Both Sides Do It - Senate Obstructionism Edition

James Fallows has a very useful piece up that showcases the Republicans' unprecedented, cynical, and childish abuse of the filibuster ever since the election of the black Kenyan socialist Usurper. He links to several recent articles from prominent media outlets that fault either Obama's failure or both parties for the intransigence of the US Senate. 

It doesn't take an especially astute observer to notice the way in which the GOP has effectively transformed the Senate into a 60-votes-required-to-do-anything deliberative body, but most Americans are also not hyper political junkies like myself, or the sort of people that might follow Fallows' blog. And that precisely highlights the problem - you have one party refusing to let the Senate consider any manner of legislation, and then our high-minded, objective observers in the media scoff at these petty squabbles and bemoan that both sides are at fault for the Senate being able to function in the tradition of the modern democracy which it represents. Most people have no idea what the fuck cloture even means. They just know that every bill goes to die in the Senate, that nothing ever happens, they hear from the media that both sides are to blame, and they conclude that both parties in the US Senate are a bunch of assholes.

And let's be clear: filing for cloture requires that the Senate muster up 60 affirmative votes to even proceed to debate and an up/down vote on the legislation begin considered. Again, I doubt most Americans know this distinction, but the GOP minority effectively prevents legislation not from being passed (although that is a byproduct) but from even coming up for a vote that would allow it to be passed or rejected. It's immature, infantile, and deplorable. They have essentially made the use of a nuclear option a routine way of doing business as the minority party. It would be a very different scenario if the GOP had the numbers in the upper chamber and they were bypassing cloture filings, but whipping their members or getting a few Democrats to cross over to block the legislation from passing in an up/down vote. But they are a caucus of cynical cravens that won't even let legislation get that far. 

Fallows links to this graph to illustrate this point:

Let us not forget that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that his number one goal is making Barack Obama a one term president. The abuse of the filibuster is just another means to that end, a cleverly devised ploy to make voters lose faith in their government, and conveniently aided and abetted by the empty suits in the media who give McConnell's strategy political cover by means of being too timid to report the facts. Because as we all know, facts have a well established liberal bias.

The Problem With America In One Graph

Click here for the full size image. I don't know how anyone can look at that and still vote Republican. Democrats are certainly not the stalwart protectors of the poor and middle class that they once were, especially as they continue to rely more and more on corporate dollars for reelection, and corporatist policies because they fear being labeled as "anti-business." But the GOP is just crazy, and anyone who argues against the indisputable fact that they are the party of plutocrats and corporations is stupid, lying, or both. This is the reality they have created; this is the reality they want. But it's not enough. It's never enough. And they want to make it worse. It's like Jon Stewart said the other day - the problem, from the GOP perspective, is that the poor don't have any 'skin in the game.' In other words, the problem is that the poor still have skin. 

Noted dirty commie socialist and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich notes the following in the op-ed accompanying this image:

Pump-priming works only when a well contains enough water.Look back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income — as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977 — the nation as a whole grew faster and median wages surged. We created a virtuous cycle in which an ever growing middle class had the ability to consume more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats. 

During periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion — as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day — growth slowed, median wages stagnated and we suffered giant downturns. It’s no mere coincidence that over the last century the top earners’ share of the nation’s total income peaked in 1928 and 2007 — the two years just preceding the biggest downturns. 

[...] 

But starting in the late 1970s, and with increasing fervor over the next three decades, government did just the opposite. It deregulated and privatized. It cut spending on infrastructure as a percentage of the national economy and shifted more of the costs of public higher education to families. It shredded safety nets. (Only 27 percent of the unemployed are covered by unemployment insurance.) And it allowed companies to bust unions and threaten employees who tried to organize. Fewer than 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized. 

More generally, it stood by as big American companies became global companies with no more loyalty to the United States than a GPS satellite. Meanwhile, the top income tax rate was halved to 35 percent and many of the nation’s richest were allowed to treat their income as capital gains subject to no more than 15 percent tax. Inheritance taxes that affected only the topmost 1.5 percent of earners were sliced. Yet at the same time sales and payroll taxes — both taking a bigger chunk out of modest paychecks — were increased.

We are living in a reality wrought by a thirty year march to the beat of the drum of the extreme conservative orthodoxy. Sure, there have been Democratic administrations in between, but the mantra of deregulate/cut taxes for the "job creators" survives and remains at the forefront of any economic debate. Meanwhile, current Democrats don't understand the importance of agenda setting or proper messaging, so these abject lies continue to pass as good ideas. It's very depressing.

