It doesn’t look that bad thus far, so calm down.
As expected, left-leaning Beltway pundits are freaking the fuck out about yet another cave by Obama.
He compromised. He’s a shitty negotiator. He always gives the Republicans what they want. PRIMARY HIM!!!11one
Everyone rushed to judgment before the facts about the budget cuts were even released.
So how does it shake out now that the facts are rolling out? Pretty damn well, All Things Considered1:
Such moves permitted Obama to save favorite programs — Pell grants for poor college students, health research and “Race to the Top” aid for public schools, among others — from Republican knives.
The full details of Friday’s agreement weren’t being released until late Monday when it was officially submitted to the House. But the picture already emerging is of legislation financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially “score” as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, but that often have little to no actual impact on the deficit.
As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber passed a bill slashing this year’s budget by more than $60 billion. In doing so, the White House protected favorites like the Head Start early learning program, while maintaining the maximum Pell grant of $5,550 and funding for Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiative that provides grants to better-performing schools.
Obama also repelled Republican moves to cut $1 billion in grants for community health centers and $500 million from biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, while blocking them from “zeroing out” the AmeriCorps national service program and subsidies for public broadcasting [NPR].
Instead, the cuts that actually will make it into law are far tamer, including cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation. Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.
[read the rest]
From The Reid Report:
The negotiators grab fully one-third of the cuts — $10 billion worth, by targeting earmarks lawmakers, particularly Republicans, had already agreed to forego.
Another $5 billion comes from capping a Justice Department crime victims’ fund – by claiming savings for the whole fund even though they’re only capping a portion of it.
What isn’t in the bill? Riders to block funding for Planned Parenthood, the EPA, money to implement healthcare reform and Wall Street regulation, and money the NRA wanted cut in order to kill a program that helps stop people from running guns to Mexican drug dealers by gathering info on batch weapons purchases. Seriously. They wanted that.
What else was cut?
How about high speed rail money President Obama didn’t even ask for?
…
Phantom earmarks whose sponsors have died.
[read the rest]
So, not the crappiest of deals, contrary to what the pundits would have you believe. It’s actually a fairly decent deal for Democrats, given how powerful the Teabillies are in Congress. Sure, Republicans started at a base line of $32 billion in cuts. Sure the Democrats were all, “No.Effing.Way.” at the time. (Eleventy-three dimensional chess!) And sure folks who are junkies watched with bated breath on Friday as a government shutdown was averted and a stopgap was implemented. And sure, Boehner’s political theater made it seem like he was totally going to shut the fucker down because of the 3% of non-federal funding — yes NON-federal funding — used by Planned Parenthood for abortion.
But what was Obama’s response when Boehner wanted to cut Planned Parenthood funding?
The Teabillies are pissed off about this budget deal:
The Tea Party is steamed over DC’s budget deal.
While President Obama, Senate majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) hailed Friday night’s eleventh hour accord to avoid a government shutdown as “historic,” several Tea Party members did not feel the same way.
Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called the $39-billion slashing deal a “disappointment.”
Millions of Americans expected $100 billion in cuts and “wanted to make sure their tax dollars stopped flowing to the nation’s largest abortion provider, and who wanted us to defund ObamaCare,” Bachmann said in a statement.
“Instead, we’ve been asked to settle for $39 billion in cuts, even as we continue to fund Planned Parenthood and the implementation of ObamaCare.’
Bachmann, who is considering running for President in 2012, voted against a temporary bill to keep the government running while the deal moves through Congress.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) echoed Bachmann’s sentiments.
The stopgap measure does “not set us on a path to fixing the spending and debt problems our country is facing. There is not much of a difference between a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $1.6 trillion deficit-both will lead us to a debt crisis that we may not recover from,” said Rand.
The $39 billion in cuts for the rest of the fiscal year was far more than Democrats originally wanted to concede, but not nearly enough to satisfy the appetite for budget-slashing among Tea-Party backed Republicans, who had called for axing $61 billion.
The deal spared Planned Parenthood and environmental regulation riders the GOP had been pushing for.
Reid had repeatedly blamed the Tea Party for the breakdown in budget negotiations, placing Boehner in a sticky situation to make a deal with the Democrats and satisfy those in his own ranks, including Tea Partiers.
The deal is still tentative, and Congress passed a one-week stopgap budget to put the bill in legislative form.
A CNN poll demonstrates that The People are not participating in the Great Beltway Freakout, so I really wish Ezra Klein, and Rachel Maddow, and Paul Krugman would simmer the hell down for a minute. (Here are the items on which Democrats “caved“: “a provision blocking already illegal taxpayer-funded abortions in the District of Columbia, and a Boehner pet request to fund vouchers for D.C. students to attend private schools. And they did allow $2.2 billion to be cut from an experimental program designed to encourage state cooperatives to come together to provide health insurance.”)
Look, it’s not about the deficit, to these Teabilly jackwads. It’s about abortion. I bet if Obama offered to back a constitutional amendment banning and criminalizing abortion in exchange for a deficit increase of one trillion dollars, these women-hating assholes would go for it.
Hopefully we can have a serious discussion about how it makes NO FUCKING SENSE to continue giving tax cuts to the rich while planning to privatize Medicare.
You want to talk about pulling the plug on grandma? That’s what Ryan’s plan would do no matter how “courageous” some members of the Washington Asshat Brigade think the plan is.
Oooooh! Giving more money to rich people! Now that’s some daring and bold stuff right there! Stop it before you give us all heart attacks! — which will promptly kill most of us because Bieber knows you don’t want your rich-ass cronies to pay their far share to help us… you know… not have heart attacks (through preventive care and whatnot).
A break. Give one to me.
UPDATE: This from commenter vcthree is information to be considered:
As for the vouchers; for all the people freaking out about that? It’s nice that you have concern over that issue, but having lived in the D.C. metro for decades and following the school shenanigans there? What people don’t understand is that vouchers have been an issue in that city forever, and they have overwhelming support and have for years. Never mind the experts from New York or California or Maryland; nearly 3 in 4 citizens in the District support vouchers. And given that one-time mayoral candidate and (former?) D.C. councilman Kevin Chavous has been haranguing the president for two years about this; that the administration threw JB that carrot isn’t shocking to me. D.C. likes the voucher program, and it was an easy concession to make.
1 rimshot.
[via The Reid Report]
[cross posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
FlipYrWhig
My feeling is, just about any cuts are counterproductive, given that with a weak economy it’s more important to keep the spigot open than to worry about where precisely it’s flowing. But even if cuts are unwise, the unwise have one hand on the steering wheel, so I’m more concerned with avoiding a spectacular disaster than I am with the bumpiness of the ride.
(Any other metaphors I can mix in there? I had one about goalposts and unicorns but then I lost it.)
Joeyess
The next person that says “serious conversation” gets punched in the neck.
Softail
I’m curious about your reaction to disallowing DC to spend it’s own money on abortions. Not trolling here. Don’t always agree with you but genuinely would like to know what you think of that.
kerFuFFler
Glad it’s not as bad as people feared—-doesn’t it seem like people are awfully quick to judge (prejudge?) everything Obama does?
Can’t say I’m looking forward to the battle over the debt ceiling; Cantor is making noises of playing rough that round.
kerFuFFler
@FlipYrWhig:
You’re allowed; it’s 2 in the freakin’ morning….
Yutsano
@kerFuFFler: Maybe where you iz. It just passed 11 here and I’m still doing laundry.
ABL, the debil, as always, is in the details. I’m actually glad most of this info is leaking now after the fact. Now maybe they’ll figure out perhaps Obama ain’t so bad at this negotiating thingie. Assuming it passes this week.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i wasted time, and doubted my own goog-fu this weekend trying to figure out what was being cut.
seems like organizing the shitshow was the real delay in negotiations. making sure everyone that matters got told what they want to hear, knowing that budget talks are about as interesting as soccer to most people and whatever it was, by monday, no one would care anymore.
