Bipartisanship Is Not "Weak" and Partisanship Is Not "Tough"

Never thought of legislating in that context, but the thought of Harry Reid with a ball gag strapped into his mealy mouth is oddly comforting.

This is going to get exciting.

Isn't this pretty much what the process looks like when co-equal branches of government slug it out?  Granted, it's been a long time since we've seen our legislators in action, but the mess is hard-wired into the process.  I think Obama, a Constitutional scholar, understands this and actually enjoys dealing with a whole lotta ugly.

The "get tough yesterday" critiques of Obama seem to me to be pure projection. The desire for vengeance--the blood on the floor--is just so much fast food. The empty calories impede real growth and development of the governing body that includes OFA and others. (The WE Campaign's parallel house parties this weekend serve, in my view, as a "force multiplier" given that our own group of OFA organizers in town have emphasized climate change as the number one issue that they are specifically committed to working on.) In the desire for immediate gratification, something I am surprised to see Kos so committed to, the discussion about long term progressive dominance--and the means of achieving that--get lost. Indeed, when Sen. Cornyn says yesterday that Obama lost an opportunity for a "very, very" big political victory with the Stimulus Bill, I hear a recognition that passage of this bill--with all its warts and even risks of limited effectiveness if it alone is to fix the economy--will indeed be a victory for Obama and a "very, very" big setback for the desperately tone-deaf minority party. 

Here.

Personally it feels like in order to get this bipartisan deal the policy has suffered greatly, but I really do hope that the president knows what he's doing. Right now 48% of the bill is in tax cuts, which have been shown to do very little stimulating. I know the GOP raises hell when they see government spending, but spending is what stimulates the economy when there is little-to-no demand, and they've managed to cut a good deal of the spending out of it. I guess I just have to hope that once all the Senate seats have their senators in them that Obama tries to pass a real Infrastructure bill passed.

I attended a mtg last night and will attend another mtg on Tuesday. This first mtg was hosted by a Obama Campa graduate who was deployed to Steubenville OH for 5 wks. The host is a longtime manager and said that he has worked in supersized companies and the Obama campaign is, by far, the most efficient and effective organization in which he's participated. There were 10 participants including another Obama Camp graduate who was deployed to London, OH (very rural and between Dayton and Columbus).

All the participants were upper middle class and from the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. Two had homes in foreclosure. One was laid off from Motorola and another was a realtor with a 80% income loss.

Another realtor had researched area foreclosures: 100 in Lake Forest, IL, 63 in Winnetka, Wilmette has 66. The highest numbers are from the working class suburbs of Waukegan and North Chicago with 100+ each for the past month. Lake Forest now has 16 businesses shuttered in its downtown.

As the gods and goddesses would have it, Cong. Kirk (IL-10), is having a rare townhall meeting in Waukegan on his EPA cleanup in the Waukegan Harbor. We decided to have folks attend the mtg and invite him to an Economic Summit for the District. Kirk prides himself on representing one of the wealthiest districts in the country and now we would like him to answer on why he voted against the stimulus package and what he is doing to create quality-of-life in this district.

It was one great productive meeting with participants who are ready to work with each other to make sure that the stimulus package passes and to bring about real change in this District.

Obama is asking for $800 billion dollars at a time when people are losing their jobs, healthcare, etc. or are afraid it will happen to them.  No one would be popular in his position right now.  But it is the right thing to do.  He will take his lumps now, but when this works, he'll be fine.  This stimulus bill is just one battle in the greater war of getting the economy back under control.

to get the Stimulus Bill through the Senate.  Their whole 2010 strategy is based on running against it.  If the bill were to fail, then it would be obstructionist Republicans to blame for a worsening economy, instead of spendthrift Democrats led by that known Socialist in the White House.  That's their game in a nutshell, I figure.  Fits right in with what their leader, Rush "I want America (Obama) to fail" Limbaugh is saying.

