We haven’t heard much from them since their pack was decimated last year, but the jobs bill brought a few of the almost-extinct Blue Dogs out of their dens, baying:
“I have said for months that I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana.
Representative Heath Shuler, another North Carolina Democrat, said Congress should tame the deficit before approving new spending for job programs. “The most important thing is to get our fiscal house in order,” said Mr. Shuler, a leader of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. “Then we can talk about other aspects of job creation.”
And let’s not forget the high-pitched cry of the safe-seat absolutist:
“I have been very unequivocal,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon. “No more tax cuts.”
His voice rising to a near shriek, he added: “We have the economy that tax cuts give us. And it’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it? The president is in a box.”
Faced with the real possibility of losing the Presidency and both houses of Congress, in the worst recession in most of their lifetimes, this is how the Democratic Party reacts to the least objectionable piece of legislation that’s been sent to the hill in a long time. I’m sure Future President Perry, Future Majority Leader McConnell, and Continuing Speaker Boehner are all laughing right now.
OzoneR
Clearly, if Obama had used the bully pulpit, perhaps presented his own bill, gave a big speech about it, flew around the country holding rallies asking Congress to pass it, clearly then the Blue Dogs wouldn’t be doing this, clearly.
OzoneR
and, oh btw, Bloomberg News has news
beltane
The Democratic party is going through a serious existential crisis right now. I am angry, disgusted, and more than a little afraid that only a tiny handful of people in Washington are looking out for the best interest of normal Americans.
None of this will get me to stop voting for Democrats, but I can see how this type of bullshit might induce less involved people to give up on voting altogether. We are all George Carlin now.
some guy
nothing creates jobs like tax cuts. nothing.
idiots
barath
Time to flood the phone lines. I’m going to make more calls. Hope everyone else does too.
BTD
This would be an interesting post if you addressed the statements made in a substantive manner.
For example, Landrieu is being parochial.
Shuler is being the typical moron that he is.
And DeFazio has a point.
Your post seems to be of “the President proposed it therefore it must be done” school.
Not persuasive imo.
And I strongly support the President’s plan.
norbizness
Shuler’s about as effective an economic thinker as he was a passer in the NFL (15 TDs, 33 INTs).
c u n d gulag
You can bet they’re all laughing their asses off.
The first thing the Republican President will ask of his Republicans Congress, will be to blow the dust off Keynesian economics, and do a huge stimulus, so that they can all take credit for it.
But, they won’t say anything about Keynes or stimulus, it’ll be called “The Ronald Reagan ‘Tear Down That Debt/Build up these Jobs’ Bill.”
And you can be it will also include more massive tax cuts for the “Job Creators (all blessings be upon them).”
Democrats could fuck-up a two car funeral procession, can’t they?
Aye-yai-yai!
paradox
It has not escaped the attention of the little people or their squirelly reps that the wars and the DOD got funded, the tax cuts got passed and extended, that incredibly foul “grand bargain” debt ceiling hostage situation capitulated to, then this “least objectionable” jobs plan put forth.
If the President was serious about jobs he would have handled it first. Furthermore, that idiotic debt ceiling super-fucked-up committee is sending disastrously contradictory messages: invest and cut, we can do it!
Is it any wonder our lousy Party flops? Fuck your sneers at the bully pulpit, what people want are strong consistent principles that firmly guide our horrible reps. When a President in these times waits and waits on jobs and then has the gall to offer tax cuts as a solution this Party and Congress is going to fuck him. Then knock him out, ’cause the poor bastard so asked for it.
Leadership isn’t words or speeches or ideas. It’s principled action that inspires and cements loyalty in others. Is this what we’re getting?
Obama is the leader of the Democratic Party, Mistermix. It appears he and very many have forgotten so long I actually have to type it out.
Mino
@c u n d gulag: I’m scared to death that despairing folks might begin to figure out the only way to get stimulus is for Repbulicans to do it. Cause deficits are fine IYAR.
RalfW
This sort of shit sucks. Majorly.
But saying “…this is how the Democratic Party reacts…” is crap. This is how three members of the Democratic caucuses in Congress react.
If you want strict adherence to party discipline, you’ve got those other guys, the lock-step ones. Too bad their policies are even worse. (Which is no ringing endorsement, I know).
So this is all just more evidence that we’re totally fu*ked by an inept and utterly selfish poltical class, and should move to … uhh … maybe Canada?, if we can stand the long dark winters. Dunno.
mistermix
@paradox:
I don’t even know what “principled action” means in the context of proposing legislation that might actually pass a Republican-controlled Congress, but let’s say that there is such a thing. Let me get this straight. “Principled action” would bring the Blue Dogs around? Why? Because they’re all about principles? Please — their whole movement is based on abandonment of Democratic principles.
And I doubt that “principled action” would have shifted DeFazio either, because his schtick is to be the purest of them all.
Some abstract Congress might be moved by abstract principle, but not the Congress quoted in this article.
norbizness
I do love the “we tried nothin’ and we’re all out of ideas” approach to politics. I mean, just fucking quit if that’s the idea.
Comrade Javamanphil
Seriously, NYT, seriously? This is why we can’t have nice things.
kay
I agree completely, mistermix. Great post. The time for this Congressional preening has come and gone.
