President Obama requests $1.2 trillion debt ceiling increase

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

President Obama on Thursday made an official request that Congress raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion over the objections of several House Republicans.

Obama's formal notification gives both chambers 15 days to vote on whether to approve the hike. The House plans to vote on this request on Jan. 18, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.

The United States reached the $15.194 trillion debt limit on Jan. 4, according to Treasury statements. Since that time, Treasury has employed the "extraordinary measure" of tapping into its Exchange Stabilization Fund to avoid exceeding the limit.

Uh-oh. Another opportunity for Republicans to try to push America (and the global economy) off the cliff.

Thankfully, the Senate would need to vote against it as well, and the Senate, still under Democratic control, isn't about to vote for economic Armageddon.

Democrats capitulate to Republican demands, Congress averts government shutdown

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last night, Congress reached a deal on a massive spending bill that will, among other things, keep the federal government running:

Retreating from their harsh partisan sniping, and perhaps fearing public rebuke, Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had agreed on a large-scale spending measure to keep the government running for the next nine months.

But an accord on extending a payroll tax holiday set to expire at the end of the month remained elusive, with Democrats weighing a possible short-term extension, setting the stage for another fight with Republicans over how to pay for it.  

And there's the problem, or at least the most glaring problem.

President Obama and (presumably) Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted to offset the extension of the payroll tax holiday, which would benefit 160 million workers, by imposing a surtax on income over $1 million, that is, on millionaires. Republicans love tax cuts but, plutocrats that they are, opposed any such tax increase on the wealthy. (Their priority is tax cuts for the wealthy, not tax cuts for everyone else.)

Instead of fighting for the tax cuts for 160 million people, though, Democrats capitulated, taking the surtax off the table and thereby giving up their main bargaining chip.

The spending bill will go through, but, needless to say, the payroll tax holiday battle will continue, with the GOP now holding the upper hand. Democrats are reportedly "considering a plan that would find savings in other ways, including fees on the federal housing finance agencies, and could seek to end certain deductions and other tax benefits for millionaires," but, with Democrats committed to the payroll tax holiday extension, it looks like Republicans will be able to get what they want out of this: not a surtax on millionaires and nothing else that would in any way increase the tax "burden" on millionaires but spending cuts of some kind.

How the hell did this happen? Over to you, Charles Pierce:

Oh, they have made a day of it. First, the pillars of Jell-O in the Senate roll over on the itty-bitty surtax they wanted to lay on the plutocrats to pay for a payroll tax cut for the rest of us. Then, the president announces that he's not going to veto after all the bill in which 400 years of Western jurisprudence is pretty much torn to ribbons and tossed to the wind, albeit slightly less deeply into the wind than the original monstrosity would have liked. And, finally, Ron Wyden of Oregon steps forward to give cover to zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan's latest attempt to "reform" Medicare in the same way that Arthur (Bomber) Harris "reformed" the building codes in Dresden. It's a Very Special Holiday Episode of the long-running hit comedy, Ah, Who Gives a Fk Anyway?

This is an outrage. This is borderline sociopathic. This is so gloriously suicidal that I keep waiting for an angel to come down from heaven to show David Plouffe and Harry Reid what Washington would be like if they'd never been born.

**********

It cannot be emphasized enough. Of the three issues under discussion, the polling data on two of them simply could not be clearer. The American people want taxes raised on the very wealthiest among us, and the American people do not want Paul Ryan's clammy hands anywhere near the Medicare program. Public opinion is (distressingly) ambivalent on the detainee provisions, but it's not overly popular with the people who have to implement it, and it has retired Marine generals throwing bricks at it, and, dammit, the president taught constitutional law, or so we are told repeatedly.

None of these "compromises" will solve a single one of the country's critical problems. None of these "compromises" will create a single job. All they will do is toss away almost every one of the major political advantages the Democratic party has going into the 2012 elections. My god, six months ago, Paul Ryan was a squawking albatross around his party's neck. (Remember how he said he'd "given up fear for Lent," and then proceeded to start charging people a fee to come to his town meetings, and setting the cops on constituents who showed up at his office while he was on vacation? Ah, thim was the days.) The "Ryan Plan" was well on its way to being an anchor. Now, thanks to the Democrats, and to a preposterously compliant elite political press, Ryan's rehabilitation is nearly complete. Nice work, fellas.

Here's a tip, gang: The American people are not angry at government because people yell at each other and nothing ever gets done. The American people are angry because people yell at each other and nothing the American people really want ever gets done. They want higher taxes on billionaires. They want Medicare kept out of the hands of the vandals. If they think about it a little, they even like their jurisprudence with a little habeas corpus sprinkled on top. Instead, they get endless platitudes, and the steady, futile placating of an insatiable political opposition.

Yes, well done. (And brilliantly put, Mr. Pierce.) Democrats willingly relinquish the advantage, to the extent they ever really had it, on winning issues (both in policy and electoral terms), and, while the government stays open, we end up with a convoluted appropriations bill that is heavily Republican.

Yeah, Merry fucking Christmas.

