Where's the Outrage?

Several months ago, I pointed all of my readers to a simple graphic that the New York Times had on their website. It was an interactive graphic in which you could fix the budget. I’d like to return to this graphic and show how very simple it is to fix the budget with some simple fixes. If you do not adhere to rigid ideology we can fix this. Remember, our goal is a combination of short-term and long-term savings.

Domestic Programs and Foreign Aid

Cut foreign aid in half – we can save $17 billion. Let’s hold on this for now. I think that foreign aid is extremely important.
Eliminate earmarks – yes, we need to eliminate earmarks. I just don’t see that earmarks helps us or our democracy. This saves $14 billion.
Eliminate farm subsidies – since most of our farm subsidies go to large corporations, I don’t think that this really helps us. Cutting this will save us another $14 billion.
Cutting paper civilian federal workers by 5% – this would save $14 billion in the short term and $17 billion in the long term. I don’t think this helps our financial situation and it hurts federal workers. I would not support this.
Reduce the federal workforce by 10% – this would save $12 billion in the short term and $15 billion in the long term. Cutting jobs hurts the economy. I wouldn’t do it.
Cut 250,000 government contractors – I would do this. This would save $17 billion both in the short term and the long term.
Cutting other federal programs – this would include reducing funds to the Smithsonian and cutting our National Park Service. This would add up to $30 billion both in the short term and in the long term. I do not support this.
Cutting aid to states by 5% – this would save $29 billion in the short term and $42 billion in the long-term. States are hurting. By cutting aid to states, states will then turn around and cut jobs. This will hurt our long-term growth. I would not support it.

Military

Reduce nuclear arsenal and space spending – this would reduce our near-term deficit by $19 billion and our long-term deficit by $38 billion. This would reduce our nuclear warheads from around 2002 closer to 1000. I do support this.
Reduce military to pre-war size and further reduce troops in Asia and Europe – this would save $25 billion in the short term and $49 billion in the long term. I think that this is a must.
Reduce Navy and Air Force fleets – this would reduce the Navy by 48 ships and retire 37 ships early. The Air Force would retire two tactical fighter wings and reduce the number of fighter jets that are currently planned to be purchased. This would save $19 billion in the short term and $24 billion in the long term.
Cancel or delay some weapons systems – there are some weapons systems, like the Osprey, that have been around for years. These have had some modest success, but I think they need to be eliminated. Put them back in moth balls of necessary. This would save $19 billion in the short term and $18 billion in the long term.
Reduce non-combat military compensation and overhead – this would change health-care plans for military personnel who were not injured in battle. I do not support this. Although this would save $23 billion in the short term and $51 billion in the long term, I think we need to meet our obligations to our military personnel.
Reduce the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 60,000 by 2013 – we need to bring our troops home. They need to come home as quickly as possible. This would save $86 billion in the short term and $169 billion in the long-term.

So far, we have saved $213 billion in the short term (2015) and $343 billion in the long term (2030). I think that all of these cuts are reasonable. We still have more work to do. We need to talk about healthcare, Social Security and our existing tax structure. Let’s do a little bit more of this later.

Tags: Budget by ecthompson md
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• With S&P’s downgrade, the selloff on Wall Street was completely predictable.
• Some are now wondering what happened to President Obama. Why did he seem like so much of a transitional figure only to act like just another politician? I’m not sure I have the answer to that. Maybe it’s the system.
• The more I look at the debt deal, the worse it looks.

I’m going to interrupt this News Roundup in order to say that Robert Reich has been exactly on target for the last several years. His book, Supercapitalism is a must read. Here’s what he posted this morning on his blog:

Imagine your house is burning. You call the fire department but your call isn’t answered because every fire fighter in town is debating whether there will be enough water to fight fires over the next ten years, even though water is plentiful right now. (Yes, there’s a long-term problem.) One faction won’t even allow the fire trucks out of the garage unless everyone agrees to cut water use. An agency that rates fire departments has just issued a downgrade, causing everyone to hoard water.

While all this squabbling continues, your house burns to the ground and the fire has now spread to your neighbors’ homes. But because everyone is preoccupied with the wrong question (the long-term water supply) and the wrong solution (saving water now), there’s no response. In the end, the town comes up with a plan for the water supply over the next decade, but it’s irrelevant because the whole town has been turned to ashes.

Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but you get the point. The American economy is on the verge of another recession. Most Americans haven’t even emerged from the last one. Consumers (70 percent of the economy) won’t or can’t spend because their major asset is worth a third less than it was five years ago, they can’t borrow as before, and they’re justifiably worried about their jobs and wages. And without customers, businesses won’t expand and hire. So we’re trapped in a vicious cycle that’s getting worse.

But the government won’t come to the rescue by spending more and cutting most peoples’ taxes because it’s obsessed by a so-called “debt crisis” based on budget projections over the next ten years. That obsession – which serves the ideological purposes of right-wing Republicans who really want to shrink government — has even spread to the eat-your-spinach media, deficit hawks in the Democratic Party, and a major (and thoroughly irresponsible) credit-rating agency that’s neither standard nor poor. (more…)

Tags: Budget, Economy, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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A friend of mine sent me a link to this article about a week ago. I was in the middle of a terrible week at work. I didn’t have time to post it. This is a great article from Charles Blow (for some reason I always want to call him Curtis instead of Charles). Check out this great article:

I had ducked into a movie theater to escape the maddening debt-limit debacle. I chose “Captain America: The First Avenger.” Surely that would reset the patriotic optimism.

But as I watched the scenes of a fictitious integrated American Army fighting in Europe at the end of World War II, I became unsettled. Yes, I know that racial revisionism has become so common in film that it’s almost customary, so much so that moviegoers rarely balk or even blink. And even I try not to think too deeply about shallow fare. Escapism by its nature must bend away from reality. But this time I was forced to bend it back. It was personal.