They’re making themselves irrelevant. Increasingly, I believe Congress wants to be irrelevant. That way they don’t have to make any decisions or do any of the work they were sent there to do.
This is as politically tone-deaf as it gets. I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. Absolutely pathetic.
Sko Hayes
A good way to look at this is to see whose interests our elected officials are protecting, their big donors or ours.
Landrieu takes money not only from the Koch brothers, but also JP Morgan Chase and offshore drilling companies (no surprise there).
Heath Shuler (whose idea was it to put this guy in office as a Democrat? Oh, that’s right, Rahm!)has a conservative PAC (AmeriPAC) as one of his top five donors. A conservative PAC that counts Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott and John Kyl among their beneficiaries. There’s no point in counting on him for anything.
Now, let’s look at Peter Defazio- his five top contributors are all unions. Teamsters, carpenters, electricians, airline pilots and machinist/aerospace workers.
Now you may call him a “safe seat absolutist” (I’m not sure why you’re hammering him for being against more tax cuts?), but it seems to me that his voting record as a progressive stands for itself.
Let’s focus our ire on the people that deserve it, shall we?
OzoneR
@BTD:
You have GOT to be kidding me? This after all the yelling and screaming and moaning and bitching about “leadership.”
Leadership isn’t ideas? What the hell are principles then?
I always knew the professional left were hypocrites, but I didn’t think you’d make it so obvious
Bill H.
Well, I have been a Democrat for more than forty years, and I have never before heard Democrats claim that tax cuts would stimulate the economy. That has always been a Republican claim which Democrats have attempted to refute. When the stimulus of 2009 was outlined no lesser illuminary than Paul Krugman decried the tax cuts in it as not being stimulative. The mantra of endless tax cuts which the Democratic Party has embraced is one that I find both confusing and disturbing.
OzoneR
@Sko Hayes: In light of the Landrieu’s, Shuler’s and their ilk, having DeFazio attack the President is counterproductive. If he wants a more progressive bill, then maybe he should be attacking Heath Shuler.
ppcli
@OzoneR:
Though we should bear in mind the contrast class:
Putting aside G.H.W. Bush who was riding a post-Desert Storm bubble that quickly went bust, and who then lost, Obama is generally in the ballpark of everyone but Carter. W. Bush was a bit higher, but part of that was lingering 9-11 unity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m worried about the upcoming election very much. But we need to remember the baselines when interpreting these numbers.
KCinDC
What BTD said. Shuler’s statement is in a completely different category from the others. It’s really hard to understand that level of stupidity and what motivates it, since focusing on the debt (and making the economy worse) while ignoring the suffering of your unemployed constituents doesn’t make any more sense politically than it does economically.
OzoneR
@Bill H.:
Then you really haven’t been paying attention, go back to the Boll Weevles of the 1980s.
A Mom Anon
@norbizness: I honestly think that this is precisely what the GOP wants. They know that if the discourage enough people they win. When people turn out in large numbers,the Dems usually win. Google Paul Weyrich sometime,he knew it,he preached it his whole life as a political operative. I heard this as a kid,my parents had local level GOP meetings(via Amway)in our home.Conservatives know this and teach it to each successive generation. It explains alot about the tricks they use to suppress the vote today. Instead of spending that energy on good things they use it to do shitty things. We can’t quit caring.
mistermix
@Sko Hayes: I’m hammering DeFazio, first, for not keeping his fucking mouth shut and contributing to the inevitable “Democratic disarray” story because he’s more in love with getting his name in print than getting something accomplished, and, second, for not recognizing that one of the few politically viable paths to fewer tax cuts is to focus on unpopular, rich and undertaxed entities like oil companies, which is what this bill does.
Social outcast
There’s no evidence that opposing tax cuts will hurt Obama or democrats in 2012. Some small tax cuts don’t lead to more jobs. Stop internalizing republican theology. Whether we have a tax cut or don’t have a tax cut right now won’t make a single bit of difference a year from now. Stimulus spending is a different story because it can be targeted for maximum job creation, but all we’ll see in the end is too much in tax cuts and too little stimulus.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Thing is that last election decimated the Blue Dogs in the House, but the Senate’s own “Blue Dogs” (at least in everything but caucus membership) never really left, simply because they weren’t on the block. So we get a House that’s already firmly run by the GOP, and a Senate that gets lead around by it’s nose by their own Blue Dogs, ensuring they remain the Most Important People In Congress, simply because they know any single vote will hinge on them first thing.
And thus Austerity Marches Onward, Stalwart Douchebags. Just remember that no matter how hard you try to out conservative the conservatives, you will be and always will be a Hippie as long as you have a D by your name.
mistermix
@kay:
True. What make me wonder is how they ignore their irrelevance. Is it because of all the bowing and scraping that they get at the Capitol? Is it because the few things they do accomplish are all for big donors who kiss their asses? I don’t get it.
norbizness
@A Mom Anon: It’s the only way they can temporarily (or maybe permanently) stave off the demographic tide. It doesn’t help that the Democrats are making up the 3/10ths of a party in our 1.3 party system.
OzoneR
@mistermix:
I really do believe there’s animosity toward President Obama for forcing them to consider huge pieces of legislation like the stimulus and HCR which they never wanted to and multiply that with the fact that for more than half the party, he wasn’t their desired candidate for President to begin with, so there’s no loyalty to him.
