Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire
Tim Fernholz at The American Prospect says,
Given the low likelihood that all of these cuts get passed in Congress or that Republicans even sign on to this plan, and the fact that it really isn’t a “freeze,” the problem is less in policy and more in the incredibly pernicious political argument: Obama is accepting the conservative budget framing that progressives fought against during his campaign by focusing deficit reduction on the most underfunded chunk of the budget, exempting the Defense Department from responsibility, and leaving revenue off the table (it’s no coincidence, however, that 2011 is when some of the Bush tax cuts will roll back). It’s exactly what progressive budget experts said not to do.
Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias won’t “give them the satisfaction”,
The official emphasized that there’s more to the administration’s plans that this freeze proposal, though what that might be will have to wait. Suffice it to say that I’m very skeptical of this approach. I’m attempting not to freak out because (a) I don’t have details and (b) I suspect this initiative was deliberately leaked to progressive bloggers in an effort to get denounced by the left and I don’t want to give them the satisfaction.
Allahpundit is tentatively prepared to give Obama points on baby steps, though he reminds us of Obama’s “scapel v. hatchet” comment in the first presidential debate of 2008 and leaves off with two pointed “exit questions”,
Exit question one: Granted, this is a cynical political move that he almost certainly wouldn’t have made if not for his collapsing support among independents, but even a cosmetic gesture deserves a golf clap, no? Exit question two: So, just as most of the costs of ObamaCare’s first decade wouldn’t start to be incurred until his second term, this freeze would be in effect smack dab during his reelection campaign in 2012, huh? Fancy that.
And, not surprisingly, Hugh Hewitt is just laughing,
It will require a revolution in voting and the make-up of Congress to put this country on a path to solvency. Massive cuts in federal spending are required, or massive tax hikes. Democrats will pursue the latter and cripple the economy in the process. Republicans will demand the former. The choice is clear.
I’m no economist, so I’ll let more knowledgable voices prevail. Brad DeLong labels the President, “Barack Herbert Hoover Obama”,
As one deficit-hawk journalist of my acquaintance says this evening, this is a perfect example of fundamental unseriousness: rather than make proposals that will actually tackle the long-term deficit–either through future tax increases triggered by excessive deficits or through future entitlement spending caps triggered by excessive deficits–come up with a proposal that does short-term harm to the economy without tackling the deficit in any serious and significant way.
And over at Baseline Scenario, James Kwak calls the President’s move a pale imitation of Bill Clinton,
Presumably Volckerama was about attracting the base, and this is about appealing to independents who care about the deficit because . . . well, because they always care about the deficit. I’ve said before that the Obama administration hasn’t gotten the credit it deserves for being serious about our long-term debt problem, and I’m sure they’re frustrated about what happened to the right solution (health care reform). But this feels like they’ve given up on real solutions and are just trying to score points.
Kevin Drum about wraps things up here,
It’s true that market traders haven’t proven themselves very bright over the past couple of years, but does anyone really think they’re this dim? Proposing a discretionary spending freeze is one of the oldest chestnuts in the book; the amount of money at stake is paltry; and the whole reason it’s called “discretionary” in the first place is that Congress is highly unlikely to let it stand over the long term. Bond markets would have to be remarkably credulous to react positively to this announcement.
And earlier here,
Just to be clear: $250 billion over the coming decade, even if Obama miraculously makes this work,1 is $250 billion out of a projected deficit of, oh, let’s call it $10 trillion in round numbers. In other words, about 2 or 3 percent.And in return for what? The liberal base now has yet another reason to be disgusted with Obama, so the obvious hope is that independents are going to lap this up. And who knows? Maybe they will. But what I wonder is this: hasn’t Obama’s pivot happened too quickly to seem like anything other than what it increasingly is: a panicky and transparent attempt to recover from the Massachusetts tsunami? Given that, is anyone going to buy it? Or is it just going to come across as a thinly veiled and poll approved effort to “connect” with voter angst without really doing anything substantive?
Beats me. In the past, I’ve been pretty astonished by the willingness of voters to take politicians at their word no matter how plainly their words are politically motivated. So maybe it will work. But I have my doubts.