(h/t Balloon Juice)

Polls from ObviousTown

Via Ezra Klein, NBC/WSJ has a new poll showing that Obama's post-partisanship fetish is not going so well with all those people that are out of work and otherwise have a shitty standard of living while Washington continues to do nothing to help them:

On the deficit, which was at the heart of the pitched battle over the debt ceiling earlier this summer, Obama has reaped no dividends for trying to produce a compromise agreement with Republicans. Six in 10 disapprove of Obama’s work on the federal budget deficit, a percentage that is relatively unmoved in recent surveys and basically where it was a year ago.

No shit. You don't need a poll for these things. It has long been glaringly obvious that no one gives a fuck about Obama's post-partisan brand/strategy (if you can even call it a strategy anymore) except for the Obama political team. People are hurting and they want substantive results that improve their bleak standard of living, even if that means hurting the Republican's fee-fees, getting a little aggressive, or rightfully and repeatedly calling them on their bull shit. People want Obama to be a fighter. Being Conciliator in Chief during the Lesser Depression and against unprecedented, childish Republican obstruction is not going to win him any favors. The Republicans want Obama to fail and do nothing, and he is handing that to them on a silver platter while simultaneously hamstringing his own re-election prospects. 

If Obama loses in 2012, he really has nobody to blame but himself. He has doubled down on this 'above-the-fray' strategy time and again, and it has long since been apparent that no one cares for it. There's a time and a place for such high-mindedness, and the midst of the Lesser Depression is not one of them.

 

"But Obama promised to bring hope and change and be different and change the tone of Washington and end partisanship during his campaign," you say. Yeah, well he also promised a ton of other shit in the campaign that on which he did not and will not deliver. I would have rather seen him uphold even a fraction of the other campaign promises at the price of ditching this 'turn the other cheek' dreck.

Hmmm, He Seems Like A Nice Guy!

I'm with Kevin Drum on this one:

"We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party."

With all due respect: Wake the fuck up, Mr. President.

Reducing Unemployment Through Increasing Pollution

This is a neat trick, albeit one that we have seen before:

House Republicans are planning votes for almost every week this fall in an effort to repeal environmental and labor requirements on business that they say have hampered job growth.With everyone from President Obama to his Republican challengers in the 2012 campaign focusing on ways to spur economic growth, House Republicans will roll out plans Monday to fight regulations from the National Labor Relations Board, pollution rules handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency and regulations that affect health plans for small businesses. In addition, the lawmakers plan to urge a 20 percent tax deduction for small businesses.“It is essential that the House continue our focus on the jobs crisis,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) wrote in a memo to be sent to GOP lawmakers Monday. 

[...] 

The next month or so will focus on EPA regulations. House Republicans would pull back an effort to regulate coal ash in mining-heavy states that they say would hinder concrete production and cost more than 100,000 jobs. Through the fall and winter, Cantor said, the caucus will vote on at least 10 regulations that committee chairmen have identified as “costly bureaucratic handcuffs that Washington has imposed upon business.”The result of these votes is likely to mirror failed efforts this year to repeal landmark legislation that was approved during Obama’s first two years in office — his health-care law and the Dodd-Frank consumer protection bill — but it will provide a framework for Republicans to highlight a jobs agenda. Also, leaders have pushed several of their freshman lawmakers to advance the anti-regulation bills, providing the newcomers with a chance to tout proposals that could resonate with voters in their districts.

I am seeing a formula here - pick a policy or boogieman completely unrelated to current economic conditions but that resonates with your failed ideology and mouth breathing base, relentlessly hammer at this policy in the House even though it has zero chance of ever passing the Senate and even less of a chance of making it past the President's veto pen, all the while taking to Fox News and the Sunday shows and spew lies, misinformation, and propaganda about how the Democrats are killing the nation with their support of the boogieman and how it's their fault that we're in the mess that we are, and oh if they would just compromise a little bit on this very reasonable and "pro-growth" GOP position, we would all be rolling in the Benjamins. 

We saw it the last two years with the deficit as a political cudgel. The deficit has absolutely nothing to do with unemployment or flagging GDP - not a fucking thing. But that was the Republican meme. And the Democrats went along like the bunch of groupthink fraught morons that they are. But I have a feeling that the GOP has gone a bit far on this one and I don't think they will get very far with a "screw labor unions/pollute more" agenda for jobs. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that anything the President reveals in his speech next week will be much more palatable to the American public, but I could also be placing far too much faith in our incredibly stupid and uninformed electorate. 