Steve
I agree with this post. Pressure from the left could never accomplish anything positive. It’s very, very good for the President if his proposal is the absolutely farthest left idea on the table.
beltane
@norbizness: Yesterday I read that Belgium’s economy is growing at a faster rate than most of Europe’s. The reason: they have not had a government in over a year and therefore no austerity measures have been implemented. It seems that the bureaucrats can keep the state running just fine without interference from the politicians.
Keith G
@mistermix:
Yes
OzoneR
@beltane:
Isn’t that the whole MO for Libertarians?
cleek
@Steve:
pressure from the left would be great – if applied to the preening dimwits who made that NYT article possible.
norbizness
And someone can check if I’m wrong, but I think Obama’s approval rating among self-identified Democrats is still significantly higher than Bill Clinton’s was at this point in 1995. Not that I’d want any blog or blog post to disappear in a poof of reality, of course.
pablo
RIP DemocRAT Party?
beltane
@OzoneR: No. The libertarians want the opposite thing. They love their Randian politicians and their wingnut speechifying and hate the government workers who actually do work.
cmorenc
@Sko Hayes:
As irritating a twit as Heath Schuler is as a Blue Dog Dem, critics from outside NC are oblivious to the fact that Schuler won his seat by defeating a truly odious GOP incumbent who had held that seat (NC’s 11th Congressional District) for many years, Charles Taylor. The demographics of the 11th District include Ashville (a relatively progressive oasis) amid a surrounding sea of small towns and rural areas whose voter demographics and inclinations are very similar to the adjacent districts where the odiously insane Congresswoman Virginia Fox (R-5th district) and Patrick McHenry (R-10th District) are the incumbents.
As frequently awful as Schuler the Blue Dog is, he’s threatened by GOP gerrymandering of his district by way of splitting off parts of Ashville, in order to make it easier for a true batshit insane Republican to win the seat (think a clone of McHenry or Foxx).
Be careful what you wish for in wanting ill for Rep. Schuler, you might just get it. And no, the theory that if he’s defeated one cycle by an obviously insane bozo teahadist it will facilitate the dems winning with a more bona fide progressive candidate next time…think again. It hasn’t worked so far to oust either of the assclowns in the adjacent congressional districts, and it won’t work in the reconfigured 11th if Schuler gets defeated. Unfortunately, bad as he is, he’s as good as we’re going to get from that district for awhile.
The only way the Dems are ever going to get a truly progressive congressperson from Appalachian mountain region of North Carolina is to reconfigure a congressional district so it includes both Asheville and Boone (a college town in NW North Carolina) and sacrifices many hopelessly red areas to districts that are going to be deep-red anyway.
S-Curve
Re Heath Shuler: Anyone coming out of his district is going to be a troglodyte paleocon. Shuler was Rahm’s pet project because the Democratic majority depended on getting nominal Democrats in right-wing districts.
That said, this habit the media has of rushing to the far edges of the Democratic Party to make it sound as though Obama is universally reviled/betrayed (take your pick) is just mind-numbing.
And it’s kind of hard to believe it was Gus Frerotte and not Shuler who gave himself a concussion during a touchdown celebration. That seems such a Shulerian thing to do…
OzoneR
@cmorenc:
has this EVER been true?
schlemizel - was Alwhite
First – does anyone really believe the pathetic proposal will actually make a significant impact in the current economic catastrophe? Hell, one twice as big hardly made a blip in large part because it was loaded with useless tax cuts instead of actual spend on jobs. This one is more than half tax cuts & half the size of the previous one.
So what are we supposed to do? We have a President unwilling or unable to propose an actual stimulus bill, a Congress unwilling to pass one, some number of Dems that can’t see beyond their own campaign committee while others are demanding better and the Republicans doing their best to gum up the works.
It seems to me MM is saying we should all just STFU and pass this dead skunk in hopes that the low information voters will blame the Rs even though it will be D bill. The first stim went a long way to convincing them that the government can’t do stimulus (you can’t argue it didn’t create jobs, it did, but not many & to no lasting affect because so much of it was not ever going to produce a job any way – but there is no doubt people remember Obama promised it was going to do the trick & it came nowhere close to doing that as many economists predicted) and this bill should finish the job just in time for the 12 election.
cleek
@mistermix:
but they aren’t irrelevant. quite the opposite. they’re a big part of what keeps actual lefty legislation impossible. even now, bills have to be tailored to suit these preening dimwits just so the Democrats can present a united front.
they combine the Democrats’ long-lamented inability to follow a leader with semi-conservative politics. the GOP wisely rid itself of such people. if only the Dems had the numbers to do it, too.
Baud
I have to say, one of my many political pet peeves is this habit too many Democrats have of designating Democratic outliers (whether on the left or the right end of the party) as representing the reality of the entire party.
OzoneR
@schlemizel – was Alwhite:
yeah, every economist whose weighed in on it.
kay
@mistermix:
I think I do. It’s easier to talk than it is to work. I don’t think it’s good politics. Context matters. Timing matters. If they seek a sense of urgency, they’re going to kill it dead with Congressional bickering. I don’t think this will help them politically, any of them. It so feeds into the idea that Congress is broken, and can’t respond to anything in a timely or relevant manner. People are not going to perceive what they’re doing as “work”. They’re going to perceive it as screwing around while the water rises.