El Cid
Please note the LA Times piece reporting what the Obama proposal / speech will supposedly focus on. If the sources were correct, and/or the info supplied is more than just a feeler, it does in fact include a strong focus on raising taxes instead of cutting Medicare.
Bob Loblaw
I’m actually stunned. To the point where I can’t even begin to figure out what’s going on.
We were working off of bad intelligence. It seems that everybody was really misinformed as to what was going on. It was generally assumed that the Republicans, you know, actually had areas of spending they had secured cuts to. It sounds like they’re getting completely brained by superior Democratic accounting.
This is an epic disaster from the Republicans. They agreed to a spending target without dictating the makeup? How do you screw up that badly? Now they’re locked into no shutdown, and they have almost nothing to show for it. I can’t even credit Obama, because it doesn’t make sense. Nobody could be that incompetent. There must be something missing. The Republicans couldn’t have been willing to shutdown the government as nothing but a bluff to get rid of the EPA and abortion services? Could they?
Vibrant Pantload, fka Studly Pantload
All three of ’em?
[Edit: Ah, now reading the rest of your post (gee, shoot from the hip much, Studly?), I see you do in fact mention all three by name.]
MeDrewNotYou
@Bob Loblaw:
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly posted a few times the last couple of weeks about this. You can probably find it over there w/o too much trouble. The gist of it is that the demanded cuts weren’t really thought out at all. The Tea Baggers settled on an arbitrary number they wanted cut and just made a ton of noise about those billions but with barely any specifics.
You must be new here.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Bob Loblaw:
I can think of a few other Nostradamus wannabes that might not come out of this smelling like roses, and they are most definitely NOT Republicans.
Yutsano
BTW lemurs FTMFW.
Pseudonym
My understanding of the complaints from Kthug and the rest of the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill is that they’re more upset with Obama’s conceding rhetorical ground by praising these cuts than they are with the actual cuts.
Joe Buck
DC got screwed, though: the city can no longer spend any locally collected tax money on abortions, and the public schools will be further gutted to provide vouchers for private schools.
But no one on the left should apologize for raising a huge stink, because that stink gave the Dems the backbone to fight harder.
But the spending cuts are going to have a negative effect on the economy, and they will cost jobs.
dogwood
And Obama gets to claim he cut the budget without really cutting it. There actually might be some political capital in that.
Calouste
OT, but Carl Lewis (yes, that Carl Lewis) is going to run for a state Senate seat in New Jersey. As a Dem.
Martin
@Bob Loblaw: This was 87 freshman teabaggers running the show. All they cared about was the bottom line number, the issues that would fuck over Dems, and feeling powerful enough to shut down the government.
Yeah, they got rolled. And so what if the Dems lost a bit of rhetorical ground. It’s our nominee that gets to go on national TV on Wed night and take it all back.
dogwood
@Joe Buck:
Oh please, earlier you were claiming that Obama and the Dems have no backbone and refused to fight on the budget deal. Now your claim credit for forcing them to fight harder. Can’t you just graciously concede that you might not have been right about how these negotiations went down in the first place?
Yutsano
@Martin: I almost wish now he would hold off until the vote was in the books. There could still be rodent copulation yet if they decide they’ve been made fools of. And I’m not in the mood to work for free TYVM.
cat48
My favorite part is the “sleight of hand.” Made me laugh…that’s my prez…sneaky. The fact that Reid/Obama would not let Boner pick specifically where & how to cut was a point of contention with him b/c the prez kept saying that they don’t get to tell us where; we’ll do that.
MeDrewNotYou
@dogwood: Considering the polls showing that Americans love them some budget cuts, but hate when ‘their’ program gets hit, there’s something to the idea that Obama got the best of both worlds here.
My main beef with the compromise is that, regardless of the merits and as others have mentioned above, Dems have conceded the rhetorical ground entirely. They’ve completely bought into the line that austerity is what the economy when what we really need is robust government investment in jobs and infrastructure. Now, instead of arguing over whether cuts should even be in the discussion, we’re quibbling over drastic cuts vs suicidal cuts.
Without saying “Obama is worse than Bush!!!11one,” (Obviously he’s far better in so many different ways, take that as humorous exaggeration.) the President is just Republican-lite here. I didn’t expect a progressive superhero, but I really wish he’d start the bidding there, even if it eventually gets compromised away. Stop letting Republicans dictate where the window is and what direction its moving.
Bob Loblaw
@Martin:
If by Wednesday night, you mean Wednesday mid-afternoon, when nobody’s really watching, then sure.
The speech is basically irrelevant. The lines are already drawn. Obama will push taxation first, benefit cuts second. The Republicans, the opposite. Whatever happens after that will be down to the ability of the GOP to play the class warfare card, and successfully scaremonger on the debt limit. Which honestly, might be easy. If the tea party brigade gets fucked over on this budget deal, then they’re pretty much done with Boehner, which could change everything.
MeDrewNotYou
@cat48: Sneaky Negroes! Next thing you know they’ll steal our Medicare scooters and ride off in the sunset with our precious white women!
Martin
@Yutsano: Oh, I don’t think Wed will be over the top. It’s just the teaser. The campaign is just getting started, and the House is expected to vote on the Ryan budget on Friday.
Short Bus Bully
Thank you ABL for a little ray of sunshine with this post. It’s nice to feel GOOD about something coming from the WH for a change, to feel like Obama isn’t totally fucking the dog up there; and if I read all the blogs I really do get discouraged. Thanks for the ‘chin up’, we could use a few more of those around here.
cat48
Also2, the speech with a smile makes more sense now.
Martin
@Bob Loblaw:
Really, because all of the liberal blogs are saying that Obama is going to go full metal catfood. Worse than Bush!
cat48
@MeDrewNotYou:
That’s funny & something I can’t quite picture yet. The prez on a Medicare scooter. heh
Yutsano
@Short Bus Bully: I hope The Raven can fly fast. I have a feeling crow is going to make it onto a few menus in the next few days. Assuming any of the pundits bother to have any shame or humility.
Martin
@Yutsano:
Ha! U made a funny!
Bob Loblaw
@Yutsano:
Because they fell victim to the WH press shenanigans? No wonder there was a complete blackout on information on the deal. If any journalist would have gotten wind of what was actually going on, they would have reported it honestly and the far right would have lost their shit and there would have been a shutdown. This was the ultimate closed doors, backroom play.
It’s not like people like Ezra Klein, Steve Benen, and the TNR Jonathans are hardened opponents of the administration. They were kept in the dark and tried to do the best they could with such limited information.
cat48
Rachel sounded borderline hysterical about the budget cuts tonight. Truly something to watch. I had to mute her. Of course, she thought we were going to lose 700,000 jobs b/c of the cuts but I think that was for a much higher amount.
Yutsano
@Bob Loblaw: Ezra will at least admit he was wrong, like way wrong, and it will be so good for his credibility as a blogger.
@cat48: I anticipate Rachel will also walk back from the edge now that the details have been fleshed out more. I actually feel a bit better about this whole mishegas.
NobodySpecial
Well, THIS one’s a win for Obama, no contest.
The next one? I’m waiting for shoes to start dropping…
Everything on the table
Once again, starting from a Republican premise (overhauling Medicare/caid and SS) is not encouraging.
dogwood
@Martin:
Look, to Krugman and the rest giving rhetorical ground is all about the “fight”. But the most important narrative a political party tells is its vision of who we are as a people. Great politicians are great storytellers. FDR, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama. And I hope the Dems see the storyline in the debt ceiling fight. We must make clear the danger of default, but it can’t be just about that, because Republicans will say it isn’t so and lots of people won’t know who to believe. Default must be painted as dishonorable. Something a great nation with the best credit in the world would never do. It must be seen as dishonoring our allies around the world who are helping fight the war on terror, because they will be hurt as well. You don’t have to call Republicans dishonorable, you call default dishonorable. That’s a hard narrative to beat with yeah, but we’re broke. Right now I think Republicans are losing their own narrative – morning in America, family values. It’s going to be pretty hard to turn the Ryan budget into a great tale of who we are as a people.
cat48
I don’t understand why new orgs won’t just tell the truth. Not only is Ryan gutting Medicare, but he’s also repealing ObamaCares.