Finally, this latest stunt from the GOP circus is just further proof that they don't care fuck all for the country or the economy. Focusing on labor unions and environmental regulations at a time of 9.1% unemployment and GDP growth nearing recession is laughable and stupid. It's just an attempt to enact an extreme, ideological agenda under the cloak of jobs. After all, two pillars of the modern Republican party is gutting worker rights and polluting as much as possible because pollution creates jobs and climate change is a farce and only Jebus can harm or end this world. But they are Very Serious People because they hold elected office, and their buddies in the media will treat them as such with kid gloves. Expect this to get a similar treatment to Paul Ryan's 'courageous' abolition of Medicare. The media won't care that the GOP is a bunch of clowns and these policies are cynical and ideologically driven and will do nothing to improve the economy or create jobs. What matters is that they're trying! They're putting something on the table!

Economic Reality Check

Yes, things are really, really bad:

In other words, the ship has since collided headlong into the iceberg, is taking on water, and instead of deciding how quickly we should be bailing out water or what size buckets to hand out, policymakers are either suggesting we open up the hull to take on additional water, or that we just wait to see if the water will find its own way out of the boat. We are years away from recovering from the financial crisis, but all the supply side fuckwads in Washington are still convinced that we are just a few months, maybe a year away from the Invisible Hand pulling us all up by our bootstraps. 

Spoiler alert: we are not going to get out of this by traditional means. Desperate times call for desperate measures (and no, not desperate austerity measures). The private sector can't do it on its own, government can't do it on its own, and funneling free money to corporations, plutocrats, and banksters has not and will not work. 

I would suggest that perhaps we give some free money to households, you know, since they have none and the Fed found it within itself to be able to dole out $1.2 trillion to the banksters, but then we would need to clutch our pearls about moral hazard and not rewarding unscrupulous folks. Also too, socialism, and that's now how we've done it before here in the freedom loving real American United States, and it would never work.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Unemployment and GDP Improve

Gee, I wonder if maybe the free market Jebus, in all his erudite wisdom, is trying to tell us something? I think he is, and that message is clearly that we have not cut government spending enough, not cut taxes on the wealthy enough. We are really just going to have to tighten our belts and really savage the fuck out of the poor and middle class if we want to get this economy moving again. Yessir. The free market Jebus is clearly displeased with our inability to address the deficit and other long-term economic issues that have no business being the sole focus of economic policy during the worst economy since the Great Depression.

Totally preventable, needlessly precipitated double dip recession here we come!

If It Ain't Broke

Imagine that - Republicans are planning on using the deficit as a political tool to prevent Democrats from passing anything that might have even the remotest chance of improving unemployment or the economy. And the chances are remote. With Congress firmly gridlocked and with Dems loving nothing more than to negotiate with themselves, the litany of shitty half measures that will be served up will do little to make significant gains in the months ahead. But that is a feature, not a bug. Remember, we won't slide back into recession, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel in 2013. Because Obama's economist-free Council on Economic Affairs said so, that's why.

But in general, this should surprise no one. The GOP spent the first two years of Obama's presidency crying wolf about the deficit to impede legislative progress. Even when the Democrats tied themselves in knots to make bills deficit neutral, the Republicans found other reasons to oppose them anyway. And they were rewarded handsomely in 2010 by an ignorant electorate that collectively scratched its ass and grunted out "spending bad" and voted for the people in power who sounded most like them. So they are just going back to the same dogeared page in their playbook. It worked so well for them once, why would they try anything different this time around?

Sigh

Same shit, different day:

Senate Democrats, who are desperate to stimulate the economy but don’t have the money to pass traditional stimulus legislation, will turn to cutting business taxes when they return to Washington this fall.  

In doing so, they will try to drive a wedge between business interests and the GOP leadership, who has tried to block almost every element of the Democratic agenda, by pushing a round of corporate tax breaks, say Senate Democratic aides.  

[...] 

Their first tax proposal is to make the corporate research and development tax credit permanent. The second is to pass an Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit. This would create a 30 percent tax credit for companies that manufacture new clean-energy technologies, which Democratic aides say would help create thousands of new jobs around the country. 

A third idea is to extend the payroll tax cut Congress enacted in December and expand it to employers, reducing the cost of labor. And a fourth option is to give employers tax breaks for hiring new employees, an idea Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee panned in 2009 but now seems more attractive. 

Excellent idea - let's give even more tax breaks to businesses that are already sitting on Scrooge McDuck Money Bin sized piles of cash so they can hire people to keep up with the demand that isn't there from all the customers that they don't have. But this is all we can do, because true stimulative economic policies aren't "politically feasible" and our political overlords are a bunch of lazy pussies that only want to try what they can pass even if what can pass is useless shit, rather than fight for something that might have a better chance of dragging us out of the quagmire. 

I like the neat little rhetorical flair at the beginning of this article too: Senate Democrats "don't have the money to pass traditional stimulus legislation." Right. Because tax cuts are always free!