Just so you know, the Obama people are going around Congress.
We’re getting lots and lots of contacts on the jobs plan, all the way down to the county chair level, here.
jwb
@OzoneR: Wait. You’re saying the President showed leadership and determination, forcing people in his party to grapple with concretely with difficult but important matters? Unpossible. You’re going to be kicked out of the cool kids club for stating such nonsense.
OzoneR
@jwb:
the cool kids know its true, but much like global warming deniers who look at big weather events and go “what hurricane?” they pretend it never happened so they don’t have to accept it doesn’t work.
jwb
@OzoneR: No, it’s never been true, but dreams die hard.
danimal
@Steve: Pressure from the left isn’t the problem. It’s where the left puts the pressure that is the problem. If Republicans had to cover their left flank, some good things could happen. But much of the left has a fratricide fetish instead.
Seriously, Obama has done everything the left demands on the American Jobs Act. WHY NOT PRESSURE THE REPUBLICANS?????? Good God, this is so elemental; I truly don’t understand what these folks are trying to accomplish. It’s Politics 101.
mistermix
@kay:
Good!
OzoneR
@danimal:
maybe because this isn’t about policy or pressuring or anything like that. It’s about personal animosity toward the President and attempts to undermine him.
Dennis SGMM
Obama didn’t start off with a Republican House and he didn’t need to finish with one. Yes, the party in power often loses seats in a mid-midterm. That America sent so many deep-dyed Tea Party whack jobs to Congress in 2010 was, in my opinion, the result of the administration’s failure to maintain a focus on the economy. The jobless recovery and the record tide of foreclosures might have moved another Democratic president to scrap his or her legislative agenda and to do everything within the power of a president to beat on the economy and nothing else until things started to turn around. Had Obama done so he might have been able to stand before the people and the Congress and truthfully say that he was turning things around.
People who are unemployed or underemployed, people who are losing their homes, people who find themselves sliding down society’s ladder with no end in sight are not going to give a crap about ACA, FinReg, DADT or the Lily Ledbetter Act. Those who don’t sit out the election are likely to vote for “Other” because, to them, this president and his party have failed to make their situations any better. Like any president, Obama would have taken the credit for an economic turnaround. Like any president, he will take the blame this time. No, Obama, didn’t break the economy he merely failed to fix it in any substantial way.
AlphaLiberal
“this is how the Democratic Party reacts to the least objectionable piece of legislation that’s been sent to the hill in a long time.”
Not the Dem Party just the craven Blue Dogs. And Shuler is an idiot. Fiscal deficits did not cause this economy and reducing them will not improve the economy.
Here is the how the Shuler prescription would play out, courtesy of Atrios:
BTW, that is also the snake oil that President Obama has been selling.
OzoneR
@Dennis SGMM: .
Yeah I’m sure the left would’e loved to have been told “sorry guys, can’t focus on healthcare, financial reform, gay rights, immigration, climate change, or any of that- economy first”
Dan Choi certainly wouldn’t have had a problem with it. That’s for sure.
BTD
@OzoneR:
Hmm. I really do not see the relation between your comment and mine.
I was discussing MisterMix’s post, not the President.
I have been heartily praising the President on the jobs issue lately.
I think you seem intent on finding some Professional Lefter to fight with.
You need to find someone who actually has espoused views you want to fight about.
That is not me.
kay
@mistermix:
I don’t know: local seems so…inadequate to the task at hand. It’s like pushing against this huge national narrative. It’s fucking exhausting.
There are thousands of them, mistermix, creating this narrative, and they’re all famous :)
jwb
@danimal: I think part of the problem is that the Republicans are a world on to themselves and you feel you can get no traction there. But of course the point is not to engage the right in dialogue but to attack it in order to persuade the center to move away from the right. But the strategy that has been adopted of attacking the center—because the center does tend to listen to some extent—and attacking the President whenever he makes a move toward the center is counter productive to persuading the center to move in your direction.
danimal
@AlphaLiberal: No, it’s just not. Obama has concentrated budget cuts on future deficits, not current spending.
OzoneR
@BTD: So then why should we be in the school of “President proposes it, Congress should pass it?” Why is that a problem for you? Isn’t that the “leadership” everyone keeps clamoring about?
“I strongly support the President’s plan, but it’s totally cool if Democrats in Congress torpedo it”- what kind of bullshit is this?
General Stuck
Good post mistermix. Too bad it is wasted on this blogs increasingly brain dead comment section.
The Moar You Know
I’m not sure what the problem is with DeFazio’s statement. I too am adamantly against any more tax cuts.
Let the Republicans agree to a tax hike, for once, and then we can talk. But not until then.
AlphaLiberal
@danimal:
I am so damn tired of reading tripe like this. I guess it’s the whole “piss down our leg and then tell us it’s raining” element.
Obama made the choice to de-emphasize jobs in favor of action on deficits. Up until this last week he has used the bully pulpit like Bush did in alleging al Qaeda was involved in 9/11: By telling the American people that curing deficits were part of the cure for joblessness.
It’s like saying leeches will cure your fever. It’s wrong. Like Bush’s lies on al Qaeda and 9/11, Obama’s abuse of the bully pulpit has similarly confused and misled the American people.