To a media that appears to be judging the new administration on whether or not they can get 85 votes on legislation is missing the point on "bipartisanship".  If the GOP wants to play the same old games, nothing short of capitulation will get substantial numbers of them to vote on the people's issues.  And so the White House adjusts the communications strategy - we were right on the issues all last year, and we'll continue to be rewarded when the big picture is brought back into focus.

Zanok - The bill went from $819 billion in the House to $827 billion in the Senate - so the claims that it somehow lost ground - which you seem to have bought from those claiming them - I think are greatly exaggerated.

And some of the stuff cut out will probably become law through future legislation. It's not as if this bill is the last chance to set the federal budget!

For a spending bill this size, the process has been remarkably clean. As you said, the process is by nature somewhat ugly and Senate procedure is specifically designed to impede too-quick action - trying to force it to act this fast when 36 or so senators are dedicated to obstruction requires a lot of pressure.

In following the discussions on the stimulus package, it seems to me that there is a core part that Obama specifically wants (middle class tax cuts, infrastructure repair, green jobs, modernising heath care - and anybody who made even the slightest effort to look at what he says knows those are what he considers the important; he shouldn't have to spell it out for those too lazy for due diligence) and this part has remained almost perfectly intact even as various Congresspeople add this and cut that. The House added in a lot of other items and the Senate removed most of them while adding in a few of its own but the heart of the bill is still the same as when Obama first mentioned it. There has been no compromise of his core principles. Pretty impressive, if you ask me! Plus, there are no earmarks. Since when did any bill get through Congress without millions of dollars of earmarks? Especially a behemoth spending bill like this - it's so easy to argue "this pet project in my district will stimulate the economy by creating jobs".

I think that those who are familiar with Congress are going to look back and realize this was actually a major legislative victory for Obama and not a failure as so many in the netroots are saying because their pet project got cut.

Another point is that just because a project does not get extra funding in the stimulus, this does not mean that people don't care about it. This isn't the budget. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a series of spending bills go more quietly through Congress that restore the cut bits. This is slower than if they had been in the stimulus but I think will be more effective in getting them attention and proper funding. The "sudden death" way that too many activists see this issue is counterproductive.

...is that the Republicans want to be able to claim that their tax cuts are what made the stimulus bill work, whereas all sane economists are saying that the tax cuts will hurt and not help the stimulus package to work.    If the bill has been so weakened by the addition of harmful tax cuts that it fails, then the Republicans get to blame Obama for its failure and hope that the public doesn't figure out that it was in fact GOP sabotage that made the stimulus package fail in its objectives.

What's your take on this, and will the house parties be tasked with crafting strategies to combat this problem?

To those fretting about the mix of tax cuts and spending in the stimulus bill, remember that it's done done yet. The House and Senate versions go to conference committee and there will be changes, including more spending to states than the Senate version.  And of course there will be Obama budgets which can shift the spending amounts and emphases from the Bush years.

I attended a house meeting in Swarthmore with about 20 others.  We watched the Tim Kaine-narrated video and exchanged stories about how the economy has affected us.  Two of the stories were a grandmother who has been unemployed for two years and without health insurance, and a young man who owns his own landscaping business but has been struggling to keep the business afloat and can't afford to hire anyone else or get his own health insurance.

We also talked about the stimulus package and our perceptions of it.  Some thought there were too many tax cuts.  Some expressed concern about the relevance to job-creation to some of the spending, including "spending money on bees."

The above two discussions were jotted down by the meeting host, and she will be reporting back to OFA with the results.  She will also send out a link to an OFA literature piece that has statistics on how the stimulus bill will affect Pennsylvania (how many jobs will be created and saved and such).  We were encouraged to send it out to at least five people and to keep the discussion going in our communities, including engaging our Republican friends and asking for their perceptions (which was met with a bit of reluctance from the seemingly all Democrat attendees).

