I have to rescind my assessment last night that John Boehner got nothing out of the late negotiations on the 2011 budget. Apparently, he won the restoration of a ban on the District of Columbia spending its own money to help poor women obtain abortions. President Obama and the Democrats had lifted that ban earlier in his presidency, and now it is back. Boehner also won funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which spends federal money on private schools in the District. In addition to these concessions, there is another rider that was left unresolved. Will the DC government be able to spend money on a needle-exchange program? The answer will come out of negotiations between the House and Senate. So, it appears that DC Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s fears have been realized, as the District took the hit for a budget deal. It’s one more example of why they need voting rights and autonomy. For a ninety-percent Democratic city to have to suffer the indignity of being governed by a bunch of conservative Republicans (even in part) is intolerable. Having said all that, I am not impressed with the interpretation many progressives are taking on these negotiations.
I respect David Dayen, but reading his piece on this I have to shake my head. He confirms a lot of stereotypes by taking the position that government spending is “dollar-for-dollar” equal to economic stimulus. He says “I think you’ll find that the failure to put the 2011 budget to bed in the last Congress cost the economy $60 billion.” That assumes that the $60 billion in cuts would have actually been spent. A lot of it wouldn’t have been spent, or would have only been spent unwisely on projects or programs that were no longer needed or were not wanted. For just one example, $1.74 billion was cut from the Census Bureau, which won’t be needing the money until 2020. Just because money has been appropriated doesn’t mean it will, or should, be spent. And this process did a very efficient job of trimming all that kind of fat off the bone of our federal budget. It’s a complete stretch to say that every dollar cut was a dollar “removed from our economy.”
There is a problem with the assumption that government spending is good and stimulative and that government cuts are bad and hurt the economy. It’s the flip-side of the Republicans’ absolutism over tax cuts. I’d like to see less analysis along those lines on the progressive side.
It’s true that the government can and should spend money to create jobs while the private sector recovers its strength, but any possibility that it would do so during this Congress was ended on election night last November. No amount of rhetoric or pressure by the president, by members of Congress, or by progressive media can change that basic fact, so blaming the government for not injecting new stimulus is pointless. The president’s job is to do the best he can with the cards on the table, not to try to manufacture ponies and unicorns out of his ass.
I notice a lot of commenters here are taking the position that the Republicans came out ahead in these negotiations. In a certain basic sense, they did. But most of that was baked in the cake the moment they took over the House by gaining an historic 63 seats. Despite all the angst over the slashing of discretionary spending (this was the biggest one-year cut in history), this battle was over a tiny sliver of the overall budget. The big battles over entitlement spending loom on the horizon, and the Republicans expended a tremendous amount of political capital to get a very small victory. You can count on them to threaten a government shutdown at least two more times this year. First, they’ll threaten to default on our debt, and then they’ll threaten “no deal” on the 2012 budget. They were wise enough not to close the government on the first and smallest fight, but they’ll pay a higher political price every time they hold the government hostage.
We all complain about the Democrats’ lack of unity and fighting spirit, but they finished these negotiations completely unified and on message. Yesterday was the best performance by the Democrats that I’ve seen in years. They blistered the Republicans for wanting to shut down the government to prevent cancer screenings and breast exams, and they did it in a very bold and coordinated way. It showed the power of the presidency when he decides to draw a line and he actually has the undivided support of his party. They were well-prepared for a government shutdown, and that bodes well for later battles.
Like it or not, we’re going to be in mortal combat with these assholes for the rest of our lives, and yesterday we delivered one of the best ass-kickings I’ve seen since 2008. As for the president, he’s playing up the cooperation and the “bipartisanship.” That was one of his core messages during his campaign. Progressives hated it, but it helped him get elected because it appealed to a lot of people in the middle. When you’re in the trenches fighting Republicans, the president’s happy-talk can seem naive or even like straight bullshit. It’s not. It’s just politics. You can safely ignore it, admire it for its dexterity, or let it annoy the crap out of you, but it doesn’t really matter.