Obama fucked up. He tried to get the GOP to like him, to be nice to him by giving in to them. That failed. Like we said it would.
So now he has A jobs bill. Which is a fine bill by today’s shitty standards. In reality it’s weak tea. But we live in a political system where Democrats knuckle under constantly to Republicans. So this is about as good as it gets.
Obama and the rest of the Dems are basically hippie punchers who dislike their own base. So don’t fucking tell us he gave us all we asked for. Bullshit.
BTD
@OzoneR:
As analysis on a blog? It strikes me as neither interesting nor insightful.
What I tried to do was demonstrate what I believe to be the differences between the 3 critiques MisterMix presents.
Landrieu is protecting parochial interest in her state. Landreiu cares about Landrieu’s political prospects first and foremost, not Dems or Obama. It makes perfect sense for her politically to say what she said.
Shuler is a moron. Politically and otherwise.
DeFazio is making a substantive point about tax cuts being ineffective as stimulus. I’m not seeing his critique as hurting Obama or Dems.
Oh BTW, nothing is passing so I do agree with MisterMix’s implicit view that the analysis here should be political, not substantive.
The problem is his political analysis was facile and wrongheaded imo.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
What a moronic post. Apart from demonstrating that Villagers don’t have the patent on “he-said, she-said, they-all-suck” journalism– which is what this is, you have a fairly important detail incorrect:
DeFazio’s district isn’t a safe seat. Emperor W the Godly won it in 2000; Sir John the Incoherent won a 49.4-49.2 victory in 2004. Even St. Barry the Bipartisan was only able to get 53.8%
DeFazio has piled up huge margins (until 2010, when the PACs went after him and he won with 54%), but that’s because people respect his work ethics and positions.
Also, what the fuck do you want him to do? Come out saying “I’ll bend over and grab my ankles and you see if you can work out a compromise you like”? We have enough of this.
What DeFazio said was exactly how you start the first round of a negotiation, if you don’t want to get rolled. You stake out your position and see how the other side react. There’s only one person in Washington who believes that you begin by offering the bare minimum you can tolerate and then begin backing away from it… although it doesn’t look like he’ll be around too much longer.
AlphaLiberal
I think I missed the DeFazio part of the post when I first read this.
If I get the criticism it is that:
A) His voice is not sufficiently bass..
B) He criticized Republican economic policies.
Just fucking shoot me.
Dennis SGMM
@OzoneR:
Let’s see, the healthcare bill was pared down to a mixed bag of giveaways and concessions that left half of Americans disapproving of it. FinReg is dependent on over 600 yet-to-be-done rulemakings to have an effect. DOMA is still the law of the land. For the first few years of his presidency Obama’s administration deported more illegals than Bush did. So much for Obama’s solicitude toward the left. Frankly, I don’t care whether or not Obama finds it necessary to kiss Dan Choi’s ass. Fuck Dan Choi. Obama and the Democrats have put themselves into a position where they cannot accomplish anything that would endear them to hard-core lefties. They’ve also put themselves into a position where they can’t do very much for the rest of us either.
jwb
@OzoneR: I would say and have said that Obama got off the mark slowly and never got ahead of the bank problem—the sense people had that he cared more about bailing out the bankers than helping folks. Whatever the political and economic realities at a national level, that has had a devastating effect on his ability to maneuver politically. The other thing he did was dismantle OfA after the election. That meant no organized response to the Tea Party when it got going, completely inept organization in support of the health care bill in the summer of 2009, and a loss of all those names to use for GOTV in the 2010 election. I’ve yet to hear a good explanation for why they decided to mothball OfA and until I do, I will classify it as a colossal political blunder.
General Stuck
@AlphaLiberal:
And none so brain dead as this comment. Complete With the pungent odor of rodent love in the morning.
Mino
@Dennis SGMM: Well, I think a lot of states woke up to just how stupid that voting pattern was. How many states have recall petitions goin on? 3,4?
But you do speak to a problem. If folks are furious enough they will bite off their noses. Human nature to strike out first, repent later.
AlphaLiberal
Also, too….
Obama’s nominations to fill the courts and run the government are held up at unprecedented levels.
Will he recess appoint them to do an end run around the obstructionist Republican Senators? No.
Will he make a public issue out of the obstructionist Republican Senators? No.
He is being punked and won’t even stand up for himself.
Clearly, this is more proof that the left sucks.
cleek
@The Moar You Know:
they won’t.
but, Obama had just asked them to reject tax cuts. and they were going to do it. and the Dems were going to be able to hang that hypocrisy around their necks in 2012. the narrative could have been “GOP clearly only interested in saying No to Obama.”
but now, the preening dimwit Dems have turned the narrative into “Obama can’t even please his own party!”
good job Dems!
what’s the electoral opposite of “coattails” ? that’s what these Dems are setting themselves up for.
Suffern ACE
@AlphaLiberal: There wasn’t much in this jobs package that hasn’t been proposed before. The infrastructure bank and whatnot. In fact, I think he gave a similar speech last fall and the response from Dems of all stripes was to not be all that interested in it enough to come out in vote in larger numbers than they normally do to save the democrats from annihilation. It was on the news for about 2 hours…but hey Ground Zero Mosque!!!! was the bigger story and we can only have one big story at a time.
