Make Them Accountable / 2011 / July

First Read observes that when you “take a step back from the hour-by-hour movements in this debate, it’s obvious how much ground the White House and Democrats have conceded.”

“First, they retreated on their push for a clean debt-ceiling raise. Then they retreated on the size of the spending cuts (now both sides say the cuts must equal or exceed the eventual debt-limit hike). Then they backed away from insisting that tax revenues be included in the final package (both the Boehner and Reid plans exclude them). And now it seems that their final line in the sand is insisting that the debt ceiling must — in one step — be raised beyond 2012, versus Boehner’s two-step approach, which would guarantee another debt showdown early next year.”

“Bottom line: It looks like they’ve gotten their clocks cleaned in these negotiations, and Republicans are once again counting on Democrats to retreat. The one thing that could bail out Democrats: that the GOP doesn’t know when to declare victory and walk away from the blackjack table.”

Boehner doesn’t have the votes

28-Jul-11

Think Progress:

BREAKING: Boehner postpones vote

Official word sent to House members:

**Members are advised that the House GOP Leadership has postponed the votes on the motion to recommit and final passage of S. 627 – Speaker Boehner’s Short Term Default Act (amending the Faster FOIA Act of 2011). Following general debate on S. 627, the House will consider the eight bills listed for consideration under suspension of the Rules.

All it takes in one sentence on one page

28-Jul-11

It’s been done many, many times.

Think Progress:

Congressional Black Caucus Chair: We Will Only Support A Clean Debt Ceiling Vote

Pelosi supports clean vote on debt ceiling increase

Age-Related Memory Loss May Be Reversible

28-Jul-11

New posts at Many Years Young 7/28/11

Age-Related Memory Loss May Be Reversible

Exercise Has Numerous Beneficial Effects on Brain

Yoga Boosts Stress-Busting Hormone, Reduces Pain, Study Finds

Does exercise prevent weight loss by increasing appetite?

Plus lots more.

Solving the debt crisis

27-Jul-11

Mr. Fish:

Sorry, Mr. Fish, but the Capitol has already been sold, along with every politician in it.

They want to kill the country to “save” it

27-Jul-11

Krugman:

The Guilty Parties

There’s actually a simple way to resolve the debt ceiling crisis: non-crazy Republican leaders could support something like the Reid plan — which is, let’s be clear, a huge victory for the right and defeat for progressives — and pass it with limited GOP support and overwhelming Democratic support. Situation resolved.

This would, however, probably be the end of these Republicans’ political careers. And the answer is, so?

If you believe that default will quite possibly be a catastrophe — and leading Republicans probably do believe that — their unwillingness to take the action I’ve just described means that they are risking America’s future rather than pay a price in their personal political careers. That’s cowardice on an epic scale, even if it’s the kind of behavior we take for granted nowadays.

It’s worse than that, perfesser. MUCH worse.

Think Progress:

Boehner: ‘A Lot’ Of Republicans Want To Force Default, Create ‘Enough Chaos’ To Pass Balanced Budget Amendment

Speaking on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show this morning, Boehner agreed that failing to raise the limit before the deadline would be devastating, and said the “chaos” plan won’t work when asked by Ingraham what’s motivating the recalcitrant Republicans:

BOEHNER: Well, first they want more. And my goodness, I want more too. And secondly, a lot of them believe that if we get passed August the second and we have enough chaos, we could force the Senate and the White House to accept a balanced budget amendment. I’m not sure that that — I don’t think that that strategy works. Because I think the closer we get to August the second, frankly, the less leverage we have vis a vis our colleagues in the Senate and the White House.

McCain To ‘Foolish’ Republicans Demanding A Balanced Budget Amendment: ‘It’s Bizarro’

In exchange for not sending the nation into economic ruin, a swath of Republicans are demanding to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) to the Constitution. By forcing government to actively slash spending in the face of falling revenues, such an amendment “would greatly damage an already-weak recovery,” “mandate perverse actions in the face of recessions,” and is considered one of the worse ideas in Washington. Nonetheless, as House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said today, the fringe contingent of the GOP is aiming to create “enough chaos” to force the Senate and the White House to accept a BBA. Freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), sponsor of the Senate’s BBA bill, actually wants America’s “house to come down” unless he gets his way.

