Don't Call It a Debt Crisis

For once in American politics, the nation is focusing on a serious political crisis. Republicans have used their control over the U.S. House to demand massive cuts in American investment, a budgetary result of their program of massive tax cuts for the massively wealthy.

Republican intransigence on the budget has caused a political crisis. This political crisis will make it impossible for the federal government to pay its creditors starting on August 2nd. This is not truly the same as a 'debt crisis' that CBS labels it. The CBS poll finds that 71% of Americans disapprove of the "handling of debt ceiling negotiations" by congressional Republicans. Not all of the disapproval is coming from the political center, either. 51% of Republicans expressed disapproval of Republican negotiators. There is broad dissatisfaction with the negotiations in general (of course, negotiations at a standstill should be unpopoular).

Why Mitch McConnell Should Heed His Own Advice

Senator Mitch McConnell is out with an anti-Liu screed "Why the Senate should reject Goodwin Liu. It decries the "leftward drift" of the nation, which is ironic because confirming the center-left jurist to the 9th circuit would actually make it more conservative on average. Of course, McConnell is ignoring the fact that the Republican caucus won't allow the Senate to reject Goodwin Liu; they're holding his nomination in limbo by filibustering the law professor.

There's certainly an argument that filibustering of judicial appointments is unconstitutional. The judicial nomination process is the only process in which all three branches of government are necessarily involved. The stranglehold of 40 senators over the other two branches' structural right to operate seems like an imbalance not intended by the framers. Whereas most inter-branch controversies are not amenable to suits, Goodwin Liu might actually have standing against the Senators holding his nomination (or conspiring to hold it), who are irreparably damaging his career prospects.

Also, the most curious line from McConnell's op-ed in the Hill:

Another part [of Obama's agenda] was making sure government calls the shots over private industry and elections

Because if there's one aspect of public or private life in which the government has no business, it's in ensuring free and fair elections. Damn democrats and democracy.

Health Care Liberty: Republican Acts Against Women

Instead of improving the American health care system, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell joined the Republican House leadership in an attempt to take innumerable steps backwards. The repeal-the-Affordable-Care-Act bill would, had it passed, have allowed insurers to discriminate against patients with pre-existing conditions by refusing to offer them health insurance, taken away subsidies for businesses to pay for employee health care, and reduced competition.

Republicans have couched their attack on the Affordable Care Act in terms of 'liberty,' claiming a general link between government regulation and reduced individuals' freedoms. It's a pretty nonsensical position, considering things like sewer regulations increase citizens' quality of life enough to provide for additional opportunities for liberty. 'Liberty' is not a zero-sum game with Government taking up oxygen for individuals' liberty. The position that Republicans espouse in their HR3 bill belies their commitment to preserving health care consumer liberty.

HR3 is a plan to radically constrain the set of health care options that insurance companies can present to customers. The Affordable Care Act provides credits to small businesses and individuals who would otherwise have trouble purchasing health insurance. Health insurance corporations will design their plans to cater to attract the maximum amount of federal credits to capture the largest possible share of the market. Any restrictions on plans will form the floor for the options available to consumers.

The Affordable Care Act is structured such that the Department of Health and Human Services will design these minimums that the industry will likely adopt. The DHHS is, after all, staffed with career civil servants and experts. The staff of DHHS with guidance from political appointees has more expertise than Congress, can craft policies that are not purely motivated by partisan politics, and is invested in creating a sustainable health care system. The institution is more capable of making the rules of the road for the American health care system than Congress.

The regulations that DHHS puts in place will be designed to reduce stress on the federal bureaucracy and increase the value of insurance plans. The floor standard for insurance that an individual will have to purchase is one that provides comprehensive coverage.

HR3 attempts to limit the options available to consumers by removing taxpayer subsidies for insurance plans if they offer coverage for abortions. The result is that coverage for abortions will be nonstandard in health insurance, possibly being priced into the "Cadillac health insurance plans" that are subject to an additional excise tax. Republicans are replacing a subsidy for health insurance with a tax for comprehensive coverage that covers women's health.

