almuhajabah’s posterous

Huh? What? Is the Washington Post smoking crack?

And, indeed, there already are exceptions to the new rules, such as for extending former President George W. Bush's middle-class tax cuts past their expiration a year from now. That would add $1.4 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade.

WTF? What is the Washington Post even talking about here? How did Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy become "middle-class tax cuts"? And Obama plans to let them expire, therefore there is NOT going to be an exception to the PAYGO rules.

Nor does the article mention that these same huge tax cuts are half the reason the deficit is so large.

This article seems to exist in some alternate universe. Some media we have!

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Rahm was right - about the Senate. So the House must act

Although many progressives imagine that the budget reconciliation process is a magic bullet solution, it is actually pretty complicated and will be time-consuming. Details about how it works can be read at Uh Oh - What if reconciliation isn't quick and Reconciliation revisited. I'm certainly no expert but my feeling is that because Obama is presenting a new budget this coming Thursday (February 4), the reconciliation "sidecar" will need to start from scratch because last year's reconciliation instructions have expired. And that means it will need to go through a whole bunch of committees. In the Senate this includes Kent Conrad's Budget Committee, Max Baucus's Finance Committee (remember what happened the last time this committee was involved?), and Tom Harkin's HELP Committee.

The process itself has several "weak points" that Senate Republicans can exploit. They can raise hundreds of points of order, each of which needs to be judged by the Senate Parliamentarian and if the judgment goes against the Democrats, it will take 60 votes to override it. The Republicans can also bring an unlimited number of amendments of any nature and force the Senate to vote on each one before the final vote on the reconciliation bill itself.

The whole process could easily stretch out over one or two months. And where Rahm is right (yes, I dare to say it!) is that if the Senate gets caught up in this and doesn't pass at least a jobs bill first, this will be bad for the Democrats with the public and going into the mid-term elections. We need to get the jobs bill passed as soon as possible, as the first priority.

Fortunately, healthcare reform does not actually need to wait on any of this. The only reason we do not have a healthcare bill passed right now is that the House Democrats are being irrational. They are the ones forcing us to have to go through this long, complex process fraught with danger when they could hold a vote on the Senate bill today. If delay means death for healthcare reform, it is House Democrats that are forcing the delay.

House Democrats, pass the damn bill!

Senate Democrats, pass the jobs bill! Then commit to doing the reconciliation fix through this year's budget process.

Note: See also How to listen to politicians

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Because I need to keep a copy of #questiontime for myself

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Obama's budget from last year appears to show spending freeze already planned

Per the 2010 proposed budget from last year (section S-4, "Proposed Budget by Category"), the amount of spending Obama wanted in discretionary non-defense spending for 2011, 2012, and 2013 (line "Other appropriated programs") is as follows:

2011 - $672 billion
2012 - $653 billion
2013 - $661 billion

I may be showing my ignorance here, but the way I read this chart, wasn't he already planning to hold this spending steady ("freeze" it) over the next three years?

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"Organizing Congress" means helping it be able to address serious problems, and solve them, on its own

Back in December, I wrote a comment at Al Giordano's blog, The Field, about why I think Obama lets Congress take the lead. It's because he is trying to organize the Senate:

I think that one of the things that Obama may have wanted to achieve with this process is to prove that Congress and especially the Senate is capable of addressing serious national problems in a meaningful way. That its members can come together and work through their differences to pass important legislation.

That means letting them take the lead, even letting them stumble and fall then pick themselves up and keep going. I suspect that Obama did a lot more behind the scenes than we know, especially in terms of putting steel in Harry Reid's spine, but the president's role should be on the sidelines cheering Congress on, not running the whole process himself.

Building a Congress that can actually act as a co-equal branch of goverment will bring benefits both for the rest of the legislative agenda (cap and trade, financial regulation, immigration reform, etc) and also further in the future, especially when there is a Republican president.

A lot of Democrats (including some in Congress) seem to act like small children who cause a mess then cry for Daddy to come fix everything for them (some foreign leaders seem to act the same). This kind of dysfunctional situation is bad for our democracy and bad for the cause of progressive change.

Hopefully, this process has been a step towards a more healthy relationship between the presidency and Congress.


