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You are here: Home / At This Point, I’m Just Hoping He Switches Parties

At This Point, I’m Just Hoping He Switches Parties

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So then we can run a Democrat in 2012:

In a blow to President Barack Obama and Senate Democratic leaders, Sen. Joe Manchin will throw his support Tuesday behind strict new spending caps that would require far deeper cuts than they support over the coming decade.

The West Virginia Democrat will endorse a Senate bill that would impose caps starting in 2013 that gradually tighten spending to 20.6 percent of gross domestic product in fiscal 2022. Obama’s budget request aims to keep spending at about 24 percent of GDP, and a budget blueprint written by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would cut spending to about 20 percent. The House adopted Ryan’s measure this month.

The Senate bill, which is dubbed the Commitment to American Prosperity Act, is sponsored by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and it recently received the backing of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

He’s still better than Raese, if only barely.

Reader Interactions

72Comments

  1. 1.

    Bob Loblaw

    Did I not tell you this would happen? Back during your overemotional “I will crawl through broken glass to vote straight ticket Democratic forever and ever” phase?

    The man is of demonstrably low integrity. He made that very clear during his campaign. He’s a panderer, a shill, a reactionary, and a corporate flunkie.

    So, where’s the primary, West Virginia Democrats? It’s on you to break the cycle early, or be forever bound.

  2. 2.

    harokin

    Isn’t this the bill Ezra send would end the progressive movement in the U.S. forever?

  5. 5.

    Zifnab

    The truth is, raising the debt ceiling without a real budget fix would be the definition of irresponsibility.

    Gee, wonder how he feels about increasing taxes.

  6. 6.

    FlipYrWhig

    That’s OK, we’ll just slap a Franchise Program label on Medicare, and that way we can work around the cap. That’s how it works, right?

  7. 7.

    Midnight Marauder

    @harokin:

    Isn’t this the bill Ezra send would end the progressive movement in the U.S. forever?

    Yeppers.

    There’s talk that the McCaskill-Corker spending cap will be the cost of raising the debt ceiling. This would be, to put it simply, completely insane. Spending caps are bad policy, and the McCaskill-Corker spending cap — which holds spending to 21.5 percent of GDP, or three percentage points lower than it is right now — is a badly designed spending cap. But beyond all that, it’s laughable to posit it as a compromise: It’s arguably the most radically conservative reform that could be made to the federal budget. More extreme, by far, than Paul Ryan’s plan.

    My favorite part of that Ezra article is when he states:

    Saying “America has a spending problem” is saying “I don’t understand the budget and don’t want to learn anything further about it.”

  8. 8.

    wvng

    It would not hurt to mention to his constituents (like me) that this will gut SS and Medicare.

  9. 9.

    NobodySpecial

    So then we can run a Democrat in 2012

    They’re called ‘primaries’. In theory, they allow you to challenge ineffective members of your own party with ones closer to your policy ideals.

    In reality, however, doing so is an Affront To Nature and Lets The Terrorists Win, because Nothing Can Be Done and That’s The Best You’ll Ever See From That State.

    Or something. Nick will be along to explain it to you in detail.

  10. 10.

    BombIranForChrist

    Don’t worry. Obama will ask Sen. Reid to put this in a compromise bill, it will pass and Obama will pat himself on the back for being bold in cutting spending.

    But, of course, we must vote for him because OMG Palin.

  11. 11.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Yes, this strategy is working so well in the UK.

    Oh wait, American exceptionalism, yadda yadda.

  12. 12.

    Triassic Sands

    He’s still better than Raese, if only barely.

    Actually, he may not be better. That’s because “Democrats” like Manchin do great harm to the Democratic Party by pushing and pulling its agenda far to the right. It’s worse when the offender is president, but senators also do damage.

    If the Democratic Party has a sufficient majority in the Senate to be able to conduct business without the support of such a Democrat, then it would probably be better for the party if he were not in the party at all. In the current Senate, Democrats can’t take the loss of any senator lightly, but since they are nowhere near having 60 reliable votes and have more than the needed 50 (plus the VP), I’d say it would be better if Manchin just changed parties or became an Independent.

    Any W. Va. Democrat who told me that, as a matter of principle, he or she couldn’t vote for Manchin would have both my sympathy and understanding. Some people don’t belong in elective office.

    If we’ve gotten to the point where the future of the United States is in the hands of people like Joe Manchin, then we are truly doomed.