Angry Black Lady
@Joe Buck: see the update.
Jesse
@NobodySpecial: You make it sound like “overhaul” automatically means disaster. I’ve been in the MediCal system for more years than I’ve been out of it, and it could use a tune-up. If “overhaul” winds up meaning more money is actually spent on patient care for Medicaid, I’m all for it.
There’s no guarantee of that, of course. It could be that the President will wind up asking for cuts not quite as deep and stupid as the Ryan cuts, which would make me sad. But I don’t see how it’s time to panic yet.
dogwood
@Short Bus Bully:
Blogs should be fun. If you get discouraged take a break. Nobody commenting on a blog knows anything about what the White House is doing or not doing. They quit texting us after the Joe Biden VP announcement. The ungrateful bastards!
Angry Black Lady
@NobodySpecial: the way i see it, when one is negotiating something, one has to consider what the other side wants. at least that’s how it works in litigation. settlements require compromise on both sides. the trick is to make the other side think they’re getting a better deal than they actually are.
i’d like to let this play out before pre-freaking out.
i’m not ready to give in to the Catfood Cabal just yet.
also, anyone who thinks this is not about abortion is not paying attention.
Fox & Friends told its viewers that women could get pap smears and breast exams at Walgreens.
Seriously.
Auguste
Agree or not with this post (and I’m probably 2/3 of the way to agreeing) that image is absolutely perfect.
Yutsano
@Jesse: Most Medicaid systems need serious work, especially in the more stingier states. My guess is if you improve the payout system enough you’ll get more doctors to start accepting MediCal patients. At least until the single payer bill passes again. I can’t wait for that to happen.
darkmatter
@Yutsano: You are assuming that the pundits have any shame or humility at all.
CaliCat
The Pavlovian left can’t help itself. They are programmed to respond that way. I heard Bill Press this morning doing the same exact thing, “Obama caved, wahwahwah”. I’m not surprised to hear Maddow was whining either. The fact that Americans overwhelmingly approve of the deal shows how out of touch and increasingly irrelevant the PL really is. And without Olbermann front and center to head the freak out, they’re kind of yelling into the abyss.
dogwood
@Jesse:
It’s always time to panic with these people. They wanted push back on the Ryan budget last week. I actually wish we could let the Ryan pos sit out on its own for a good long while. The danger there is that we’re about done with the courageous cycle and heading into the what’s in it cycle. Once that happens the Republicans will pull it off the table and we don’t want that. I think the White House timed this about right,
Martin
@Angry Black Lady:
Sorry, that’s my fault. I set up a table out front. Lots of hotties shop at my local Walgreens. I was desperate. I apologize.
Bob Loblaw
@CaliCat:
This is embarrassingly bad faith. As if Americans had any idea what was in the deal, or cared. Hooray, bipartisan compromise to avoid shutting the government down remains popular. No fucking way. Enlightening, really.
Americans also overwhelmingly disapprove raising the debt limit, for the record.
Yutsano
@Martin: I KNEW IT! HENTAI!!
Martin
@Yutsano: Hey, it’s not like I sitting in a large chair wearing a wetsuit, and stroking my pet octopus. I’m not a Republican.
melathys
The problem that DC residents have with the voucher rider isn’t whether or not DC residents want it. The problem is that it was imposed by Boehner fiat, rather than by voter will. DC gets used as a bargaining chip. As Holmes-Norton mentioned today on call-in to the Kojo Njamdi Show (paraphrasing), the problem is that once blood is in the water, it gets easier for politicians to continue chipping away at DC home rule, never mind the fight for voting rights.
iriedc
as a DC resident, I’m PISSED about all of the riders. And as much as I admire VCtree his take on vouchers is not correct, a vocal minority is very much for them, but they do not have wide support from DC voters at all. Was proud to see my Mayor and Councilmember use civil disobedience to make their point.
FoxinSocks
Was looking over the list of cuts earlier and…yeah, my mood just improved tremendously. Also, I might have laughed at the Republicans.
The best thing is though, Obama stopped the gov’t shutdown. I know so many people who would have been financially devastated by it, and I can probably include myself in that number. So I’m utterly grateful and relieved.
I don’t always understand what Obama’s game is, but from my own personal observations, the economy seems to be picking up steam and Obama was smart not to stop that momentum.
Angry Black Lady
@Martin: i knew it was you, martin. you broke my heart.
Yutsano
@Martin: Fair enough. And inasmuch as I don’t have to awaken early tomorrow, I am hella tired, so I’m off to snooze.
Ecks
@Bob Loblaw: Yup.
Americans are for lower taxes, more spending on medicare, medicaid, social security, the army, roads, and reducing deficits, and not increasing the debt limit. Oh, and don’t make them try to follow ANY details other than “good stuff happens, and I’m not charged any money for it.”
They also loudly hate that politicians lie to them, and vote politicians out of office with alacrity if they are stupid enough to speak honestly about anything important.
In short, what the American people want is ponies, and don’t you dare be that whiny kind of asshole who tells them they can’t have it all, because it’s Murka, that’s why*.
*to be fair, all countries have some elements of this, it’s just especially bad here. Canada’s current PM is working VERY hard to import it up there too.
Pseudonym
La ti da I didn’t realize that I left my invisibility cloak on. Address my posts, libs! (“Hello, posts!”)
georgia pig
I had a feeling the substance would be something like that. The repubs have made some bad tactical moves in the last few weeks, including letting that nonsensical Ryan plan see the light of day and this “showdown” that appears to have yielded very little for their base. Regarding the Ryan plan, who, other than a clueless idealogue, would propose replacing Medicare with a 30% off coupon on shitty health insurance and even more tax cuts for bankers? Regarding the budget deal, it would almost be better if there were a teabagger rebellion on this, which would make Boehner look even weaker. This, the current crop of presidential candidates and the travails of the repub governors may be evidence of the shallowness of the talent pool on the repub side.
General Stuck
It is amusing that some of you are amazed at the content of the cuts, and that they are not GOP ones. I been saying these cuts were deigned to not harm or devastate dem constituencies, and thought everyone knew that. I guess not. Poor people are not going to lose their food stands nor HUD vouchers, dems and Obama are not going to go along with things like this. They just aren’t. Nor any other core dem program to be crippled.
The deal with LHEAP, and cutting it, was after Obama got a large increase in it in December, I think, to carry through this winter, that is almost over. And anyways, this is a budget, not appropriations. It is mostly a political document, that is tied to budget appropriation rules, but those can be altered through floor votes and committee markup votes. And with all the ballyhoo about wingnuts cutting vital programs for the poor, and also some for the middle class, the lions share of winger dissent is posturing for ideological reasons. When it comes to appropriating these funds, the wingnuts are from red states with the most poor and most need, and those needs mostly get met.
There is a different metric in the mix now, for sure, with the true believing crack head tea tards. The gooper old guard is scared to death of them, and that has changed the SOP on these things.
I got insomnia tonight, hardly ever get that. I think it’s the weird weather.
General Stuck
And Abl is right, it was about abortion, this particular game of chicken, and why, at the behest of the tea tards in his caucus, Boehner took the thing to the last minute, until a presidential “nope, that’s it John” was issued and Boehner caved and put a huge bee in the tea tard bonnet.
There is so much spin bullshit on this event, it is nauseating, and nothing more than the prog left siding up with Fox News on how Boehner was the big winner, and Obama got rolled meme wagon.
General Stuck
One more thought. If you need to gauge what Obama or the senate is doing with spending cut compromises with the House wingers, and the substance of those cuts on the safety net, or other social programs, watch the House doctrinaire liberals. They will go apeshit if the poor and parts of the middle class are getting screwed very much. Like canaries in a coal mine.