You might forgive the President for thinking that people were concerned with other topics, because they certainly didn’t vote as if they were concerned with this at the time.
cleek
@Dennis SGMM:
the fuck?
half of Americans disapproved of it because they didn’t bother learning what was actually in it, and instead relied on misrepresentations from the GOP and idiot firebaggers.
people like what’s in it, when it starts impacting their lives. this has been proved over and over as the various parts start being enacted.
Suffern ACE
@AlphaLiberal: It would be helpful if the Senate were to actually recess so that he could make those appointments. Also, too, it would be nice if the Senators in his own party wouldn’t have been holding up those same nominations.
cleek
@AlphaLiberal:
he can’t recess appoint anyone if there’s no actual recess. which there wasn’t.
i’m sure that’s Obama’s fault, too. he should’ve executive ordered the GOP to evacuate the Senate floor, right?
wilfred
The older I get the more I appreciate the wisdom of benevolent dictatorship – I live in one of the few, if not only, places on earth where it still exists so I know what I’m talking about.
Fuck debate, discussion, political process – all code for fascist scumbaggery.
Pass this bill NOW.
Look forward.
Steve
Still not seeing what the problem is with DeFazio’s statement. Politico might write a “Democrats in disarray” story? Stop wetting the bed.
MK
Democratic magical thinking in full force again. Perhaps this will put a stake in the “cult of the presidency” and people will actually start focusing on CONGRESS. You know the CO-EQUAL BRANCH charged with actually passing laws…
Odie Hugh Manatee
@AlphaLiberal:
Yeah, and about 70% of Obama selections that have been appointed have been women and minorities, not white men.
Yup, Obama sux. Time to primary him.
@Suffern ACE:
Shhh! Quit bringing reality and facts into this discussion. You’re ruining the narrative!
BTD
@cleek:
I do not understand this comment. The “Obama asked them to reject tax cuts” part I think is supposed to be Obama asked them to extend tax cuts right?
And the narrative, you’re saying, is now destroyed because of a NYTimes article? That seems a little over the top no? Setting aside whether “the GOP rejected tax cuts!” is a valuable political narrative (I don’t think it is) or that it can be translated into “see, the GOP just wants Obama to fail!” and the value of that narrative, lumping the 3 critiques presented as being similarly bad is not good analysis imo.
First, Landrieu is protecting parochial interests and I doubt her opposing cutting tax subsidies would hurt the narrative you are hoping takes.
Second, DeFazio’s opposition to more tax cuts as the answer to our economic troubles is a pretty standard Dem line and it seems implausible to me that, even if I accepted your political objective as desirable, that DeFazio’s statement will undermine it.
Third, Shuler has been and always will be an unmitigated moron. If he stays in politics, he will eventually change parties.
Bulworth
Well, Landrieu is at least representing her (big donor) constituents.
But I have no idea what this word salad from back-up QB Shuler is about:
Just more austerity babble.
AlphaLiberal
@Suffern ACE:
People weren’t interested in jobs last year? The polls actually said the opposite. Under 5% cared about deficits and most cared about JOBS.
Yet Obama was going on and on about deficits and his deficit commission, which he appointed two conservatives to run — and which he stacked with conservatives.
As I recall, the left was clamoring for them to take up the Bush tax cuts for the rich before the election and they decided to postpone that until after the election. More political malpractice and more results as we predicted from the hapless Democrats.
AlphaLiberal
Democrats have been played for suckers by Republicans by accepting deficit hysteria and cuts to Medicare and social Security:
The polls prior to 2010 elections were the same. The deficit issue is a debate among elites and a response to billionaires like Pete Peterson.
FlipYrWhig
@AlphaLiberal:
How many motherfucking times do you have to be told that the Senate refuses to recess, precisely to make this impossible?
@paradox:
Yes, if he had it to do all over again, perhaps his very first order of business should have been a $700+ billion emergency spending plan that put millions of people to work.
Christ, so many angry clowns overrunning what is supposed to be the “reality-based community.”
MBunge
@AlphaLiberal: “He is being punked and won’t even stand up for himself.”
Has it ever occured to you that the more Obama complains about held up judicial appointments, the more the issue becomes NOT Republian obstructionism but why Harry Reid is such a pussy for letting them get away with it? Or how about that if Obama had “gone after” the banksters with more relish he would have also had to “go after” all the New York and East Coast Democrats like Chuck Schumer who are so far up the banksters asses that Lemmiwinks is trying to catch up.
Mike
Bill H.
@OzoneR:
Mainstream Democrats.
AlphaLiberal
Right wing think tank did early work on Obama health care plan.
Clearly, this proves teh left sux.
SteveinSC
@General Stuck:
General Stuck self-indicted, self-convicted zombie.
@AlphaLiberal: Second that.
@Dennis SGMM: Third that. Glad to see there are still a few members of the “Reality-based community” blogging here. By the way, notice the newly-minted “combative” Obama can’t really bring himself to blame Republicans for anything? He doesn’t want to risk damaging his bipartisan working relationship with the GOP, doncha know.
cleek
@BTD:
i suppose ‘asked’ is the wrong word. i was thinking more like ‘dared’.
here’s MSNBC’s current tag line for their story:
ta-da.
the NYT article has many more than just the three quoted here.