The only black fighting forces on the ground in Europe during World War II were segregated, including the 92nd Infantry Division: The now famous “Buffalo Soldiers.” My grandfather, Fred D. Rhodes, was one of those soldiers.

The division was activated late in the war, more out of acquiescence to black leaders than the desire of white policy makers in the war department who doubted the battle worthiness of black soldiers. It was considered to be an experiment, one that the writer of the department’s recommendation to re-establish it would later describe as “programmed to fail from the inception.”

For one, as the historian Daniel K. Gibran has documented, the soldiers were placed under the command of a known racist who questioned their “moral attitude toward battle,” “mental toughness” and “trustworthiness,” and who remained a military segregationist until the day he died. In 1959, the commander commented in a study: “It is absurd to contend that the characteristics demonstrated by the Negroes” will not “undermine and deteriorate the white army unit into which the Negro is integrated.”

Yet they did show great toughness and character, including my grandfather. This is how his 1944 Silver Star citation recounts his bravery:

“On 16 November, while proceeding towards the front at night, Sergeant Rhodes’s motorized patrol was advanced upon near a village by a lone enemy soldier. Sergeant Rhodes jumped from the truck and as a group of enemy soldiers suddenly appeared, intent upon capturing the truck and patrol intact, he opened fire from his exposed position on the road. His fire forced the enemy to scatter while the patrol dismounted and took cover with light casualties. Sergeant Rhodes then moved toward a nearby building where, still exposed, his fire on the enemy was responsible for the successful evacuation of the wounded patrol members by newly arrived medical personnel. Sergeant Rhodes was then hit by enemy shell fragments, but in spite of his wounds he exhausted his own supply of ammunition then, obtaining an enemy automatic weapon, exhausted its supply inflicting three certain casualties on the enemy. He spent the rest of the night in a nearby field and returned, unaided, to his unit the next afternoon.”

Awesome! (more…)

Tags: Budget, Economy, Race by ecthompson md
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click to enlarge

• As I mentioned yesterday, government spending makes up approximately 25% of our GDP. Cutting government spending equals losing jobs. Our unemployment rate is unacceptably high and, instead of creating jobs, Congress has just taking a big step toward losing more jobs. The GOP is killing America.
• Michele Bachmann, in an absolutely brilliant paragraph, starts out by stating that she could not afford to buy a house on her own and needed government assistance. No big deal. Almost everybody has had some sort of government assistance with buying homes over the last 15 or 20 years. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have facilitated tens of millions of loans for average Americans. Then, Michele Bachmann pivoted and talked about how these agencies need to be eliminated. Therefore, as I see it, it appears to be okay for her to use government assistance to buy a house, but it’s not okay for you and me to do the same thing. I wonder if you could give her house back?
• Remember when Republicans like Michele Bachmann were talking about how blacks were better off in slavery because they had both a mother and a father? Remember that? Well, here’s a thoughtful response.
• Can somebody please explain to me why there is a fight over funding the FAA? For some reason, dating back to the Reagan years, the FAA has been a political football. It sure seems to me that if Republicans are serious about closing the deficit (and I don’t think that they are) they wouldn’t let an agency sit idle and let millions of dollars in revenue float off into the ether.
• Why is Senator David Vitter still in the Senate? Wasn’t he in the DC Madam’s phone book? How did he win reelection? I’m still baffled by it. He is blocking a nomination to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior because it has become acceptable for senators to block nominations until their pet projects are funded. This is the kind of garbage that hurts America.
• Speaking of hurting America, there is the NRA. The Obama administration is trying to work to control illegal guns getting into Mexican cartels. This would seem to be a good thing… unless you are the NRA. Then, you’re seriously mad about this affront to civil liberties. It would seem to me that we should do everything in our power to choke off the flow of guns to the Mexican cartels. If the NRA is upset, let them buy the guns and store them in a warehouse somewhere. The bottom line is we have to do whatever we can to stop that violence if it’s being fueled with American guns.
• Please list this under the category of very stupid: Rep. Ron Paul has written a bill that will simply cancel $1.6 trillion in Federal Reserve debt.  Yep. that should calm the markets. Let’s simply write off our debt. I’m sure that foreign governments and Wall Street will love that.
• This has been a terribly depressing week from a political standpoint. Because of this, I need to put on something that makes me smile –

Artist: Stevie Wonder
Tune: Do I Do

• The Tea Party explained.

Tags: Budget, Civil Liberty, Congress, Music by ecthompson md
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Dammit! I’m sorry, I don’t care what anybody says, being a progressive is ridiculously hard. We have leaders who pretend that we have no principles. We have leaders that don’t stand up to combat the craziness coming from conservatives on a daily basis. Who are these leaders? Who voted them in? Oh yeah, we did. Well, our “leadership” basically said to the progressive movement that we don’t care. We don’t care what it is that you think. We don’t care if you do represent the majority of Americans. All we want to do is bend over to the Republicans.

So, we’ve been wrangling with conservatives… No, that’s not right. We’ve been wrangling with the Tea Party for over a month. To be honest, negotiations started more than six months ago. We, the progressive movement, said that responsible deficit reduction should not take place until we had enough job growth. We said that reduction in federal spending would hurt the economy. We also mentioned that federal spending makes up approximately 25% of our GDP. Our fallback position was that we needed a balanced approach. We needed those who are enjoying the lowest taxes in over 40 years to simply pay their fair share. Nobody suggested we go back to a tax rate of 90% on the richest Americans. That’s a tax rate we had in this country as late as 1960 when John Kennedy took office. Remember that the 1960s and 1950s are a magical time for conservatives. They want to take us all back to that time frame when America was “right.”