**********

I'm with my friend Libby on this: "I understand the need for pragmatic compromise. But this isn't compromise, it's the same devious cave-in to placate the plutocrats. It's not only spineless, it's stupid. I'm really sick of stupid."

Unfortunately, stupid is all we've got.

Rick Perry says he'd "uproot, tear down, and rebuild" Washington

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

Casting Washington as a latter-day Roman Empire, bloated and "mired in ruin," Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled a drastic plan to overhaul the federal government Tuesday in a policy speech in Iowa.

"It is time to tear down the monuments to bureaucratic failure, and in their place build a smaller, more efficient federal government that puts the American people first," Perry said at a manufacturing facility in Bettendorf. "The Washington insiders won't address Beltway decay, they won't try a totally new way, because they like things as they are."

And he'd do this how? Though the sheer force of his intellect and powers of persuasion? He talks as if he knows how Washington works, but he really seems to have no clue whatsoever. As Steve Benen writes:

Perhaps Perry hasn't thought about all of this. Perhaps he has and he doesn't care. After all, as E.J. Dionne explained this week, we're talking about a GOP presidential candidate whose platform is based on "mindless opposition to government."

Either way, the fact that Perry thinks his "uproot and overhaul" plan is a good idea speaks volumes about his vacuous ideology.

Vacuous. And unconstitutional.

And utterly at odds with the requirements of modern governance. If you actually want America to remain strong, and able to address the myriad challenges it faces both domestic and foreign, a part-time Congress filled with inexperienced and unqualified legislators isn't exactly the best place to start.

But, then, it's hard to take any of this seriously. All he's really doing is throwing yet more red meat to the right-wing carnivores who make up the hardcore GOP base, his core constituency, and his only shot at the nomination.

So you wanted proof that Republican priorities are all out of whack?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Consider this:

President Obama invoked God on Wednesday as he criticized Congress for voting on commemorative coins and a resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto in all public buildings, public schools and other government institutions.

"That's not putting people back to work," Obama said. "I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people to work."

Obama called on Congress to approve his jobs package.

"There's no excuse for 100 percent of Washington Republicans to say no," Obama said. "That means Republicans in Washington are out of touch with Republican voters."

Obama continued: "The American people are with me on this."

I don't share Obama's religiosity, but otherwise he's right about this. The country is in trouble. People are out of work and struggling to make ends meet, if they even have enough to struggle with. Obama is trying to do something about that. The overwhelming majority of the American people are with him, as are many Republicans. 

But Republicans on Capitol Hill, extremists and obstructionists the lot of them, are too busy trying to score cheap political points by playing up their theocratic "patriotism" -- the last refuge of the right-wing scoundrel.

Does John McCain take his orders from Rush Limbaugh?

By Nicholas Wilbur

Sen. John McCain supported the intervention in Libya. He heralded the killing of Osama bin Laden. He supports continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he believes Syria should be the next target of a military intervention.

But those Africans who are being slaughtered by the Lord's Resistance Army?

Not. Worth. It.

After President Obama announced that he would be sending 100 military advisors into Central Africa, McCain had this to say:

I worry that with the best of intentions, that somehow we get engaged in a commitment that we can't get out of. That's happened before in our history and we need an explanation, and I’m very disappointed, again, that the administration has not consulted with members of Congress before taking such action.

Here's the explanation: The Lord's Resistance Army, "a notorious renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with impunity," is currently killing, raping, maiming, and kidnapping with impunity.

Here are the facts about the Obama administration consulting Congress: In May 2010, the United States Congress sent the "Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act" to President Obama to sign into law, which he did, on May 24. The bill passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by a voice vote in the House. 

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a lead sponsor of the Senate measure, recently told The Hill, "We had 64 co-sponsors. That's the most in the history of the Senate on an Africa-related bill."

"I would have been disappointed" had Obama opted against sending U.S. troops there, Inhofe said, according to The Hill. "It's not that we mandated the president to act; we requested him to do it. I take full responsibility for that. I don't hang that on the president at all."

Got that? Congress already approved this mission – to the tune of $10 million a year through FY2013.

We know Rush Limbaugh thinks the Lord's Resistance Army is a group of "Christians" fighting to "remove dictatorships and stop the oppression of our people." But what Limbaugh thinks just so happens to be wrong.

What's your excuse, John?    

You supported liberating the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. You supported liberating the people of Libya. Now you want to liberate the people of Syria and possibly even Iran.

Why not the people of Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic?

Are you taking orders from conservative pundits, or is the mass murder of black people just not that big of a concern? As I recall, you were against military interventions in Somalia in 1993 and Haiti in 1994, as well...

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Bifurcated democracy

By Carl 

This was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:

OUR nation isn't facing just a debt crisis; it's facing a democracy crisis. For weeks, the federal government has been hurtling toward two unsavory options: a crippling default brought on by Congressional gridlock, or — as key Democrats have advocated — a unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by an unchecked president. Even if the last-minute deal announced on Sunday night holds together, it’s become clear that the balance at the heart of the Constitution is under threat.