  13. 13.

    FlipYrWhig

    @BombIranForChrist: What makes you think Obama has anything to do with this? Doesn’t the story itself say that neither Obama nor “Senate Democratic leaders” supports it?

  14. 14.

    JonF

    McCaskill and Warner are basically behind this bill also, Manchin isn’t the problem imo. I bet that they’ll trade this plan for a quixotic vote on the balanced budget amendment.

  16. 16.

    The Moar You Know

    You get a right-wing Democrat or no Democrat at all.

    Not sure how to solve that problem.

  17. 17.

    Uloborus

    @BombIranForChrist:
    What a strange opinion. The man turned 38 billion in cuts into a meaningless (in terms of budget size) 350 million in cuts in an environment where increases were not conceivably possible. Why would he be interested in this piece of crap? I’m pretty sure he just got up in front of the nation and said that the solution to our budget is to cut military spending, fix the medical costs market, and raise taxes.

    People who think Obama somehow wants to cut spending across the board or in any social service baffle me.

  19. 19.

    transmaniacon

    @Bob Loblaw:

    They need to find the Blue Crystal that forever bypasses Congress and makes Bob Loblaw The Ultimate Queen of Perpetual Disappointment.

  20. 20.

    The Moar You Know

    They’re called ‘primaries’. In theory, they allow you to challenge ineffective members of your own party with ones closer to your policy ideals.

    I could not agree more. However, there is a problem. Do this in a not-liberal state like West Virginia and you end up with a Republican in office.

    As I said above, I am not sure how you solve this problem.

  22. 22.

    Mark S.

    @Midnight Marauder:

    Jesus:

    Under Corker-McCaskill, the cuts required to close the gap between projected total spending and the proposed cap would be large from the outset and would grow much larger over time. They would start at about $110 billion in the first year (2013), and rise to about $670 billion in 2021. [3] If the cuts came entirely through the sequester, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other mandatory programs all would be cut 19 percent in 2021. (Under the bill’s sequester mechanism, all mandatory programs would be cut by the same percentage, as explained further in the appendix.) In dollar terms, mandatory programs would be cut by nearly $630 billion in 2021. Social Security would be cut by $237 billion, Medicare by $161 billion, and Medicaid by $105 billion. As noted earlier, from 2013 through 2021, the cumulative cuts would total about $1.3 trillion in Social Security, $856 billion in Medicare, and $547 billion in Medicaid

    Ezra’s right: this is much worse than the Ryan plan. I never thought I would type that.

  24. 24.

    Uloborus

    @Corner Stone:
    The ‘win’ is removing one of the GOP’s few powerful bargaining chips – the budget bill – without giving them ANYTHING they wanted.

    That’s actually a pretty fucking awesome win.

  26. 26.

    FlipYrWhig

    @The Moar You Know: One way you _can_ solve it is with economic populism — but that means moments of frustration on social issues. There are certainly socially conservative, labor-leaning Democrats (like Bob Casey, Jr.), which I thought Manchin would be. (See Halter, Bill, vs. Lincoln, Blanche: neither one a liberal, but the former at least more interested in the common person.

    But Manchin is adding deficit-hawk nonsense to the package. That’s even worse. And it totally swallows the line that “the people” are eager for “spending cuts,” which is just so lazy.

  28. 28.

    Corner Stone

    @Uloborus: Yeah, all the time telling the whole fucking country that govt needs to tighten its belt like a fucking family kitchen table.
    Bullshit.

  30. 30.

    Uloborus

    @Corner Stone:
    Er… I listened to his speech thereby. He told the entire nation we need to fix medical costs, cut the military budget, and raise taxes. He very eloquently explained why cutting the programs we want to defend would be a moral and practical disaster. He made it clear that we are in a mess precisely because of the Bush tax cuts.

    I do think he mentioned tightening our belt for, like, 30 seconds before he went on and explained at detail why only a dumbass would actually think that’s the solution. And see above: It wasn’t the solution he favored.

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    @Uloborus: I watched the whole thing too jackie.
    And if you don’t think we’re in for some “shared sacrifice” then I have some certain mythical things to sell you.

  32. 32.

    harokin

    McCaskill is selling this as the “bipartisan” deficit reduction approach. I think the impact of having Democratic senators endorse this is huge. It undercuts the whole Democratic message, it keeps the focus off jobs, it puts Obama on the defensive. This is just depressing.