With the mainstream media not wanting to be “too critical” of the Tea Party, we never got serious coverage of this ridiculous showdown. We never got ABC, NBC or CBS to dedicate a whole show to the stupidity of holding the American economy hostage. Sure, they had lead stories on it and they spent a good five or six minutes on the subject, but then they would quickly cut away to something that was completely and totally meaningless — like a skunk with its head in a Skippy jar. We never had any of the “serious” newscasters sit down with the American people and say that this was just unacceptable. We have one party basically stating that they’re going to hold their breath and not listen to anything that anyone else has to say until they get their way. That’s exactly what happened. On one side, we had the Democrats tripping all over themselves to say that they don’t support a measure that they ended up voting for. On the other side, we have Tea Party Republicans who are unhappy in spite of the fact they got everything they asked for. Let me say that again. The most conservative part of the Republican Party got everything that they asked for. They got trillions of dollars in spending cuts with no promise of revenue enhancements. None. Sure, there’s a bipartisan super Congress that is supposed to agree on $1 trillion worth of savings. Bipartisan. I’m really starting to hate this word because everything that seems to come out of these bipartisan commissions is overwhelmingly conservative in nature. It would be like progressives getting behind closed doors, being gagged and tied up in the corner, while the conservatives discuss whatever topic this commission is supposed to discuss. They only untie the progressives when it’s time for them to sign the document. I suspect they planned to get more conservative ideas about cutting essential programs and both houses of Congress would approve the insanity.

I know that it is only six in the morning but I feel like I need a drink.

Tags: Budget, Congress, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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Again, from Congress we have smoke and mirrors. In theory this “crisis” came about because we need to raise the debt ceiling. Many deficit peacocks were worried about the deficit. So, they decided that the best thing to do would be to hold the economy hostage. Stupid parameters which are not related to real economic growth or job creation were placed in the way (for every dollar the debt ceiling is raised, we’ve cut the deficit by the same amount). Not one progressive was able to make a decent case throughout this months-long debate. The president’s “hit and run” strategy was a total failure. The president would make a speech with several excellent points, but didn’t follow up that speech with subsequent speeches around the country. Remember when the president had those great talking points about Republicans standing up for private jets and tax cuts for the rich? Where were those comments the last couple of days/weeks? Who stood up for the American people? The American people depend on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. These programs make up the backbone of our safety net. I’m sorry, I just did not see President Obama or other progressives in the House or Senate stand up and make a thoughtful case. This went on day after day, week after week. Yet, from the other side of the aisle, Republicans hammered their simplistic talking points. We’re spending too much. We have a spending problem. We heard this garbage over and over again.

I have no idea how this thing going to play out over the next 24/48 hours. I’ve called on the president to use the 14th amendment. After using the 14th amendment, he must submit legislation to Congress to eliminate the debt ceiling. If Congress wants to save money, holding our economy hostage is not the way to do it. Stop appropriating money. Congress has a line-item veto. They have the ability to save money. They have the ability to shut down programs.

The last several weeks have made me sick to my stomach. There is no real leadership in Washington. The president has simply been going along to get along. Democrats in both the House and the Senate have been toothless and spineless. It is almost as if we have no core values. There’s only been one obscure House member who has a name we can’t pronounce (Raúl Grijalva) who’s been standing up for the American people and our core values. Default is not an option. Flushing our safety net down the toilet so that multimillionaires can get larger tax breaks and more corporate jets is obscene.

What are your thoughts?

Tags: Budget, Congress, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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I never liked that old story of the Engine That Could. There are some things that the power of positive thinking simply won’t fix. Several weeks ago, I was sort of hopeful that some sort of deal would be made. The deal might be crappy, yes, but at least the economy wouldn’t implode. With each day, as reasonable and downright awful deals have all ended up in file 13, I’m getting less and less hopeful that our dysfunctional Congress can do anything that really helps the American people. So I went from I think they can to I think they are morons. I think that they are morons.

Rumors of a new, new deal have been circling since this morning.

From TPM:

The deal works like this:

It guarantees the debt limit will be hiked by $2.4 trillion. Immediately upon enactment of the plan, the Treasury will be granted $400 billion of new borrowing authority, after which President Obama will be allowed to extend the debt limit by $500 billion, subject to a vote of disapproval by Congress.

That initial $900 billion will be paired with $900 billion of discretionary spending cuts, first identified in a weeks-old bipartisan working group led by Vice President Joe Biden, which will be spread out over 10 years.

Obama will later be able to raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion, again subject to a vote of disapproval by Congress.

That will be paired with the formation of a Congressional committee tasked with reducing deficits by a minimum of $1.2 trillion. That reduction can come from spending cuts, tax increases or a mixture thereof.

If the committee fails to reach $1.2 trillion, it will trigger an automatic across the board spending cut, half from domestic spending, half from defense spending, of $1.5 trillion. The domestic cuts come from Medicare providers, but Medicaid and Social Security would be exempted. The enforcement mechanism carves out programs that help the poor and veterans as well.

If the committee finds $1.5 trillion or more in savings, the enforcement mechanism would not be triggered. That’s because Republicans are insisting on a dollar-for-dollar match between deficit reduction and new borrowing authority, and $900 billion plus $1.5 trillion add up to $2.4 trillion.

However, if the committee finds somewhere between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion in savings, the balance will be made up by the corresponding percentage of the enforcement mechanism’s cuts, still in a one-to-one ratio.

I’m not sure how this is much different than what we have seen before. I just don’t understand how even thinking about cuts to the social safety net helps the American people. Do you?