If you're a woman in America, the Republican Congressional leadership wants to make your health care more expensive.

Republican Earmark Hypocrisy

Senators Johns Thune and Cornyn, both Republicans, requested earmarks totaling millions of dollars in the appropriations bill. The $1.1 trillion package would implement the President's budget with some cuts for the government in 2011. Now, Republicans may throw a hissy fit and

Both Thune and Cornyn had pledged not to seek earmarks in the 112th Congress, along with the rest of the Republican Senate Caucus. Their press conference today was supposed to hammer Democrats on the inclusion of earmarks (less than 1% of the bill) in the spending bill. The specific spending provisions, which will largely go to stimulate the economy through funding projects, are more effective stimulus for the economy than the $68 billion dedicated to a tax cut for millionaires who inherit their wealth that both Thune and Cornyn voted for today. (By the way, did you know that half of American millionaires inherited their fortune? I didn't.)

We'll see if Republican outrage over their own actions will be enough to overcome the bipartisan appropriations bill. If it is, we might see more GOP hostage taking (a government shutdown would result from passing nothing at all before this Saturday).

Not Even Close

I reject the notion that the framework that President Obama and Republicans agreed to on Monday was in any way a true compromise. In a White House video release the President makes the case for the agreement. The Administration extracted a few promises from Republicans including an extension of the Obama tax cuts from the stimulus bill, a tax cut for all Americans on income below $250,000, an additional payroll tax to incentivize hiring, and extensions of emergency assistance for the unemployed. In return, Republicans received a two year freeze on income tax rates for the wealthiest 2% of Americans and the Millionaire Inheritance tax at historically low rates. Protecting tax cuts for middle class families is now only a liberal goal? Puh-leeze. Getting the economy into a true recovery by incentivizing hiring is a progressive idea? Sure. Keeping the unemployed out of foreclosure with unemployment insurance is only good for Democrats? That's a new one. Conservatives got almost everything they wanted, except perhaps an even larger reduction to the millionaire inheritance tax. The Democrats got nothing that is of ideological value on par with the Republican gain. Since when did economic pragmatism become solely a province of one party? Oh right.

Republicans held hostage every goal that Obama mentioned in his press conference remarks yesterday. The Republicans essentially planted a bomb aimed at the middle class and the entire economy and claimed that the only way to defuse the bomb was to accede to their demands. Is it a compromise to accede to the bomber's demands? On the one hand, the safety of the American economy, which is the Obama administration's penultimate goal, was safeguarded. On the other hand, there's a reason that every government (and even fictional government) has the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It spawns more danger for the citizens of their countries. Will Republicans be satisfied with this gift to the wealthy? Let's hope so, but there's plenty of reasons to expect them not to be: their stated goal is to cause the Obama administration to fail. Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and their SPECTRE GOP cronies will keep holding guns to the heads of Americans and demanding that Democrats act like Republicans or they'll shoot.

More All Power to the States

Steve Bennen over at the Washington Monthly takes Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's plan to continue obstruction in the next Congress for a stroll. The minority leader has dedicated his caucus to refusing to compromise in the least part with Democrats in congress. So far, Republicans have voted no on Republican ideas so they could reap the benefits of a depressed economy, high joblessness, and a housing crisis by blaming the majority. McConnell in a National Journal interview has doubled down on the strategy of the last two years, promising to do the same for the next two.

"[W]e need to treat this election as the first step in retaking the government. We need to say to everyone on Election Day, 'Those of you who helped make this a good day, you need to go out and help us finish the job.' [...]

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.... Our single biggest political goal is to give our nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful."

Apparently "successful" means to have as few policy overlaps as possible with President Obama. That means that the Republican leadership will be attempting to hold together solid "No" blocks on every single major policy put forth in the next two years at the federal level. If McConnell gets his way, and he might, there will be very little that gets done in the 112th Congress. Some Republicans have already started foreshadowing a 1994 redux government shutdown While Benen implicitly is making the 'that's why you elect Democrats--or at least less partisan Republicans' argument, I think McConnell may be playing a deeper game here.