But today on the Senate floor, a more seasoned senator schooled the freshman contingent on economic reality. Though an avid supporter of the BBA, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) stood amazed that some members actually believed a BBA could pass in the Senate. Such a belief, he said, is “worse than foolish. That is deceiving.” Taking heed of numerous economists’ warning about the Aug. 2 deadline, McCain said that Republicans who are holding out on raising the debt ceiling for an impossible amendment is “unfair” and “bizarro”.

Robert Scheer:

Debt Madness Was Always About Killing Social Security

This phony debt crisis has now passed through the looking glass into the realm where madness reigns. What should have been an uneventful moment in which lawmakers make good on the nation’s contractual obligations has instead been seized upon by Republican hypocrites as a moment to settle ideological scores that have nothing to do with the debt.

Hypocrites, because their radical free market ideology, and the resulting total deregulation of the financial markets, is what caused the debt to spiral out of control this last decade. That and the wars George W. Bush launched but didn’t have the integrity to responsibly finance. The consequence was a banking bubble and crash leading to a 50 percent run-up of the debt that has nothing to do with the “entitlements” that those same Republicans have always wanted to destroy.

Even Barack Obama has put cuts in those programs into play, warning ominously that a failure to lift the debt ceiling could cause the government to stop sending out Social Security checks. Why, when the Social Security trust fund is fully funded for the next quarter-century and is owed money by the U.S. Treasury rather than the other way around? Why would we pay foreign creditors before American seniors? The answer, offered as conventional wisdom by leaders of both parties, is that we cannot endanger our credit by failing to back our bonds, even though the Republicans have aroused the alarm of the main U.S. credit rating agencies by their brinkmanship on the debt.

What a topsy-turvy world when the same credit rating agencies that gave the thumbs up to the bankers’ toxic mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps now threaten the AAA rating of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Dean Baker:

The Nonsense Battle Over the Debt Ceiling

[T]he crisis over the debt ceiling is the answer to the prayers of many people in the business community. They desperately want to roll back the size of the country’s welfare state, but they know that there is almost no political support for this position. The crisis over the debt ceiling gives them an opportunity to impose cutbacks in the welfare state by getting the leadership of both political parties to sign on to the deal, leaving the opponents of cuts with no plausible political options.

To advance this agenda they will do everything in their power to advance the perception of crisis. This includes having the bond-rating agencies threaten to downgrade U.S. debt if there is not an agreement on major cuts to the welfare state…

This means that the battle over the debt ceiling is an elaborate charade that is threatening the country’s most important social welfare programs. There is no real issue of the country’s creditworthiness of its ability to finance its debt and deficits any time in the foreseeable future. Rather, this is about the business community in general, and the finance sector in particular, taking advantage of a crisis that they themselves created to scale back the country’s social welfare system. They may well succeed.

Naked Capitalism:

Michael Hudson: Mr. Obama’s Scare Tactics to Get Democrats to Vote for His Republican Wall Street Plan

You know that the debt kerfuffle is as staged as melodramatically as a World Wrestling Federation exhibition when Mr. Obama makes the blatantly empty threat that if Congress does not “tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform,” there won’t be money to pay Social Security checks next month. In his debt speech last night (July 25), he threatened that if “we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills – bills that include monthly Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits, and the government contracts we’ve signed with thousands of businesses.”

This is not remotely true. But it has become the scare theme for over a week now, ever since the President used almost the same words in his interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley.

Of course the government will have enough money to pay the monthly Social Security checks. The Social Security administration has its own savings – in Treasury bills. I realize that lawyers (such as Mr. Obama and indeed most American presidents) rarely understand economics. But this is a legal issue. Mr. Obama certainly must know that Social Security is solvent, with liquid securities to pay for many decades to come. Yet Mr. Obama has put Social Security at the very top of his hit list!