My mom and I went to a house meeting yesterday. The meeting was was very interesting and informative. The person who led the meeting was a housing advocate and the meeting was held in Prince George's County, MD. Our county has the highest rate of foreclosures in the state. Many people were concerned about the housing crises and the economy. Also, many wanted to know how the funds in the stimulus would be used in the county. I think the house meeting was effective in its purpose to give people an outlet to voice their concerns and ultimately propel them to stay involved. I plan to attend other house meetings in the future. One more thing: a New York Times reporter was there doing a story about the house meetings. She interviewed me and others that were at the meeting. The story should run this Sunday or Monday.

Frankly, I am not too concentrated on polls right now.  

I am much more concerned about the economic catastrophe around the corner.  It is one of the biggest challenges ever to face an incoming president in my lifetime.  In order to weather this storm as well as to use it as an opportunity, President Obama needs to do exactly what he is doing - retaining the trust of the American people.  That he has reached out to Republicans is a plus irrespective of their response to him.  It simply  validates the public's view of our president as a gracious man and the Repubs as obstructors. It maintains the coalition of new voters, moderate Repubs and Independents that gave him the White House and whose support he will need to put pressure on Congress in the future.

Those Dems who scream that he is too "soft" on the opposition (some folks on Kos are the worst!), have pretty short memories as well very little understanding of coalition-building.  I will be at a house party tomorrow.  Will they?  

 

 

 

 

 

 

My opinion, but anyone who thinks the current stimulus package, or any stimulous package for that matter, is going to turn the economy around by itself is barking up the wrong tree.

The goal of this stimulus has to be to staunch the bleeding — by replacing lost jobs and hopefully helping to reduce the pace of job losses. But even Obama has said things will likely get worse before they get better; he just wants to assure they don't get so bad we can't turn it around absent a depression-like era being visited upon the country again.

And as evidence of just how bad things are in this "recession," compared to prior recessions, take a look at this chart, posted on Swampland. The green line represents the job-loss trend for the current recession, compared with the  job-loss trend lines for the 1990 [S&L crisis] recession and the 2001 [Dot.com bust] recession.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretty ugly, ha?

And to counter all the partisan-bickering talking points: The tax cuts in the proposed stimulus package are not all bad, since some are likely to be payroll tax cuts, which means the money goes right into consumers' pockets via their paychecks to help pay their mortgages and buy food and in general to get their financial houses in better order. In that form, the tax cuts can be viewed as helping the little guy, even if they don't spur a round of new conspicuous consumption [which so many people seem wrongly to think would somehow be a sign of recovery, when it's precisely the behavior that got us into this mess in the first place].

But tax cuts, especially in this environment, are not likely to create new jobs to replace the jobs being lost at a very fast pace, and which are likely to continue to be lost, at least through the balance of this year. So the stimulus is directing money toward spending projects designed to create new jobs -- in infrastructure, green, education yes even the arts. 

This combination of the right tax cuts and the right job-creation spending is intended to help level off that green line above, but it is highly unlikely it will reverse the line's direction, at least this year. But it's a push in the right direction and a way of minimizing the amount of misery we as a country will experience as this recession plays out —and hopefully help stave off a true depression.

The other part of the Obama game plan comes with the TARP [Troubled Assets Relief Program], and getting the necessary approvals to act with that money to get the nation's financial markets working properly — to get the banks lending. Because absent available credit, at least in a capitalist economy dependant on access to capital to work, the system will remain broke.

As a country, we have a long hangover ahead of us, a lot of debt to get out from under, personally and as a nation. And the stimulus will only expand that debt; it's borrowed money — likely to spur inflation years down the road because it expands the supply of money, making all money worth less, requiring higher interest rates to make our nation's debt attractive. 

Come to grips with it people; the good ol' days are over. The stimulus will not save us; it's just a life raft in the storm. The fix for this, ultimately, is time and a determination on our parts not to be fooled again by vodoo economics. Wealth and power never trickle down; they are hoarded by the few at the expense of the many who do not have wealth and power.

Checks have to be placed in the system to create a floor and a ceiling on practices that have led to the vast disparity of wealth and power promoted through vodoo economics.

If nothing else, this recession will help to level the playing field [even the rich are worth less now] and force us to focus on addressing the abuse and the abusers. That should be the third leg of Obama's recovery plan.