For my part, this move only really further cements my doubts about the Obama administration. I agree that this is cynical, that it is reactionary, and that it is desperate. For all you folks who think that we newly minted Obama doubters are simply engaged in our own pivoting act on all of the things that we used to like about Barry, the above list is precisely what an Obama presidency wasn’t supposed to be.
In that regard, I think this announcement is pretty damaging. Kevin is right that this will only further depress an already listless base and I’ll bet you a bright, shiny nickle (American, of course) that independent voters will electorally spit in Obama’s face.
What is at issue here is a matter of trust and confidence and what the Obama administration has decided to lead with is neither trust nor confidence inspiring. Obama has basically failed to engender much in the way of trust and confidence no matter what in which direction you choose to look. Republicans and conservatives have been lined up against him from the get go, liberals and progressives feel marooned with broken promises, and independent voters, well, Massachusetts doesn’t appear to be a fluke, their disapproval has been on a pretty steady upward trend from the start.
But the thing about winning over people who don’t trust or have confidence in you is that sudden tacking is about your worst of all possible strategies. How do you feel when someone who has made decisions that go against the grain of your values suddenly turns to you, brandishing a pearly white smile and a gift and says, “Hey, you know I’ve been with you all along, right?”
You’re suspicious, right? Me too, and the circumstances are no different here. This is politics as usual, painful though it is to level that claim. And though I’m well aware of the danger in making predictions about politics, I think this announcement, more than the Brown victory, may be the moment to which people look back and see the place where the Obama dream died.
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69 comments
I’m starting to like this president more and more.
If we keep this up, I might start comparing him favorably with Gerry Ford.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
You must be near reveling in my pessimism ;)
Jaybird
January 26th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
It’s not that. (I deal with this sort of thing with Maribou from time to time as well.)
It’s that I suspect that incremental additions and tweaks will result in making things incrementally worse and, worse than that, this is unsustainable… not just in the “in the long run, we are all dead” sense either but in the “my hypothetical childrens’ lifetimes” sense.
I read your pessimism as indicating that we’re still merely slouching towards Gomorrah at the old 2009 pace rather than the incrementally faster 2010 pace.
If you know what I mean.
Except this isn’t exactly a surprise.
Did we all just sleep through the FY2010 budget which basically said the same thing a year ago? Obama had always mentioned that limiting spending increases after the worst of the recession was over was part of his agenda…
How is anyone surprised by this, exactly other than the use of the term “spending freeze”?
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Did we all just sleep through the FY2010 budget
Yes, we were sleeping off our “hope and change” hangover and wringing our hands about stimulus spending and health care reform.
A lot of it is hinging on his State of the Union. If he manages to pull something remarkable and hit it out of the park then he may well turn things around. A lot of this will depend on what he decides to do leadership wise; if he tries to turn budget hawk and decides to let his HRC croak completely his base is going to revolt. If he can force HRC through and then starts clamping down on the budget I guess he might be able to thread the needle.
The economy is the big question mark in this issue of course. If he emulates FDR and strangles the recovery then his ass will be grass (On the plus side, however, the double dip recession was caused by both budget tightened AND the Fed clamping down and you can be certain that the Fed is going to be very careful this time around, especially with the inflation indicators snoring away).
On the other hand if he does actually start tightening the belt in a meaningful way without killing the economy it’ll be fascinating to watch the fiscal cons do handstands and contortions to explain why they’re still voting republican anyhow. Oh and interesting to see what the libertarians do as well of course.
Jaybird
January 26th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Many fiscons were kicked in the junk rather forcefully by the neocons whilst the socons cheered.
While people who consider themselves some measure of all three will contort themselves in such a way that will remind you of the 90’s, the people who self-identify as fiscally conservative jumped ship in 2006 after being asked “where you gonna go, the democrats???” (let alone what they did in 2008)
The Republican leadership, as far as I can tell, has not yet demonstrated that they understand why the fiscons have hard feelings (“mistakes were made, junk may have been kicked” kinda statements notwithstanding).
As for Libertarians, well… you remember the aughts as well as I.
Bush kicked a *LOT* of junk… and, if my junk is any indication, there’s a lot of sore junk still out there.
North
January 26th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Yeah that seems like a fair assessment.
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 8:09 am
“The Republican leadership, as far as I can tell, has not yet demonstrated that they understand why the fiscons have hard feelings (“mistakes were made, junk may have been kicked” kinda statements notwithstanding).”