I followed up on that theme tonight with a few thoughts I have been tweeting about:

Awhile ago I wrote about organizing the Senate. I think that reading this comment may give people a better idea where I am coming from. If this last week has proved anything, it is that Congress as an institution is broken. I think that part of Obama's "reticence" over the past year is that he is trying to get Congress to grow up and be able to take care of its own business. He wants it to be a co-equal branch of government. And we all need it to be a co-equal branch of government, so that it can function and get things done even when there is a Republican president.

The problem we are facing as a country is systemic. It will not be changed by the President changing his personality, his style, or his messaging. It will be changed by rebuilding the system. We need to identify what is wrong with Congress, what the causes are, and how we can fix them. In my opinion, if your proposed solution is for Obama to change something he does or is, you are looking in the wrong place. The problem is not the president. It is that the president by himself cannot fix a broken system.

Too much of the left, again, has a fetish with executive power (which I think we have absorbed from the right) and we are now seeing the limits of this approach.

Organize Congress!


And just for completeness, from a few days ago about wanting Superman or Daddy to come fix everything:

Al has commented before that many progressives seem to want a Daddy figure and I'm really seeing that in a lot of the responses to the current situation. Some is purely childish ("Waa, everything is broken, Daddy Obama better come fix it now for me!") but even some of the more reasoned responses seem to want Obama to fulfill an emotional need for them or to act like an authoritarian figure who simply "lays down the law" and apparently everybody will listen and behave. It is true that Congressional Democrats seem to be acting like young children (ahem, Raul Grijalva) but nobody seems to realize how dysfunctional this is. We are all adults with the capacity to act. The Balloon Juice blog is organizing readers to call their Representatives and is compiling a roll call to determine where they stand. This is a simple practical thing that helps us find out the lay of the land and what the realistic courses of action are, and is about 100 times more useful that what most on blogs and Twitter are doing right now.

I will also repeat what I said before, you are not a leader if you just march off on your own with no one following you. For Obama to make a big show of laying down the law when nobody knows yet what can realistically be accomplished, would be foolish and counter-productive. The only reason to ask for him to do it now, in my opinion, is because it makes us feel better in some vague way.

The House and Senate leadership are the ones who need to work with their members to calm them down and to determine what can be done. Then they and Obama can work cooperatively towards achieving that.

That is what adults do to resolve their problems.

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Follow up on #hcr story

I work now for a relatively small business, a tech startup. I do have
health insurance now, through my employer's group plan. However, it
isn't a really great plan, with a high deductible meaning I pay for a
lot of things out of pocket.

The Senate bill could help me even now:

* Tax credit for small businesses to help them buy better insurance
* Eventual ability to get voucher from employer to help buy a plan on
the healthcare exchange if it is better (this is actually something
only in the Senate bill, not the House bill - thanks, Senator Wyden!)

Two more reasons for the House to pass the Senate bill.

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Why I support #hcr (a personal story)

When I was unemployed for some time several years ago or working
part-time or as a contractor with no benefits, I couldn't possibly
have afforded to buy health insurance on my own. They never even got
to the point of rejecting me for my pre-existing condition.

We need healthcare reform NOW for all the millions of people who have
been in that position.

House Democrats, please pass the Senate bill, even if that's all you
can get. Among the ways it could have helped me back then:

* Prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing condition
* Subsidies to help pay for insurance
* Medicaid expansion to cover childless adults, if I had been really poor

And there are many more reasons to do it. Please, pass the bill now.

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Would be nice if our strategies were based in reality

And by "we" I mean progressives. Not only are too many arguments not based on facts, but too many proposed strategies are not based in reality.

Budget reconciliation is not a magic solution. It is very difficult to use for anything but taxes and appropriations and cannot be used for regulations or consumer protections and the like. "Making them do a real filibuster" won't get legislation passed or make Republicans look bad. Senate procedure simply does not work that way.

Magical thinking is not going to work and we need to stop it.

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Just do it, House Dems. Please. For all of us.

For all of the panic in Democratic ranks right now, the reality of the situation is stunningly simple. In the span of twenty-four hours, the House of Representatives--the House in which Democrats command a huge majority, in which liberals actually have some sway, and in which leadership actually has power--could put health care reform on the president's desk for signing.

One lousy vote. One lousy, stinking roll call vote. That's the only hurdle in the way of health care reform.

Are Democrats really willing to give up now?

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Filed under  //   hcr  

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President Obama on Dr. King's Legacy

A terrific sermon, with reminders for all of us.

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