Al, I am in awe of your patience in posting and commenting at DKos.  I went over there and read every single word of the comments after your post and was astounded.  There were the usual snide refusals to even consider your points and the numerous commenters who backed you up.  The most upsetting to me, however, were the many who either didn't read your full post or who, having read it, didn't compute.  I have lived long enough to have cheered when Nixon resigned, and I take a back seat to noone when it comes to truly despising Republicans.  If your calm, reasoned explanation of what is happening and why and Obama's no drama approach can make sense to me, I do not understand why these people cannot see their hand in front of their face.  I will probably not read comments again at that site due to my rising blood pressure, but I just want to thank you for hanging in there and pushing that boulder uphill.

JoAnn

The cut in $40 Billion in aid to the States by the Senate (compared to the House version) is very troubling to many observers and analysts as it would have been HIGHLY and QUICKLY stimulative among lower- to middle-class government workers as well as teachers and first responders).

As Al points out, there are many programs and efforts that can be re-instated or funded through later budgetary processes, but if this stimulus package is truly designed to stimulate now, because of the urgency of the situation, it's sad that such a major chunk of money is being diverted from the States who are at the front lines to fund the $70 Billion "patch" to the Alternative Minimum Tax that could and should be fixed separately and later or to fund the $35 Billion first-time home buyer credits which will just delay the necessary deflation of the housing bubble (and which people who don't have jobs can't benefit from because there's no way they can buy a house!).

I urge everyone, once the bill has gotten past the Senate and is in committee, to organize phonebanks to pressure the conference committee (and other Senators & Representative) to reinstate that $40 Billion in State aid to the package.

Over 30 volunteers in Venice, CA today met to get educated on the stimulus package (the chart Bill Conroy provided above was one of our tools) and then we phonebanked about 300 people in Nevada (in about 90 minutes) and found 35 willing to call their Senators (we supplied Reid's and Ensign's office numbers) to pressure them to restore the House provisions for the States.  And this week, we will be phonebanking again to voters and organizing media blitzes at the same time to get stories in print and broadcast media that reflect that pressure to assist States at the ground level before the final up-down vote on the package.

I went to a house party this afternoon. Our host is a single mom working two jobs. One is a job that pays well but offers health insurance that is too expensive for her to access. Her other job pays peanuts but offers good health insurance.

Another particpant works for a bank where she is dealing with people being foreclosed on right and left.

I loved the video with Tim Kaine answering questions, it helped me to try and get my arms wrapped around the bill. The handout also was helpful, I plan on making copies and handing them out to my friends.

We decided to call our reprenstatives, and talk to our friends and co workers who are curious about the bill. It can be disheartening to call your reps when you live in a state like TN, but we all agreed that doing something was better than nothing.

Here's a post from Skeptical Brotha as to why Gov. Phil Bredesen shouldn't even be considered for HHS:

 

Phil Bredesen, Corporate Pedophile

 

JoAnn - I understand what you say 100 percent. It's can be a bit like sausage making to make a plea for sanity over there. And the ride is always made a little bumpier by four or five individuals that are so angry at me for having invented the "Chicken Little" meme and others that have stuck that they predictably start foaming at the mouth and trying to hijack the thread.

But at the same time, there is a growing "sanity lobby" over there - that's how many of these diaries make the recommended list over there - who are developing more coherence and willingness to stand up for what they (we) believe in (of course, that only makes the contrary ones even angrier and more irrational and ad hominem).

In Spanish we have a term "formando cuadros" which loosely translates as "closing ranks," but really means something broader when applied to political organization: It's the process of training and preparing the members or troops for continued and ever more effective battle. And that process has been going on among what was first just a few of us and now is a multitude over at Daily Kos. There really has been great progress to the point that thoughts - like those expressed in this diary - get recced up and considered by more and more people (only about one percent of those that read it ever comment, so it's a lot).

As they say in the Air Force: If you're taking flak, that means you're right on top of your target.