The reason that fiscons get no love is that for most people who claim to believe it, fiscal conservatism is a pose, not a stance.
Most fiscal conservatives want to think of themselves as moderates, especially in our current cultural context. Ie, “I’m a conservative, but not like Sarah Palin or forced birthers.” Unfortunately for them, the world doesn’t quite work the way they want. Limited constitutional government is actually much further away from our current political culture than ending the abortion license or legalizing guns or what have you.
Everybody knows these supposedly conservative would-be pennypinchers don’t have the stomach for a real fight to limit the size of government, so nobody respects them.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 8:29 am
For the record, I suspect that their lack of stomach to fight a real fight to limit the size of government resulted in them going down the list to ask “who’s best on my #2 issue?” or even “who’s best on my #3 issue?” which was about as likely to split them between the Rs and Ds (see, for example, 2006 and 2008) as not.
While the ones who did have the stomach to fight such a fight probably grew disgusted with the Republicans back when they broke the contract with America.
Mark Thompson
January 27th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Of course, there’s also the fun thing that happens when the purportedly superior party on your number 1 issue prioritizes its very different positions on your numbers 2 and 3 issues such that they’re no longer superior on your number 1 issue. You know, things like expensive and unnecesary wars. Wait, I forgot… military spending doesn’t count because it’s magical.
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 9:20 am
“For the record, I suspect that their lack of stomach to fight a real fight to limit the size of government resulted in them going down the list to ask “who’s best on my #2 issue?” or even “who’s best on my #3 issue?””
That’s exactly right, but the consequences of that might be much different than you think. The people with real credibility on spending issues, like Ron Paul or Tom Coburn, don’t spend all day moaning about the failures of the GOP, though they know them at least as well as anyone else. And don’t piss and moan about gay marriage or DADT.
They don’t quite fit into the political mainstream, but they do have real credibility on spending. When spending fights come up in Congress, everybody knows where they will be. Most self-described fiscons are political opportunists like Arlen Specter who wouldn’t recognize a principle if it bit him in the ass.
Mark Thompson
January 27th, 2010 at 9:33 am
And how often, exactly, has the GOP actually listened to the people with credibility on fiscal issues when they’re in power? They sure didn’t listen to folks like Coburn when they passed Part D. They sure didn’t listen to Ron Paul when they started an unnecessary war. Who were they listening to during Bush’s SOTU in 2004, when my friends and I played the SOTU drinking game by drinking every time Bush announced a new spending program….and wound up hammered as a result? There may well be individual Republicans with some credibility on fiscal issues, but it would be nice if there were some evidence that those Republicans actually have some influence when Republicans get into power.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 9:35 am
I’m not even talking about SSM or DADT. I’m talking about the laws overturned by Lawrence v. Texas!
“They don’t quite fit into the political mainstream, but they do have real credibility on spending. When spending fights come up in Congress, everybody knows where they will be.”
See, what I remember is Cheney saying “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”
Which takes us back all the way to 1976 to get us to Republican Leadership that actually worried about stuff like “deficits”.
There is a generation of people out there who do not associate “fiscal responsibility” with “The GOP”. This is not the fault of spin on the part of the media. This is not the fault of the moderates. This is the fault of the leaders of the party. The presidents.
We’re now left with the not-fiscally conservative but socially conservative and invadey party, and the not-fiscally conservative but less socially conservative and somewhat less invadey party.
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
As you might guess, I disagree with various parts of your post. But more important than any particular quibble, we need to understand some important things about the political process as a whole, in particular our level of control of it.
One mistake liberals like to make is to oversell the ability of the political process to control society at large, and the ability of any individual to control the political process.
The various actors, eg the President, Republican moderates in the Senate, Tea Party activists, etc., only control part of the process, even if you add them all together. Like the Mass special election, there’s always events that you can’t forsee or account for. Ie, “that’s why they play the games.”
Given all that, we just have to make our best choices and then roll the dice. The return of prosperity in America is a winnable game, but it’s not at all a slam dunk. Games where the player is guaranteed to win usually aren’t very much fun to play anyway. The Tom Coburns of the world have made their choice, and so have the Arlen Specters, and people know who is who. You can either associate yourself politically and culturally with those who represent the best chance for prosperity and limited government in American, or you can make lameoid rationalizations for why you’re not.