Tags: Budget, Congress, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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Warren Buffet talking with the President

AMENDMENT XIV
Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

So this is it. Congress has played around for weeks. We (well, it is really just some of us) have elected upset, single-minded, thoughtless Americans to Congress. That is our fault. We are now in deep trouble because some of us thought that the Tea Party loved America and that they really would work for us and not for themselves. We were wrong. The good news is that we have a President who can work for us. The time is now for the President to stand up for the American people and take action. Today, he must direct the Secretary of the Treasury to pay all of our debts. He must use the authority in the 14th Amendment. There is no alternative. It is the President’s job to protect us against enemies – foreign and domestic. Now, we are facing enemies domestic. We are facing an economic disaster. We don’t need to sign any petitions. We need to call the White House or Congress. It is time for the President to act.

Today, MSM is reporting that the President is talking with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. Why? We have talked and talked this thing to death. There isn’t a calculus that hasn’t been tried. Anything that can pass the House, can’t or won’t pass the Senate. This is clear. Boehner put together the “best” Republican option. It was shot down by the Senate in record time. Harry Reid put together an awful Democratic option which should have never gotten out of the Senate and the Tea Party wouldn’t even go for that.

It is time for President Barack Obama to save the country from the Tea Party. He must use the authority in the 14th Amendment.

Tags: Budget, Obama administration by ecthompson md
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I’m running out of the house right now. So -

From Political Animal:

* If the Boehner plan wouldn’t preserve the AAA credit rating of the United States, why is anyone even talking about it as a possibility? Shouldn’t that be an automatic deal-breaker?

* Bill O’Reilly, who I can only assume is concerned about his investment portfolio, lashed out at the Republican Party base yesterday in a fascinating tirade: “The only thing that can save Barack Obama at this point is craziness on the right…. It’s not only going to hurt the Republican Party, which has already been hurt, but it’s going to save President Obama who they hate…. The irony is, the people who dislike President Obama the most … are helping him the most. You’ve got to stop this hateful rhetoric.”

* I’m actually rather impressed this keeps happening: “Telephone circuits into the House of Representatives were once again near capacity on Friday after President Obama called on Americans to keep up their calls to Congress.”

* Moody’s weighs in again: “The United States’ triple-A credit rating is likely to be affirmed by Moody’s with a negative outlook, the ratings agency said on Friday, signaling that a downgrade would not come immediately, but possibly in the medium term.”

* This week, before today, investors were pulling $9 billion a day out of money-market funds, fearing congressional Republicans would simply refuse to raise the debt ceiling.

* If it would help the process along, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would gladly bring the Balanced Budget Amendment to the Senate floor for a vote. He knows full well it wouldn’t come close to getting a two-thirds majority.

* Revelations from the Murdoch media hacking scandal aren’t quite done yet. News of the World hacked the phone of a mother to a murdered 8-year-old girl, too.

* Why won’t President Obama pursue the “Constitutional Option”? Brad Plumer explores the issue in a thoughtful item.

* Are there some more fanciful ideas for gimmicks that could resolve the crisis? Sure there are.

* Congressional Republicans have a bold new idea: force the U.S. military to accept dirty fuels the Pentagon doesn’t want. The GOP really is getting worse with each passing day.

* Bruce Bartlett, a former policy adviser to Reagan and H.W. Bush, on the GOP: “I think a good chunk of the Republican caucus is either stupid, crazy, ignorant or craven cowards.”

* House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) intends to pursue a new White House investigation because it would be “good theater.” Congress was so much more tolerable when grown-ups were in charge.

* This is probably the wrong emotional reaction, but I’m starting to feel kind of sorry for Peggy Noonan. The quality of her columns has become so awful, and the sophistication of her political analysis has become so pedantic, it’s almost as if Noonan has outsourced her career to an intern sent over by College Republicans. Maybe it’s time to consider retirement, Peggy?

Tags: Budget, Domestic Issues by ecthompson md
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It isn’t that hard. You simply count who is with you and who isn’t. It was clear from the moment that Speaker John Boehner dreamed up his grand plan that he didn’t have the Republican votes, yet he pretended that all was okay. Alas, now the arm twisting begins.

Vote count by The Hill.

From HuffPo:

House GOP leadership announced abruptly on Thursday evening that they were suspending a vote on Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) debt ceiling proposal, signaling in the process that the GOP lacked the votes to pass the package.

The news came just minutes before party leadership was set to hold a 5:30 p.m. vote on the proposal, which would cut roughly $915 billion in spending over the next ten years but only raise the debt ceiling through the end of the calendar year.

Congressional aides were scrambling to figure out just when the vote would be rescheduled for — the House for now will consider eight smaller measures first — but a spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that a vote on Boehner’s proposal would still take place on Thursday night.

Whether that is enough time for the Speaker to convince a few more Republicans to support him is unclear. Informal whip counts had 25 Republicans and the full Democratic caucus opposing the measure, which would put it short of the 216 votes needed for passage. (more…)

Update: Great comment on NYT –

An asteroid is headed toward earth, the Tea Party says it won’t have an impact and we don’t need to do anything. The Democrats and Republicans are arguing over what color to paint the rocket that will be used blow up the asteroid before it hits us. The asteroid is getting closer and closer…

Update II: Watch the Video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From WaPo:

Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters shortly before 10:30 p.m. that there would be no vote Thursday night on the bill, which would increase the federal debt limit in two stages in exchange for major spending cuts.

The vote had been scheduled for around 6 p.m. Thursday, but as that hour neared, GOP leaders realized they didn’t have the 217 votes needed to send the measure on to the Senate.