The debate has threatened to play out as a destructive but all too familiar two-step, revealing how dysfunctional the relationship between Congress and the president has become. 

The article talks about how presidents have decided to exercise power unilaterally, like Obama's Libyan adventures (although the practice goes back decades to Reagan and even Nixon,) while the Congress has been unable to rally itself to challenge the President's usurpation of power. Either the Congress is divided (like now) or reinforces the person holding the Oval Office (as under Bush the Younger).

This is what the punditry tells us we want, over and over again: divided government. Given what we've experienced for over three decades now (absent the six years of Bush the Younger) is this really what we want? An ineffectual Congress hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority and a Presidency who usurps power like a king?

Mind you, none of this is partisan: Republicans and Democrats have been to blame in BOTH branches. Clinton was forced to legislate by executive order, much as Obama is. Both Bushes declared wars without making a firm case to the American people as to the need for them (this wasn't dominoes toppling or any such credible threat.) Reagan tossed American troops around like candy and American armaments to enemies.

In Congress, John Boehner can't even get a centerpiece of legislation passed trying to keep the party's dog-and-pony show from tearing each other up. When Pelosi was in charge, she had to placate Blue Dog Democrats, rather than muscle them into line.

Hell, about the only thing any Congress since 1990 has been able to agree upon is that Bill Clinton needed to be impeached and a bunch of Asian deserts bombed!

This has effectively emasculated an entire branch of government. Power seeks a vacuum. It's almost understandable that the president would unilaterally legislate.

Plus, members of Congress don't have to take a stand on anything controversial. Take the EPA actions earlier this year to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, long time readers of this blog know there are few people more concerned with global climate change than me. Maybe Al Gore. So while I don't have a problem with Obama taking the bull by the fumes... so to speak... I worry about the fact that Congress didn't vote on this.

Note: it wasn't voted down. The bill stalled before a vote could be taken. It's probably still in the hamper, waiting to be aired out. Look at what this saves Republicans from, say, Montana, where people believe climate change is real and a problem. The party would insist they vote against the EPA actions. Their constituencies would say "We need a better Congresscritter." No responsibility, yet they can parade around touting how angry they are that they didn't get their say.

The more a controversial issue remains undecided, and the more critical that issue becomes, the less likely it is Congress will ever actually take action. And the more likely it is they will cede that issue to the Executive branch. Fine for a liberal like me when a semi-liberal like Obama is in charge, but what happens when another Dumbya hits the Oval Office? One a little more clever?

Congress will still feel this is expedient.

But it is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for an economy, it is unhealthy for a Constitution and it is deep unhealthy for a society and its people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

CBO says GOP's negotiating skills MIA on budget deal

By Nicholas Wilbur

The Republicans' hard-fought battle to curb the "ballooning deficit" and "reign in excessive government spending" backfired in the worst kind of way this week.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office delivered the knockout blow to the party of fiscal conservatism on Monday morning, when it published an updated estimate of the actual savings agreed to in the bi-partisan budget deal that avoided a government shutdown in early April.

Republicans were already sour over the deal, which both parties claimed would cut $38.5 billion in spending from this fiscal year's budget (or approximately $78 billion compared to the president's budget request, which was never enacted). A quarter of the most conservative Republicans in the House voted against the measure on the basis that the cuts didn't come close to the $61 billion (or approximately $100 billion) they promised their constituency during the midterm election campaigns. Since the agreement was reached, the news has only grown more disappointing.

On the eve of Congress' vote to enact the "budget compromise," the CBO issued a report estimating that the actual savings from the alleged $38.5 billion in cuts would come out to more like $352 million (not billion). The discrepancy was due to lawmakers increasing spending for certain defense programs and including both unspent budget allocations and rescissions (programs whose funds were already cancelled by Congress) in their budget savings calculations.

Most recently, the CBO issued a revised report projecting that spending reductions actually would result in a net increase in government spending – to the tune of $3.2 billion. According to the report, the estimated cuts to non-military spending totaled only $4.4 billion, or approximately 90 percent below the $38.5 billion Republicans believed they were agreeing to, as a compromise, in order to avoid a government shutdown.

Rather than decreasing the deficit and cutting wasteful government spending, Republicans passed a bill that actually increased spending and added to the deficit.

So much for fiscal conservatism.

So much for campaign promises.

And so much for the ol' reliable campaign tactic of labeling Democrats as spend-thrift socialists bent on turning American into a broken and bankrupted welfare state. It will be painfully amusing to watch the GOP try to justify how they managed to fight for three months over a budget they claimed didn't do enough to address the country's apocalyptically high deficit, only to settle on a deal that actually increased the deficit.

On the other hand, if it's true that nothing in politics happens accidentally, then it's entirely possible that Republicans are gearing up for another massive swipe of Democratic seats in Congress, this time by appealing to the left-wingers who believe, with good reason, that government spending during a time of nominal growth is the best remedy for an ailing economy.