FlipYrWhig
@AlphaLiberal:
Correct. Does this mean that they support (scary!) Government Spending on job creation? No, they don’t. They think job creation happens via tax cuts on individuals and businesses. When they say they want “job creation,” they don’t want it to be through government work. Why? I dunno, idiocy I guess. But those polls emphatically DO NOT show widespread support for the KIND of “job creation” progressives favor. They want job creation, but not our way. Kind of an important political factor.
cleek
@AlphaLiberal:
yes, in 2003, a rightwing thinktank started working on Obama’s health care plan.
are you for real?
kay
@MK:
Fat chance. And Congress likes it that way, too.
They need a leader and a unified message, except when they don’t. Send them legislation, start a multi-state campaign, OR don’t send them legislation, and don’t start a multi-state campaign. The outcome is the same. We’re back at them, again, aren’t we? The Broken Branch.
AlphaLiberal
@FlipYrWhig:
That is only in last few months. When they did recess, Obama recess appointed a handful.
geemoney
@BTD: I agree with you. For all the talk about incrementalism working in progressives’ favor recently (DADT), that shit works the other way, too.
BTD
@cleek:
On the last point, MisterMix lumped those 3 together.
My comments are directed to this post, which I find shallow at best, wrongheaded at worst.
Again, I think the PResident is doing some terrific stuff politically of late and it will pay dividends.
Nothing either Landrieu or DeFazio said will damages that imo.
For that matter, I doubt Shuler can either – he is pretty much established as a moron to ignore.
I think at this point too many ascribe more power to the Media than they actually have at this time.
The President has, imo, seized the moment politically and sniping articles won’t change that if he keeps at it.
Despite the economic troubles, I think the President is in better shape politically today than he was a month ago.
cleek
@BTD:
i hope you’re right.
Suffern ACE
@FlipYrWhig: You might think that a lot of American voters actually believe that too much spending and too high taxes caused this “mess” and if only that were solved this “mess” would go away. That’s who they have sent to Congress again and again, not just in 2010.
OzoneR
@jwb:
Dismantled OFA? Then who the hell has been sending me emails relentlessly for the past three years?
OzoneR
@AlphaLiberal:
you know who else wanted them to take up the tax cuts before the election?
President Obama.
FlipYrWhig
@AlphaLiberal:
As I recall, Obama was clamoring for them to take up the Bush tax cuts for the rich before the election, having two votes, exactly the “left” playbook. And then Democratic senators who were up for reelection, including liberal stalwarts like Boxer and Feingold, pleaded with them to pull the plug on it, because they didn’t want to jeopardize their reelection chances by voting in support of “higher taxes.”
Suffern ACE
@OzoneR: You know who actually wanted them to pass a budget? You know who wanted them to vote on the people he nominiated for stuff? Honestly, as bad as fallout would be when the Republicans take charge of the branches again, shouldn’t Progressives start push for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Senate and cancel their pensions? Kind of a long-term pet project.
OzoneR
@Bill H.:
Tip O’Neil cut taxes, defended it
AlphaLiberal
President Obama Has All The Legal Authority He Needs To Make Recess Appointments Right Now
jl
Not totally off topic, but related to the dataless claim that uncertainty and fear of regulation is preventing a strong recovery.
Menzie Chinn at Econbrowser analyzes business non residential investment, and finds that it has been performing better during this recovery than after the 2000 recession.
I think Chinn bends over backwards to give undue credit to recent pundit columns (links in Chinn’s post) that claim more tax cuts and more deregulation will spur a stronger recovery quickly. The argument that such measures will work depend on the link from cost of capital and incentives through asset markets, particularly the stock market. But I think another dirty secret of economics is that what drives asset valuation in the stock market is very poorly understood, especially over the short run.
IMHO, the key fact is the relative performance of business investment in this recovery and the last one. Can those who keep repeating the recipe of tax cuts, more deregulation, and more fiscal austerity explain how any of those are significantly different now than then?
The post looks like it was put together in a hurry. One of the graph axes is mislabeled (but it looks correct from other presentations I have seen of the same data). Also too, there is staty mathy stuff that should be explained more completely so that normal mentally healthy people can grasp all the details, in addition to economists. But I think most of the post can be understood from the English part, and will be informative for everyone.
September 13, 2011
Investment Behavior and Policy Implications
Menzie Chinn, Econbrowser
http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/09/investment_beha.html
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Bill H.:
JFK did. Tax cuts were not just a peripheral feature but the core of his economic proposals to get the country out of the slow growth state it was in coming out of the 1958 recession. When enacted into law his tax cuts were the largest in US history, measured as a percentage reduction of the prior rates.
OzoneR
@Suffern ACE:
I’ve personally been on the “we need to at the very least decrease the power of the Senate” bandwagon for about five years now.
OzoneR
@AlphaLiberal: No he doesn’t, Bernstein is completely misreading that court decision. It’s based on the idea that the Senate needs to recess for three or more days in order for a recess appointment to be allowed. The court decided that if the Senate goes into recess for 5 minutes, the President can recess appoint, whereas it used to be three days, but the Senate hasn’t gone into recess for a single second, so it’s irrelevant.
TooManyJens
McClatchy reports that people aren’t calling Congress to push for the jobs bill.