Now let's just get some patent reform bills going, and then the epic pivot to jobs will be complete.

Cash for New Hires

Quick - someone give these people free money for hiring people, because they really need it. That'll move the chains!

Also too, patent reform.

Not to Be Trusted

Oh look, more sound economic analysis and advice from a savvy, intelligent, and successful expert.

But meh, what does he know? Besides, the recovery is just around the corner. Just wait a little longer. It'll happen on its own, and then when it does, we'll be super glad we didn't waste a bunch of time and money trying to precipitate its arrival. And the Democrats had their chance.

Is That a Raging Signal of Confidence in Your Pocket, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Digby links to the following conversation from MSNBC's Morning Joe:

JON CORZINE: First of all, we ought to send out signals of confidence. It's easy to sit on the sidelines when you're not governing. I would love to see the President call the leaders of Congress back to Washington in the next week, walk out together and say we're going to do the Grand Bargain.  

JOE SCARBOROUGH: What a great signal that would send.  

CORZINE: It would send an enormous confidence setting tone for the market. 

What the fuck is it with these people and the boners they get for sending "signals" and "confidence"? It's just stupid. They actually believe we ought to enact some certain set of policies (ostensibly ones that fuck the poor and middle class, 'cause markets just love that shit) just to send warm fuzzies to the free market Jebus. That's what's at the crux of their statements - governance by DJIA. 

And let's look at their track record. We were harangued for months by the pearl clutchers in the media as they damn near fainted telling us how badly we needed to tie a deficit reduction package to the debt ceiling vote. Because you know, confidence and stuff! Well, we did that, and what did it get us? A credit rating downgrade, the Dow has its worst day since the financial crisis in 2008, and everyone flocks to Treasury securities because people are waking up to just how shitty the global economy has become. 

I know this may sound crazy, but perhaps we might send confidence boners if we actually pursued policies that resulted in GDP growth beyond 1% or meaningful job creation, none of these bullshit half measures like patent reform or tax credits for new hires. Or if one of our political parties wasn't barking mad and didn't actively oppose any measure that might actually improve the economy. 

I Would Do...Nothing

Kevin Drum:

Shorter Fed: The economy sucks really badly, but we're not going to do anything about it. Have a nice day! 

Shorter Republicans: Pain is good for you, so we're not going to do anything either. Or allow anyone else to do anything. See you next November! 

Shorter Democrats: We'd like to do something but there's nothing we can do. Sorry, folks! 

Shorter Obama: Prosperity is just around the corner. This time for sure. Clap louder!

I'll add further that all of the above players are gainfully employed with generous salaries, ample health benefits, never have to worry about retirement, and have little concern at the thought of losing their jobs since it would just mean an even more profitable gig on the media, bankster, or K Street circuit. And I am sure that these factors are not at all related to their complete reticence to do fucking anything and the lazy indifference in which they regard the bleak economic conditions that are absolutely savaging millions of Americans.

The Pivot to Jobs and WTF

Now that the debt ceiling debacle is over, I know the rest of us are supremely relieved to know that the Obama administration, having defanged and removed the deficit as a political tool for Republicans (can you pick up my sarcasm? Because I'm laying it on pretty thick), will begin its much heralded pivot to jobs and Winning the Future (WTF) and all that good stuff. So what could that possibly look like?

Here's a couple predictions - a few high-minded speeches, lots of talk of wholly weak policy, and not a lot of Congressional votes or other results. There are mentions of of this new pivot and WTF, some good and some incredibly stupid, but it is all but guaranteed that it will go no where. And a number of the policies that are being floated are completely inadequate and worse, ineffective on their face. Tax credits for hiring people? Really? Businesses have no fucking customers. Tax credits for would-be employers aren't going to do a damn thing when nobody has any money.

On the WTF front, we now have top administration officials endorsing cuts to Medicare and Social Security in order to liquefy those programs into fuel to ensure that the military industrial complex grinds on unvarnished in its current bloated state. That's an odd definition of a victorious future from a Democratic administration - a generation of Americans growing up with an even more frail version of our already pathetic safety net so that we can enjoy the Total Safety afforded by a shitload of tanks and jets and bombs that we don't fucking need. 