Overall, I think the president did well and helped his reelection prospects. I don’t like the concessions in the District but it wasn’t worth shutting down the government over them. The real fight for DC is for autonomy and full voting rights in Congress, and we can restore the situation the next time we control both houses of Congress.
My one piece of advice on all this is that if you keep expecting the impossible you are going to be perpetually disappointed and unhappy.
Government spending is good during a short time period of severe recession because of the behavior that consumers and investors adopt in recession–which makes it worse.
Over the long term, it depends very much what government spends on. Spending that increases productivity or lowers the cost of doing business is good. Spending on excess military that does neither is bad.
Under the threat of inflation, it is better to raise taxes than cut productive spending.
Gross Domestic Product = Consumption + Investment into plant and equipment and labor (i.e. investment in the real economy instead of the paper economy + Government spending + Balance of trade.
Households are not consuming because they can’t. Businesses are investing in paper and not yet heavily in the real economy. The balance of trade is in the toilet, although Obama has been working on trying to make it less in the toilet. And Congress won’t increase government spending.
And then we wonder why the economy is moving sideways.
Because the federal government did not adequately help out states, states and their subsidiary localities are engaged right now in massive spending cuts that continue to reduce demand.
The fact of the matter is the $39 billion of cuts will not produce any more jobs any faster and likely will slow job growth.
Tax cuts produce jobs only in a capital constrained economy, which the current one definitely isn’t and the recession of 1982 resulting from the high interest rates imposed by Volcker’s Fed certainly was. Spending cuts never produce jobs; by definition, they cut jobs.
The fallacy that Republicans apply to the federal government is the same one that businesses apply when faced with a threatened drop in sales from the expectation of a recession. And they wind up making he situation worse.
Democrats, and especially progressive Democrats like Stiglitz and Krugman, are on target on this issue. It is relatively well-tested over the 50 years that Keynesian economics drove Fed policy.
Republicans, on the other hand, cut spending to cut government power relative to corporations and as the consequence of cutting taxes. It is an article of faith, not an honest analysis. And it just happens to serve their biggest donors.
good points
If we want to talk about the stimulative effects of various measures we need to start breaking things down like this link. The simple graph at the top provides the gist. One can quibble about the numbers but the main point that different measures have different effects shouldn’t get lost:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/08/964385/-Paul-Ryans-austerity-budget-for-us-mainlines-tax-cu
t-fix-for-addictedplutocrats
And that is a very fair argument. But if we’re calling cutting government social spending in a recession and it taking Republicans threatening to shut the government down before the Dems can finally be unified and on message as the “best performance in years” we’re in deep and abiding fecal matter.
I mourn the fact that as you said, the window that is the political art of the possible at this point is subtle gradations of battered voter syndrome.
I think that the realization that we would be going through this shutdown extortion again and again instead of breaking the bullying now is the disappointing thing about the decision. And the fact that the members of Congress themselves have no skin in the game because they get their pay no matter what.
We’re clear that we lost jobs creation last November when the voters bought snake oil. We’re just wanting someone in Congress to be honest that it’s snake oil. And that the sole intent politically is to make sure that Obama does not have a “morning in America” “happy days are here again” campaign in 2012. That has been the intent from the beginning of the GOP scorched earth strategy. And since November, they want to be able to claim that their wise policies have rescued America, when the opposite is true. They policies are neither wise nor have they rescued America.
Great post, Booman. What I’ve been focusing on throughout this process is how badly Republicans have hurt their brand. Combined with the Paul Ryan plan unveiling last week, Republicans have exposed themselves. They ARE the anti-women party, the anti-senior citizen party, the anti-education party, the anti-police party, the anti-firefighter party, the anti-poor party and the pro-rich people party, which we all knew anyway.
I don’t think they are going to get any more moderate as the elections approach and we Democrats have to focus on those independents and moderates who decide elections. We have to just pound away at Republicans as hating women, seniors, children, students and anyone who isn’t a pasty white man. Or an orange man, in Boehner’s case.