I wouldn't count on it, but that's a better justification for achieving the opposite of the party's stated intentions than walking up to the podium at a press conference and explaining in congratulatory prose how President Obama's negotiating skills are so monumentally superior to those of the GOP.

"We were as shocked as you were" isn't exactly a campaign motto that will rile the base in 2012.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Top Ten Cloves: Things overheard during last night's SOTU

By J. Thomas Duffy

News Item: Obama's Second State of the Union (Text)

10. "We should pass a bill that mandates the SOTU be like Twitter -- 140 characters or less."

9. "I see that Kucinich brought his own sandwich tonight."

8. "Being the Bears fan that he is, I heard he might give Jay Cutler a medal or something."

7. "What's going to happen first, Joe Biden falling asleep or John Boehner crying?"

6. Someone claims Joe Wilson shouted out "Only thing missing is the Mighty Mouse theme music."

5. "Hey, get this, John Thune is going around telling people no way is he going to invest in Sputni."

4. "Well, at least Paul Ryan doesn't look like that 30 Rock page guy.)

3. "Did you see Palin called Reagan "America's Lifeguard" the other day? Is she trying to say Obama belongs at that Pennsylvania swimming club?"

2. "What's the difference between Obama and Taco Bell's meat? Nothing -- neither Taco Bell nor his speech has much beef."

1. "Instead of letting the Tea Party have her, maybe we should have Bachmann give our official response. What's the worst that could happen?"

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Earmark this, Teabaggers!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So the Teabagging Republicans are so very fiscally responsible, right? And, putting principle before politics, they're so very much against all those politics-as-usual earmarks, right? Er, not so much:

Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

"It's disturbing to see the Tea Party Caucus requested that much in earmarks. This is their time to put up or shut up, to be blunt," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "There's going to be a huge backlash if they continue to request earmarks."

Well, they're not going to shut up, but I doubt they'll put up either. They'll play the anti-earmark card if they think it can win them votes, but ultimately they'll all figure out that winning votes back home means bringing home as much bacon as possible.

But there'll only be a backlash if they're not given a free pass by the media, and if their partisan hypocrisy is exposed for what it is.

Behind the rhetoric, it's still politics as usual, just with an extreme right-wing twist.

Whither Democrats?

By Carl 

Last night's debacle is over. It actually ended up better than I feared. When I went to bed, MSNBC was projecting a net gain of 80 seats in the House. It ended up less than 60, which means we stole back 20 seats from the jaws of defeat.

So what to make of this difficult election? I thought I'd follow up yesterday's critique of Obama with a critique of Congress.

Let's look back for a moment and see what could have been done better.

First, the legislative agenda was completely screwed up, and for that, we have to blame Pelosi and Reid. There should have been a meeting between Reid, Pelosi and Obama in December of 2008 that set priorities, and I'm betting there was.

But the follow up was sorely lacking and it showed. Reid and Pelosi, but mostly Reid, should have caucused with the Democrats and hammered home a final bill for healthcare reform, the bank bailout and the stimulus package. That they got all this accomplished in the first two years is a testament to the will of Obama's underlings to get him re-elected, but Obama's presidency was never about the first term.

It was about the first two years: the golden moment when he'd own Congress.

I understand the laxity. After all, you had a bulletproof majority in the House and a near-bulletproof majority in the Senate. But near bulletproof is not bulletproof and the second any politician senses an opportunity to grab more power, he or she is going to do so.

It was mission critical for Obama that Senators like Nelson and Lincoln (who thankfully lost last night) and Congresscritters like Bart Stupak be brought into the fold and a unified front be presented to the nation and the Republicans.

Had the people of America seen the bills as pre-packaged law, they would have known that Democrats had things under control and would have felt better about the future. Likely, Dems would have retained both houses comfortably.

But there's more: someone over there needs to take control of getting everyone on message.

Say what you will about the GOP: they may be brutish nasty little fucks, but they're ALL brutish nasty little fucks with the same message.

Here's what should have happened.

The second wave of bank bailouts, a follow up to Bush's short-sighted and selfish money pit, should have been rolled out first. It should have been called or at least characterized "Emergency (Rescue works even better) Liquidity Loans."

"Loans" being the operative word. Then as each bank repaid the Fed, Obama should have held a schmaltzy ceremony with an oversize check made out to Uncle Sam which included the amount loaned and interest. A photo op proving that the economy was getting back on its feet.

People know what a "bailout" means. It means that you have low expectations of getting your money back, that it's a gift.

Next up, tackle the stimulus bill. It has to follow quickly, and the reason these all should have been pre-packaged was to avoid the shambles of Senators trying to get a bigger piece of the pie.

Two points should have been hammered home in the passage of this bill: one, it contained the single largest tax cut in American history ($300 billion) for 95% of Americans, and it was being passed by Democrats, not Republicans. That should have been the centerpiece of the discussion of the bill and not the "shovel-ready projects" nonsense that was featured.

