment” – when authorities removed post-Depression stimuli from still-fragile markets and triggered another recession. This risk, he says, has in fact only been magnified in the markets’ eyes by agreement on raising the US debt ceiling.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d80222d6-bcfb-11e0-bdb1-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fd80222d6-bcfb-11e0-bdb1-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Ftalkingpointsmemo.com%2F
I’m not registered for the Finiancial Times website, so I didn’t see the whole article, just this excerpt on the TPM Editor’s blog.
August 2, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Thorstein Veblen
In my professional opinion as an economist, I’d say we’re screwed!!!
August 2, 2011 at 10:04 pm
Plain Jane
Does anyone have an explanation for why they would be repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression, from the cause of it to their failed remedies that made it worse and longer?
August 2, 2011 at 10:12 pm
ED Denson
Her contract is reported as being extended. So “this lawyer’ may be right, just not right now.
August 2, 2011 at 10:30 pm
tra
P.J.,
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana
and
“We are living in the United States of Amnesia.”
– Gore Vidal
Put those two things together, and I think you’ll have a large part of your answer.
Of course in this case it’s not so much just “amnesia” as it is willful ignorance — the history of the Great Depression has not just been “forgotten,” it’s been re-interpreted in such a way as to support the ideological dogma that says the path to prosperity is militarism and corporate capitalism.
According to the revisionist history, Hoover was an economic genius who just had a little bit of bad luck and poor public relations, and was about to turn things around when the foolish voters threw him out. Meanwhile, in this revisionist narrative, FDR was worse than incompetent, it was his fault that the Great Depression lasted as long as it did, and he just got lucky that there was a World War so that the military-industrial complex could save the nation from becoming a socialist hellhole.
And now, with relatively few Americans who lived through the Great Depression still alive to give their eyewitness accounts, the revisionists are free to spout their dogmatic and counterfactual interpretations without being called on their bullshit by Grandma and Grandpa.
August 3, 2011 at 8:20 am
Erasmus
Santayana’s sentence has long lived in the realm of cliche, and it would deserve its longevity if it made more sense. The problem is not that we tend to forget the past but that we don’t understand it. The dynamics of the Great Depression are still the subject of heated debate. The notion that “revisionists” praise Hoover at the expense of FDR doesn’t hold much water. In the best-seller by Amity Schlaes, “The Forgotten Man” (a book I don’t recommend) one reads that “From 1929 to 1940, from Hoover to Roosevelt, government intervention helped to make the Depression Great” (p. 9). Setting up straw-men (“those right-wingers who love Hoover”) doesn’t advance understanding. Schlaes’s book was praised by “The National Review” and “The Weekly Standard.” It criticizes Hoover just as much as it belittles FDR.
August 3, 2011 at 11:44 am
Plain Jane
I disagree, Erasmus. I haven’t read the book and won’t (any book so loved by those far right wing conservatives can’t possibly be worth my time), but the recent “heated debate” is just attempted revision of history. While you could make the case that the leaders didn’t understand economics well enough in the 20′s and 30′s to blame them for their catastrophic missteps, that isn’t true today and it is the same political ideology that created the policies which caused the Great Depression that is at work today causing another. If they had done so in a completely different way, you might be able to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, low taxes fueling bubbles, job losses and cuts in spending (government and personal) is what caused the GD and what caused the GR, soon to become GDII.
August 3, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Erasmus
Your certainty exceeds that of many students of the period. — Low taxes, cuts in spending as causes of the Depression? More than doubtful. What kept the Depression going for most of a decade? Smoot-Hawley is at least partially to blame.. — Furthermore, when is history (or science, for that matter) not being revised? (Inevitable, when our understanding is so shaky.)
August 3, 2011 at 1:39 pm
Plain Jane
EDITORIAL
Hiding Behind the Budget Act
Published: August 2, 2011
“The Budget Control Act of 2011, which President Obama signed on Tuesday after Congress passed it by wide margins, is as contrived as the artificial crisis that spawned it. The bill, like a tired opera production, is full of clumsy staging and failed gimmicks left over from previous decades. It is not only bad policy in its goals of cutting spending too much, but it is bad procedure. It allows members of Congress to avoid responsibility for their actions through a cutout committee, a spending limit and the pretense that this Congress can tell the next one what to do.”
Read the rest
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/hiding-behind-the-budget-act.html?_r=1&hp
August 3, 2011 at 7:27 pm
tra
Sorry for the off-topic comment, but if you haven’t seen this clip yet, you should:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/08/awesome_3.php?ref=fpblg
In the clip, Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey is asked about the “sharia law controversy” in the context of his appointment of a Muslim-American man to be a judge in Passaic, New Jersey.