North
January 27th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
In essence you’re either with republicans or against them.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Would I be allowed to support, say, a Democratic President and a Republican Congress and a balanced Senate because I cared about fiscal responsibility?
Or should I throw myself, whole hog, into the Republican Party?
At what point does “what happened?” become more important than “what they promise”?
Koz
January 28th, 2010 at 7:37 am
“Would I be allowed to support, say, a Democratic President and a Republican Congress and a balanced Senate because I cared about fiscal responsibility?”
In other circumstances yes, but not at the present. The world hasn’t presented that particular choice for you, which is a substantial part of my point.
Let’s also note that my argument for support for the Republicans is not at all based on something they’ve promised to do. It’s based on our best guess of what they are likely to do in office, based on what they’ve done in the past and our intuitions about who they are.
Bob Cheeks
January 27th, 2010 at 9:27 am
North, I love ya dude, but the Big O’s in big trouble. The ruck’s figgered him out and they really aren’t into his brand of socialism, and they sense he’s actually trying to f*ck up the country.
The “hey, we elected a black man, aren’t we good” thing is long over, people are outta work, none of his promises have been kept even though the commie-dems run the legislature, the media’s starting to mock the dude, and he’s beginning to look shell shocked.
This will be the fastest political turn around in my lifetime!
North
January 27th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Bob ol boy I wish I could say you’ve been too deep into the makers mark but I’m not certain that you’re entirely wrong (which is a scary sensation).
Don’t blame me, I voted for Hillary in the primary, even volunteered for the old biddy. Though in fairness I tossed a c-not Obama’s way out of party solidarity and a mild disdain for the Old fart and the shetard that the GOP ran so I suppose you could blame me anyhow.
Anyhow, ask me what I think after the state of the union. I think we’ll have a pretty idea as to what’s going to become of Obama and his goo-goo politics after this. If he tells us that he’s abandoning his HCR entirely because the pixies and unicorns tell him that he can work out a new bipartisan deal that’ll make everyone happy then you won’t have to do anything. His own base will revolt and we could even be looking at a primary challenge for him in 2012. Certainly he’ll be in post 1994 Clinton territory.
Bob Cheeks
January 27th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Well, North, you know I’ll be anticipating your posts on the State of the Union…we may not agree but I do love the objectivity! The wife frowns on me watching the Big O on TV so I’ll have to pour her two fingers over ice and suggest she put her ear phones on (she listens to books) while doing one of those WiFi things.
There’s just no way liberals can win on this issue, because conservatives are empowered to say that they care about it even though they don’t, and every Republican administration since Eisenhower has demonstrated that; and, moreover, any Democratic attempts to fix the budget deficit are immediately dismissed as unrealistic. Look, I promise you, Republicans will never fix our deficit or our debt. I hate to be a broken record here, but it is a fact: there is not one shred of evidence to support the claim that conservatives or Republicans will ever improve the deficit. Not. A. Shred. Yet their word is constantly taken on the issue, by people like dear old Jaybird, for reasons that escape me.
Here’s the real deal: no one has ever adequately explained how continuing to run at deficits hurts this country, particularly considering that any country (read:China) that would attempt to make an issue out of it would destroy its own economy in the process.
Also, Scott, I believe there was just a post on this here site about the myth of the American independent.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Don’t know about here, but Jon Sides had a good post a while back to which Drum recently pointed. Whether they be partisan folks who call themselves independent or the 10% of “pure independents to which Sides refers, I don’t think this move is going to win them over and has been noted by econ folks smarter than I, this move doesn’t actually do much to deal with the deficit, so it becomes difficult to find much excitement for it. I just think Obama is headed in the wrong direction and I think he’d be surprised at what the reaction would be to his headed in a more full-throated liberal direction would be. But I could be wrong about that. Regardless, I think this is where it all starts to fall apart, personally.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
Or, I guess, rather the move won’t win over those folks who aren’t already won over.
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
I agree this kind of proposal in all around lame and the kind of childish BS pols feed people. It will do little even if it gets by congress. R’s will hate anything O does on principle. I think it is over the top to say this is where he falls apart. The D’s have hysterical pants wetting overreaction covered.