Second, the additional stimulus spending was given to state and local governments to spend on projects most critical to them. "Shovel-ready" to me meant that these were projects that in an already declining economy, those governments had committed to seeing thru. They were critical. Additional funding would allow those projects to expand without the need for local revenue, freeing those to retain teachers and firefighters. They should have been called "critical repairs" or "vital infrastructure," with images of the I-35 collapse played over and over again on the TeeVee.

"Shovel-ready" to other people just sounded like a pile of horseshit waiting to be moved.

The most important political reason this bill needed to be passed quickly was to get the money into the hands of people. The most important political reason to pass it in the fashion I suggested was to force the GOP to oppose a tax cut. Highlight that fact, early and often, and you can run a year later on that opposition. Also, it blunts the Teabaggers' most effective and contrived weapon.

One more point on this bill: the deficits were out of control, it's true. What the Democrats should have pointed out, and much much more forcefully, is that when Obama took over, the national debt stood at $11 trillion and will come in around $13 trillion this year.

When Bush took over, the national debt was $6 trillion. That's right, Bush's tax cuts and war-mongering cost us $5 trillion, with no consummate spike in economic activity (Bush actually ran a negative job growth figure until 2005, despite his enormous expansion of the government AND three tax cuts). This lays the groundwork for two things: one, this spending is necessary and two, we're going to have to adjust taxes to account for it.

Third, healthcare reform. As I pointed out yesterday, it took a year from proposal to passage. THat was too long, for a very important logistical reason: implementation of even the simplest parts took six months.

Had the bill been passed in the fall of 2009, or better still, the spring, Congress would have had real success stories coming out of HCR. Denial of coverage would have been a thing of the past. Children would be allowed to stay on their parents' plans. On those alone, much good would have been reported upon. Think about the economy and how if people could take money they were spending on emergency healthcare and spend it on paying down the mortgage or even finding some way to buy a few nice things, we'd have an economy primed for recovery already.

It would already have encouraged maintaining good health over specialized care, which to me will be the most important element of the bill. A free mammogram is going to be cheaper for everyone than an uninsured's mastectomy. That's just common sense, and that portion of HCR would be in effect already.

The Democratic leadership blew the roll-out of the Obama agenda and as such, deserved the losses they suffered.

But what to do going forward?

Undoubtedly Boehner will try to push thru some of the Teabagger agenda of lowering taxes and cutting spending. He'll fail miserably at it, but some legislation will get thru, and will get stoned in the Senate.

He'll fail because there really isn't much spending to cut and cutting revenues now will only serve to lower an already decrepit tax revenue stream. Something like 60-70% of Federal expenditures are for defense or Social Security and Medicare.

If you'll recall, much of the Teabagger anger was at "keeping government hands off my Medicare!"

Yeah, so Boehner tries it, and he'll see an uprising.

I'm tempted to say to the Dems in the House, sit back and enjoy the show. But there's an opportunity here to mediate the conflict, and to come off as the party of reason between the oligarchists and the populists. This, along with Obama's coattails in 2012, should be enough to recapture the House, if they finally find a message mill who can frame the discussion for them (I'm available, of course).

Keep pointing out that the House was never in this much disarray under Pelosi, that the Congress got more accomplished for the American people and should have earned their trust (for the reasons I mentioned above) but were so focused on doing good work that Democrats forgot we needed to polish up our resumes.

In the Senate, well, I hope they oust Reid as Majority Leader, but I don't see it happening. What Reid needs to do is to hand off the public face of the Democratic leadership to another, more popular Senator. Feinstein's an interesting choice for this, so is Schumer, but my dark horse here is NY's other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand. She has centrist chops, to be sure, but she's photogenic and has shown a capacity to understand and execute orders. Failing that, Patrick Leahy or Amy Klobuchar would make excellent major domos.

Legislatively, there's an opportunity to pull off a surprise: work with Rand Paul. Bernie Sanders, the Socialist from Vermont, surprisingly had a good rapport with Paul's father, Ron and claimed he was able to work with him. Ask Sanders to approach Rand in the same fashion, and the 2012 campaign can be blunted by pointing to Rand Paul's cooperation with Dems.

The Senate under Reid for the next two years will be the Senate under Reid for the past two years: a place where bills go to die (unless they water them down). With a majority party in opposition in the House, this should be a pretty dull Senate session.

I can't recall a situation in recent memory where the Senate was firmly held by one party and the House by the other. This ought to be an interesting two years.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Wait, what was shoved down whose throats?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

John Cole calmly debunks the whole "Democrats are shoving health-care reform down our throats" nonsense that made up so much of the anti-reform Republican spin:

The bill was passed with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, as required by law and Senate rules. It was then passed in the House by majority rule and in accordance with all House Rules.

It was done so by a Democratic majority elected sixteen months ago along with a Democratic President who campaigned daily on Health Care reform, and who received the most votes in the history of American elections and won by the widest margin in decades.

The bill was crafted quite openly, after a year and a half of public debate, and the exact Senate bill that was passed in the House [on Sunday] has been available for people to read and discuss for three entire months. This was the slowest, most open, most thoroughly discussed piece of legislation in my lifetime.

Anyone who says this was "rammed down" anyone's throats simply does not know what they are talking about.