I don’t know who “we” is who are going to “pound away at Republicans…”. I don’t think that YouTubes posted in the lefty blogosphere are going to reach very far.
The President, however, has a bully pulpit. But he is constrained by the current political environment from calling out Republican snake oil. It’s all “Thank you, Mr. Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Reid.”
Who that Americans can and will hear will do the pounding?
I think the upcoming presidential campaign will give Obama much more leeway to say what he thinks, and the oxygen to use it.
This presidency has really shown how disconnected from the electorate the power structure of the U.S. has become. Two of the most impressive aspects of Obama’s candidacy — his organizing ability and his teaching ability — have effectively been shut down by his office.
He might have mitigated that by making some different decisions along the way, especially by keeping OFA separate from the DNC. I think combining them was a terrible mistake.
However, the upcoming campaign opens up a separation from constantly needing to maintain negotiating relationships to get stuff passed. I don’t know if he’ll be able to use that space to reconnect, or even if he knows he needs to, but the opportunity is there.
Saying what he thinks and the people hearing what he says are two different things.
As for the prison of the “bubble”, that is not going to change just because he is running again. Indeed you might see more people parading their Second Amendment rights like they did during the health care debate. And the Village is going to spin as it ever has. Chasing the next shiny object and trying to make a horse race.
He’ll still have to pace a FY 2013 budget and the appropriations necessary to get to September 30, 2013.
It’s going to get harder, not easier for him to make his case just because everything will be written off as electioneering.
And if you keep being satisfied with every concession Obama makes you’re going to be very happy. The United States of America, however, will be destroyed and replaced by Tea Party America.
As for this horseshit:
You fail to assign responsibility for the 63 seat gain – Obama pissing away the most powerful year he will ever have in the White House passing a watered-down health care plan and ignoring the economic issues that America cared most about.
Take off the rose-colored glasses.
States rights don’t apply to the District of Columbia.
According to a couple of diaries on dKos, there is some Tea Party gnashing of teeth about the failure to strip funds from Planned Parenthood, EPA, and “Obamacare”. And now they are unhappy with their Senators.
One minor spot of happiness for us.
Cold comfort, TarheelDem, cold comfort.
“Am I but three inches? why, thy horn is a foot; and
so long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a
fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress,
whose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon
feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?”
Yep, those guys and gals at the computer terminals at the employment service offices every day will be really cheered by this deal.
So the Tea Party people are some of the diarists on Daily Kos? I have been suspecting as much. 🙂
No, there are some folks with toxic protection suits who go over to rightwing blogs and report what they are saying.
Liberal reaction once again shows they can’t add votes and don’t know shit about political optics. Earlier in the week, white liberals true to form complained about the lack of excitement in the President’s reelection announcement, because of course Obama can’t file his papers in the same understated manner as previous white presidents. Well guess what liberals? Last night was the start of his reelection campaign. Like a live show executed perfectly, the President appeared at the start of every nightly news broadcast smiling with the shining Washington monument as his backdrop taking credit for averting a shutdown at the last minute of the final hour. Juxtapose that image to the supposed winner, John Boehner, looking orange and sullen and saying almost nothing but they got a deal done to avert a shutdown. What’s the take away for most Americans? Certainly not abortion funding in DC. Only bloggers and political analysts give a damn about the details. The take away for most Americans is the Tea Party backdowned on defunding Planned Parenthood which in turn averted a shutdown. For the first time in a long time, Democrats were able to stay on message and expose the Tea Party for what they are: the rebranded base ultra social conservative base of the Republican Party. By the measure if what they got, Republicans should be celebrating, but they are not, which is politically stupid. Much like it was politically stupid for liberals to be sullen after the passage of HCR. In the public’s eye, the Tea Party will increasingly be viewed like they view Liberals: a bunch of damn whiners that are never satisfied.
It is the failure of democracy in America that political optics has taken the place of informed decision-making on the part of voters. Meanwhile millions of Americans continue to be hurt, continue to get angrier, and don’t know who to focus their anger on. … And the top 400 income-earners go laughing at their good luck to get such a Democrat.