So the House suddenly took up a series of non-controversial measures, leaving befuddled lawmakers debating whether to rename a post office in Hawaii before finally going into recess for an indefinite time. (more…)

So, after all is said and done, we are back where we were last week, two weeks ago, a month ago. After Eric Cantor and John Boehner positioned themselves as the men with the plan, they never had the votes. In my opinion, we are to blame. We, the American people, who voted for some politicians who were long on bluster and short on real ideas to move the country forward, are to blame. We voted in knuckleheads who didn’t understand the difference between campaign rhetoric and truly governing the country. We wanted jobs and instead we got worthless Republican rhetoric. Many Americans thought they were voting to preserve Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, in essence the American safety net, when in fact they were voting for intransigence. It seems to me that the only reasonable response by President Obama is to enact the 14th amendment. For the good of the country he has to personally direct the Secretary of the Treasury to raise the debt limit. For over a month, it was clear to me that this is where we were headed. We have no more time for posturing and rhetoric. It is time to act.

Watch the video:

Tags: Budget, House of Representatives by ecthompson md
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Really, really busy at work. It is trauma season. Here’s today’s roundup from Steve Benen:

• If Speaker Boehner’s budget bill were to somehow reach the White House, President Obama would veto it.

• That probably won’t matter, since the Boehner bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today, can’t pass the Senate. (If it fails to pass the House tomorrow, this is a moot point.)
• Dems will try to ensure the Boehner bill doesn’t manage to pass thanks to support from a few Blue Dogs: “House Democratic leaders will be whipping votes against a GOP plan to raise the debt limit and slash federal spending, the office of Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the minority whip, said Tuesday.”
• Still trying to clean up the Republicans’ FAA fiasco: “Democrats on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee filed legislation Tuesday that would fund the Federal Aviation Administration without cutting grants for rural air service, which has produced the hold up that led to FAA workers being furloughed.”
• A downgrade in U.S. debt would automatically add $100 billion to the deficit that Republicans pretend to care about.
• Making it harder for those without jobs to get a job: “Hundreds of job opening listings posted on Monster.com and other jobs sites explicitly state that people who are unemployed would be less attractive applicants, with some telling the long-term unemployed to not even bother with applying.”
• In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker (R) is forcing voters to get ID in order to participate in an election and making it harder to get ID.
• On a related note, Katrina Vanden Heuvel takes a closer look at the GOP’s “state-by-state crusade to disenfranchise voters.”
• Pat Buchanan apparently thinks alleged mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has some worthwhile ideas. How Buchanan remains a pundit in good standing baffles me.
• Senate Republicans refused to allow a vote on Goodwin Liu’s judicial nomination. Gov. Jerry Brown (D), however, wants him on the California Supreme Court.
• The Wealth Gap: “The wealth gap between whites and minorities has risen to a historic high, according to new census data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, as the collapse of housing prices more severely affected the net worth of African American and Hispanic households.”
• Boehner said President Obama blew up the Grand Bargain talks by moving the goalposts. Even Republican sources admit the Speaker’s lying.
• Kaplan Inc. sure does get sued a lot.If this were fiction, I’d consider it too far-fetched. Alas, it’s real: “A revenge plot so intricate, the prosecutors were pawns.”
• Remember when House Republicans vowed to the nation, “We will fight efforts to use a national crisis for political gain”? It was in the 2010 “Pledge to America” platform. In fairness, I suppose I should note they never promised they wouldn’t create a national crisis for political gain, so maybe this doesn’t count as a straight-up broken promise.

Tags: Budget, Congress, Education, Media, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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There was a cartoon that I used to watch with my grandson called Courage the Cowardly Dog. The cartoon was mildly amusing but one of the lead characters would always say, “Stupid dog.” It was usually when the lead character didn’t realize the dog was trying to save him from some peril. For some reason, I’m reminded of this by the stalemate in Congress. I feel like saying, “Stupid debate!” One side is arguing based on ideology. They have no intention of telling the American people that it doesn’t matter what the numbers say, that they want the government to spend less. It doesn’t matter that the government is spending less than we did five years ago or 10 years ago on Medicare or Medicaid – even Social Security. None of that matters. All they want is less spending and less government. If the government defaults, who cares? That is the attitude of the Republicans. When you hate government, it doesn’t matter if the government defaults. From your standpoint that is still a good thing. The American people don’t understand this particular debate. Even Republicans, mainstream Republicans, don’t understand this particular stance. Republicans have couched their argument in the veil of “fiscal responsibility.” This the only reason that some Americans will agree with them. Everybody wants fiscal responsibility. Everybody wants the government to spend their money in a thoughtful, prudent manner. Let’s be clear. Thoughtful, prudent spending is not what Republicans are talking about. What Republicans really want is to dismantle government.

From TP:

RATINGS AGENCY SOURCE: BOEHNER PLAN WOULD LEAD TO DOWNGRADE OF U.S. DEBT, REID PLAN WOULD PRESERVE AAA RATING | Today on CNN, Erin Burnett reported that she spoke with an investor who talked directly with the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. According to the Standard & Poor’s source, John Boehner’s debt plan would probably still lead to a downgrade of U.S. debt by the ratings agencies, raising interest rates for all Americans. Harry Reid’s plan, however, would preserve America’s AAA credit rating. Watch it:

Finally, it is important to note that John Boehner does not even have the support of his own party. The speaker the house has spent an enormous amount of time trying to convince the American people that he has a reasonable approach but his own party doesn’t believe him. Again, the Republican Party is not about reasonable approaches. Today’s Republican Party is about dismantling government. Once we understand who was standing with the American people and who wants to dismantle government this whole debate comes in the focus- Stupid debate!

From WaPo:

The challenge facing any plan for reducing the debt was underscored when a new Republican proposal to raise the ceiling on federal borrowing was met Monday with misgivings by some conservatives and skepticism by many GOP freshmen. That called into question whether Boehner (R-Ohio) could even get his own caucus to back his approach.