The most reasonable explanation for his empty threat is that he is trying to panic the elderly into hoping that somehow the budget deal he seems to have up his sleeve can save them. The reality, of course, is that they are being led to economic slaughter.

The Onion:

Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans To Live Faster, Die Younger (video)

Political Wire:

When Politics Trumps Economics

Elvin Lim: “America is the only country in the world that has the luxury of creating an economic crisis when there isn’t one. Ours is the only democracy with a debt ceiling, with the exception of Denmark, which raises its ceiling well in advance of when it would be reached. Economists say that our ‘debt crisis’ is an unforced error, because people are more than willing to lend us money, at pretty good rates. This is the benefit of having a really good credit score.”

“And yet there are some who wish to call the credit card company to voluntarily reduce our credit limit after they just maxed it out. This tells us that politics triumphs economics in this country. That we ended up with so much debt is a result of politics, anyway.”

Undernews:

Debt ceiling sanity

James Surowiecki, New Yorker - The truth is that the United States doesn’t need, and shouldn’t have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one. There’s no debt limit in the Constitution. And, if Congress really wants to hold down government debt, it already has a way to do so that doesn’t risk economic chaos—namely, the annual budgeting process. The only reason we need to lift the debt ceiling, after all, is to pay for spending that Congress has already authorized. If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, we’ll face an absurd scenario in which Congress will have ordered the President to execute two laws that are flatly at odds with each other…

Felix Salmon, Reuters - For 37 years, the debt ceiling has provided an easy way for the party which isn’t in the White House to posture politically against the party which is in the White House. Even Barack Obama voted against raising it, once. Every one of the dozens of times the debt ceiling was reached, there was a small but non-zero probability that something disastrous would happen. And each time, disaster was, predictably, averted.

Think Progress:

House Dems: If GOP Is Intent On ‘Destroying Government,’ Obama Should Use 14th Amendment To Raise Debt Ceiling

House Democrats say Obama has a constitutional option to hike the debt ceiling.

As negotiations continue over a debt reduction deal that has unneccesarily become part of the debate over raising the debt ceiling, some advocates are now looking for a way to raise the debt ceiling without needing the votes of obstinate, hostage-taking Republicans.

Today, a group of House Democrats held a press conference where they advocated for a fail-safe measure to ensure that the debt ceiling is hiked. These Democrats said that if all other measures fail, President Obama should simply issue an executive order invoking the 14th amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling.

What’s Jesus got to do with it?

27-Jul-11

Didn’t he hate the poor?

Think Progress:

Report: Obama And Boehner Agreed To Raise Medicare Eligibilty Age Before Debt Talks Broke Down

In what may be one of the most under-reported stories of the debt ceiling talks, Politico’s Jen Haberkorn notes that before negotiations broke down on Friday evening, President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner tentatively agreed to gradually raise the Medicare eligibility age as part of a “grand bargain” to increase the nation’s borrowing limit.

‘What Would Jesus Cut?’: Christian Leaders Urge Obama To Protect The Poor In Debt Talks

An “unprecedented” coalition of religious leaders are coming together to urge President Obama not to sacrifice the needs of the poor in negotiations to reduce the nation’s debt. Leaders from the Episcopal Church, the Salvation Army, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ all met with Obama last week to present their unified message.

The Daily Outrage

27-Jul-11

House GOP Plays Ben Affleck Movie Clip To Rally Caucus: ‘I Need Your Help… We’re Going To Hurt Some People’ (Think Progress)

FLASHBACK: Republicans Never Voted On A Balanced Budget Amendment When They Controlled Congress Under Bush (Think Progress)

After Enthusiastically Using Filibuster, GOP Begs Democrats Not To Filibuster Cut, Cap, And Balance Plan (Think Progress)

Top GOP Lawmaker Pushing To Repeal Dodd-Frank: New Bank Regulators Are ‘Little Dictatorships’ (Think Progress)

JP Morgan admits big corporate profits come from screwing workers (Undernews)

Still Counting Calories? Your Weight-Loss Plan May Be Outdated

27-Jul-11

New posts at Many Years Young 7/27/11

Still Counting Calories? Your Weight-Loss Plan May Be Outdated

Bore your way to weight loss? Doctors tell how

As snacking grows across U.S., how to keep yours in check

Why crash diets don’t work

Plus lots more.