One of the primary reasons why the much anticipated pivot to jobs/WTF will be little more empty speeches and unkept promises lies in how the Obama administration has once again voluntarily bound its hands politically. In the debt ceiling deal, the parties agreed to create the altogether ridiculous congressional Justice League of sorts to gather 12 members of the non-Justice League congress (3 members per each party, from each chamber) to come together on future deficit reductions. This was part of the Obama administration's olive branch to liberals as he traded trillions of dollars in draconian budget cuts for the promise to once again talk sternly with Republicans about taxes at a future date. Our congressional caped crusaders will have until November to come together on additional deficit reduction measures otherwise a 'trigger' kicks in that will absolutely savage the Pentagon's budget, Medicare payments to healthcare providers, and other unspecified cuts. The idea is to entice Democrats to compromise by threatening general budget cuts, and to get Republicans to compromise by threatening the Pentagon. Yeah...there's just a few problems with this:

Republicans, for their part, are unlikely to appoint anyone who’s publicly supported including revenue as part of a debt deal, namely in the form of tax increases. That would eliminate even fiscal hawks such as Sen. Tom Coburn, who’s made new enemies on the right by saying revenue should be on the table. Many Hill watchers expect the GOP to appoint Rep. Paul Ryan, whose original 2012 budget plan set the hard-line tone for the incoming House Republicans. 

Other likely contenders include Sen. Jon Kyl, the minority whip who’s part of the Senate GOP leadership and is retiring in 2012, and Rep. Dave Camp, the staunch conservative chairman of the House Ways and Means committee....“No one from the Senate Gang of Six, who proposed tax increases, need apply,” the Wall Street Journal opined. “The GOP choices should start with Arizona Senator Jon Kyl and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, adding four others who will follow their lead.” 

On the Democratic side, fiscal hawks and centrists will probably back Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a member of Vice President Biden’s working group. Along with his Democratic colleagues in the Biden group, Baucus was willing to discuss painful spending cuts to Medicaid and food stamps while raising concerns about the impact of such changes to seniors and low-income Americans, according to sources close to the talks.

Weird - Republicans intend to appoint staunch anti-tax mouth breathing zealots, and the Democrats plan on appointing mealy mouthed centrists that value compromise regardless of the cost. And with the administration publicly opposing against any form of measurable defense cuts, what do you think the odds are of our Democratic members of the super congress Justice League pandering hand and foot to the no-new-taxes demands of the intransigent Republicans?

But beyond the fact that the modern Democratic party is filled with a bunch of rudderless pussies, what about the timing of all of this? The super committee is supposed to have its recommendations sent for a vote by November, otherwise the automatic budget cut trigger takes effect. Expect the next three months to be filled with wall-to-wall wrangling and media coverage over the Holy Shit Debt Deal Trigger Armageddon as both parties wring their hands and gnash their teeth and fail to reach agreement up until the very last minute when Democrats inevitably cave in order to avert disaster to the defense budget, because we can never be Completely Safe unless we drop a cool trillion on bombs and stuff. Aw shucks guys, we'll get them on taxes next time, you'll see. This should all sound mind numbingly familiar at this point. 

This now takes us to November with less than a year until the 2012 election and the economy still very much hemorrhaging just about any and every sign of positivity or hope, which is a feature of all of this, not a bug. As I have said numerous times before, the Republicans have been using manufactured crises to prevent any real action from being taken on the economy, and the Democrats have happily obliged them by playing along with their infantile antics. So what then? Well lucky for us, the Obama administration feels strongly that the economy will be all rosy and and super awesome come 2013. Why? Just because! By then the confidence fairy will have had a few extra months to sprinkle her magic dust on the free market to get it moving again. This is why the administration feels comfortable with what is very likely to be a very weak pivot to jobs - they have already bought into the ludicrous notion that everything will be booming again come 2013, despite the reams of economic theory and historical precedent that scream the opposite. Economic recoveries following financial crises are painful, slow, and long lasting, even more so when the government sits on the sidelines. It'll be just like the "summer of recovery" leading up to the midterms. And given the circumstances, and the stakes of next year, this seems like an odd time to be thinning the ranks of economists in the White House:

Heading into Obama’s reelection campaign, his group of economic advisers is taking on a shape far different from the earliest days of his presidency, when Obama surrounded himself with some of the best economic and financial minds — experts on economic crises and severe downturns.
Now he has far more people on his team who are steeped in the ways of Washington budget negotiations and debates over spending and taxes...Administration officials say the president has brought in members of the new team — such as Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council — skilled at passing economic policy in difficult economic environments. The officials pointed out that many other economists remain, including Jason Furman, a Harvard-trained economist who is Sperling’s top deputy.

In other words, the President has heard everything he needs to hear from prominent economic minds. The recovery is coming, we just need to wait for it, and in the meantime we've got a lot of people that are really savvy in the ways of cutting ridiculously one-sided deals with Republican hostage takers. 

Twelve months is an eternity in politics, and anything could feasibly happen between now and then. But for now, I'd say that 2012 is an enormous, terrifying wild card. The American electorate is overwhelmingly stupid and uninformed, and I fear the same voters that gave us the 2010 "shellacking" will be going for a repeat performance in 15 months. The President's advisers have calculated that independents want the government to spend less, but that interpretation is a misguided fallacy. Independents and voters of all stripes want results and economic security, and our current path of head-in-the-sand politics and embrace of austerity are not going to get us there. And when that happens, it's the party in power that bears the voter's anger at the ballot box. 