There you go. That's how it was. The truth wins out. Republicans are full of shit.

(h/t: our friend Mustang Bobby)

So you think you might like to go to a Tea Party protest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Be prepared. Things can get ugly. Fast:

Abusive, derogatory and even racist behavior directed at House Democrats by Tea Party protesters on Saturday left several lawmakers in shock.

Preceding the president's speech to a gathering of House Democrats, thousands of protesters descended around the Capitol to protest the passage of health care reform. The gathering quickly turned into abusive heckling, as members of Congress passing through Longworth House office building were subjected to epithets and even mild physical abuse.

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

Read that again. Take it all in.

And tell me that the Teabaggers are just patriotic, independent-minded Americans who love their country and who deserve all the Fox News cheerleading and all the positive, disproportionate coverage they get on CNN and elsewhere in the mainstream media -- that they're all just about taxes and "small" government.

No, they're about yelling "nigger" at a hero of the Civil Rights movement and "faggot" at a prominent gay politician. In other words, there's a darker side to them -- to who they are and to what they stand for -- and it's bigotry, plain and simple.

We've even had a commenter here, an anonymous one (of course), who resorted to ad hominem attacks and bigotry. (I've deleted those comments and will continue to do so.)

Just remember, though, these bigots haven't been shunned from the mainstream of American politics. On the right, among many conservatives, they're hailed as American heroes, as the voices of true Americanism. And while they are certainly extremist, they are becoming more and more the mainstream of the Republican Party. Far from being independent, they are trying to take over the GOP just as the GOP tries to co-opt them along with their fractious "movement" for the sake not just of electoral gain but of partisan purification.

What happened on Capitol Hill yesterday -- how the protesters behaved, what they did and said, the sheer ugliness of it all -- shouldn't surprise anyone. It's what these people, and their "movement," and, more and more, the party they align with, are all about.

As I put it almost a year ago:

The tea partiers and their cheerleaders would have us believe that what is happening now is as revolutionary as what happened way back when in Boston. Which is, of course, sheer nonsense. Today's tea parties are nothing more than contrived outlets for manufactured right-wing populist rage. To suggest otherwise, and to buy into the right-wing spin, on Fox and elsewhere, is to diminish the significance of the American Revolution and to sully the very purpose of America as an experiment in democratic self-rule and as a bulwark against tyranny.

Once again, as we see so often on the right, those supposedly fighting for America, these "patriots," are actually, unwittingly or not, working to undermine it.

In screaming bigoted obscenities, on top of everything else, they're just proving themselves to be the deeply un-American crackpots we knew them to be.

What the %#&@? (Or, what's up with health-care reform? And what are the Democrats doing?)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Earlier today, Major Garrett, Fox News's man in the White House, reported that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said [that] President Obama will soon propose a health care bill that will be 'much smaller' than the House bill but 'big enough' to put the country on a 'path' toward health care reform," and that, furthermore, "[a] senior administration official told Fox Obama's proposal will be introduced Wednesday."

In other words, bad news for those of us who support meaningful, comprehensive health-care reform and who, because of that, want the Democrats to get it done already (by having the House pass the Senate bill and the Senate patch that bill with improvements through reconciliation).

It seems, though, that Garrett/Fox got it wrong. An update to his story clarifies the point:

White House and Democratic sources hasten to add late today that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not mean to suggest the new plan would constitute a retreat from comprehensive health care reform.

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said the speaker was trying to say the new Obama health care proposal would take its policy cues from the Senate health bill and the ideas Obama posted online a week ago.

Elshami did not deny Pelosi's comments about a "much smaller" bill could fairly be interpreted as suggesting a step back from the Senate bill. Instead, Pelosi has come to regard the Senate bill itself as "much smaller" than the House bill, Elshami said.

Well, that's sort of clearer, anyway. TNR's Jonathan Cohn, who has his ear to the ground, clarifies further:

I checked with Pelosi's office, though, and that interpretation seems to be wrong. Via e-mail, spokesperson Brendan Daly says

The Speaker was referring to the compromise between the House and the Senate that the President unveiled last week--not a new smaller bill.  As she has said repeatedly, she is committed to passing comprehensive health insurance reform.

This is consistent with the message Pelosi and her lieutenants sent over the weekend in a series of television interviews.

If somebody is going to back away from comprehensive reform, it won't be Pelosi.

Well, okay. Cohn knows what he's talking about, and I'm hoping he's right. I just don't see how Obama could seriously come forward with an even weaker bill at this point, not with so much of his liberal-progressive base on the verge of abandoning him altogether (he hardly needs to hand the base such a clear final straw), and not given the current state of play, which, as Cohn reports, is that "the odds for passage are higher than they have been at any time since January":

The steady, if slow, progress since the Massachusetts election has been unmistakable. After an initial period of confusion and listlessness, the administration and congressional leadership have made clear their intentions to continue pursuing comprehensive reform rather than scale back their ambitions. (The statements to that effect were particularly strong on the Sunday morning talk shows.) No less important, they have nearly finished working out a compromise between the House and Senate bills, including changes to the Senate bill that can pass through the reconciliation process.