All sold out

26-Jul-11

Ted Rall:

There’s Got To Be One

Obama wakes up in the middle night, worrying that there’s some principle he forgot to sell out.

The beat goes on

26-Jul-11

Think Progress:

GOP Leaders Voted For Three Of The Biggest Debt Drivers, Costing $3.4 Trillion

GOP leaders stuck to their talking points last night in responding to President Obama’s speech on the debt ceiling, accusing him of the “largest spending binge in American history,” as Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said in remarks following the president’s. “[T]he President and his party continued to make demands which we cannot meet,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said yesterday, adding that Obama is demanding “a blank check to keep spending.”

But Boehner and Cantor, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) have all voted for some of the biggest contributors to the debt — the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts, and President Bush’s Medicare prescription drug plan — which helped to double the debt over the past decade.

Political Wire:

Boehner Plan Would Lead to Downgrade

House Speaker John Boehner claimed last night if President Obama simply signed the House legislation he has introduced, which would raise the debt ceiling in two stages, the “crisis” atmosphere over the nation’s credit rating would simply disappear.

However, CNN reports that Boehner’s debt plan would actually not meet the threshold of ratings agencies to avoid a downgrade of the naton’s debt while Sen. Harry Reid’s debt plan would would preserve the country’s AAA credit rating.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Boehner’s Proposal Would Produce Huge Increase in Poverty and Hardship

House Speaker John Boehner’s new budget proposal would essentially require, as the price of raising the debt ceiling again early next year, a choice between deep cuts in the years immediately ahead in Social Security and Medicare benefits for current retirees, repeal of health reform’s coverage expansions, or wholesale evisceration of basic assistance programs for vulnerable Americans.

The plan is, thus, tantamount to a form of “class warfare.” If enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.

Dean Baker:

President Obama Doesn’t Understand the Origins of the Deficit

This fact should have been highlighted in the news reporting on President Obama’s speech last night. President Obama asserted:

“For the last decade, we have spent more money than we take in. In the year 2000, the government had a budget surplus. But instead of using it to pay off our debt, the money was spent on trillions of dollars in new tax cuts, while two wars and an expensive prescription drug
program were simply added to our nation’s credit card.

As a result, the deficit was on track to top $1 trillion the year I took office.”

This is seriously mistaken.

The Congressional Budget Office’s projections from January of 2008, the last ones made before it recognized the housing bubble and the implications of its collapse, showed a deficit of just $198 billion for 2009, the year President Obama took office. In other words, the deficit was absolutely not “on track to top $1 trillion.”

This is what is known as a “gaffe” of enormous proportions. It indicates that President Obama does not have the most basic understanding of the nature of the budget problems the country faces.

Wonkette:

Obama & Boehner Argue Details of Dismantling U.S. Government

Washington Wire:

Risk of Credit Downgrade Rising

The risk of a U.S. default remains extremely low, but a downgrade of the country’s triple-A credit rating is a growing possibility, says the head of fixed-income analysis at J.P.Morgan Chase & Co…

The immediate impact of a downgrade likely would be modest, but the medium-term impact would be “significant,” leading to a permanent increase in U.S. borrowing costs of around $100 billion a year, [Terry Belton, global head of fixed income strategy at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.,] said. That, in turn, would hurt economic growth, he said.

“That $100 billion a year is money that’s being used to pay higher interest rates, and that’s money being taken away from other goods and services,” he said.