Holy crap, Obama had 103% approval ratings, and they fell to 97% in just a week. If this trend continues, he will be even lower than Bush was at the end of his term, possibly in the negatives.

 

If Obama doesn't claim dictatorial powers, start rounding up Republicans and sending them to  an Alaskan gulag,  it is unlikely this trend will reverse itself.

First, thanks Bill Conroy for your excellent contribution here. Your key point, that time and effort are the keys to economic recovery over the long-haul, is crucial. This is not going to be The Fix, but it surely will do something. The graph you post is frightening and puts into perspective just how dire the situation is. Again, thanks. 

Russell, you mentioned phone-banking hundreds of folks in NV from CA.  Was votebuilder back up and operating? We have been trying to get access to our local votebuilder files so that we can start organizing, but we have not known who to contact to get that info. Our campaign staffer has no idea either. Any thoughts?

Finally, we had a small meeting here in Terre Haute, IN. Among the many good points made, two stand out. The first is the absolutely crucial increase in PELL Grants. These grants allow countless people to continue education and training; the PELL increases need to be maintained in the current bill. The second point is that we are looking forward to hitting the streets with clipboards and literature to educate and mobilize our community regarding the big initiatives that will be launched in the next year: health care, energy/climate change, and the Employee Free Choice Act. Of all the legislation discussed, folks feel that health care will rally the most to knock doors. 

Here's an interesting story from Tom Curry MSNBC on a Renton, Washington OFA house party.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29069515/

RENTON, Wash. - The gathering Friday night in Daryl Berry’s house in this suburban city 20 miles south of Seattle was both a dozen people sitting around talking in a den and a history-making political event.....

No, votebuilder isn't up and running yet. Our group was guerilla style, so we did NOT say we were calling from OFA but rather from a grassroots group on Facebook the organizer has set up (and which already has over 1400 members). Our list came from a separate source and was essentially a GOTV quality in terms of being mostly voters who were 1s and 2s so we knew they'd be receptive to getting involved in taking action.

is that they're not "progressive." They're ideologues, and rove around like a pack of wild boars looking to aggressively assert whatever group-think that makes them comfortable. This is not only the case when it comes to Obama-related alarmism, it's also the case when you raise issues that bring these bourgeois internet revolutionaries out of their comfort zone.

Ever try to talk about animal rights on DailyKos? If you get anything besides scorn and snark, you'll be treated to the hilarious sight of normally perennially outraged uber-liberals suddenly dismissing morality as a "social construct" that only has validity when it is shared by those who hold power. Of course, such arguments contradict the foundations of their own views on women's and LGBT rights, but in their stunning dearth of cognitive dissonance, you'll see it's not so much the truth they're after as it is validation of their pre-rational intuitions.

Now, I'm not saying support for animal rights is a litmus test for progressivism, but a capacity to respect opposing viewpoints and engage them on rationally consistent terms is. kossacks who are capable of this remain a relatively quiet minority, as they think a few extra exclamation points is an adequate substitute for following their assertions to their logical conclusions and considering the merits of an opposing viewpoint. These people are awfully good at decrying others' moral weaknesses, but when it comes time to walk the walk, their instincts are just to do what's easiest for them and their egos. As you've repeatedly pointed out, the slinkerwinks of the world have yet to explain how they would get 60 votes, but the absence of a viable alternative doesn't matter to them. It's all a matter of "proving" that bipartisanship is "useless," even if the tactics they espouse would ultimately deliver a massive Republican victory (i.e., no bailout).

A lot of people don't understand, but Pete Sessions does.  He's the one that compared the Republican party's upcoming tactics to the Taliban.  The GOP is going into heavy insurgency mode.  How do you beat an insurgency?  By winning the war for moral authority.  During the campaign, Obama won the initial fight for moral authority against McCain.  (ie "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," etc) He is keeping it when he reaches out to the Republicans in the house and they go 100% party line against him.  He keeps it by using the calendar in his favor and allowing his adversaries to overextend themselves in trying to win 1 or 2 news cycles.  He keeps it by doing right.  He wins when he does the right thing.  In a morally correct world, each and every Representative and Senator should be able to give their input on policy and the bills they vote on.  In a morally correct world they should be able to independently (of party) vote their conscience on each and every bill.  So it is the Republicans that violate that morality.