Still unresolved is the question of sequence. The White House and the Senate want the House to pass the full Senate bill first, with reconciliation changes to follow. They believe this is preferable both politically and procedurally. The House has repeatedly rejected the idea: Its members don't trust the Senate to to do its part and actually pass the reconciliation changes.

So it's partly a matter of Democrats getting their act together and figuring out how best to proceed, and partly a matter of putting the 217 (now 216) votes together in the House.

Are the Democrats really so incompetent that they can't get that done -- what with solid majorites on the Hill and one of their own in the White House?

If they can't, and if they therefore insist on committing political suicide, I'm not sure they deserve the privilege of governing.

Do Dems have the votes for the public option?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

He isn't a Democrat, but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont certainly thinks so.

I think we do have 50 votes in the Senate for a public option and frankly I don't know why the president has not put it in and I hope that we can inject it. I think it's a very important part of healthcare reform.

This is in direct opposition to the White House's claim that the votes just aren't there.

I'm torn, I must admit. While I would like to see a bill with a public option be signed into law -- it would, after all, make for much more meaningful reform -- I understand Obama's preference that the House pass the Senate bill as is (that is, without a public option) and then that modifications (but not the addition of a public option) be made through reconciliation.

And I repeat what I wrote the other day:

Or maybe they are, or at least could be with enough prodding, but maybe securing them, in both the House and Senate, would take too much time, and require too much prodding, too much additional compromise, too much playing off of competing Democratic interests, not least in a challenging mid-term election year.

And maybe the White House thinks that pushing through a more robust reform bill, one with a public option, by way of reconciliation would undermine the president's ability to sell reform as something other than a solo partisan effort. We all know what the public thinks of partisanship. We also know what it thinks of reform -- unpopular within the context of legislative sausage-making, much more popular when the specifics are known. And we know that the media are spinning reconciliation as a dirty word. So how would passing a reform bill, even one with a popular public option, through what is perceived to be partisan trickery benefit Obama, not least given how Republicans would undoubtedly propagandize against both the process and the substance? And how would it benefit Democrats running for re-election in November?

At this point, in other words, it may just be a matter of brutal political calculation. In a perfect world, maybe Obama would have pushed vigorously for the public option and would be demanding it now. But it's hardly perfect in Washington, and the key is get this done as soon as possible so that what would be major historic achievement could be communicated to the public well ahead of the midterms and so that Congress, and the Democrats specifically, could move on.

Don't get me wrong. This is not what I want. It's just what I think is realistically possible in the short term -- and what would benefit Democrats without excessive risk of the whole thing unravelling.

And part of the problem is that the situation in Congress is so unclear. Sanders says the votes are there, but Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa says they're probably not: "I hate to say it, but I am not certain we're going to be able to get a public option in this bill."

But if now is not the time, the time will come. Harkin:

That doesn't mean we stop trying... I keep reminding people that this bill is not written in stone, like the Ten Commandments, for ever and ever. This is a law, it's a bill, we change laws all the time around here -- that's what we do.

And so, whatever happens now:

At some point, we're going to revisit the public option, I can assure you of that.

Which is what many of us have been saying all along. Indeed, I have often referred to this admittedly flawed bill as a possible thin end of the wedge that could lead to significant supplementary reform down the road, if not in the very near future.

As Chris Bowers puts it: "To strengthen your negotiating position, and to prepare for future fights, it is important to round up as much support as possible."

Those fights are coming, whether Republicans like it or not, and I suspect there will continue to be significant and perhaps increasing popular support for the public option going forward.

And so while the push for the public option must continue, and while the temperature of the Senate must be taken, the current political reality both in Washington and across the country must not be ignored. Given that reality, what needs to be done is for Democrats to get this done now.

How Obama's strategy on health-care reform makes perfect sense even as the lack of White House leadership continues to be a significant obstacle

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not sure I agree with Glenn Greenwald that the absence of the public option in the White House's new health-care reform compromise is proof of Obama's opposition to the public option:

It now seems obvious that White House's claim of support for the public option was a pretense used to placate the progressive base (in fact, it seems committed to excluding the public option very likely because it would provide real competition to the health insurance industry and is thus vehemently opposed by the industry and its lobbyists).

Let me stress that I'm not sure what Obama supports and what he doesn't -- who is sure, outside of Obama and his inner circle? -- though I tend to take him at his word that he would prefer reform with a public option. But I simply do not accept that his various public utterances in support of the public option have all been part of some grandiose "pretense," a Machiavellian plot to delude progressives.

What we know about Obama is that he is a ruthless realist. Whatever his ideals, whatever his principles, he is fully aware of what is possible, or of what seems to be possible, and he generally operates/governs within the parameters of that realism. That's how he was as a candidate and it's how he is as president.

Now, where I am deeply critical of Obama is in the area of leadership. As Ezra Klein writes:

This has been a complete and utter failure of White House leadership. They need to give this effort their support, or they need to kill it by publicly stating their opposition. But they can't simply wait for someone else to make the decision for them, which has been their strategy until now.