Think Progress:

Despite Potential Downgrade, McConnell Claims ‘Absolutely No Economic Justification’ For Long-Term Debt Ceiling Deal

Countering President Obama’s call for a long-term increase in the nation’s debt ceiling, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said yesterday that “there’s absolutely no economic justification” for an extended increase:

There’s absolutely no economic justification for insisting on a debt limit increase that brings us through the next election. It’s not the beginning of a fiscal year, it’s not the beginning of a calendar year, based on his own words its hard to conclude that this request has anything to do with anything other than the president’s re-election.

Elizabeth Drew:

What Were They Thinking?

Someday people will look back and wonder, What were they thinking? Why, in the midst of a stalled recovery, with the economy fragile and job creation slowing to a trickle, did the nation’s leaders decide that the thing to do—in order to raise the debt limit, normally a routine matter—was to spend less money, making job creation all the more difficult?…

This country’s economy is beset with a number of new difficulties, among them that recovery from the last recession remains more elusive than was generally expected, while the US is confronting a variety of international economic instabilities, especially the large debts and possible default of several countries in the eurozone, bringing on unpopular austerity measures. Recent experience with what should have been a simple matter of raising the debt ceiling, normally done with no difficulty, is reason for deep unease about our political system’s ability to deal with such challenges.

On a mission to destroy any government program that works

26-Jul-11

Paul Krugman:

Messing With Medicare

Medicare, with all its flaws, works better than private insurance. It has less bureaucracy and … has been more successful in controlling costs… And … Medicare-type systems in other advanced countries have much lower costs than the uniquely privatized U.S. system…

Republicans are doing all they can to undermine health care reform … and may eventually succeed… If they do, many of those losing Medicare coverage would find themselves unable to replace it.

So raising the Medicare age is a terrible idea. Means-testing — reducing benefits for wealthier Americans — isn’t equally bad, but it’s still poor policy…

The G.O.P.’s most potent political weapon last year — the weapon that caused a large swing in the votes of older Americans — was the claim that Mr. Obama was cutting Medicare. Why give Republicans a chance to do it all over again?

Of course, it’s possible that the reason the president is offering to undermine Medicare is that he genuinely believes that this would be a good idea. And that possibility, I have to say, is what really scares me.

Dean Baker:

The New York Times Bemoans the Lost Opportunity to Cut Social Security and Raise the Age of Medicare Eligibility to 67

That’s right, you can read about the “unique opportunity” that was lost right here. The New York Times complains that the likely deficit deals to be produced in the days ahead will not feature:

“significant future savings from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — the entitlement programs whose growth as the population ages is driving long-term projections of unsustainable debt.”

As every budget analyst knows, Social Security is not a major driver of the deficit. Under the law, it cannot contribute to the deficit. It can only spend money that was raised from its designated tax or from interest earned on the Treasury bonds bought with this revenue. If the trust fund lacks the money to pay benefits then full benefits will not be paid. Furthermore, the projected increase in Social Security benefits over the decades ahead is relatively modest.

The projected increase in the cost of the Medicare and Medicaid is much larger but this is attributable to the projected explosion in private sector health care costs. If the United States faced the same per person health care costs as any other wealth country we would be facing long-term budget surpluses, not deficits.

Dean Baker:

Does the Post Have Polls Showing Centrists Want Cuts to Social Security and Medicare?

If so, they really should share them with readers. The Post told readers that Obama’s decision to propose raising the age of Medicare eligibility to 67 and to cut Social Security is a way to appeal to centrist voters. This is difficult to understand since every poll done on this issue shows that people across the political spectrum, including Tea Party Republicans, overwhelmingly oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The Post either has some polls that no one else knows about or it’s just making things up.

Greg Sargent:

Americans to Congress: Please hike our taxes before you cut entitlements

What if pollsters asked Americans which concerns them more: The prospect of tax hikes on people like them, or the possibility of cuts to Medicare and Social Security?

Well, a new National Journal poll released today has done just that. And by a sizable margin, a plurality is more concerned about cuts to entitlements than about paying more taxes. It’s yet another sign that the public is on the Dems’ side in this fight.