Linda Featheringill
ABL:
Thank you for this post! This is a nice way for me to start my day.
So my little Obot self has been correct all along. [Wonder if I have been right about some other stuff?]
Yes, we can. Yes we can.
some guy
About $10 billion of the cuts comes from… pet projects like highways, water projects, community development grants and new equipment for police and fire departments…$5 billion in savings by capping payments from a fund awarding compensation to crime victims…Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending authority from a program providing health care to children of lower-income families.
that’s not urine in my hair, it’s raining out. OBAMA ! whoohoo!
Bobby Thomson
Well, if vcthree doesn’t want her kids going to school with
brown peoplethe riffraff, I guess that makes vouchers just hunky dory, then. Perhaps there’s a teacher’s union rep somewhere to punch while we’re at it.Donut
Sorry if someone has already said this above (here is where I give the obligatory ‘I haven’t the time to read all the comments’ aside), but it actually became fairly clear by the weekend that Obama was almost doing Boehner a favor in these talks by letting them drag out. The White House had to feel that there was some benefit to this, and Obama recognized, I think, that Boehner was up shit creek and needed to look like he was really “Doing Some Important Negotiations!”
I turned to my wife on Saturday morning, after reading some of the early-take reports and said, “Hmm. I’m starting to think that Obama deliberately gave Boehner some cover on this budget shit…” Go ahead, you can ask her. I said it. Anyway, all along it was Boehner who was backed in the corner and a shut-down was way more problematic for the GOP and Boehner’s moron freshman class – because, much like the morons in WI, they hung their hats on non-fiscal/non-budget items. Obama threw a bone or two that Johnny-boy was able to throw back at his stupid Tea Party freshmen. I had my moments of angst watching this whole deal, for sure. But we all need to remember that this shit is all mostly theater of the absurd and vulgar, which in politics, is very very shocking. Really.
It will bear keeping in mind that when it comes to fiscal matters Obama was playing (and will be playing) straight to independent swing voters and “moderates” in the swing states, whom he knows he will need in his column next year in November. These are people who actually believe all sides need to compromise and get along, and Obama has sold himself to those people as one of them. I’m talking about the kind of people who think they lean GOP on fiscal matters but who are socially moderate or even liberal. They don’t realize, often, that they are really Truman Democrats, but whatever. They utilize Social Security and Medicare. Or their parents or grandparents do. And they believe a healthy federal government has an important place in making a civilized society function well, and though they are sometimes subject to the magic thinking of budget cuts and no new taxes, they don’t want to see those programs gutted. So they want compromise. They want people who are really rich to pay more taxes. If you are reading this, that’s likely not you. You’re probably already a liberal who doesn’t waffle much on this stuff. Obama is not doing this theater for your benefit. But if you’re in Ohio or Indiana or Pennsylvania, it might be your neighbor, and Obama surely is putting on the kabuki mask for them, and next year he will be showing up in their towns and cities making speeches about how he protected this and that for them and wants them to win the future…or whatever…
kay
@General Stuck:
Which was like the deal with food stamps, that were hugely expanded under the stimulus no one read, so there was a mass freak-out when they were “cut”. All bullshit.
I’m pissed. I didn’t follow the budget deal, because I’ve been busy, but maybe I should have, because I feel like I’ve been sold a bunch of bullshit by people who should know better.
I didn’t know that not one of the people opining on the deal had read it.
Do you want to tell me, Stuck, how this is one bit different than what Andrew Sullivan did with the Ryan bullshit?
They all jumped on this, like lemmings, because it had numbers in it. NONE of them read it, because it hasn’t been released.
It is really a big shocker that budgets include imaginary cuts and accounting tricks? NONE of these punditry types anticipated that? NONE of them thought it best to wait to weigh in until they had read it?
How are we different than Sullivan, again?
OzoneR
@NobodySpecial:
You know, this partisan nonsense needs to stop, saying “we’re not going to consider that, regardless of merit, because it buys into their framing” is not a good reason to not consider something.
Dave
I am stunned, STUNNED, that the Progressive Purity Brigade jumped in with both feet claiming Obama SOLD US OUT/IS A REPUBLICAN!!!11!! without waiting to see where the cuts came from. Shocking.
kay
@General Stuck:
I think I’ll wait and read the document, instead of reading John Boehner’s body language, or whatever just happened here.
And thanks for the information, ABL. Since it’s (apparently) the first information I’ve read on this, I appreciate it.
Donut
@Dave:
You know, it’s almost as if Obama knows this and kinda just ignores it, and will pivot and give it lip service later, during the election season when the media and pundits are obligated to give him space to be partisan. Crazy how that works. Never seen that happen, ever.
kay
@Dave:
There are three opinion people I trust, Benet, Maddow and Klein. I think Weigel is a careerist hack who came to fame on sucking up to the Tea Party, so I ignore him, and I have no idea why he’s considered credible.
I’m now down to zero, I guess.
kay
@NobodySpecial:
Then sell that. Be an advocate. Lobby. Push him to the Left preemptively, prior to his actual statements. I support that. I understand it.
But admit that that’s what you’re doing. It’s honorable. It’s a fine thing to do, advocacy. Don’t bullshit yourself that it’s based on something real and tangible, something that has occurred.
Emma
Bob: I think we tend to think of the Republicans as evil supermen when they’re often more like Pinky and the Brain.
And after reading some of the comments, have jumped into edit to say: rhetorical grounds are shifty places to stand on. Let’s see what happens on Wednesday.
General Stuck
@kay:
Not sure what you mean by “john Boehners body language”. I get almost all of my information from compulsive watching congress, usually via being a Cspan junky for the past ten years. I know basically how budgets and appropriations are done, and you can set your clock by the normal kabucki posturing of wingers, and sometimes dems on their ideological bugaboos, but like I said, a lot of wingers voters depend on the safety net to survive, more so than do dem voters.
So these funds get plugged out and plugged back in during the process, with the wingers complicity, and usually done under the radar. It is a sort of dance that has gone on for decades. And I’ve been listening to Harry Reid and knew it was basically his version of the substance of the cuts that was in play, with the House policy riders used as leverage, or ransom by the wingers, and especially the PP one.
Suck It Up!
This is why the tea party wants to primary John boohoo (stolen from a right winger). They did not get what they wanted and if I were one of those crackpots, I’d be even more upset after reading this. They will now feel that they got played by everyone.
kay
@General Stuck:
I know you do, Stuck. I think you’re credible on process. You were better than the professionals on the PPACA. I think you’re under-rated.
I’m ranting. I’m upset by this. As I said, I didn’t follow bugget negotiations , because I’m fucking swamped, and I feel like I was sold a bill of goods by Benet and others who I usually trust, because no one read it prior to “analyzing” it. No one read it?
I have to go to court. If I find actual budget information, I’ll rant more later :)
General Stuck
@kay:
LOL, good luck in court Kay :-)
Surly duff
I understand the perspective of the OP and the irrationality of the “he caved”crowd, but don’t go overboard. It is not as bad as may have been expected, but $39 billion in cuts and $79 b under budgeted is not a win. Let’s not turn “this is good news for john mccain” into “this is good news for Obama” as a meme.
JAHILL10
Thank you, ABL! I love factual information reporting. Next time I hope the blogosphere can figure out how not to freak out until we know exactly what we are freaking out about.
OzoneR
@Surly duff:
When you’re dealing with what is probably the most conservative Congress since at least 1946, it is.
Suck It Up!
people were way too focused on the 100 billion number.
jcgrim
With heavy corporate and Wall Street support, it’s disingenuous for either side to pretend RttT money was ever going to be cut from the budget.
Race to the TOP money won’t be cut by either side of the aisle- it’s a massive diversion of tax money from public schools and a give-away to edu-privatizers. If you think Race to the TOP is about educating poor kids, think again. Private interests stand to make billions.
Lee Hartmann
It’s not that bad! It could have been worse! Now wait for Obama to endorse Simpson-Bowles. Rinse, repeat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lee Hartmann: Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Geek, Esq.