  33. 33.

    Citizen_X

    Is this going to be cutting MSHA? ‘Cause those guys are a bunch of nosey parkers. Hooray, Joe Manchin! More West Virginia miners will die!

  36. 36.

    Uloborus

    @Corner Stone:
    Stunning. So you listened to the speech and heard half a dozen words, ignored the context they were in entirely AND the actual concrete proposals, and concluded that he really wants to cut the safety net. You do realize this is the same reasoning the Tea Party apply to the Constitution?

  37. 37.

    Bob Loblaw

    @The Moar You Know:

    Nothing can be done. Nothing can ever be done.

    @transmaniacon:

    Is Blue Crystal code for something? What an incoherent, if exotic, attempt at insult. After the crystals and the coronations, will there be dwarves too? And magic cloaks and swords and Lv. 18 Paladins with +5 charisma?

  38. 38.

    kindness

    @harokin: McCaskill thinks her acting like Lieberman will save her hide come next election. I suspect it will save her just as much as it will be saving Lieberman. There are good people in Missouri but they all seem to vote funny.

  39. 39.

    Donald G

    @Triassic Sands:

    Any W. Va. Democrat who told me that, as a matter of principle, he or she couldn’t vote for Manchin would have both my sympathy and understanding. Some people don’t belong in elective office.

    I first experienced a Joe Manchin candidacy when he was running in the WV gubernatorial primary in 1996. His ads were full of complaining about out-of-state people coming in and taking away jobs from good West Virginians over a shot of a Lone Star concrete mixer. My wife an I had just moved to WV in August 1995, her to take up a teaching position at a small, for profit private college in the southern coalfields that was, in many ways, run like an old fashioned coal-camp.

    I determined there and then that I would never, ever vote for Joe Manchin for anything. With the exception of the ancient Ken Hechler, the term West Virginia democrat is an oxymoron: your typical West Virginia democrat would be a republican anywhere else in the country. In fact, there is only one political force in West Virginia… and that’s King Coal. It’s all about who is friendliest to the coal industry, and that’s why no single democratic figure (Robert C Byrd, Jay Rockefeller, or Nick Rahall) dared to mentioned Al Gore’s name or speak out in support of his candidacty at the democratic rally in Shoemaker Square in Beckley in the Autumn of 2000. It was all “Re-elect us! We’ll protect coal from the enviromentalists, and we’ll protect Christian, Appalachian values from the cityfolk, and we’ll protect your guns.”

    In West Virginia, Ralph Nader’s charge that there is no substantive difference between the two parties is actually true.

    In 2004, we left West Virginia for a school that wasn’t run like a coal camp, and I was never put in a position of contemplating holding my nose and voting for Joe Manchin.

  40. 40.

    Citizen_X

    So why, when House Dem are starting to realize the Repubs stepped in a big pile of shit with the Ryan plan (see the next post), are the Senate Dems trying to double down on the Randian idiocy? Isn’t anybody in the DCCC talking to these nimrods?

  41. 41.

    Professor

    What I have noticed is that Americans cannot think outside the ‘Box’.Margaret Thatcher gave us this batshit idea of volunctary privatised Social Security. Those who were dumb and gullible enough to participate in it, lost big. Check out a company called Equitable Life. The UK gov’t had to bail it out. The fallout is still being felt. I see your Joe Scarboro is in love with David Cameron. He does not know that David Cameron is a FitzClarence,a trust fund boy, a descendant of King William IV and his mistress Mrs Jordan.

  42. 42.

    OzoneR

    Personally I say fuck West Virginia and focus on other states…if they want to be neanderthals, then let them have at it.

    And if you want to primary Manchin, go ahead and primary Manchin, he’ll only thump whoever runs against him. C’mon John, you meant to tell me Democrats in West Virginia aren’t like him? A third of them voted for McCain!

  43. 43.

    Tom Q

    @Uloborus: You’re obviously not aware that whatever the furthest-right Democrat signs onto/demands as the price of their vote automatically becomes WHAT OBAMA SECRETLY WANTED ALL ALONG!!!

  44. 44.

    danimal

    Nobody ever answered my question on another blog, but maybe the BJ commentariat knows. Is the spending cap binding on future congresses? Can a future congress just make an exception to the cap and proceed as normal?