That failure continues. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs may very well be right that the votes just aren't there for the public option, but the problem is that the White House -- President Obama himself -- never pushed for it in any meaningful way. What was said behind closed doors I don't know, and he may well have pushed for it privately, but he never came out publicly and demanded a public option or else, using his bully pulpit to move public opinion, providing the sort of determined leadership Democrats needed.

That alone wouldn't have guaranteed success, of course, but at least the public option would have had a good shot. Now? Not.

Ezra explains:

For supporters of the strategy [to use reconciliation for the public option], that's not going to be very satisfying: Maybe there would be more supporters if the president took up the cause! It will also intensify the efforts of activists who want to prove that there is sufficient support, which means individual senators will be under even more pressure to sign the letter, which means this isn't likely to go away quietly. The White House is using the Senate as a sort of human shield here.

For opponents of the strategy, Gibbs's comments will be taken as evidence that the White House opposes the effort. I think that's actually the right interpretation, particularly given that Gibbs later emphasized Obama's intention to discuss "consensus ideas" Thursday, but it would be nice if the White House would just say what it means rather than leaving people to guess.

In other words, Obama opposes the "effort" to pass the public option through reconciliation but, if I may add to Ezra's analysis, not necessarily the public option itself (insofar as that matters at this point).

We may be critical of Obama's conservative approach to reform, of his stultifying realism, of the utter lack of leadership on the president's part, but I suspect that the White House is driven by the desire for success, and by the view that passing the compromise (and admittedly flawed) Senate bill (with appropriate modifications to appease the House) stands the best chance of success given the current political situation.

And why is that? Because the votes really might not be there. Or maybe they are, or at least could be with enough prodding, but maybe securing them, in both the House and Senate, would take too much time, and require too much prodding, too much additional compromise, too much playing off of competing Democratic interests, not least in a challenging mid-term election year.

And maybe the White House thinks that pushing through a more robust reform bill, one with a public option, by way of reconciliation would undermine the president's ability to sell reform as something other than a solo partisan effort. We all know what the public thinks of partisanship. We also know what it thinks of reform -- unpopular within the context of legislative sausage-making, much more popular when the specifics are known. And we know that the media are spinning reconciliation as a dirty word. So how would passing a reform bill, even one with a popular public option, through what is perceived to be partisan trickery benefit Obama, not least given how Republicans would undoubtedly propagandize against both the process and the substance? And how would it benefit Democrats running for re-election in November?

I certainly think that, in the long run, Democrats would benefit politically/electorally from health-care reform. Ultimately, the success and popularity of reform would win out.

But, for now, at this moment, given the current political reality, Obama's clear preference that the Senate bill be passed, with modifications addressed through reconciliation, is completely understandable. It is not what I would have preferred, and a big part of me does wish Democrats would bring back the public option, with or without Obama's support, but, at the same time, I just don't think that this reality can be denied. As Jon Chait writes:

Health care reform is still hanging on for dear life in the House. The dynamic is that the Democrats are going to lose some votes from pro-life members who insist on Bart Stupak's language. They need to make up the votes by persuading Blue Dog and other centrist Democrats who voted no for the original bill to vote yes this time. Many of those centrists said at the time of their original vote that they preferred the Senate bill and opposed the public option. Restoring the public option, aside form sucking up a lot of time by introducing another big fight, would greatly complicate this already-complicated task.

That's why Jay Rockefeller opposes adding the public option to the bill at this point. Rockefeller is the author of the public option. So it seems like the fear that reopening this debate will sink the whole bill really is the reason for the administration's reluctance. Or maybe Rockefeller's in on the pretense, too.

This seems to me to be the correct interpretation. Steve Benen adds:

I realize that Gibbs's response today seems unexpected, but it doesn't strike me as all that surprising -- if the White House thought the votes were there for a public option, the administration would have included the idea in the proposal unveiled yesterday. The fact that the president's version of reform didn't include the idea should have made it pretty clear that the White House thinks, correctly or not, that public option support remains insufficient.

I should note, though, that Gibbs's comments need not be the end of the public option. The White House is under the impression that the votes just aren't there to pass this specific measure, but if proponents on and off the Hill want to prove otherwise, there's still time to do just that. Gibbs didn't say the president opposes the public option -- Obama has said repeatedly he supports the idea, and would like to see it in the final bill -- he just said he thinks the public option lacks the support it needs in Congress.

If public option advocates want to prove Gibbs wrong, now's their chance.

To repeat, there is the distinct risk that such a move could meet with serious popular disapproval. But that's not to say Democrats shouldn't try. If the votes are really there, they should go for it -- and communicate to the public just why they're doing what they're doing. But if not, or if it would be overly costly or challenging, they should do what Obama proposes, which would at least give them a historic accomplishment to run on, major legislation to call their own, and which would benefit the American people with meaningful change to a health-care system that is unfair, unjust, and economically destructive.

Let's just be realistic about what can be done.