President Obama’s press conference on the breakdown of the debt ceiling talks (video above). Summary of the news conference here. Nancy Pelosi has offered another compromise.
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Weiner: More A Case Of Stupidity Than A Major Scandal (So Far)
June 6, 2011 — Ron ChusidAnthony Weiner has admitted to sending the picture of his (covered) weiner over Twitter, and of similar behavior with other women he communicated with on line. As scandals go, Weiner’s is fairly small. As Steve Benen wrote:
On the Political Sex Scandal Richter Scale, I’m still not altogether sure why this even registers at all. Given what we know, Weiner shared adult content with women he met online. They were adults and the interactions were consensual. He didn’t commit adultery (Ensign), he didn’t hire prostitutes (Vitter, Spitzer), he didn’t solicit anyone in an airport bathroom (Craig), he didn’t pretend to be someone else in order to try to pick up women (Lee), he didn’t abandon his office for a rendezvous with his lover (Sanford), he didn’t leave his first two wives after they got sick (Gingrich), he didn’t have a child with his housekeeper (Schwarzenegger), there’s no sex tape (Edwards), and no interns were involved (Clinton). He’s not even a hypocrite — Weiner has never championed conservative “family values,” condemning others for their “moral failings.”
This assumes that there isn’t anything more to this. Nancy Pelosi has called for an ethics investigation of Weiner. Assuming that there are no minors and there are not more explicit pictures, my guess is that this is not a career ending scandal, but at very least will be a career stalling one. As can be seen in Steve’s list, the less severe sex scandals do not necessarily end careers, but I doubt he will be elected to a more competitive spot in New York anytime soon. (Elliot Spitzer might even beat him–time does seem to make these scandals less important to voters).
While Weiner’s transgressions appear to be relatively minor (at least so far), they were rather stupid. It is amazing how often we see similar patterns in politicians. Was whatever pleasure Weiner received from sexting with young women really worth all of this? I would ask whether this will dissuade future politicians (which can be from either party) from doing anything so foolish, but the answer, based upon the past history of sex scandals in Washington, is clearly no.
White House Compromises On Battle Congress Avoided To Obtain Economic Stimulus
December 7, 2010 — Ron ChusidThe White House had wanted to wage a battle over taxes for months but Congress was unwilling to hold a vote before the elections. I bet this was because Congressional leaders felt they could not win because some of the more conservative Democrats were unwilling to support the position of only renewing the cuts on income under $250,000. It turned out that many of these conservative Democrats still wound up losing and might have stood a better chance by supporting a cause supported by the majority of American voters.
After failing to take up this fight before the election when it should have been, there is suddenly a lot of noise coming from both the House and Senate. While the compromise is far from perfect and is not going to make everyone happy (which is the nature of compromise), critics are focusing too much on the extension of the tax breaks for the top ten percent while ignoring all the benefits for everyone else. As Ezra Klein has explained while discussing both the benefits and opposition from the liberal base:
If you’re worried about stimulus, joblessness and the working poor, this is probably a better deal than you thought you were going to get. “It’s a bigger deal than anyone expected,” says Bob Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Both sides gave more expected and both sides got more than expected.” The White House walked out of the negotiations with more stimulus than anyone had seen coming. But they did it in a way that made their staunchest allies feel left behind, and in many cases, utterly betrayed.
That the Obama administration has turned out to be fairly good at the inside Washington game of negotiations and legislative compromise and quite bad at communicating to the public and keeping their base excited is not what most would have predicted during the 2008 campaign. But it’s true.
Bill Scher from the Campaign for American’s Future has more on reasons why the left should support the deal to help the poor and to help the economy. The Center for American Progress predicts the deal will create or save 2.2 million jobs. The biggest downside is the amount that the tax breaks to the upper ten percent adds to the deficit. How come the tea party supporters who are so concerned about the deficit aren’t protesting the Bush tax breaks?
It is risky to predict what issues will determine future elections, as we have seen with unexpected events such as 9/11 and Katrina. However, baring anything unexpected, Barack Obama might have taken a major step towards his reelection. Obama’s support is already well above that of either party in Congress. If the deal fails due to Congressional opposition, the unemployed will see their extended benefits dry up and the middle class will see more money taken out of their paychecks in January. That will only increase the gap between Obama’s approval and the disapproval of Congress. On the other hand, if the deal does pass Obama gets a bigger economic stimulus than he ever could have gotten through Congress on its own. Simply managing to get any deals through with the Republicans enhances Obama’s reputation as being effective at compromise, and most voters will not share the opposition to compromise seen on the extremes.
Passing the deal also moves the battle over taxes to the 2012 presidential election, giving the Democrats an issue supported by most voters. As this debate continues over the next couple of years, here is a handy table which demonstrates the differences in the tax plans of the two parties (via Ezra Klein):
Under the Democratic plan those with incomes under $200,000 get the larger tax breaks. Under the GOP plan the winners are those making over $500,000 per year, with the big winners being those making over $1,000,000 per year. Unless people really believe in trickle down economics, the Democratic plan looks like the winner in the 2012 campaign.