Lol
“Obama dismantled OFA after the election” is another zombie lie the Professional Left seems intent on repeating. The fact is that the DNC hired permanent staff in all 50 states after the election.
Dumbfucks like Chris Bowers nonetheless get cited as authorities even when they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.
OzoneR
@TooManyJens:
Clearly, if Obama used the bully pulpit
Cat Lady
@MK:
There are too many people in Congress for the emoprog babies to project their daddy issues onto. Jeebus, most of the left are such useless fucking whiners.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@OzoneR:
This is a complicated problem. I’m not convinced that the formal powers of the Senate as enumerated in the Constitution are a big problem. The big problem is that the Senate is hopelessly broken as an institution internally because the antique state of its informal customary rules (the filibuster, holds, etc.) are hopelessly out of touch with how one party (the GOP) is deliberately ignoring the customary small-c conservative useage of those rules and instead using them in an utterly ruthless fashion to break the government. Something has to give, either the more civil and collegial useage of those rules has to return to what it was say 30-40 years ago (fat chance!) or the rules themselves have to go on the ash-heap of history. But the latter isn’t going to happen until 3 things happen: (1) the Dems in the Senate are willing to be as ruthless as the GOP, (2) the Dems in the Senate have a solid majority lined up behind that tactic (and no, the Blue Dogs don’t count for this tally because of the next point), and finally (3) the Dems in the Senate need to put aside their individual interests in maximizing their leverage as potential Senator #60 and work for the collective good. Right now we have a very serious Tragedy of the Commons problem in the Senate.
Personally I don’t think this logjam of oligarchic behavior in the Senate will be solved until we have a violent Anarchist movement again, like we did in the 1890s. I wish it didn’t come to that, but ultimately I think the US govt is currently in a state of informal and customary constitutional crisis which the powers that be will not be motivated to solve until we have a credible threat of mass violence from below.
SteveinSC
@Cat Lady:
Polls down, seats lost, nobody is listening to him: Obama’s presidency is dissolving around his ears and he is responsible. Next year he will lose the presidency, Democrats will gain in the House and hold the Senate. The gaggle of Obots at BJ are some of the few who can’t or won’t see that.
OzoneR
@SteveinSC:
The gaggle of Obots know Obama is going to lose, what we don’t agree with is that it’s his fault.
Democrats in Congress could help him if they wanted to and could have avoided it by sticking together in the majority, but they don’t and they didn’t because they don’t give a shit about Barack Obama, never did and never will, and some probably prefer to have Rick Perry to fight against, while also keeping their personal taxes low.
David in NY
I confess that I have not communicated with my reliably Democratic Senators and Congresswoman. I’d like to send faxes. Wasn’t there system for sending a fax over the internet for free that people were talking about? How did that work, again?
Cat Lady
@SteveinSC:
You sound just like a ratfucker, and if you’re not, then fuck you. You’re just another useless whining cutter. Jeebus, everyone needs to grow the fuck up and get to work.
SteveinSC
@OzoneR: The sad part is many black commentators, Eugene Robinson, Tavis Smiley, Al Sharpton (before obtaining his gig at MSNBC) etc. have been dumbfounded by Obama’s lack of fight. Surely, he must have gotten the message, if DeMint and McConnell didn’t make it clear from the beginning. What is strange is that Obama hasn’t done a thing to adjust.
SteveinSC
@Cat Lady:
Tasteful.
cleek
@SteveinSC:
could you define “fight” for me ?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@SteveinSC:
When your state (the one which was so bugfuck crazy that it attempted to secede from the CSA), does something, anything, that is a positive on behalf of the national Democratic party and its chosen agenda, then perhaps those of us who actually matter in national elections will deign to listen to your pearls of wisdom. Until then you remain, as always, too small to be a country and too large to be an insane asylum.
OzoneR
@SteveinSC:
No, not really, they may have suggested it once or twice but were far more outraged by Republicans and Conservative Dems obstructing everything.
Cat Lady
@SteveinSC:
Well you took the bait by responding, so I guess the shoe fits.
ruemara
@SteveinSC:
Fuck you, you fucking fuck. And fuck every last one of you sitting in your armchairs whining about how the President isn’t a fighter, while you do goddamn nothing and don’t press anyone in Congress or the media to do anything.
SteveinSC
Damn, I’ve stumbled into the State of Denial. This place was in that state during bush’s war in Iraq. I do live in a crazed state, but not much more deranged than the Obot self-delusion readily to be found here.
SteveinSC
@ruemara: “whining about how the President isn’t a fighter,” Please respond to @cleek: since it appears you understand the term “fight” and he doesn’t.
A Conservative Teacher
This latest jobs bill is awful- how do you defend it? It’s a wealth redistribution scheme, not a ‘jobs bill’- there is no theory, not even Keynsian (the pump was already primed in 2009), that supports it’s passage. So at what point did you sell your soul to the communists and just decide that anything that takes money from hard working people and gives it to your friends is a good piece of legislation?
cleek
@SteveinSC:
so, no: you can’t define it. apparently can’t even give examples as to what it would look like.
how can you fault someone for not doing something that you can’t even define ?
cleek
@A Conservative Teacher:
A+, for buzzword usage.
TenguPhule
there is no theory, not even Keynsian (the pump was already primed in 2009),
History fail, troll.
The Pump was clogged by Republican blockage so that only a trickle came out.