Policy decisions, like elections, have consequences. Real consequences for real people. But for a variety of reasons, voters don’t have accurate information, elections can be stolen, and politicians once elected serve K Street.
The sorry spectacle of the past week does not change that, nor does it give hope that anything can change–even if Obama wins re-election in a landslide.
And the problems this country has faced for the past generation keep compounding.
Sorry, there I go whining again.
I don’t know, Tarheel, usually I’m with you, but I’m with NMP on this. The most important thing is Obama winning reelection and he’s getting a great start. Last fall teahadists exposed to the light of day lost support – Obama is running as statesman vs. crazy haters. And if he doesn’t win, we’re totally f*d along with who know who else the destruction of the usa economy will bring down. I’m now going to cease recommending the Easter Island chapter of Collapse for timely reading and recommend reading the first 9 books of the Iliad but especially bk 5. Painful battles fought over a few meters along the line. That’s where we are – I think book 5 is describing WI (http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Texts/Iliad/iliad5.htm). Better a look at the “suddenly found votes” in WI than say MS or something.
In 2012, the Congress, the legislatures, and the governors are more important positions than that of the President for domestic policy. And probably for foreign policy as well. The 43-year fixation of progressive Democrats on capturing the Presidency has been a big strategic mistake. You see this in the immense effort it takes to win a Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.
Win the Congress and especially the Senate for progressive Democrats, and the re-election of the President takes care of itself. He is elected on their coattails. Failure to do that means more of the same and the likelihood of a Republican win in 2016 just from voter dissatisfaction.
I have been arguing for about three months that the the representative system – from federal to local – in the US is broken because of the shift to a one-dollar, one-vote government. The Tea Party rank-and-file solution to this is to defund the government; then all those subsidies disappear as do the burden to shift their money to support those subsidies. The conservative philsophical line has been playing this approach to ending corruption for years, even as conservative increase the corruption in the government.
The major enemy of the American people right now is not al Quaeda; it is K Street and all the little K Streets in state capitals and the cozy relationship of self-serving business owners with local elected officials. And the second major enemy are the self-serving Villagers setting the narrative among the politicians. There might not any longer be brothels next door to city hall, but there is the whole lottery scam on taxpayers. And all of the sweetheart “privatization” contracts. And people see this; they are not dumb; they see what’s going on locally. One of the best explanations of this is the first chapter of Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia about what the Tea Party rank and file are really pissed off about. (And like “pro-Gaddafi” demonstrators in Tripoli, it’s not necessarily what’s portrayed on the signs at those demonstrations).
The toleration of election stealing in only a symptom that electoral politics doesn’t matter to most folks anymore except as a quadrennial ritual. Most people just want the political noise to stop. And most people dread what coming to their TVs in 2012. The endless assault of commercial ads, which most folks endure as torture to begin with, gets put on steroids in an election year. And folks know they’re a captive audience that will do anything to make it stop. They are tired of their friends who watch FoxNews and listen to Rush Limbaugh, and they are equally tired of folks who read politic blogs and try to influence them. These are the folks Obama is playing to. But they are getting so turned off, they are likely not to vote at all.
You don’t have gin up phony vote totals when you are still systematically disenfranchising people. That’s why it occurs in WI instead of MS.
I agree with all you’re saying there, also with your sig line, which sums it up.
But I think the toleration of election stealing is also connected with denial about how the system is working – though I don’t think full awareness is necessary before embarking on trying to change things. The other side of the desire to ax all the social support programs is a deep anxiety about falling into poverty – they want to deny the programs because “it’s their own fault” ppl are poor (a way to reassure themselves it won’t happen to them) and they’re going to “prove it” by axing the programs and make those dependent on the programs “take responsibility for themselves”. Their hatred is driven by fear.
“they finished these negotiations completely unified and on message.”
And that message was “Spending cuts are fantastic! Look how historically deeply we cut the budget! Yay!” And you think that Democrats bragging about how much they cut spending will IMPROVE their position in the next budget battle?