Amazing how reality and left wing blog freakouts are complete strangers.
Tom Hilton
@NobodySpecial: I don’t have a problem with Medicare/Medicaid ‘overhaul’, because they really do present a huge budget problem in the long term. The issue is what the approach is. If it’s done in the context of measures that actually slow the increase in healthcare costs (as the PPACA tries to do), as opposed to simply cutting benefits, then that’s an unmitigated good.
@CaliCat: “Pavlovian left” is such a perfect term, I’m going to steal it and use it every chance I get.
Tom Hilton
@Lee Hartmann:
Fixed it for ya.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
ATTENTION JUICERS
Now why do y’all suppose Official Obama Concern Troll EDK has not made an appearance on ABL’s thread to scold us about the undignified liberal rout and crushing humiliation that we liberal surrender monkies just experienced?
Because ABL would be wearing his guts for garters in 10 sec flat.
buk buk buk
chicken!
/hermione flaps her elbows while prancing around EDK
Legalize
@Martin:
This. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Obama announced his reelection bid last week. I think we’re gonna see Obama in campaign mode starting Wednesday. And the Teatards and Ryan gave him precisely the opening he needs to (hopefully) bury all potential GOP rivals. It would be a beautiful thing indeed if Obama is able to draw a stark contrast on Wednesday, between him and the entire GOP field. If he can put the Teatard / Ryan disaster around their necks, 2012 might just be a Clintonian snooze-fest of an election. I think the “better” GOP candidates know this, and they’ve got enough sense to sit this one out.
General Stuck
After two plus years of putting up with the non stop relentless poutraging progressive precious flower brigades, I have about had it. I am pissed, and fed up with clingy co dependent ninnies that are nothing more bottomless pits of neediness, for attention to their neverending concern and disappointment. Fuck em. Fuck em and do not pass go. They contribute nothing but high blood pressure and wasted time tending to their round the clock butthurt. That is all.
Glen Tomkins
The problem is that there was any deal at all. There aren’t supposed to be deals surrounding the budget reconciliation process. This process isn’t supposed to be where we decide how much money to spend.
The budget reconciliation process is not designed to be the forum for budget-cutting. All it is supposed to do is reconcile the many obligations that federal law creates that involve spending money, and determine by which federal agency it makes most sense to spend that money to meet those obligations. It doesn’t create or end those obligations to spend money. That’s done when Congress either creates new law, or repeals old laws.
The thing is, it takes control of both chambers plus the president, or 2/3 of both chambers, to make or repeal laws. The Rs don’t have that. They only have a simple majority of one chamber. The teabillies, contrary to your characterization, are completely powerless to make or repeal laws. It was not necessary to give them any sort of deal whatever to keep them from making bad laws, or repealing good laws.
What the budget reconciliation process adds to the mix here, is an opportunity to cheat. If you don’t, like the Rs now, find yourself with the majorities you need to make or repeal laws, but you want that power anyway even though you didn’t earn it, you can use your control of just the House to hold the govt hostage. Then, if the other side enables and facilitates this cheating by actually negotiating with you, you actually can make and unmake laws with just one chamber, bypassing the rules.
I am profoundly indifferent to how not-so-bad the deal Obama negotiated might be. The fact that he negotiated is an unmitigated disaster. Because it worked, because the Rs were allowed to cheat, the electorate now thinks that it’s perfectly legit to cheat in this way, to get to make and unmake law with just a majority of the House. We helped the Rs rewrite the rules so that those teabillies now do have the power.
Guess what. The Rs also are profoundly indifferent to how not-so-great for their side the deal they got might be. Now they have the power to make and unmake laws with just the House. They can write their own ticket in the future. They will be able to take the same hostage over again in six months with this year’s budget, and they will have an even more high-value hostage in the debt ceiling to exploit in just a month.
I hope you’re going ot be just as happy with what the teabillies write on that ticket as you are now.
Stillwater
Omnes Omnibus: Oh, for fuck’s sake
Evidence-free beliefs aren’t just for conservatives anymore!
Linnaeus
I’m glad to read that this specific deal wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and some key programs were spared. I’ll admit that I was feeling disappointed about this deal (though I did put it into context) and I’m less disappointed after reading this.
There still needs to be some change with respect to the larger conversation about our nation’s priorities, and I’m hoping the president’s speech on Wednesday will start to do that. We need to shift the “frame”, for lack of a better word, away from austerity.
General Stuck
If you need me, I’ll be in the bar
Galt’s Grill $ Tacos
Tuttle
But Tomkins, the ponies; They’re so…. shiny!
Centrist wankers will wank centrally.
We’re so screwed.
Glen Tomkins
@OzoneR: No, we do not have the most conservative Congress since 1946. What we have is one of the two chambers of the Congress that has a simple R majority. We’ve seen worse, we’ve seen both chambers majority R, with bigger majorities.
That House majority doesn’t have the power to pass one new law, or repeal one old law. It doesn’t have to be bargained with to keep it from passing bad new laws or repealing good old laws.
It is true that our side also lacks that power to make or unmake laws as long as the House is majority R.
But we don’t need to pass new laws to carry on with the govt as it is defined in existing law. Existing obligations on the govt continue until repealed, something that requires the same majorities as creating new law.
This budget reconciliation process that the House Rs took hostage is not designed to create or eliminate govt obligations. The sole purpose is to reconcile the money requirements of those many obligations, as they are executed by one govt agency or another. But that process, entirely optional and not required by the Constitution, whose usefulness the present abuse calls deeply into question, has this feature — that it rolls all sorts of spending, for govt functions both vital and trivial, into one big omnibus bill that cheaters can exploit by taking hostage.
If the other side will let you get away with it, if it negotiates with you after you’ve taken the govt hostage, you can make and unmake law with just a simple majority in just one chamber. You can end-run the constitutionally prescribed way of making and unmaking law.
Maybe I should take back my original assertion. Our side, by endorsing the legitimacy of their end-run, actually has made it so that this very conservative House is now, effectively, the whole Congress. So, yes, this is the most conservative Congress in generations. The Senate should go on vacation for the next 18 months. The president, too. The R House now is the govt, because the other two pillars have decided to sag out of the picture.
Ash Can
@Surly duff: It has warts, all right, but given the outright catastrophes the GOP lunatics have been agitating for and baying about for weeks, it’s also a series of disasters averted. In our system of representative government, clear-cut wins are few and far between, and perfect victories are a pipe dream.
Hats off and a toast of fresh hot joe to ABL for posting this. Great way to start the morning.
Jim C.
I dunno. I read through this piece on TPM and get the distinct impression that Obama got rolled. Again.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/newly-released-spending-deal-targets-science-education-environment.php?ref=fpa
Primarying him is completely stupid, and there’s no way to “send a message” that isn’t liberals shooting themselves in the foot, but Obama’s instinct to compromise on economic matters – such as tax cuts for millionaires – is alarming.
Hopefully he has some sort of long term strategy, such as using tax cuts for millionaires as a campaign issue, but right now he’s looking pretty weak to my mind.
FlipYrWhig
@Glen Tomkins: Why are you using the term “budget reconciliation process”? Are you referring to the “reconciliation” method that was used to finalize HCR, and before that COBRA? Was that happening here? I haven’t heard anyone else say that, but I’ll admit I don’t know all the details.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim C.:
Here’s a thought. Maybe different outlets take different views when it comes to interpreting the news! And maybe some people like to focus on putting the best face on it, and other people like to focus on putting the worst face on it! Someone really should create a proverb, maybe one about water glasses, so everyone remembers.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Jim C.:
/facepalm
Dude, his long term strategy is social justice programs like HCR. HCR is death for the GOP. He just needs a win in 2012 so the teabaggers can’t force a repeal before it has time to work.
Glen Tomkins
@Jim C.: I wouldn’t state so categorically that primarying him is stupid. What’s good or bad for Obama isn’t the same thing as what’s good or bad for the party. What’s good or bad for our WH prospects in 2012 isn’t the same as what’s good or bad for us and the country long term.