 

Republicans are in a situation just like Clinton last year after the Wisconsin primary.  The math is on Obama's side.  He can afford to use morality as a political style.  He will have the votes he needs to get the policy that he wants.  So he wins in political theatre, policy, and in actually governing in a correct manner.  All win.

As far as political blogs go, they are mostly an entertainment, like fantasy baseball or lolcats.  They are the cheering section of a spectator event mostly.  They are just another set for this particular theatre.  And as such, are mostly inconsequential to actual policy.  (And yes, I know it really is much more complicated than that, but I feel the shorthand is generally valid.)

Rikyrah - Bredenson might be another famous head fake. (i.e. to make folks sigh with relief if then someone like Sebelius is tapped, so that the "Howard Dean is owed a cabinet post" lobby can get some perspective.)

Or it might not. We'll see.

Thought you might like this, Al. Here's a taste:

The classic mathematical analyses of Chicken assume a state called outcome symmetry.  That is, each player stands to gain equally by the other swerving first (winning the game), and each stands to lose equally by crashing (dying).  The ultimate game of Chicken was long considered to be nuclear war, where the outcome was Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).  In that context, tellingly summarized in the movie WarGames, "the only way to win is not to play."

The problem with the political Chicken game I've seen proposed here on DKos lately is that progressives' and conservatives' positions are not outcome symmetric.  Indeed, they could hardly be less so.  Conservatives have every reason to play Chicken.  Progressives have every reason to avoid it.

 

AS I tried to point out to the pinheads at OpenLeft, if you are going to cite Harry Truman as a role model for his uncompromising rhetoric and "take it to the republicans" approach, you should at least learn what the Taft-Hartley bill is and be able to explain why you expect a better outcome this time.

Truman's legislative record was failure. But many on the "left" don't know about or care about unions, I guess.

 

Al

I love most of your insight and I'd love to hear more from you on how the Senate version of the stimulus is good. Cutting key funding to the states and the arts seems crazy. unless Obama plans on his moral authority and 'Organizing for America' to influence the House version of this bill being passed, I'll feel like a key opportunity was missed. Maybe there is an incremental strategy here, start with this stimulus and then build on it over time. It just seems politically sad to sell out aspects of the states and the arts in the name of bi-partisonship?

Charles - We need to first agree on the facts. Since everything proposed in both versions - House and Senate - of the stimulus bills does not yet exist, it's just not accurate to imply that any program is being "cut." The states, the arts, and all other federal programs get budgetary funds from the US. The Stimulus involves what *extra* may get funded above and beyond the FY 2009 budget but the Stimulus bill doesn't "cut" anything.

I haven't commented much on it because until a joint agreement comes out of House-Senate conference committee, nobody knows what will be in the final Stimulus legislation or not. I'm sure it will look different than both versions. And I'm not going to waste a lot of time on temporary versions that won't last. Conference Committees have a massive amount of power.

I've argued, for example, that the proposed extra $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts would be an excellent form of economic stimulus. But I'm not going to claim - even if it doesn't make it into the final version - that it got "cut." Something that doesn't exist yet can't be disappeared.

I also feel that people are being very short-sighted, even greedy, by insisting that measures that can still be put into the FY 2010 budget must be put into the Stimulus package. It's not the last shot. Not at all. It's the first. Thus, I think the debate over "something is being cut" is a false one, and I don't chase fictional narratives.

The one to Charles? Brilliant. "...and I don't chase fictional narratives." This is why I keep coming back here. I am starting to think this is the only sane place to be on the toobs. The idiot MSM is finally easing up on it's incessant Republican butt massaging and starting to report on other story lines, like that pesky one about the public actually SUPPORTING the stimulus, while recognizing that Republicans do not have anything constructive to add to the discussion. It's about time they caught up to you.