As Boehner tried to rally support for his two-step plan to cut $3 trillion in spending, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) offered a strikingly similar proposal for increasing the debt limit before the Aug. 2 deadline. The two leaders, however, remained bitterly divided over Boehner’s demand to hold another vote next year to further expand the government’s borrowing authority.

Tags: Budget, Congress, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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Something that Senator Patrick Leahy said in this speech I found very intriguing. He said that President Clinton’s budget from 2000, the last year that we had a balanced budget, passed the Senate without a single Republican vote. I found that interesting. Bill Clinton had just turned in the third balanced budget in a row. We were paying down the deficit, which is what these Republicans swear they want. Yet, Republicans opposed a balanced budget 10 years ago. Why? Could it be that they’re really not interested in a balanced budget at all? Could it be that they’re interested in dismantling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid much more than they are interested in a balanced budget?

I don’t think that anyone should be surprised that there was no progress over the weekend. Representative John Boehner has decided to put together his own proposal. I think that it is clear no matter what he puts together it will not pass the Senate. On the other hand, Senator Harry Reid is putting together his own proposal. I don’t think that his proposal passed the House. I look for President Obama sometime in the middle of the week to pull out the 14th amendment and order the treasury secretary to raise the debt ceiling. Look for Republicans to absolutely and completely melt down when that happens.

Tags: Budget, Congress, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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This is from my internet buddy Steve Benen. It is brilliant.

I don’t think it’s online anymore, but Matt Taibbi had a fantastic cover story for Rolling Stone in October 2006 about the Republican-led Congress, shortly before Democrats won both chambers.

“These were the years,” Taibbi wrote, “when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.”

The article included one of my favorite all-time quotes: Jonathan Turley told Taibbi, “The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment.”

It seemed literally impossible at the time, but five years later, we appear to have found a Congress that’s even worse. Norm Ornstein, a respected congressional scholar, argued this week, “Americans have complained for years that their government is broken. This time they’re right.”

Dana Carvey had a character during his years on Saturday Night Live who was a crotchety old man complaining about how much better everything was “in my day,” the imagined halcyon times of his past. After almost 42 years immersed in the politics of Congress, I have to check myself regularly to avoid falling into the same trap. When I came to Washington in 1969, for example, the city was riven with division and antagonism over the Vietnam War, which segued into the impeachment of a president, followed by many other difficult and contentious moments.

In this case, though, Carvey’s old man would be right: The hard reality is that for all their rancor, those times were more functional, or at least considerably less dysfunctional, than what we face with Congress today.

Ornstein wrote this last week, before Congress set itself on a path to crash the American economy on purpose.

His piece is well worth reading, and shines an important light on structural impediments that prevent the legislative branch from functioning as it should.

But from where I sit, Ornstein goes a little too easy on congressional Republicans. Congress is still capable of functioning as an institution. Indeed, over 2009 and 2010, we saw our share of frustrating legislative disputes, but an enormous amount of successful policymaking was completed. Had the Senate been able to operate by majority rule — the way it used to — the 111th Congress would have been even more impressive.

The problem with the 112th isn’t a structural impediment; it’s the result of a radicalized Republican Party that has no use for compromise, evidence, or reason. We have a congressional GOP abandoning all institutional norms, pushing extremist policies, rejecting their own ideas if they enjoy Democratic support, and engaging in tactics that were once thought unthinkable from policymakers who put the nation’s needs first.

Is this the “Worst. Congress. Ever.” as the headline on Ornstein’s piece argues? After six months on the job, that seems extremely likely. Indeed, if this Congress deliberately causes a global economic catastrophe, the competition for the worst Congress ever will end quite quickly.

But the public needs to understand that Congress, at an institutional level, doesn’t bear all of the blame. The stark raving mad Republican Party does.

Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, Trent Lott, Bill Frist … who wouldn’t trade the current crop to get those guys back? I’d do it in a heartbeat.

To borrow from Turley, I’ve never been more inclined to wonder if our democracy is a failed experiment than I am now.

Tags: Budget, Congress by ecthompson md
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Well no, there seems to be something in the air. It is a craziness that has infected Washington. For some reason, Speaker John Boehner believes that we have a spending problem. The problem isn’t that our tax revenues are ridiculously low. That’s not the problem. The problem is spending, according to Boehner. Watch the video as he stomps off:

It is time for Americans to recognize what we are watching. We are not either watching a negotiation between Democrats and Republicans or we are watching some sort of complicated economic equation between liberals and conservatives. The data is clear. We do not have a spending problem.

We have a revenue problem.

The data is clear.

In 2001, President Bill Clinton and the Democrats handed President George W. Bush and the Republicans a budget surplus. We were paying down the deficit. We started two wars which were not paid for. Not one Republican has stood up and said that this was irresponsible and that we should cut the Pentagon budget in order to make up for the spending. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? The Bush administration then turned around and gave huge tax cuts to the rich. I have no problem with giving tax cuts to the rich. If we have a surplus of money and the tax cuts are not going to cut into the surplus then great. Unfortunately, the tax cuts killed the surplus. They are continuing to do damage today. The Bush administration sold the American people on the fantasy that tax cuts pay for themselves. These tax cuts have not. Finally, the economic downturn has decreased revenue and therefore increased the  deficit.

None of these concepts is all that difficult. I use no fancy math. There were no smoke and mirrors. All of this information is easily obtainable. So, we must recognize that there is something else going on. This is not an argument over spending. This is an argument over whether we will let Republicans kill programs that they hate. It is that simple. WE must recognize what is truly going on.

Update: Erza Klein has a great summary of what’s going on with this debt ceiling impasse.