In response, Christie gives an impassioned and very forceful defense of his appointee — but he doesn’t stop there, he then goes on the offensive against the “sharia law controversy,” referring to it as “a bunch of crap” and specifically calling out the “ignorance” and “bigotry” of the people who have been criticizing this judge (because he’s a Muslim, and because as a lawyer in private practice he represented some Muslim-Americans who were wrongly rounded up and detained after 9/11 — but who were never charged and who were later exonerated).
With so many Republicans engaging in the blatant stereotyping and scapegoating of Muslim-Americans, it’s great to see a Republican governor taking such a strongly against anti-Muslim bigotry.
Now if he could just make that same kind of speech at the Republican Convention, or at some Tea Party conference — that could get pretty interesting.
August 3, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Plain Jane
Erasmus http://www.economist.com/node/12798595
August 3, 2011 at 11:03 pm
Eric Kirk
Erasmus – Cuts in spending are not deemed the cause of the Depression, but the recession of 1937. Of course, it involved a sudden drop of spending on a huge scale. Maybe the graduated drops of the current plan won’t be as catastrophic. I just don’t see how we’re going to climb out any time soon, barring some major game changer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937%E2%80%931938
August 4, 2011 at 5:12 am
Plain Jane
New York Times editorial:
The FAA, After the Republicans
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/opinion/the-faa-after-the-republicans.html?ref=opinion
August 4, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Eric Kirk
Some very candid comments from Nancy Pelosi about the failure of Democrats to get more concessions, all premised on the notion that Boehner is actually a much stronger leader than reality.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/pelosi-boehner-was-supposed-to-have-218-votes-for-debt-limit-deal.php?ref=fpa
At least this guy had an excuse.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/nm_mayor_i_was_quite_drunk_when_i_signed_that_1_mi.php?ref=fpblg
August 4, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Plain Jane
Robert Reich is predicting that if the jobs report tomorrow is less than 125,000, the chance of a double dip recession is 50 / 50.
August 4, 2011 at 10:18 pm
mjtrac@gmail.com
Again, the problem isn’t sellout politicians. The problem is that progressives have never really sold our policy ideas with the American public. We are essentially demanding approaches which are not firmly supported by the majority of voters.
Eric,
The polls on this have been clear. Both sides were well to the right of American public opinion, with the Republicans off the charts.
It’s going to take something from outside the political system to shake things up, because the political system is no longer responsive to unmanipulated public opinion. Really, there’s no reason it should be, with unlimited and uncontrolled donations, the widening of income inequality, and a media controlled by a side that doesn’t benefit from unmanipulated public opinion.
In a normal country, we could expect something like a national strike. But who would lead that here? Jesse Jackson!? Ralph Nader?! Bernie Sanders?! Lady Gaga?! Oprah?!
I’m not sure that could ever happen here, so I have no clue what to expect. I doubt it will be pretty.
August 4, 2011 at 10:19 pm
mjtrac@gmail.com
That was me.
August 5, 2011 at 11:30 am
tra
FYI, the July jobs report came in at 117,000.
Private non-farm payrolls actually increased by 154,000, but a loss of 37,000 government jobs dragged the total figure down
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/us-adds-117k-jobs-in-july-unemployment-ticks-down-to-91.php?ref=fpblg
Gee, it almost seems as if one of the political parties is actually trying to push us into that double-dip recession, in order to gain political advantage in the 2012 presidential race.
Nah, they couldn’t be that cynical and power-hungry….or could they?
August 5, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Plain Jane
When you consider what they would gain if they got control of the White House, the Senate and the House (they already have SCOTUS) it might seem like a good gamble to them. Scares the hell out of me.
August 5, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Plain Jane
Did everyone read Krugman today?
August 5, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Anonymous
That’s actually a better jobs report than I was expecting TRA. In fact, if you only consider private sector jobs, the expansion has been fairly continuous. Just not keeping up with population.
August 6, 2011 at 6:30 am
Plain Jane
Robert Reich’s opinion of S&P’s downgrading US credit rating: Short version, who the fuck do they think they are after colluding to give AAA ratings to junk which caused a large percentage of this debt.
http://robertreich.org/post/8542550924
August 6, 2011 at 9:52 am
tra
From the S & P press release on why they downgraded the US credit rating from AAA to AA:
Compared with previous projections, our revised base case scenario now assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, due to expire by the end of 2012, remain in place. We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/sp-downgrades-us-aaa-bond-rating-to-aa-outlook-negative.php?ref=fpb