Perhaps the D’s could come up with some sort of plan that has cost controls over some entitlement spending, big cuts in entitlement spending that is projected to bring the deficit down. Boy I sure that if they ever did that people would love that. yes siree if D’s could make a plan that does that R’s and independents and squishy D’s would go along in a NY minute.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
It could be that I’m going over the top. Wouldn’t be the first time. I just can’t help but think that this on the heels of the HCR train wreck is too much. We still have lots of time, but it’s an uphill battle from here and I’ve not seen much indication that Team Obama has it in them to beat the odds.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
In follow up, it feels like an administration who are perplexed that things haven’t gone according to plan and now want desperately to regain footing but are doing so by making every strategic mistake possible in a very public fashion. I’ve been on that end of things and once you start flailing it can be very difficult to stop. Perhaps I’m projecting?
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Actually I think they have been hinting at this kind of thing for a while. What is news about this is that they offered up to the lib media as a preview, but this is not completely out of the blue. It would take a media some degree of memory to point that out.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Hmm, that’s a good point and one that Nob pointed out above. It’s news to me, so maybe I am projecting on this. But I think the reaction is similar to what I’m suggesting and the timing, if this has been planned for a while, is lousy.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Do you think it was always scheduled to be announced at this point, roughly?
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Well the STOU is on Wed., so it seems like a natural time to bring it up. This is the kind of thing that gets mentioned in big speeches, so i don’t think this is a panic thing at all.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
But do you actually think it will fly well in the SOTU? It might seem like a natural time to bring it up, but even if I’m wrong about it being a panic thing — and you’ve got me half convinced — it still strikes me as a strategic miscalculation.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
And I’m trying to figure out whether I’d be more perturbed if this were planned or panic induced.
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Miscalculation…… I don’t know. I think this kind of thing does fly with some people. There is a lot of criticism of The Bubble that DC media/ pol types live in, so they are unaware of how the rest of the country thinks. I think that could apply to a lot of us also. My guess for a lot of us who follow politics and have wonkish tendencies will see this far differently then those who don’t. Will it make a dramatic difference in any direction: I doubt it. But I don’t think its supposed to. Many people will take it as a nice step and a good intention. If congress doesn’t follow along, that will reflect more on them I think. This is more about making his brand look good, which is a lot of what SOTU are about. Grand agendas and such.
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Well he has a long time in this term. Again I’m unimpressed with this proposal, I wanted him to offer adult governance, not this pabulum. But I don’t have much confidence in either party to do much about the budget. Neither side has much desire to tackle the difficult parts. And anybody who does try to make serious changes (cough HCR cough) will get demagogued.
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
And for my own follow up, I think, as I stated above, neither D’s or R’s have the ability to truly address the budget. Neither will face some of the hard truths we need to , which are increased taxes, which we can afford, and spending cuts. Although that is not completely fair, since medicare cuts were proposed by the D’s and we then heard plenty about death panels or whatever.
Frankly after the HCR demagoguery I’d of massively surprised if O was willing to go after major cuts since it the screeching is sadly predictable.
Scott H. Payne
January 26th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Meet back here on Thursday to see how things have played out in the near term?
greginak
January 26th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Often, it seems, the media reaction is what will define the success or failure of the SOTU. That will be the meme that spread.
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 7:42 am
HCR is bread-and-circuses b**ls**t.
If Pres Obama and the Demo’s want to do something about spending, the answer is not to create new entitlements.
Scott
January 26th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
So what is your point? That we should let Obama spend until the smallest bill in circulation is the 10000 unit Obama?
Obama’s pledge to freeze spending on only 1/8 of the budget is a joke, meant only to give the appearance that he doing soemthing.
Freddie
January 26th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Yeah, you know what we really have to do, when our government isn’t making enough money? RAISE TAXES.
Scott
January 27th, 2010 at 8:10 am
Did you ever think that a tax increase would not be necessary if the gov’t didn’t spend so much? Also, the gov’t doesn’t “make money,” it takes it from people that work for a living.
Jaybird
January 26th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Freddie, seriously, you are demonstrating some serious evangelical tendencies here.
The post *DIRECTLY* above yours (as of this writing) was written by me and in it I came out and said that the neocons betrayed the fiscons and the fiscons would remember that. Indeed, I said that they are still sore remembering that they’ve been betrayed.