What it is: The debt ceiling is a legal cap on the amount of money the Treasury can borrow to fund existing government functions. It essentially authorizes the Treasury to borrow the money necessary to pay the bills incurred by the federal government.

Where it came from: Before 1917, Congress authorized the Treasury to issue bonds for specific purposes. But that meant approving every bond separately. To fund World War I, Congress decided to give the Treasury more latitude by instituting caps on how much it could borrow through each type of bond, rather than forcing it to get every new bond approved separately. In 1939, this was changed so that most bonds were bound by the same limit, effectively creating the general debt ceiling we have today. (more…)

Tags: Budget, House of Representatives by ecthompson md
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• John Brennan, President Obama’s terrorism advisor, said something really stupid about no collateral damage from predator drones. For some reason, Glenn Greenwald has taken him seriously. Anything that includes man has to include some amount of error. We are not perfect. I don’t care how diligent we are at looking at photos and reviewing intelligence. We can still make errors. Just today, as I was walking out of the Biltmore estate a very nice gentleman offered my condolences since “my wife fell.” Nope, my wife did not fall. (I was actually walking with my mother, but no biggie). We make mistakes all the time. This is one reason why we should be out of the war business.
• If anybody really thought that Bruce Ivins was the mastermind behind the anthrax deaths, I have some oceanfront property to sell you. The case was just too neat. Investigators found this weird guy who was clearly awkward around women and for some reason that made him not just the suspect but the prime suspect in the multiple anthrax deaths which took place in 2002. They never had a good motive which tied everything together. As a matter fact, I really didn’t have enough evidence to tie everything together. It looks like the Department of Justice has decided that the evidence looks kind of shaky also.

• I’m really tired of extremism being wrapped in a nice pretty package and sold to the American people as mainstream. Deciding to default on America’s debt is extremism. Deciding not to negotiate to balance the budget is extremism. I understand that the President has decided to embrace the Draconian ideas of the Gang of Six or Gang of Seven in the Senate. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security represent a pact that we’ve made with ourselves. This is not a treaty that we’ve made with Russia or China or some other foreign nation. Instead, this is a promise that we’ve made to the American people. It is a promise that was made to ourselves. If you want to figure out some way to make these programs more efficient and therefore cost less, I’m all for that. On the other hand, if you’re going to be cutting benefits that go to seniors and the disabled, I’m strongly against that. As a matter fact, as an American, I believe that we should keep our promises. Dismantling these programs is anti-American.
• Representative Allen West said some very childish and inflammatory things about Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He says that he’s apologized. Right now I want to say something about adult behavior, but I’ll keep that to myself.
• Maxine Waters is in big trouble.
• I know that Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are working on some sort of compromise measure that will lower the debt by $3.7 trillion over 10 years and will also raise the debt ceiling. I have little hope that such a broad compromise will come out of such a divided Congress. Top Republicans are running away from this plan as fast as their little legs can carry them.
• If you need a generalized update on what’s going on in the Rupert Murdoch/News Corp. scandal you can find a brief update and a small blurb on who’s who – when – who did what right here.

Tags: Budget, Economy, Media, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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I continue to be flabbergasted by the callousness of Republicans. Eric Cantor has decided that $2 billion isn’t worth worrying about. I guess if you can’t worry about $2 billion then maybe $4 trillion could get his attention, maybe. The fact that the direct and indirect costs of the war could be as much as $4 trillion is not really a revelation to me. The problem I have is that Republicans continue to insist that throughout the Bush administration these wars were not to be expensive. As a matter fact, they suggested that it would be cheap. Remember how Donald Rumsfeld and his minions suggested that Iraq would pay for itself using oil revenues? We never even had the opportunity to have a real debate over the cost of the war because the wars were “paid for” by supplemental funding (deficit spending). Not once did Republicans stand up as a group and state they were spending an enormous amount of money and getting almost nothing in return. Not one of them said that we needed to cut something in order to pay for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not one of them suggested that we needed to raise revenues in order to pay for these wars. Yet, now, when we try to spend money to stimulate the economy and make life better for the middle class, the Republicans are having none of it. Their hypocrisy is infuriating.

From Yahoo News:

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America’s wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. (http://www.costsofwar.org)

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study. (more…)

Tags: Budget, Military by ecthompson md
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With Eric Cantor walking out of the high-level debt ceiling negotiation, I thought it’d be interesting to look back and figure out how many times the House Majority Leader and his colleagues voted to raise the debt ceiling under George W. Bush. One would figure, because they are fiscally conservative, they probably only voted to raise the debt ceiling once or twice under the eight-year tenure of George W. Bush. The GOP hypocrites raised the debt ceiling 19 times 7 times [the original number was an error, sorry. One of my commentors pointed this out. The best data that I have found comes from the Congressional Research Service.](and added over $4 trillion worth of debt) under George W. Bush and not once did they hold the president hostage to debt ceiling negotiations.

Think Progress has more:

After pushing the government to brink of shutdown last week, Republican Congressional leaders are now preparing to push America to the edge of default by refusing to increase the nation’s debt limit without first getting Democrats to concede to large spending cuts.

But while the four Republicans in Congressional leadership positions are attempting to hold the increase hostage now, they combined to vote for a debt limit increase 19 times 7 times during the presidency of George W. Bush. In doing so, they increased the debt limit by nearly $4 trillion. [Read more →]

Tags: Budget, Obama administration, Party Politics, Taxes by ecthompson md
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Conservatives have taken to saying that FDR’s New Deal didn’t work. Nothing can be further from the truth. It is a lie. It is the worst kind of lie, designed to hamper our recovery today. Conservatives love to say that government spending didn’t work in the 1930′s and it isn’t going to work today. Well, let’s look at the evidence.