Ezra Klein has a far, far better read on this than you do.
Why do you think the president touted the historic size of the cuts? It’s at least partially so that people remember that when the Republicans come back demanding cuts to their entitlements with no increase in taxes on the wealthy.
As for the president, he’s playing up the cooperation and the “bipartisanship.” That was one of his core messages during his campaign. Progressives hated it, but it helped him get elected because it appealed to a lot of people in the middle.
Is there any proof for this? How did playing to “the middle” do last year? I think it is more two things. People like winners. And people want to feel they are better off economically. And neither of those things have been solved.
I think you’re right, but that BooMan still has a point. Most people who aren’t actively involved in politics — which is a good sizable chunk of the country — just want the politicians to “get along, compromise, and solve problems.”
So basically, they don’t like politics. It’s why Obama’s personality is being used to thrust the campaign. Jon Walker didn’t like the ad because it’s making it about Obama himself, but that’s exactly what Reagan ran on in 1984.
I thought I heard that that as part of this “deal” the Senate will hold an up and down vote on PP defunding.
Why? So everyone is touting this as a big victory when in reality PP is not really safe from cuts?
huh?
Planned Parenthood is safe because defunding it cannot win 60 votes in the Senate.
The answer to my own question.
From TPM: “Republicans have also been promised votes in the Senate on riders to defund Planned Parenthood and health care implementation.” Those votes will fail, and everyone – including Republicans – know it. So that’s not a big deal. In fact, Democrats will be happy to put some Republicans on the record on defunding the quite popular Planned Parenthood.
I still say huh?
As a DC resident with zero representation in Congress, there is no desire by either party to end this oppression.
Also .. I should add .. I am not going to get excited until I see what has passed as the 2012 budget .. because that is the complete endgame in all of this .. and what’s interesting .. are the debt ceiling and the 2012 budget the only two things from here on out that the President will sign into law from this Congress?
I swear I’m not following you to specifically reply, but I just wanted to agree with this statement completely. In fact, that budget is going to be the judge as to whether Obama is a mediocre or a good president. If he succeeds, he’ll join the top 10-15, I suspect. If he fails…well, I’d rather not think about it.
Ouch!! Atrios just linked to you!!
Cutting Planned Parenthood was basically an attack on poor women (some men) … and, for white folks in the middle of the country, poor = people of color. Same attack as on Acorn or even Obamacare. The Republicans knew it had little to do with abortion or with the budget. It was just a dog-whistle to old, white Americans.
On the matter in this thread … I’m afraid that there is mixed winning and losing. The Republicans got their really anti-stimulative cuts. Of course, the trajectory of the economy is upward, so any gains they will claim are the result of the “confidence” that these cuts caused, “creating a better environment” for business. Of course, they said that about the tax cuts too. And they will say that about EPA and anything else. It’s a steady “excuse.” It’s a way to claim success. Of course, one only has to look back at the Bush years or even the Reagan years to see that as policy, it’s very flawed. But they have sold a real bill of goods to a lot of America. Belt-tightening is well-believed and Obama is trying to steal credit for that from the Republicans. That’s all last night’s speech was about.
Then you get to comity. (Which really should be called “comedy.”) Harry Reid praising Mitch McConnell and the “my good friend” line, and all that. Even Obama is trying to sell the “we are the party willing to work together; they are the party of “no” or the extreme ones. For those paying close attention, all this might matter. But, truth be told, very few are paying attention. The process is so sickening that most people have turned away so they don’t throw up. That’s going to depress turnout, always good for the Republicans.
So our task is to find a more hopeful and positive way to look at all this so that we can re-engage the young voters who were hopeful but now think it’s all b.s. Or re-engage the unlikely voters who voted for Obama last time with excitement but who usually don’t vote at all. Cogitate on that rather than on this particular skirmish. How can we beat these guys?
AND we have much bigger fights coming up like the debt ceiling problem. That ought to be interesting.
Great post. Best I’ve seen on “the deal.” Clear-sighted and pragmatic.