What would push me over the line is if he even offers as just a negotiating ploy, to effectively end SocSec and Medicare.
If the New Deal is to be ended, it is much better that it be done by Rs. If they do it, the electoral consequences will come down on them, and we will regain power and restore the New Deal.
I will stay home in 2012, I will even hold my nose and vote tactially for whatever troll the Rs put up in 2012 if that seems necessary to make sure Obama loses, if he moves to end the New Deal. Better that troll have the blood of the New Deal on his hands than any D.
Master of Karate and Friendship
Hmm, I wonder who’s right: Angry Black Lady, or the legion of Nobel Prize winning economists who disagree with her?
“There’s a difference between quality of cuts and quantity.” Not these days there isn’t. This is basic economics: with no one spending money, the government has to step in and make up for it. A good president would be fighting for more spending, not conceding ground on less.
Wow, a poll shows the public supports Obama’s negotiating style. I guess that’s why the mid-terms went so very well for his party.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Master of Karate and Friendship: dude, its the art of the possible.
The midterms were Distributed Jesusland in action.
The country is still roughly 50% bubba.
Corner Stone
@Master of Karate and Friendship: They’re looking round desperately to put a spritz of air freshener on it all.
It’s amazing that people can be cheering the fact that the accepted default position is now cutting/austerity yet somehow “that ain’t so bad afterall!”
Government is the spender of last resort, and we just agreed to do less of it, and make it historically fierce that we did so.
mclaren
We agree on that.
As for school vouchers…boy oh boy oh boy, just wait till someone tries it on a large scale and you start getting Klan schools and Christian Dominionist schools and Heritage Foundation Social Darwinism schools, all funded by government voucher cash.
The voters will get an education right quick. You’ll see the popularity of vouchers take a nosedive and it’ll never return.
Brachiator
The point that people are missing is that massive benefits for the wealthy are already built into the tax code. On the other hand, a lot of the stuff that Obama saved just ain’t worth saving. And yes, the vile GOP are seriously targeting abortion, but they also focus on the Democrats’ inability to craft any coherent policy to get the economy going again.
So every week there is a budget crisis as the GOP do everything they can to make government stall and sputter. So Obama saved some Pell Grants. Meanwhile, the economy is still moribund, unemployment is still high, and wages are stagnant.
che
@Dave: There was a diary at GOS about the recent poll showing a majority supported Obama/budget cuts, but a handful of naysayers were saying but wait till they see what’s in the budget or has been cut, then the approvals will be much lower, as if they knew what was in the budget themselves. Now I’m laughing. They also keep saying polls mean nothing. Fair enough, why do they keep citing polls that a majority want single payer?
Also in response to other commenters, yea the naysayers are already pre-judging that Obama’s Wednesday speech is going to piss them off and he’ll cave on the debt ceiling limit.
bayville
Zombie meme
5,4785,479: The President can’t implement progressive policy ’cause of the dozen Teabaggers in Congress.Brilliant synopsis, Jonah.
Suck It Up!
@Jim C.:
Are the numbers the same? ’cause your opinion is based on the way the article is written.
Glen Tomkins
@FlipYrWhig: You’re right, I should not have used the shorthand of referring to the big omnibus budget bills we are in the habit (just a habit, no Consitutuional requirement at all) of using to respond to the budget request os federal agencies, as the budget reconciliation process. That specific term of “reconciliation” has become more used lately for the Byrd provision that allows simple majorities in the Senate to pass something there (hurray for following the Constitution for a change!). But in decades past, there would be a bill passed at the same time as the omnibus bills that reconciled minor discrepencies in requests and funding, and the whole process would sometimes be referred to as the budget reconciliation process, though that usage has faded and given way to using the term for Byrd rule situations.
I probably went with that old terminology because I think that just calling this process “the budget process” is misleading. These omnibus bills are not designed to be the forum for making budget decisions, for deciding what govt functions are worth spending money on, and at what levels.
This is one of the wingnut delusions, that the Constitution embodies a “power of the purse” (a phrase nowhere found in that document), that requires all govt functions and the spending needed to fund them, to be effectively resubmitted every year to the current Congress for its approval or disapproval. They want to pretend that the Constitution has this built-in sunset provision for all law, and that those omnibus budget bills are the vehicle for that “power of the purse”.
If you accept that frame, then it is indeed perfectly legitmate and necessary to negotiate with the House every year over every govt obligation. Elections have consequences, so a conservative House, under this theory, means that govt obligations would need to be pared back considerably to meet the House half-way.
I am reluctant to support that frame by referring to this process as the “budget process”, because it isn’t where we as a nation sit down to hammer out our spending priorities, but that name makes it sound as if that’s the purpose and function. We make our budget decisions over individual laws, which are scored as they near a final vote so that members know how the bill will affect the budget before they decide to support or oppose it.
The simplest way out of this nomencalture dilemma would be to just end the process. It has obviously outlived its usefulness, which depends on the omnibus nature of the spending bills not being exploited to hold the operation of the govt hostage. If we did have parties that could be trusted to behave responsibly and not overreach, this process would have some utility as a phase of the overall oversight process whereby Congressional committees hammer out with agencies exactly what they are doing and how they are doing it. But this process has become so weighted down by hostage-taking riders that we don’t even pass the bills anymore, we just get by with CRs because they are felt to be less vulnerable to rider abuse.
Why not just chuck the whole process, or at least invert the voting requirements? The agencies would still submit annual budget requests, but the agency gets its request unless a majority votes for something different, more or less. The onus would be shifted to the wreckers to muster a majority to stop spending they think is wasteful. We might go back to having budget reconciliation battles over actually trying to reconcile agency requests with changing reality and with other govt obligations, rather than having the process hijacked by hostage-takers trying to gain an unconstitutional advantage in setting the national budget.
Suck It Up!
@Master of Karate and Friendship:
help me out someone. is this what they call a non sequitur?
Marc
@Glen Tomkins:
The Republicans have the power to destroy if they’re irresponsible enough, and they are incredibly irresponsible. The hostage analogy is relevant – yes, you can kill the psycho gunmen – but not before they machine-gun the children.
Marc
@Tom Hilton:
And never admit it when they are wrong as hell, over and over and over and over again. Because Obama didn’t keep Promise A or couldn’t get Congress to agree to policy B, it therefore follows by iron logic that he is GOING TO SELL US OUT on C, D, E, F. G…even given absolutely no evidence; that he secretly serves people who publicly hate him, yada yada yada.
Remember, there are no pink elephants because Atrios et al. keep chanting the sacred rites over the volcano every day…
Stillwater
@Master of Karate and Friendship: A good president would be fighting for more spending, not conceding ground on less.
Doesn’t this principle justify Obama’s concessions on the grounds that a government shutdown reduces government spending to zero?
Mitch Guthman
If I understand the point that you and the authors excerpted are making, then it would appear that the Tea Party/Birchers/Republicans were right in saying that the federal budget was, in fact, filled with many billions of dollars which could be painlessly cut without harming the social safety net or endangering the recovery.
So, wouldn’t it also follow that we should all vote for an actual Republican instead of an ersatz one?
Bob Loblaw
@kay:
This just shows how deeply people care about their own emotional security. You should be happy the press got it wrong. It’s what the WH wanted. That’s why everybody in the public was kept in the dark until the agreement was made. It was the whole point of their backroom strategy. Tea partiers don’t know shit about the budget, so Boehner was forced to play them given his largely untenable position.
There was no reason not to expect that the House budget that was being passed wasn’t the negotiation template, but the GOP blew it by being too broad and scattershot ideologically. If they had been more focused, they could have played more parts of the budget against each other and forced the admin/Senate to make some really difficult and politically damaging choices.
@Jim C.:
What the GOP secured:
1. A big hit to the EPA. This is the biggie. Climate change, efficiency, and renewables got hurt. Very bad. No getting around it. The one part they did very well on, in what looks otherwise to be a bad deal for them.