And yet you say “Yet their word is constantly taken on the issue, by people like dear old Jaybird, for reasons that escape me.”
I had said, earlier in this thread, that Obama was becoming one of my favorite presidents (up there with Ford) and that people who self-identified as Fiscal Conservatives left the Republicans.
And yet you wrote “Yet their word is constantly taken on the issue, by people like dear old Jaybird, for reasons that escape me.”
Your opinions of me, at the very least, do not mesh with my public statements.
This is the equivalent of me saying “Freddie hates pistachios!” in a thread in which you’ve commented about how you kinda like pistachios.
You seriously need to reassess your interactions if only to bring them more in line with reality. At this point, you’re positively evangelical.
Bo
January 26th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
I’m still not sure how Bush kicked the fis-cons in the junk, since they were born, fully formed as if from the skull of Zeus, on the day of January 20, 2009. Maybe he stopped by a couple of their houses on the drive back to Crawford for a ceremonial junk-kicking/photo-op, but it got missed among all that hullabaloo over in DC?
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 7:55 am
“Yet their word is constantly taken on the issue, by people like dear old Jaybird, for reasons that escape me.”
Well, Jaybird’s lack of enthusiasm for the GOP is disappointing, but you are surely correct about the larger point. The GOP will always have more credibility that the D’s on budget issues, because liberals such as yourself support things like HCR which are killing the budget. For all the failures of the Republicans (and they are many) they always look good by comparison.
“Here’s the real deal: no one has ever adequately explained how continuing to run at deficits hurts this country, particularly considering that any country (read:China) that would attempt to make an issue out of it would destroy its own economy in the process.”
There’s more to the equation than other countries “making an issue” of our debt load. If the credibility of the feds to pay back the federal debt is in question, our access to credit and the interest rates charged to us will turn against us.
North
January 27th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Hmmm… Yes indeed Democrats support budget busters like HCR which have built in means of paying for themselves and include cost savings measures that at least make gestures towards trying to rein in spending. Meanwhile the GOP is on the record with their Medicare part D expansion which of course contained no payment methods and no attempts at reigning in costs and instead was charged directly into general revenue meaning of course that it was funded entirely by deficit spending. And the logical conclusion to draw from this little bit of history is that the GOP is the budget conscious party by comparison. Of course! Wait… what?!?
Honestly Koz, I know you like to pretend that Republican rule just vanished after 2000 but doesn’t the dichotomy make your head hurt at least a little? Blocking out a decade of fiscal misbehavior has to cause some kind of bad neural feedback one would think.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 8:41 am
I’d be interested in hearing why I ought to have enthusiasm for the GOP, honestly.
They aren’t fiscally conservative and haven’t been for a long time.
They don’t believe that the government should be limited to the point where they stay out of my bedroom.
They don’t believe that the government should be limited to the point where they stay out of my favorite bar.
They don’t believe that the government should be limited to the point where I am allowed to grow a plant on my windowsill.
In short, they don’t believe that I am an adult.
Why in the flying (redacted) should I see the GOP as anything but a bunch of idiots useful only for creating gridlock and reigning in the worst excesses of the democrats (when they had the reigns, they did a fine job of rubber-stamping the worst excesses of Bush/Cheney).
Why in the sam hill should I not see them as the somewhat more anti-sodomy version of The Corporatist Party (to be compared to the somewhat less anti-sodomy version of it)?
North
January 27th, 2010 at 9:04 am
You left out tortu…errr.. enhanced interrogation Jay.
Bob Cheeks
January 27th, 2010 at 9:15 am
North, you and JB are just great!
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I regret the oversight.
Both parties have seriously been pissing me off and the most devout followers of either have been doing backflips to make me think that I’m the crazy one. The conservatives want the government to have gulags? The liberals want the government to censor speech?
What in the hell is in this bottle because I’m beginning to suspect that it ain’t purified water…
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 9:49 am
I for one don’t think you are crazy, but I do think you are fundamentally ignorant of the way coalition politics works.
North
January 27th, 2010 at 10:29 am
Liberals censor speech? Where?? I’ll be on the barricade with you.