Debt Deal Debacle

I'm altogether sick of hearing and reading about the completely predictable outcome of our latest manufactured fiscal crisis du jour, so I'll add a few points and be done with it.

If you haven't noticed yet, we're now deep into a rutted pattern of GOP manufactured legislative and fiscal crises. The most notable ones of recent memory were the extension of the Bush tax cuts at the end of last year, the ridiculous gridlock that ran us to the brink of a government shutdown earlier this spring, and now the recent summer showdown over the debt ceiling. In all three of these instances, the administration wholeheartedly and enthusiastically capitulated to congressional Republican demands, deigning to extract any significant concessions or even attempting to champion progressive policies. The short term extension of the Bush tax cuts added another $860 billion to the deficit at a time when the Republicans spent the prior 24 months bitching and screaming about the deficit and demanding that all legislation be deficit neutral. In return, the administration got an extension of unemployment benefits, something that should more or less be considered automatic at a time of unprecedented financial hardship and record unemployment.

The deal that averted a government shutdown in April, while much smaller than today's deal, was also constructed almost wholly on Republican terms. Again, it came down to all cuts to spending, with the day-to-day operations of the federal government held as a hostage. After the deal was cut, Obama himself championed it as an enormous success, while seemingly contradicting himself by admitting that some people were going to have to sack up and deal without support from certain programs (don't worry, none of those programs affect banksters or plutocrats). 

And that brings us to the debt ceiling debacle. Once again, the administration has accepted a deal torn straight from the pages of the GOP playbook - over $2 trillion in cuts, no new revenues. Additionally, we are now treated to the presence of some ludicrous super congressional committee that can ostensibly do nothing and bicker just like the real congress about how best to gut government spending in the face of anemic economic growth while ensuring the banksters and super wealthy never have to pay higher taxes. And we also have the added benefit of the fact that the administration voluntarily allowed the GOP to take the debt ceiling hostage despite numerous congressional Republicans admitting that they would never allow the government to exceed the debt limit, and that up until this point, the debt ceiling has always been a routine, albeit unpopular, legislative act with no strings attached (or hostages taken).

I'm not going to rehash the dead horse that is the "Obama is a shitty negotiator" meme. But at this point, it's apparent to me that these crises end the way they do because it's the result that Obama more or less wants. That's not a new observation either, but one that bears repeating in the wake of his typical "Aw shucks guys, I really tried" statements that inevitably follow these shit shows as he tries to smooth it over with the liberal base for which he clearly cares very little. Maybe it's easier to avoid disappointment in situations like these if you go into them with the realization that the President will just end up giving the Republicans 90% of what they demand.

And now that the latest hostage crisis has concluded and the issue of taxes once again postponed, the President assures us that he will fight for new revenues in the future. Mmm-hmm. I wonder how that will go? You know, given his already exemplary track record of tangling with congressional Republicans. And expect to see the same tactics employed by the Republicans. They keep getting exactly what they want, so why would ever they try anything else or act any differently?

C+I+G+(E-I) = GDP

Real murikans don't care bout no fancy elitist economic "theories":

Notable contributions to real GDP growth in the second quarter included net exports (0.6 percentage points) and fixed investment (0.7 p.p.). Defense spending added 0.4 p.p. to GDP, but this gain was offset by declines in state and local government (-0.4 p.p.) and nondefense spending (-0.2 p.p.). Consumer spending rose just 0.1 percent at an annual rate, with a steep decline (23 percent) in motor vehicle consumption accounting for the weakness. The downward revision to first quarter GDP from 1.9 percent to 0.4 percent reflects lower contributions from inventory investment and imports.

Just to recap - consumer spending is in the shitter because millions are out of work (or afraid of losing their job), or otherwise deferring most purchases as they deleverage from the cheap credit spending binge of the early to mid 2000s bubble. Gross investment suffers a similar fate as consumers and businesses alike hoard their cash in fear of flagging aggregate demand. Net exports are perhaps the one bright spot.

So do some math with me here. Your goal is to increase GDP. When three of the four primary factors that make up gross domestic product have plodded along through a historic recession and one of the weakest economies on record, what do you do? Oh, and keep in mind that for the other factor, government spending, you can borrow money at historically low interest rates (~3%) as investors around the world flee to Treasury securities as one of the few safe investments left on the planet. 