2. Help for tax evaders, by stopping the planned IRS expansion.
3. Punishing AIDS/HIV people, women, and DC residents. Just for kicks, really.
4. Proving the ACA isn’t untouchable. Possibly a bad sign for the next budget fight.
5. Defunding foreign aid.
All bad things, but much lower in intensity than advanced speculation was based on the size of the deal. Turns out the OMB/congressional accountants are very good at their jobs. We’re lucky that such large Democratic majorities last Congress overbudgeted so much. It’s a trick that can’t be played twice.
Glen Tomkins
@Marc: The ability to destroy only becomes power if other people cede to the madman control over their actions out of fear of the destruction he can do. The problem with that plan, is that ceding the madman power only further enhances his ability to work destruction. He’s going to come right back with escalating control demands based on the newly enhanced destructive ability you gave him by knuckling under initially.
You’re going to have to buck up and fight the madman eventually anyway. Best to do it as early in this process as the madness becomes evident, because putting off the confrontation only increases the final toll of destruction.
kay
@Mitch Guthman:
Not at all. The point is that every budget is full of gimmicks so each side can declare a resounding success, and this one is no different.
Again, I don’t understand not reading it, and announcing that it’s a bad deal.
For example. I was looking for cuts to HHS and education. What I found was 3.3% off 2010 levels. In the summary I linked, you’ll see lots of language where conservatives crow about this, but that’s spin. I looked for the number. It’s 3.3% off 2010.
So, what you have to do for me is make an argument that says 3.3% off 2010 is a bad deal, compared to some hypothetical “better” deal you have in mind.
I don’t think that’s a bad deal.
Don’t you have to read it?
Stillwater
@Bob Loblaw: Bob, I find it slightly amusing that you went from decrying the ‘compromise’ as a teeth-gnashing humiliation for Democrats, to now saying that it’s not so bad, really, but only because the GOP bungled it all so spectacularly. But – you reassure us – the GOP will learn from this, so future teeth-gnashing humiliations are therefore pre-ordained.
kay
@Bob Loblaw:
But, I assumed Boehner would play the Tea party going in, because that’s been the consistent role of the Tea party since their fake-founding.
To offer Republicans cover on fake fiscal conservatism. It’s why they were invented.
I understand the liberal argument that goes like this: “any deal on spending cuts is a bad deal, because the economy is weak”.
That’s an argument.
What I don’t buy is people announcing a “bad deal” before they know what the deal consists of. What’s a good deal?
Are we now relying on John Boehner to explain the budget process? Jesus.
Jim C.
@everyone who replied to me earlier
Give me credit for being able to form independent thoughts on my own. Yes, I’m well aware that some people will paint rosy pictures of the outcome and some will paint less rosy. I read the take here on BJ by ABL and I also read the take on TPM, and having read both I came to the conclusion that Democrats gave up too much as my opinion.
Or, to put it another way…Obama’s way in fact…we can disagree without being disagreeable.
I think the Republicans had a terrible hand on this one. Polls were consistently showing that the public would blame the Republicans for a possible shutdown. Hell, you even had MICHELLE BACHMANN among others saying that the shutdown needed to be avoided as damaging to the GOP.
In my opinion, what happened here very distinctly resembles what happened on the tax cut issue. Polls were favoring the Obama position. Republicans had a bad hand. Democrats needed to be a little more aggressive in their bargaining. In any negotiation, it is the party who is most willing to walk away from the table that is going to get the better end of the negotiation. I don’t like Obama’s position of preemptively offering concessions in advance.
Some of John Cole’s posts lately have touched upon this. The center keeps moving to the right because one party is more than willing to go to the mattresses on every issue and the other party is never willing to go to the mattresses on any issue. I can understand largely caving when the public is against you. I don’t really get continually caving when the public is backing you.
Democrats should have been all over the place drawing parallels to the Newt Gingrich shutdowns during the Clinton years and dared the Republicans to shut things down. You want to get rid of the teatards? This would have been an excellent way to show idiotic “independent” voters who they’re really dealing with.
kay
@Bob Loblaw:
I believe you, but show me that. Is it in the “energy and water” section or the “executive” section?
Bob Loblaw
@Stillwater:
No, I said it was a bad deal for the country. Still is. Just less so. I don’t care about Democrats and Republicans and Obama and winning the day. I even said that Obama/Dems were “wise” and “tactically competent.”
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/04/10/im-not-disheartened-im-pissed/#comment-2523411
I assumed far greater economic harm than what will result because I assumed more of the House budget was on the table. It wasn’t, so there’s no more conflict. Democrats were better than just tactically competent, they were strategically competent as well. Good for them, and us.
kay
@Bob Loblaw:
The part that makes me a little sad are the cuts to funding overseas, because that’s such a political gimee.
You’ve seen the polling where people think it’s 30% of the budget, or some ridiculous number, and they all want to cut THAT.
Both sides probably made that the sacrificial lamb.
Stillwater
@Jim C.: The center keeps moving to the right because one party is more than willing to go to the mattresses on every issue and the other party is never willing to go to the mattresses on any issue.
The Utility of Mattresses Theory could also be considered evidence that the country isn’t moving to the right, hence the desperate coercive efforts employed by the GOP to move things to the right.
Jim C.
@Stillwater:
Indicators like skyrocketing income disparity and torture now being a mainstream issue to be debated would seem to contradict that things aren’t moving to the right. Of course you could probably come up with a couple of counter-examples to those two items, but right now my big hope is the gradually shifting country demographics.
Stillwater
@Bob Loblaw: My bad. Sorry. (I usually know where you’re coming from/what you’re getting at in comments. Somewhere along the way I got a mistaken impression.)
Bob Loblaw
@kay:
It’s in the Interior section of your pdf, separate from even more cuts in the Energy & Water section.
Democrats were able to whittle a planned 35% reduction in the EPA down to just 16%, which is still pretty high.
It wasn’t a good deal for environmentalism, but I guess that was the real price to pay to keep the government open without compromising on social issues.
Stillwater
@Jim C.: For some particular policies or views, movement may be to the right. But in general, and especially wrt central New Deal and Great Society policies, the country seems embedded in a leftish position. To make the point, notice how the GOP never proposes (GWB’s DOA proposal to privatize SS notwithstanding) undoing important liberal policies when they’re in power, and for a very important reason.
I mean, EDK and DougJ have been suggesting that a rightward shift is occurring – and has been for some time – in the Democratic platform (repeal of Glass-Steagall, NAFTA, others, I don’t know what they listed). But those policies (the ones I’m aware of) have – importantly – occurred without any substantive proposals to restrict or restructure major social safety net programs, or roll-back other trademark-liberal institutions (education, civil rights, etc.). And even on some of the more conservative-ish policies – eg, NAFTA and neoliberalsim generally – liberals are often split on their merits (see Krugman on this). Or take the recent kerfluffle over CB rights: the country is experiencing a sorta renaissance of pro-union sentiment, which was until recently the cornerstone of liberal/progressive domestic economic policy. That’s leftward movement.
Now obviously, Wisconsin, Ohio, and all the rest of those working class states governed by Teaparty sympathizers could be construed as evidence to the contrary. But those politicians didn’t run on the platforms their enacting, and public sentiment seems to be against them. If the country were truly moving to the right, why would they have to sneak draconian, anti-liberal, pro-corporate/conservative legilsation thru there very own Congresses?
One other thing about this is that (and this was mentioned upthread) LBJ accomplished his Great Society with Republican support, Nixon created the EPA. Since those times, the GOP has clearly moved to the right, which of course moves the center of gravity along with it.
Dr. Squid
@NobodySpecial: And if those negotiations went like this past one, maybe we can expect a few scenes of Republicans going Lance Dowds on us, along with no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and SocSec.
Jim C.
@Stillwater:
To put things another way, it’s a zero sum equation. Are there more issues and items that the country is moving to the left on or are there more issues and items that the country is moving to the right on? Because for every issue on the left that seems to be, more or less, permanent, there’s probably one on the right that has become mostly untouchable.