Oh wait you mean campaign finance reform? Well I’m opposed but the way they want to do it doesn’t even work. Sometimes liberals can be kindof nearsighted and kooky like that. If your neighbor is trying to kill you from his house using a rifle you call the cops (or get out your own and shoot back I guess) but if he’s trying to kill you by dancing around naked trying to summon evil spirits to kill you, you call the tabloids (or get out your camera and put the fool on youtube). I think the liberal position on Campaign finance reform resembles the latter much more than the former.
Kyle
January 27th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Done. Shut it down. Contest over. We have a winner.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Dude, they were talking about how the government ought to have the power to prevent political documentaries from being broadcast.
I don’t know how else to frame that.
North
January 27th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
I’m gonna have to ask for a cite for that. I’ve never heard about any Dem politicians in recent times trying to prevent political speech except in republican imaginations. But I could easily have missed some idiot left wing-ding spouting off.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
The Supreme Court of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
From Wikipedia:
The decision reached the Supreme Court on appeal from a 2008 decision by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which sided with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), holding that under the McCain-Feingold Act the film Hillary: The Movie could not be shown on television right before the 2008 Democratic primaries.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission overturned that.
And liberals were screaming that the Supreme Court reached the wrong decision… that is to say that they were talking about how the government ought to have the power to prevent political documentaries from being broadcast.
North
January 27th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Fair enough, liberals scream about campaign adds and the like. No surprise. Have any of our liberal politicians introduced bills that the party has advanced to quash free speech? It hasn’t seemed like a priority to them.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
McCain-Feingold?
Which, among other things, results in the government having (*AND EXERCISING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*) the power to ban political documentaries from being shown on television?
Am I being crazy here?
Kyle
January 27th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
North, one would imagine Senator Russ Feingold.
North
January 27th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Well yes, like I said I agree and I’m opposed. But it’s still a pretty pathetic assault and now, happily, we’re rid of it.
Jaybird
January 27th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
My issue wasn’t with the assault, as it were, on free speech it was with the fact that there were liberals (LIBERALS!!!!) arguing that the Supreme Court reached the wrong decision in saying that the government shouldn’t have done that.
*THAT* is what is making me feel topsy-turvy.
Koz
January 27th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I’d be interested in hearing why I ought to have enthusiasm for the GOP, honestly.
This one’s easy, or to put it a little better, easier for me than you. In the American context and allowing full value for all its faults, the GOP is the best hope for prosperity and limited government. For the most part, those who claim to want these things but don’t support the GOP are just talking a big game.
That sounds like blustery bravado, but it’s meant to be taken quite directly. Political parties are not made up of Zen masters. The things that they are able to accomplish are a function of the resources they have. Frankly, the GOP is punching over its weight at the moment. That probably won’t last. Either the GOP will gain the political offices it needs to represent the cause of limited government, or the cause of limited government will perish in America.
Mark Thompson
January 27th, 2010 at 9:51 am
In the American context and allowing full value for all its faults, the GOP is the best hope for prosperity and limited government. [Citation needed].
North
January 27th, 2010 at 10:32 am
If hopes for limited government rest solely in the oily hands of the GOP then limited government is in dire straits indeed.
The short version of my post on the subject is that the President’s freeze leaves the door wide open to another stimulus and locks in his funding priorities that weren’t going to be dramatically increased anyway. It puts pressure on politicians to support his bipartisan entitlement reform commission (because he’s already limited outlays in non-defense, discretionary spending) and if those two parts work, the only part of the federal budget under no fiscal supervision will be defense spending, which will place Republicans on the defensive.
Whether it’s good policy or not, savings or not matters less than the perception. The reality is he locked in progressive budget priorities (though not ideal amounts) and has laid a reasonably solid foundation for going after the two sacred cows of federal expenditures, defence and entitlements.
If anyone is being short sighted, it’s those whining that the President is capitulating to deficit hawks to score points at the expense of social programs. By locking in the spending now, he’s doing no such thing. A spending freeze does not equal spending cuts.
Bo
January 27th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
You don’t even fully appreciate what a genius Obama is; after all, he raised military spending 10% immediately upon taking office and then escalated the war in Afghanistan, all to lay the groundwork for not freezing military spending this year. Pretty soon, he’ll have military spending so high that only 90% of Republicans and half of all centrists won’t realize how ridiculous it is.
There are two budget items that could be zeroed out for immense savings: Iraq and Afghanistan. But a very serious Broderite centrist would eliminate all social security payments before even considering that.