Down, down, down, and the flames went higher

26-Jul-11

And it burns, burns, burns…

Andrew Malcolm, Los Angeles Times:

New polls confirm Obama’s Democratic base crumbles

[W]e’ve had a plethora of recent polls showing Obama’s fading job approval, especially on the economy.

Now, comes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll with a whole harvest of revelations, among them, strong indications that Obama’s liberal base is starting to crumble…

“More than a third of Americans now believe that President Obama’s policies are hurting the economy, and confidence in his ability to create jobs is sharply eroding among his base,” the Post reports.

Strong support among liberal Democrats for Obama’s jobs record has plummeted 22 points from 53% down below a third. African Americans who believe the president’s measures helped the economy have plunged from 77% to barely half.

Obama’s overall job approval on the economy has slid below 40% for the first time, with 57% disapproving. And strong disapprovers outnumber approvers by better than two-to-one.

CNN:

CNN Poll: Drop in liberal support pushes Obama approval rating down

President Barack Obama’s approval rating is down to 45 percent, driven in part by growing dissatisfaction on the left with the president’s track record in office, according to a new national survey.

A CNN/ORC International Poll also indicates that the Republican “brand” is taking a beating in the minds of Americans…

“[D]rill down into that number and you’ll see signs of a stirring discontent on the left,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Thirty-eight percent say they disapprove because President Obama has been too liberal, but 13 percent say they disapprove of Obama because he has not been liberal enough – nearly double what it was in May, when the question was last asked, and the first time that number has hit double digits in Obama’s presidency.”

Our so-called leaders

26-Jul-11

Undernews:

Today, we increasingly elect people about whom we have little to remember, to whom we owe no gratitude and with whom we have no relationship except that formed during the great carnie show we call a campaign. - Sam Smith

Political Wire:

Are Sane Leaders Really Best?

Out soon: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi.

The author tells the Washington Post that presidents “widely considered successful — such as Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy — suffered from mood disorders for most of their lives… In times of crisis, leaders with mood disorders were at an advantage rather than impaired, he writes. They were more resilient, more creative, more thoughtful, more empathetic and better able to endure times of intense stress.”

“Conversely, Ghaemi believes that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were failures as leaders because they were mentally healthy.”

HEALTHY??!!

Well, I guess so, if you consider psychopaths healthy.

Slavery is back

26-Jul-11

Black Agenda Report:

Freedom Rider: Prison Slave Labor

In the state of Georgia, a recently enacted law targeting undocumented workers was deemed insufficiently evil and needed the addition of greater exploitation of people of color. The new legislation allows police to profile brown skinned people and also makes it illegal for the undocumented to work, to be housed, or even to be transported. But as in the rest of the country, Georgia’s agricultural work force is comprised almost completely of undocumented migrant workers. Having chased these people away, the state was at a loss as to how to keep its farms afloat after their labor force fled.

The solution to the conundrum was simple but leads to a slippery slope which invites further abuse in an already inherently abusive situation. The state offered to pay probationers to do the farm work instead. The experiment drew a few desperate people, who did not have the wherewithal, knowledge or training needed to harvest crops in the midst of a heat wave.

The plan may have initially failed, but the setback is surely only temporary and the trend towards normalizing labor exploitation is being perfected and honed to make it more successful in many parts of the country. In Racine county, Wisconsin, the evisceration of public employee union rights has spawned an effort to give jobs that were once reserved for union employees to prisoners instead. These prisoners would not be paid with money, they would only earn the right to reduce their sentences. The public union collective bargaining contracts that are now null and void had barred the state from this practice. The right wing have figured out how to kill two birds with one stone. In one fell swoop, public unions were decimated and prisoners will be subject to greater exploitation.

David Rosnick, Center for Economic and Policy Research:

Will Work For Health Insurance

An interesting story was posted last week over at the website of the National Education Association. A Massachusetts special-education teacher — Kathy Meltsakos — was laid off and then rehired by another school district. At lower base wages, and bearing a greater share of her health-insurance costs, her take-home pay was reduced to zero.