Here’s a few other issues that have moved consistently to the right for decades.
1. Taxation – taxes, particularly taxes on the upper-income brackets, have been going down for a long time. Now? They seem all but untouchable. If ever there was a time to propose the rich pay a little more it was a few months ago in October. We lost that argument, despite the deficits, and now we’re seeing a few indications that entitlement program cuts (or “Reforms” if you prefer) might be on the table where Obama is concerned.
2. Military intervention/defense spending – Another thing where the center has moved to the right. I could be wrong, but didn’t the Afghan war recently become the longest war in American history? Someone want to fact-check me here? We’re approaching a decade anniversary of TWO simultaneous wars and recently launched a third mini-war in Libya.
You’ll notice for all the budget cutting the recent deal to avoid a shutdown had, defense spending actually went UP.
3. Decline of unions – Yes, we can point to the recent situations in places like Wisconsin and Ohio, but the general trendline is pretty clear. Unions have been dying, literally, for decades. I’m going to need to see a bit more evidence of a reemergence before I believe a long-term revival exists.
4. Wealth Concentration – This needs to be mentioned again, even though I mentioned it once before. The Great Depression led to the New Deal backlash, but ever since, again, the trendline on this has been moving to the right. Think of things like the minimum wage and how pathetically inadequate it is as a standard of living, but we almost never manage to get an increase on this let alone index it to some standard metric like tie it to inflation. Don’t get me started on the trendline on CEO pay.
5. Campaign financing – Citizens United was not exactly a huge step forward in moving us away from having the Greatest Democracy Money Can Buy.
6. Supreme Court in general – This has been controlled by the right for decades, and shows no sign of changing anytime soon. If anything, this has also become more conservative since the new Deal.
7. Civil Rights – You mentioned that this hasn’t seen any rollback. Well, what about the Patriot Act? Or Enhanced Interrogation Techniques? Or full-body scanners that make it so someone sees my junk every time I travel for business or fun? Sure, we can point to the progress in gay rights, but I would say that Civil Rights is also an issue showing some rightward drift since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I’m not saying that there aren’t any signs or indicators or issues where the country is moving in the left, but over the course of my lifetime, there seems to have been a slow, gradual shift rightward.
Ultimately, there will eventually be leftward drift. You can’t stall progress and change forever. As other countries outpace us, countries that are hard to demonize like the UK and Canada, and as THIS country’s demographics change and the previous generation of old, bitter, racist white men die off, I DO predict we’ll gradually start seeing a slow-down of the rightward drift and a shift back to the left.
Having said that, I do think over the course of my three decades of life the country has moved gradually to the right and certainly is far more to the right than we were back during the FDR/LBJ years.
Lori
I think your facts are off on DC abortion support legality. Federal funds are off limits, but not DC funds… right? This budget makes DC funds off limits again, although the past 2 years it was legal.
virag
when someone asks, ‘where are the people who still support obama?’, i think we’ve found them. if this is your sort of victory, well, you sure are easy to please.
oondioline
If Obama weren’t black, ABL would have no opinion on the degree of win or loss this budget deal entailed.
Angry Black Lady
@Bobby Thomson: vcthree is a black man.
/eyeroll
Angry Black Lady
@oondioline: First, fuck you. Second, one more comment like that and I’m banning your stupid ass.
Angry Black Lady
@bayville: what would you have had him do? do you have any ideas about how negotiations work or do you just spew the first firebagging fuckery that pops into your pea brain?
honestly. some of you people are fucking idiots.
ETA: It’s more like 87 Teabagger freshman, if I’m not mistaken. Not that it matters. Just move on to the next item on your poutrage list.
FlipYrWhig
@virag:
Except, see, no one asks that, unless they only know leftier-than-thou 19-year-olds from the coffee place with all the photocopied band flyers.
sherifffruitfly
I for one am very glad we white progressives are sooooooo different from teabaggers.
Wait wut?
Tim I
ABL, your post is spot on. Don’t tell Cole, but you are the best reason for hanging at BJ.
TaosJohn
We won, yay!
Uh, no.
We don’t even have a team.
Vent Casey III
@Bobby Thomson: Hi, Bobby. Let’s be clear about a couple things, here.
1.)You made three baseless assumptions about me on a comment, without ever once bothering to ask who the hell I was. You assumed about my politics, race, and gender–might I add: you’re wrong on all three counts. You struck out. Go have a seat in the dugout.
2.) No matter how much you try to sit here and profess to know what the will of residents of the District of Columbia; the fact remains that there is support for the voucher program there; a program that has been in effect since 2004. I lived in the region most of my life, so I think I have some understanding about this particular issue.
Some background:
Now, Kevin Chavous:
I’m sorry that the District of Columbia isn’t Wisconsin, but that’s how they see it there, and have for years. This is how they see it on a local level. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with Mayor Gray, Former mayor Williams, and anyone else in the District who supports that program. I don’t have anything to do with it, except for putting the facts out there that apparently some would rather ignore. Sorry, guys. Go attack them for their support of these programs, not me for pointing the shit out.
To be clear: I’m no fan of vouchers, but then I don’t live in D.C. (I’m in the Carolinas, now), I don’t have any kids who go to school in D.C. (or any whatsoever), and damn it, school choice has been a functional part of the overall schools debate in that city since I was in high school (1995-1997). But if you’d rather attack me? I don’t care. The facts are there, if you’d bother to go looking for them.
Jesse
@Mitch Guthman: Because there is room to cut the budget, it does not follow we should vote Republican.
No matter what I say about the two political parties, someone will come in here and play more-cynical-than-thou with me. But here goes, anyway:
The Democratic Party seems to believe that the government should collect and spend money on behalf of the citizens, broadly interpreted. Democrats believe in the existence of a social safety net. (It seemed to be important to them that Planned Parenthood not be defunded.)
The Republican Party seems to believe that the government should spend money on behalf of the economically successful, particularly the extremely wealthy. (It seems to be important to them that the wealthy have a minimal or nonexistent tax burden, per the “Ryan plan.”)
I, citizen, have an interest in the federal government acting efficiently, Whatever the goals of the government are, I want them pursued with the least amount of wasted effort and money. Therefore, I applaud “painless” cuts to the budget, in principle. But, as a Democrat, I support the social safety net and don’t want to see it shredded. So the last thing I want to do is vote Republican.
Or, to paraphrase your original claim: Republicans say orange juice tastes good. Orange juice does, in fact, taste good. So let’s all vote Republican!
Sheesh. Try harder.
Jesse
Sure, controlling the House is “only” one chamber of Congress. But it’s the chamber that, constitutionally, spends the money, which is why Obama is automatically playing defense on this stuff. I score this a win- a messy win, a small win, but a win.
(For the record, I care and I’m extremely white.)
Stillwater
@Jim C.: I’m not sure I agree that all those indicate a right-ward shift. Military intervention has enjoyed bipartisan support. Military spending same. The SC moving to the right is more an idiosyncratic feature of Bush the Lesser: he got lucky to have two retirees and he was guided in the appointments by neocons and originalists.
Civil rights stuff wrt indefinite detention is one we can agree to disagree on, but my view is that relinquishing executive branch power is very difficult, and I mean that institutionally (not psychologically).
Increasing income disparities and concentrations of wealth are a direct result of low taxes and neoliberalism: A) government takes less from the primary beneficiaries of government-sponsored open trade (hence they ought to pay a significantly higher percentage than earners of purely domestic income) and B) increases in the labor pool due to outsourcing necessarily drive down wages and eliminate individual bargaining power. Unions suffered a big blow when Dems held both houses, and that one I think is on your side.
But look, I hear what your saying here. It’s not a clear issue. For my part, I think most of what’s presented as a rightward shift is a surface veneer presented with rhetorical and propagandistic flourishes by opportunistic politicians and pundits, rather than a rightward shift of the will of the people.