    IOW, is the spending cap a cheap publicity stunt, or is it the end of progressive legislation until the Boomers die off? If it is mere symbolism, I’d still like to primary Manchin, but if this BS cap puts a real straitjacket on the budget for the next quarter century, Manchin and McCaskill need to be politically destroyed (think Carthage v. Rome).

  45. 45.

    Uloborus

    @danimal:
    It does not stop future congresses from repealing it before they propose their budgets, but that can be hard to do. This policy cuts us right now and gives the anti-safety net crowd a massive weapon in future negotiations, but it does not actually utterly and completely tie our hands.

  46. 46.

    OzoneR

    @harokin:

    McCaskill is selling this as the “bipartisan” deficit reduction approach. I think the impact of having Democratic senators endorse this is huge. It undercuts the whole Democratic message, it keeps the focus off jobs, it puts Obama on the defensive. This is just depressing.

    If only Obama would give a speech defending progressive ideas, the Senate would just roll over and do what he wants.

  47. 47.

    OzoneR

    @Donald G:

    In West Virginia, Ralph Nader’s charge that there is no substantive difference between the two parties is actually true.

    Well yeah because the state’s Republican party is made up of the state’s former Democrats. Hell, until last year the only pro-choice member of Congress from the state was its Republican.

  50. 50.

    transmaniacon

    @Bob Loblaw:

    will there be dwarves too?

    You really should start your own blog.

    Then folks could say “That creepy attention whore has his own blog now, let’s just go there instead.”

    You’ll make millions.

  52. 52.

    Uloborus

    @Corner Stone:
    ‘Cut the military budget, fix medical costs (rather than cutting benefits), and raise taxes’. Did you want numbers? You won’t see a lot of them in national speeches. Those are his proposed cures.

  53. 53.

    Bobby Thomson

    @harokin: McCaskill flat out sucks. She is going to lose anyway in what has become a blood=red state when the president is near, so someone better Halter her fast to get her to act like a Democrat in the meantime.

  54. 54.

    Corner Stone

    @Uloborus: No, I heard all those. And I didn’t ever expect much more than vague generalities.
    So don’t try shoving the “concrete proposals” bullshit down my throat and tell me it’s steak tartar.

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    Why is everyone so certainthat Claire McCaskill will lose in the upcoming election? Is it because she came out early and supported Obama in 2007?

  57. 57.

    OzoneR

    @WaterGirl:

    Why is everyone so certainthat Claire McCaskill will lose in the upcoming election?

    Because she said things they disagree with it.

  58. 58.

    Midnight Marauder

    @Citizen_X:

    So why, when House Dem are starting to realize the Repubs stepped in a big pile of shit with the Ryan plan (see the next post), are the Senate Dems trying to double down on the Randian idiocy? Isn’t anybody in the DCCC talking to these nimrods?

    Serious question. Do you think Democrats in the Senate even remotely give a fuck about anything the DCCC has to say?

    Senate Democrats don’t even give a fuck about what their own equivalent, the DSCC, says and you think the DCCC has a shot at doing anything with them?

  59. 59.

    transmaniacon

    @Corner Stone:

    So don’t try shoving the “concrete proposals” bullshit down my throat and tell me it’s steak tartar

    How about a fish tartar, or a soy-based variant?

  60. 60.

    Midnight Marauder

    @WaterGirl:

    Why is everyone so certainthat Claire McCaskill will lose in the upcoming election? Is it because she came out early and supported Obama in 2007?

    I think it’s mainly because she is in the process of being bludgeoned with this story all over the state of Missouri:

    Well, this isn’t the way to put a scandal to bed. As if the fact that she charged taxpayers for her flights around Missouri in a private plane she owns with her husband and several investors wasn’t enough, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) has revealed that she hasn’t paid personal property taxes on the plane for four years.
    __
    And what’s worse for McCaskill supporters, she suggested there might be more plane-related bad news to come.
    __
    The Senator told reporters today she’s sending a check for $287,273 to St. Louis County, where the twin-engine plane she used to hop around Missouri is based. According to Politico, McCaskill also “said she had campaign lawyers looking into the flights to determine if any more in-kind contributions needed to be reported to be in compliance.” That means there could me more news about the plane Republicans are already calling ClaireAir down the road.

  61. 61.

    FlipYrWhig

    @WaterGirl:

    Why is everyone so certainthat Claire McCaskill will lose in the upcoming election? Is it because she came out early and supported Obama in 2007?