Since some commentors thought my post was a little thin, the following is from an earlier post:

In my mind, we need to focus on one (the economy) and then the other (deficits).  We need to create jobs, high-quality jobs which will put money in the pockets of average Americans.  Once Americans began to feel that they have a steady income and that their jobs are safe, they will begin to spend money.  Currently, our economy suffers from too much supply and not enough demand.  Once Americans began to spend money that will help decrease supply and spur business to begin to increase production again.

Once the economy is fixed, we must then begin to figure out how to balance the budget and how to pay down our debt.  President Herbert Hoover, in the face of an economic crisis, decided to balance the budget and to decrease government spending.  We all know that did not work out so well for him (or for our grandparents).

Dean Baker from the Center for Economic Policy Research said it much better than I could –

The moral to this story is that the economy must take priority, not only because the state of the economy is what most directly determines people’s well-being, but also because the state of the economy will be the most important determinant of the deficit.

The experience of the 1990s provides an example of exactly this sort of story. In January of 1994 the Congressional Budget Office projected that the deficit in 1999 would be $204 billion or 2.4 percent of GDP. This projection incorporated the impact of President Clinton’s tax increase and spending cuts.

It turned out that there was a surplus of $125 billion in 1999, or 1.4 percent of GDP. This shift from deficit to surplus of 3.8 percentage points of GDP (equivalent to $540 billion in 2009) was not caused by further spending cuts or tax increases, it was caused by the strong economic growth of the period.

There is no guarantee that President Obama’s policies will be successful in restoring strong growth, but they are clearly a step in the right direction. If we have strong growth, then our deficits will be manageable. If the economy remains weak, the deficit will remain a serious burden no matter how much we raise taxes or cut spending.

Tags: Budget, Economy, Party Politics by ecthompson md
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• Sergio Garcia is fading at the Byron Nelson Championship in Dallas, Texas. Whatever he thought he fixed in his mental game isn’t fixed. Currently, Joe Ogilvie leads by one stroke.
• I find it interesting that Fox News has decided to keep Sarah Palin on the payroll since it’s clear that she is now exploring a presidential run. They dropped Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as soon as they were considering a presidential run but not Sarah Palin. Why? Is it that Sarah Palin isn’t really considering a presidential run? Maybe Sarah Palin is doing her Donald Trump bit and simply trying to drum up publicity for herself. She’s been able to cash that publicity in and make some significant money (just bought a new house in Arizona).
• No matter how much the public thinks that Paul Ryan’s budget balancing, Medicare killing plan is wrong for America, the Republicans are continuing to push it. If you’re in a hole, I guess you can do one of three things – stop digging, continue digging or try to climb out of the hole. Republicans have decided to continue digging.
• The LA Times has a nice and very long discussion on Bruce Ivins, who was the odd researcher accused in the anthrax killings. I’m still not convinced that this is the guy. Yep, he is weird, but being weird isn’t a crime.
• President Obama is in Joplin, Missouri today. My heart and prayers continue to go out to the residents of Joplin.

• I really dislike politicians who in front of the cameras in Washington talk about cutting this and cutting that but when they’re at home in front of their constituents they’re bashing the government for not doing more. Today’s example is Representative Lou Barletta of Pennsylvania. He voted to cut EPA funding; yet, in front of his constituents is complaining that the EPA is not doing more.
• Former Senator John Ensign is hoping that the Department of Justice cannot use incriminating e-mails which will surely land him in jail. Basically, as I understand it, the Senate Ethics Committee could obtain evidence in multiple different ways which may not be transferable to the Department of Justice. For more information on this legal conundrum read this.
• I continue to be amazed at how the Republicans are trying to sell this “cut and grow” idea to the American people. Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, continue to try to sell the American people on trickle-down theory. If all we did was cut this or that money would then roll down to small business and small businesses would thrive. Over the last 30 years we’ve tried this theory so many times and as a whole it hasn’t worked. The one thing that is clear with trickle-down theory is that the rich get richer.
• So far, I think the most interesting candidate on the Republican side is Mitt Romney. He’s trying to walk a tight rope. He’s trying to play up his credentials as a financial wiz but the same time separate himself from the Wall Street Christians and against that which nearly destroyed our economy. He has the same type of balancing act with healthcare. He can’t support the national healthcare reform that was passed by Congress last year or he’ll alienate many Republicans. At the same time, he’s trying to push his own credentials as a healthcare fixer because of what he passed in Massachusetts, which is almost identical to the national healthcare reform plan. Finally, lots of evangelical Christians are unsure if they can embrace a Mormon. It is difficult if not impossible to win enthusiastic Republican support without the support of evangelical Christians.
• The New York Times is trying to tell me that their coverage is so great that I should pay $35 per month for their award-winning reporting. It seems to me that the Wall Street Journal has outstanding coverage also. They’re asking me to pay a third less than the New York Times. What’s up with that? Are the Washington Post and the LA Times going to follow suit? One of the distinct advantages of the Internet was that I was able to access multiple different sources of information. Am I going to have to shell out money for this information? Is advertising revenue down that much?
• Everyone is not flocking to the theaters just because the movie is in 3-D. For some reason this is a surprise to Hollywood. (Psst, Hollywood… we will sit down and look at movies that are entertaining and enjoyable. More like Thor and less like the Green Hornet.) As a whole, I haven’t found the 3-D experience to be all that additive to a excellently written film. I just saw the movie Thor and I didn’t think that the three-dimensional qualities were helpful at all. BTW, I’m looking forward to seeing Kung Fu Panda 2. I really enjoyed the first one. I”m hoping that they, the producers, don’t screw this sequel up.

So what’s on your mind the Sunday afternoon?

Tags: Budget, Environment, Healthcare, Sports by ecthompson md
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