If your answer is "slash government spending" or "do nothing and hope that the confidence fairies and free market Jebus bless us in the face," then congratulations: you have a future in American politics. Government spending is perhaps the one economic factor favorably within our control, and the American government is running away from screaming with their fingers in their ears like a bunch of children. Yes, we have a very large deficit, but we also have a much more pressing and grim short-term economic outlook. 

Not to mention the amount of disgusting cynicism it shows on the President's part that he values the ignorant whims of independent voters over the plight of the unemployed. Or just how how incredibly stupid that sounds when you think about it. Independents think that we should spend less. Why? Just because! Okay then! We better give them what they want, especially after the 2010 "shellacking."

You know what else independents might like? An unemployment rate somewhere south of 9.2%. Just a hunch. 

We Only Ignore Laws That Seek To Prevent Us From Bombing Brown People

I think it's very telling of our national priorities that the White House went out of its way to concoct the most laughably stupid rationale for as to why bombing Libya did not constitute a war, yet we continue to allow ourselves to be beholden to some nebulous limit placed upon the full faith and credit of the United States. Also note how we're perfectly fine with torture, ordering the assassinations of American citizens, and indefinite detention without ever charging those individuals with a crime. You'll note that the difference between these two standards is that ignoring one set of laws allows us to attack Muslims with impunity and the other allows us to fuck over average American citizens through unnecessary economic hardship and manufactured debt crises, the common denominator being that both of these things are wildly popular in Washington. 

And reading this just about made me want to explode:

When you strip away all the noise, and the posturing from both Democrats and Republicans, sources on both sides, including in the White House, acknowledge that there’s really only one way out of the impasse.
Both sides have to agree on a way of separating the debt ceiling hike, or hikes, from the process by which spending gets cut — in essence putting an end to a situation in which the debt ceiling is being used as a Sword of Damocles hanging over the spending process. Accomplishing this overall policy goal in a way that can pass both Houses of Congress is the only real way out of the trap right now. The cuts have to be deep enough to pass the House, but the proposal to hike the debt ceiling has to simultaneously satisfy the White House and Democrats.
According to a source close to the talks, Vice President Joe Biden has been in discussions with multiple officials on the Hill from both parties, about ways of realizing this aim.
One idea being floated in multiple private discussions would in effect be a fusion of the Boehner plan and the original McConnell plan to transer control of the debt ceiling to the President.
The idea would be to preserve the joint commission that Boehner’s plan sets up, and also preserve the spending cut targets in Boehner’s plan. But rather than have those tied to two debt ceiling hikes, the President would have the power to hike the debt ceiling unilaterally in keeping with McConnell’s plan, unless a two-thirds veto-proof Congressional supermajority disapproved of it (which wouldn’t happen). The spending cuts in Boehner’s plan would instead be enforced by some kind of trigger — if the committee didn’t reach the goals, automatic cuts of some kind would be triggered automatically.

And then when Capricorn wanes in Venus' shadow and the magical unicorn centaur people of Zargon V sing their haiku of adulation to the heffalump goddesses, Congress will come together and stop holding the global economy hostage. 

Just pass a fucking clean debt ceiling bill already and be done with it. If congressional Democrats and the administration wanted one, they would have fought for it all along. Instead we are stuck with this economically counterproductive, wholly conservative plan because of some mindless political calculation by the White House that they need to cater more to the delicate fee-fees of independents rather than actually do something about the economy.

And speaking of Libya, whatever happened to that delightful little war?

A False Paradox of Choices

It seems to me that since his inauguration, the President has viewed most choices on policy issues as a binary one. On one hand, you have the "post-partisan/great conciliator" option, and the other is "hope and change/progressive policies/appeal to the base." I'd argue that the President has, for the most part, opted for the former, ostensibly because he does not want to hurt GOP fee-fees, which supposedly isolates independents, and because he doesn't want to appear as a radical liberal, which also supposedly isolates independents. Remember - there are few things more terrible in Washington than appearing to be liberal on anything. That is why people like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich are denounced as fringe players and loons while total fuckwads like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are Very Serious and Courageous Democrats. 

So here's the rub - the GOP and the teabaggers are going to paint him as a radical liberal socialist domestic terrorist regardless of how much ground he gives or the extent to which the final policy mirrors the GOP's own preferences or world views (see the Affordable Care Act, RomneyCare). 

So in that case, why not pursue true progressive ideals and policies that will rally your base? It is entirely possible to pursue a progressive agenda without isolating independents, as numerous recent polls have shown that progressive ideals are wildly popular with the American public - increased taxation on millionaires and billionaires and closing tax loopholes for corporations, ending our irresponsible wars and lust for global empire, sound regulations of the financial sector and other corporations, and the list goes on. 