    The people who say that are applying the Blanche Lincoln frame: pain-in-the-butt incumbent “centrist” Democrat runs to the right, loses to a Republican challenger even further right. The problem with that, IMHO, is that if Russ Feingold can lose Wisconsin, I’m not sure how a more-progressive-than-McCaskill Democrat would fare any better than McCaskill in Missouri. Is there a populist Missouri Democrat who could lead a Halter-esque insurgency campaign? It might not help her win, but it might help her stop straying from the fold so much.

  62. 62.

    WaterGirl

    @Midnight Marauder: Read the article. Yikes. That’s a big problem.

    I have kind of warm fuzzies for her because she did a good job supporting Obama early in the primaries, but I haven’t been following her at all, so I had no idea. Why do these political people think they can get away with not paying taxes. Idiots and fools.

  63. 63.

    merrinc

    @Donald G:

    I first experienced a Joe Manchin candidacy when he was running in the WV gubernatorial primary in 1996. His ads were full of complaining about out-of-state people coming in and taking away jobs from good West Virginians over a shot of a Lone Star concrete mixer.

    That’s just embarrassing. I left in the mid 80s and I would have thought that factories closing to re-open in non union shops and overseas was more of a problem.

    Manchin is a tool but hey, his constituents have a distressing tendency to vote against their economic interests so he’s representing them well. Cutbacks in federal spending will hurt in WV.

  64. 64.

    OzoneR

    @merrinc:

    I left in the mid 80s and I would have thought that factories closing to re-open in non union shops and overseas was more of a problem.

    It probably would have been, but then Democrats nominated the black man for President

  65. 65.

    beergoggles

    The senate is too chummy and insular to be partisan about destroying medicare and social security. They’ll gang up to destroy it and protect each other. All we have left to depend on is the president’s veto.

  66. 66.

    Mudge

    When Manchin ran against Warner for governor way back when, a friend who knew him characterized him as the stupidiest human on earth. Seems he was right.

  68. 68.

    Triassic Sands

    @Midnight Marauder:
    @WaterGirl:

    How can NOT paying taxes be a scandal? Aren’t taxes the worst thing in the history of everything? Shouldn’t this make her a heroic figure? This is America, guys, and taxes, all taxes are just plain wrong. Not to mention unconstitutional.

  69. 69.

    Triassic Sands

    At This Point, I’m Just Hoping He Switches Parties

    Funny, at this point, I’m just hoping he switches planets. Uranus needs real men like Joe.

  70. 70.

    TenguPhule

    I understand a fresh horsehead in his bed may make Manchin consider manning his chin under another master.

  71. 71.

    rickstersherpa

    1. What happen to the Democratic Party in West Virginia is pretty similar to what happen to formerly vibrant, competitive, Democratic Parties in Idaho, Wyoming, and Arizona in the 1970s and 1980s. The National Democrats collected large donations from business, voted for NAFTA, and allowed unionize mines and factories to close, which of course left the parties in those states ghosts of what they once were. Then the American Conservative movement, which in a lot of its emotional buttons is a white tribal movement anyway, pushes all the cultural buttons about guns, hippies, gays, and non-white people sucking up all their tax money and their “freedom.”

    2. If we had a semi-intelligent media, every Republican and Democrat who wants to vote for Budget “ceiling” proposal, should be asked how the cuts will be implemented for Medicare and Social Security since the Baby Boomers are now retiring and, with 15.7% U6 unememployment and underemployment, there does not seem to be a lot of demand for their labor if we want to extend the retirement age to 70 right now, which is the only way this ceiling would work. Krugman takes it apart, along with John Taylor, here.

    krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/2021-and-all-that/

  72. 72.

    rickstersherpa

    The issue of the plane, the tax dodges, and using taxpayer funds is especially cutting on Claire McCaskill because she built her political narrative as “a Democrat who protects the taxpayers funds from fraud, and abuse” as the Comptroller, and during her first few years as a Senator.

    But again, bad neo-liberal economic policies by the National Democrats has come back to hurt them in Missouri, a state that had a large manufacturing base that was really hurt during the early oughts by the disinvestment in manufacturing in the U.S. during the early oughts and the migration of production to China after China’s admission to the WTO under Clinton/Summers. One might say the white working class should have turned on the plutocrats and the Republicans, but really why should they have any faith in the Democrats protecting their interests, and meanwhile they have all the tropes floating around in Luke Scott’s head to fall back on.

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