Pelosi Running To Remain Democratic House Leader
November 5, 2010 — Ron ChusidAfter a lot of speculation she would do it, CNN has just issued a bulletin that Nancy Pelosi will run to be House Minority Leader. So far the only real opposition has come from the right. I had hoped she might step aside and that another liberal candidate might arise to replace her.
Planned Islamic Community Center Turns Politicians Of Both Parties Into Babbling Idiots
August 18, 2010 — Ron ChusidThe planned Islamic Community Center planned near ground zero has resulted in a lot of nonsense. Most of it has come from the right, who mischaracterized it as a Ground Zero Mosque, with the right wingers showing no respect for either freedom of religion or property rights. Some of the nonsense also came from the Democrats. I really don’t know what Nancy Pelosi is talking about here, as she speaks of looking into “who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center.” Her clarification does not make much more sense. (Of course this is not the first time I’ve questioned if Nancy Pelosi was making sense).
What is obviously going on here (along with Harry Reid trying to sound like a conservative on this in the midst of a tough election campaign) is that the Democrats still have absolutely no idea how to counter the the hateful and ignorant rhetoric from the far right. Instead they look at the polls and find that a majority of Americans support the conservative position in this and fear saying anything meaningful.
If Islamic terrorists who had flown planes into the World Trade Building had wanted to build a mosque near ground zero I would understand the opposition. Of course those who desire to build the Community Center had no more connection to 9/11 than Saddam Hussein did.
As long as the Democrats fail to provide leadership and manage to speak out intelligibly on such issues a majority of people will listen to the right wing position. Democrats need to counter Republican rhetoric and misinformation with intelligent and factual responses. They won’t win by chickening out and hoping that Rachel Maddow or liberal bloggers will manage to bring some sense to the debates.
Update: Not Howard Dean too.
House Passes Temporary Medicare Fix After Senate Again Fails To Pass More Comprehensive Legislation
June 24, 2010 — Ron ChusidNancy Pelosi’s misguided attempt to use Medicare as leverage to pass the unemployment and jobs measures in the tax-extenders bill failed. Fortunately Pelosi quickly realized there was no point in continuing this strategy when Senate Republicans again blocked passage. Forty Republicans and Ben Nelson voted against the measure, blocking the measure supported by 57 Democrats. Subsequently Pelosi backed down and the House passed the temporary Medicare fix.
While misguided, at least it can be said that Pelosi meant well, motivated by a desire to promote economic recovery, which certainly could not be said of the Republicans. After the Senate passed a Medicare fix as a separate measure, she was under the mistaken belief that she had some leverage over Senate Republicans by blocking a vote on the Senate measure.
I am surprised at how badly Pelosi misread the Republicans. Republicans were willing to vote for the Medicare “doc fix” but certainly would not be heartbroken if it failed and they could blame Democrats for destroying Medicare. Even if they were actually in support of the measure, their opposition to spending money on jobs or the unemployed certainly trumped any such feelings.
Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan (where we recently fell to the number two in unemployment, now surpassed by Nevada) summed up the Republican mind set here:
It is very clear that the Republicans in the Senate want this economy to fail. They see that things are beginning to turn around. You know the numbers. When this president took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. … Now we are gaining jobs. … Unfortunately, and cynically [on their part], in cynical political terms, it doesn’t serve them in terms of their elections if things are beginning to turn around.
I believe when you look at this bill, which is all paid for — we raised revenues to pay for it — the one piece that is technically not paid for [is the federal unemployment benefit extensions and] that is done in a way that we have always done it, … [those are] always categorized as an emergency. And, frankly, if 15 million people without jobs is not an emergency, I don’t know what is.
Ezra Klein provided this political interpretation earlier in the day when he anticipated the loss on the jobs measures:
And still, it looks like Democrats might lose the vote today. And when I say “lose the vote,” I don’t mean that a majority of the Senate will vote against it. I mean that 58 senators, rather than 60, will support the legislation. All Republicans, and possibly Ben Nelson, appear to remain opposed. And why not? The less that Democrats appear to be doing on jobs — and the fewer jobs that Democrats actually create — the better Republicans will do in November. Substantial compromises on the bill haven’t brought any new votes, and that’s in part because Republicans see no political upside in passing the legislation.
While it made no sense for Pelosi to believe that the threat of not passing the Medicare fix would get Republicans to vote for unemployment benefits, at least she did quickly back down and get the Medicare fixed later the same day.
Getting this passed quickly was important for a number of reasons. After postponing the processing of payments since the beginning of June, Medicare began processing payments with the 21 percent cut. It will now be necessary to reissue these checks with the updated amount. Earlier in the week I saw estimates that this would cost $15 million, and this would increase with every batch of Medicare payments which must be reprocessed. The delay also increases expenses for physicians and undermines confidence in Medicare. This might lead more doctors, who now see Medicare patients at a considerable discount compared to commercial payers, to decide against accepting Medicare patients.
Now that it is established that both parties agree that this needs to be fixed, hopefully we can also achieve a permanent fix to the Medicare payment formula before the end of the year. Attempts last year failed because the Republicans had wanted to include this cost in the cost of health care reform and use it as another bogus argument against reform. Now that health care reform has been passed hopefully the Republicans will not see further political gain in blocking a permanent fix.