Again, the GOP will paint him as a radical no matter what the President does or says, so he may as well at least let them paint him as such while he's, you know, actually pursuing a Democratic agenda on some of these issues instead of Republican-lite or compromise-for-the-sake-of-compromise-at-any-cost.

Give Them A Pulitzer Already

Via Atrios, the internet's best newspaper steps up its satire:

WASHINGTON—Members of the U.S. Congress reported Wednesday they were continuing to carefully debate the issue of whether or not they should allow the country to descend into a roiling economic meltdown of historically dire proportions. "It is a question that, I think, is worthy of serious consideration: Should we take steps to avoid a crippling, decades-long depression that would lead to disastrous consequences on a worldwide scale? Or should we not do that?" asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), adding that arguments could be made for both sides, and that the debate over ensuring America’s financial solvency versus allowing the nation to default on its debt—which would torpedo stock markets, cause mortgage and interests rates to skyrocket, and decimate the value of the U.S. dollar—is “certainly a conversation worth having.” "Obviously, we don't want to rush to consensus on whether it is or isn't a good idea to save the American economy and all our respective livelihoods from certain peril until we've examined this thorny dilemma from every angle. And if we’re still discussing this matter on Aug. 2, well, then, so be it.” At press time, President Obama said he personally believed the country should not be economically ruined.

Not to mention the "debate" continues on whether or not we should allow millions of Americans to continue to lose their houses or be out of work. 

Shoot Me Now

I've been away for a blissful week in Cancun with my wife with absolutely zero access to internet (it was there, I just stayed away from it). Had no expectation of the debt ceiling shit show being solved upon my return, but I didn't expect to come back to this:

A Congressional aide briefed on ongoing negotiations between House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama says the two principals may be nearing a "grand bargain" on to raise the debt limit which would contain large, set-in-stone spending cuts but only the possibility of future revenue increases.

"All cuts," the aide said. "Maybe revenues some time in the future."

[...]

A White House spokesman called the claims from aides "not credible" -- the result of having a "3rd hand version of the facts."

However two aides and a third source, close to the principals confirmed that Obama has been emphatic with Democratic negotiators that his preference is to negotiate a big deal with Boehner and squeeze it through Congress.

Lacking still, including among Democratic sources, is any sense of what's in the still-forming plan -- vis a vis both spending and revenue. And Democrats, particularly in the House, will have a lot to say over whether the deal is acceptable -- their votes will be necessary for Boehner to pull off a grand bargain.

Well isn't that cute - Republicans get exactly what they wanted all along and that which is directly counterproductive to economic recovery, and in return the President gets a sort-of-kind-of-maybe-we'll-think-about-discussing-revenues-in-the-not-to-near-future. I'll let you decide how that will go. Here's a hint as to when those results might happen: When the sun rises in the west, sets in the east. When the seas go dry, and the mountains blow in the wind like leaves.

And this is all because the Obama team deems it ever so erudite to take deficit reduction off the table going forward, so he can pivot to jobs and winning the future and stuff during his second term. Does anyone really think for even a second that the GOP won't manufacture some other bull shit excuse to stonewall Obama's agenda if he wins a second term? Here's an observation of mine, Mr. President - they hate you. They hate you, they hate your family, and they hate everything you stand for. If that much isn't glaringly obvious already, then god help you. They don't want to negotiate in good faith, they don't want you, your policies, the middle class, or the country to succeed, and they don't want anything but their craven pursuit of personal and political gain. Cutting some bullshit deal with these assholes is not going to buy you a lick of political capital to spend in a second term. Just as the debt ceiling has never before been used as a political hostage because it is insane and dangerous and cynical, just so they will manufacture some other crisis to grind Washington to a halt, suck all the air out of the room, and monopolize the stenographer's in the media with a manufactured, unnecessary crisis. Just as they continue to peddle their ignorant, demonstrably false talking point that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, so they will continue to contrive other similar falsehoods with which to push their reckless agenda while hamstringing your own. And just as they spent the better part of two years hyping the deficit as the greatest crisis the country has ever faced while millions of Americans wallow in unnecessary and preventable unemployment and poverty brought on by the financial crisis, so they will immediately ignore the same admonitions if they are able to unseat you in 2012 and embark upon their "conservative" agenda of privatizing everything, wiping all regulations off the books, and cutting the top marginal tax rate to 1%. 

And fuck eleven dimensional chess. I am over it, and the rest of the country is over it. If Congress and the administration wanted a clean debt ceiling vote, they could have it, and they could fight for it and get the public behind it. Instead we are left with what will likely be another Republican wet dream of a deal in the likeness of the Bush tax cut extension just ahead of the midterms. That didn't exactly rile the base, in case the administration has forgotten so soon.